my-speck

i'm pregnant and it's going to be a rollercoaster

apple poppyseed cinnamon muffins September 28, 2011

The muffins we made on Saturday are a staple around our house – simple, sugar-free (just honey), take about 5 minutes + cooking time, and can be done with pretty much any fruit you have about.  The original recipe calls for blueberries, but we usually do apple.  They are so simple, kids can help measure, mix, spoon and they are ready in a jiffy.

cupcakes! AKA apple cinnamon poppyseed muffins

apple poppyseed cinnamon muffins

1 banana, mashed

¼ cup vegetable oil

…“ cup honey

¾ cup milk

1 cup wholemeal self-raising flour

1 cup white self-raising flour

½ cup poppyseeds

big dash ground cinnamon

finely grated zest 1 lemon

2 medium-large granny smith apples, diced 1cm or smaller cubes

method

  1. Mix together banana, oil, honey and milk.
  2. Add the flours, poppyseeds, cinnamon and zest and mix very lightly (remember that muffin batter should only be just mixed).
  3. Stir in the apple.
  4. Spoon into 12 lightly greased muffin pans. Bake in a preheated moderate (180°C) oven for about 20 minutes.

notes

  • serve warm! they don’t need butter that way
  • they freeze well
  • works fine with frozen/defrosted bananas (i always put my oops forgot about those bananas in the freezer for cooking.  Just skinned and in a freezer bag/container.
  • you can substitute pretty much any fruit, or a combination, or put more or less to your tastes.

variations

blueberry

substitute 1 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen) for the apple, and omit the poppyseeds, cinnamon and lemon zest.

source

the original blueberry recipe from: Creber, Ann. (1988) The Almost Healthy Cookbook p13

 

 

P.S.  Always looking for new muffin recipes – let me know if you have a favourite!

 

Monday morning tea July 18, 2011

Morning tea on the deck overlooking the river at the state library after a play.

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We are all going to need a nap today: exhausting for me, but fun!

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Happy Birthday to us! .. Cake before and after… June 19, 2011

We had a lovely relaxed party in the local park this morning with some friends and family to celebrate our birthdays…

 

I made you a tip-truck birthday cake:

the tip-truck birthday cake …

Which was enjoyed by all present:

I had a lovely time chatting and watching all the kids run about in excitement.

 

🙂

 

thanks for all the birthday wishes everyone!

P.S. And unless the baby decides to come quickly in the next 3.5 hours, I’ve avoided a double birthday with myself.  It just has to wait another 27.5 hours to avoid Poogie’s too!

 

And she swallowed … a soccer ball? June 9, 2011

Filed under: baby stuff,eating,emotion,Parenting,pregnancy — rakster @ 2:33 pm

Hello!

 

Well, it’s that time again, where I feel as ginormous as a house.  And look like it too.

 

No, I take it back, as your father says:

“Who swallowed the soccer ball?”.

I’m not really as big as a house, just as big as it would be to have a whole soccer ball in your stomach.  Yep, that’s me:

(more…)

 

On the way home… April 10, 2011

Filed under: eating,exhaustion,Parenting,pregnancy,Raising a Child — rakster @ 7:48 pm

So! It’s Sunday night and I’m at Sydney airport, waiting for my flight to Brisbane. Thinking about my week and how I feel…

This is day-five I’ve experienced sans my little baby (toddler). The longest I’ve been before this was one night and two full days. This has been five full nights.

Mixed. Mixed feelings in general. I have had a great week: a mix of socializing and catching up with some of my dearest friends and some work in the middle of it all. And a bit of just sitting and resting. Not too much rushing about thankfully – just a few things each day. A lot of eating of good food with great conversation.

In fact, I think I have spoken and listened to adult conversation more in the past 5 days than I have in the whole year previous to this week. And I’ve enjoyed that (sorry to anyone who had their ear damaged by the unrelenting barrage).

The outcome? I’m proud that I’m still my own person and feel a bit more like they after 5 days away. It feels a bit silly to write that, and I don’t think I’ve expressed the sentiment I’m aiming to particularly well, but the gist of it is that my self-identity is intact somewhere beneath the mothering and I’ve had some time alone with myself in an independent environment this week to see that a bit more clearly.

But overall I’ve also really missed my little boopie. He talked to me a lot on the phone for the first few days, but today almost refused to speak with me. Both myself and his dad think this is because he is upset that I’m not there, feels a bit abandoned, and is expressing that by being grumpy and not wanting to talk to me on the phone. I hope he recovers quickly tomorrow morning when he wakes up and doesn’t feel like I did abandon him…

I miss his dad too. We’ve spent periods of our relationship where I commuted to a different continent, or travelled frequently, but right now we’ve been living together every day for a few years, and we are close. And I miss him.

Another positive however has been some time and mental space to think about the soon-to-be impending new arrival. I feel like I’ve had time to talk to my new growing baby, to play with it as it kicks and thumps it’s way around in my quickly-expanding belly, responding to it more in the way I did with O when he was in the womb, as I’ve not been distracted by a toddler in my side-vision constantly. So that has been great. A few minutes to start to envisage a positive birth and the changes that a new little body in our home will bring in around 10-11 weeks time.

And did I mention already that I’ve had great food and company???

Enough rambling. Finishing with two images that contrast this week’s experience: a picture of O having a bath in the kitchen sink a few weeks ago that I have been looking at while I’ve been away; and a picture if the passionfruit tart I consumed for breakfast on Saturday…

🙂

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A little bit grumpy… but out to solve that. With Cake. 28 weeks and counting. April 7, 2011

So, not sure what happened to the happy hormones, but they kinda just upped and left me all alone with the grumpy ones about a week ago.  It co-incided with my pelvic-floor/back deciding that it really only had the stamina to hold a growing baby until week 28 and that it was just going to give up and go with the strain of it all.  Pity it didn’t co-ordinate with my nerve-endings and decide to release a bunch of serotonin at the same time – that would have made it bearable.  Why can’t we control that ourselves??

 

So.  Grumpy 28-week pregnant lady on the loose.

 

That is me.

 

Thankfully however a few months ago I booked myself my first trip-away from child #1 (Poogie) down to Sydney for this week.  So here I am in Sydney for a few days, sans-child and sans-husband.

 

A bit of work, and a bit of play before I’m not allowed to fly anymore.  So today, after a day at work yesterday, I plan to shake off the grumpiness by consuming all manner of sweet desserts at Adriano Zumbo’s after a short walk from the relaxing lounge where I am currently reclining at Chez Shef’s…. (thank-you for welcoming me into your home – read: letting me invade and take over once again).

 

love mum

 

ps. I have just reviewed my state at 28 weeks in my last pregancy.  And lo and behold, surprise, surprise: I was grumpy, the happy hormones had deserted me, and I was compensating with dessert…

 

p.p.s. and to cheer me up this morning already, two of our dearest friends just welcomed their beautiful little girl into the world. So I’m smiling at least a little 🙂

 

 

 

Happy Birthday Dear Daddy! April 2, 2011

Filed under: cooking,eating,family — rakster @ 12:56 pm
Tags: , , ,

Hello!

 

this week was a week of your dad’s birthday.  Tuesday, to be precise.  You and I practiced singing “Happy Birthday Daddy” for the week leading up to it.  You can kinda do it.  We do it line-by-line with you repeating after me.  Your dad was chuffed.   Cake however had to wait until the working week was over.  So this morning was cake-time.

 

So here it is:  a chocolate-hazelnut-meringue vanilla-caramel-icecream roulade.

(more…)

 

Things to do with great eggs: #1 Creme Caramel February 19, 2011

Filed under: cooking,eating,Parenting,pregnancy — rakster @ 2:59 pm
Tags: ,

Simple, good, eggy (almost two a day from our new extended family).

fresh creme caramel

This is of course so that I can eat enough protein when pregnant.  Not just because my savoury-tooth switched entirely to a sweet-tooth when I was first pregnant and has got even more sweetly-pronounced the second time around. (more…)

 

My little signer: mumma, I want to go sleepy! September 21, 2010

Hello!

Amazing thing just happened. You actually signed “sleepy” or “sleeping” for the first time, in trying to tell me you wanted to go to bed!

the background: why i would never have expected you needed a sleep at that point

You have another permutation of the day-care-cold you’ve had for weeks, so you are a bit more tired than normal, and this morning I put you down for a sleep at 9am after you woke at 6:45 in the morning, as you were grumbling at me and just needed it. Normally you go through to around 11am now before you go down for a sleep. Anyway, you slept for just over an hour, then we went out and you played with some kids in the creche that you know while I did pilates. I’d taken you a big fat rissole and you ate that for the whole hour I was gone.

I picked you up, and you looked a bit tired, but I thought, well, you’ve only been up for two hours, so can’t be bed-time yet. We ventured home via the fish shop, where you ogled the pictures of the fish and busily told me that you wanted to eat them (all via baby signing: signing, “fish, fish” and trying to say it, then signing “eat, eat”). We jumped in the car and came home, you still madly signing “eat” and “more, more”. I made you a quick toasted sandwich with hommus, tomato and cheese, and while you munched down on that, got one for myself. I came and joined you at the table and you of course demanded my sandwich instead of yours and started to eat that.

Signing “Sleep”

Then the weird bit. You suddenly stopped eating, had a big drink of water, then started to move your hand to the side of your head and tilt your head. And I, dumbfounded wondered what you were doing. Then you did it again. And pointed towards the doorway back to your room. And I got it. Despite the fact that I’ve been signing sleep, or sleepy, for about 6 months and you’ve never shown any indication that you’ve even noticed me signing it, let alone attempting to copy it: there you were, signing “sleepy”. (more…)

 

Finger lickin’ goodness. May 14, 2010

Alternately: “Is my dad a cannibal or did he bite my finger by mistake?”

Hello!

Bad Parent of the Day Award today – very simple.

DAD. For biting your finger as he was attempting to eat some food that you were offering to share with him.

Your reaction: disbelief, then loud crying and screaming.

End result: 20 minutes later, red swollen finger….

ooow!! someone bit my finger

ooops.

love mum

P.S. Note, you were hungry. As per the photo, you continued to try to eat your spinach and cheese muffins with blended roasted vegetables through the tears.