Happy Pancake Day!

I took baby to the doctors this morning and we found out she'd dropped off her percentile line. So the health visitor advised me to stuff her full of dairy and fat. Or something like that.

Accordingly, I went home via Tescos and picked up some double cream. Which I whipped and mixed with yoghurt and boiled raspberries to create a delicious pink fool.

Baby being baby, she was having none of it. Not even having seen my biceps nearly combust whipping with a manual whisk because the electric handheld thingy is bust. Not a fan of the old spoon-feeding.

However, later I was trying to give her pancakes and slipped a bit of the fool on that, and she lapped it up! Result. Full of cream now!

Anyway, the pancakes...

I've being feeling a little bit odd about eating eggs recently. I don't know, I guess it's just that all those times I pick up a pack in the supermarket and wonder how free range they really are has added up to a critical mass and now I don't really feel right eating them. So I seem to be cutting down. In aid of which I decided to try out a vegan pancake recipe.

And guess what? You don't need eggs to make a good pancake. Who knew? Yep, these don't have a whole load of flavour, but you want to drench them in lemon and sugar anyway, and the texture is just fine. So, good.

Vegan Pancakes

Adapted from Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz

Mix : 2tbsps sunflower oil; 5tbsps water; 300ml soy milk; a few drops vanilla extract; and a tsp agave nectar

Add: 5oz plain flour; 2tsp baking powder; 1/2tsp salt; and 1tsp cinnamon

Whip very briefly together and let rest

Fry one ladleful at a time in a medium hot pan. Flip etc.

Sleep training and blog-love

Sleep training... doesn't that sound lovely? Conjures up images of perfecting the starfish position, getting in some warm bath and hot cocoa preparation and testing for the perfect flannel pyjamas. Preparing for the spooning finals, the afternoon nap contest, the tricky snoozing on a plane competition...

Sadly no. I'm talking screaming, shushing, patience-testing such as a saint would fail. The baby, obvs.

Our little one, despite being an evening screamer for her first three months, did, rather cleverly we thought, decide to settle into an 8 hour routine from about 8 weeks - she dropped off after a feed or a scream around 10 and woke us at 6. Ideal - one of us got to work on time; the other got to have a leisurely breakfast with baby and boy. We got into bed before we fell apart from tiredness.

Sadly, late nights began to pique her curiosity and she started only going down for the night around midnight, after a lot of feeding and screeching and wide awake playfulness.

I got into bed a week ago and said, "I can't take any more of this". It was the point at which I knew I needed A Different Tactic. So, time to turn back tail between my legs to the Baby Whisperer, whose book I had thrown against the wall weeks previously because it infuriated me with its calm 'just do this and the baby will do this' ridiculousness. But it had a plan for getting the baby to settle in the cot, and in the absence of any other, it now seemed the time to get serious and try...

So, for the last 6 nights we've been picking up and putting down in a darkened room for our evening entertainment. I liked the plan. I didn't feel mean putting her down by herself because I could cuddle and calm as soon as she got upset. And in between I got to lie down and immerse myself in blog land.

And it worked. Well for a few nights it did anyway - one night she even went straight to sleep with barely a whimper. Then last night I stuck out 20 minutes of trying to calm my wiggly little noise machine in the dark before I gave in and brought her downstairs to distract her with lights and TV (quiet immediately!). So we'll see what happens as we try to keep it up, BUT...

...there is one small problem, in that for the last several nights I've been working my way through the complete archives of a blog I came across the other week, which I was absolutely loving (the wonderful Mwa's Lost in Translation). It was like reading a good book, going 'oh yes, I so get that' the whole way through, then finding out your favourite character has come to life at the end. And it was like getting to know a new and fabulously funny and frank friend, chatting with her late each night.

But then I read my way right up to the present and there's no archives left. So now I need something new to keep me going whilst we pick up and put down some more tonight and doubtless nights to come. I'll trawl around a bit until something captures my imagination I think, then do another whole-archive read - it's nice getting to properly know a blog(/blogger) rather than just flit in and out.

Which brings me to my second post topic - this has been making me think about this blog and what I want from it. I wanted it to be a kind of notepad for me to refer back to - good recipes, ideas I'd had for when I eventually get this completely pipe dream cafe up and running (i.e. 2nd of never), projects I'd finished, pretty things I might want to buy or just look at. That kind of thing.

And for some reason I didn't really want it to be about personal stuff, mummy and baby stuff, 'musings'... Not quite sure why. I liked reading those kinds of blogs, I just didn't feel that that was what I wanted to do.

But now I think perhaps I do. And besides, I choose what I cook primarily on how easy it'll be to clean up nowadays, and I knit at a rate of about three rows a year so there's not going to be much of interest on the foody/crafty front.

So, not promising anything because anytime I decide what this should be, or how often I should post, or whatever, it's pretty much a guarantee that that won't happen, but just saying, perhaps I'll open up a little and share a bit more minutiae and mind-noise here from now on.

And then...

That last post was scheduled. About the time it was posting here I was meeting the little person who'd been growing inside me for the previous nine months.

So suddenly in a new world of baby. It did feel like stepping through a door and leaving behind the old life; things I used to think and do occur to me as though I dreamt them. Now she's here it's like she's always been here, she was always meant to be here, nothing else could have happened.

So, in short:

it's a girl

she weighed 8lb3

and had a lot of hair

ten fingers ten toes big lungs

birth was: objectively - quick, straightforward and very good; subjectively - just horribly painful and distressing

the first few weeks - bleeding, aching, lactating, learning, waking, feeding, marvelling, lots of crying, lots of lovely peaceful moments, everything new and fragile and wonderful, freezer meals, first few forays out, dad at home taking care of me and her and everything

then - days on our own, honing pram skills, healing up, meeting other babies, learning how to do everything one-handed, learning how to relax and trust it'll be okay, cooking, washing, feeding, changing, trashy tv, gaining weight (her), back in the biggest jeans (me)

now - smiles! 8 hour sleeps! finally feeling like emerging from immersion in this real now baby world and blogging a little again...

(PS Although I love reading about other blogger's babies, I feel a little weird about putting my baby out there on the internet for some reason, hence the foot picture. I don't intend to turn this into a baby blog; hopefully as I get back into cooking and crafting and cafés and thinking about things other than baby, I'll have enough else to write about!)