- to like colouring more than your 2 year old?
- to get annoyed when you colour outside the lines?
- to get annoyed when your 2 year old tries to colour “your side”?
- to get annoyed when she takes the colour you are using?
- to get annoyed when you can’t find the red and she has hid it under the couch, red and yellow go really well together you know!
- to buy a new set of colours every-time you go shopping because you haven’t found above red under the couch?
you know it’s wrong when your 2 year old removes the colours from your hand and tells you
“no more colouring for you today mammy”
and you ask for just 5 minutes more:)
The Christmas tree is up, I can’t believe it. It normally goes up around the 20th but now that we are “mama and papa” we had to put it up early this year, oh the responsibility! I’m loving the lead up to Christmas this year as the princess is a lot more aware and is sooooo excited. She was nearly ready to burst when we were putting up the tree but didn’t quite understand that “my chwistmas balls” have to actually stay on the tree, it’s been a mission I tell you. She’s like the little girl in the coke ad telling everybody “mewwy chwistmas, ho, ho, ho in that really cute voice.
I haven’t heard the radio in weeks as the Disney Christmas Cd has taken over and we have to listen to it everytime we go in the car. She’s doing a great 2 year old version of “jwingle bells” at the moment and keeping the masses entertained. I bought her a few Christmas stories so she seems to have grasped the whole idea of Santa to a certain extent, she seems to think he brings everything. In the last week Santa is going to bring
- a rainbow – we saw a huge one the other day but the clouds took it home so now Santa is bringing her one.
- money – she asked me for money the other day to put in our coin box but I didn’t have any so she said “mammy buy some”, I told her we couldn’t buy money so she told me “Santa bring some”!!
If you ask her what Santa is bringing her
“a pwesent and heart lollipops!”
I bought her a Carebear Chrismtmas story and share bear has 2 hearts on his belly that look like lollipops so this is what she wants. If anybody knows where one can buy heart lollipops please let me know, I know I can get chocolate ones but not coloured ones. There could be tears:)
ciao:)
p.s. what do you think of the black, is it hard to read?
The antibiotics are finished and the Calpol and Nurofen are back in the medicine press and my little angel is kind of back. She has stopped throwing her food on the floor but the fork and knife haven’t been so lucky, neither has her toys or her bottle of ACTIMEL. What is with this throwing phase?? I’m trying to get some actimel into her after the antibiotic so she decided while sitting on the couch the other night to see what would happen if she threw a bottle of actimel “up to the sky”. Well, all I can say is it wasn’t pretty and she had her first encounter with the “bold step”.
It went everywhere, her, me, the leather couch, the cushions, the wall, the wooden floor and the mat under the coffee table. There is a smell of strawberry everywhere, I gave out to her and she replied
“no, say that Mammee, no talk mammmee”
“go away Mammmee, go to work, go to La Cucina”
She is 2!!
Her latest when I say no is
“no say no mammee”
I think I’m screwed:)
I was taking photos of lasagna for my food blog the other day but a certain princess decided that barney, babybop and bj would add a splash of colour!
ciao:)
Ok, so somebody has stolen my well behaved little princess and replaced her with a mammy beating tyrant:) I mentioned the princess has a throat infection but I think the antibiotics have gone to her head or else she has officially entered the “terrible 2’s” just because she is actually 2. As I write this I’m trying to ignore her as she is watching Hi-5 screaming her head off surrounded by crayons, markers, colouring books which she just fecked all around the room.
I’m not joking about the beating up business, lately she has started to hit me, pull my hair and if that doesn’t work she sticks her nails into me. Where do they learn this?? – mammy beating class? as I am the only one she does it to. I give out to her for doing it and then she just gets worse, the only thing that seems to work is to ignore her and tell her “mammy is sad”. After screaming for a few minutes she eventually comes over sweet as pie and in her sweetest voice with her big puppy dog eyes, head tilted to the side and says “mammy not sad now, friends again mammeeee? I make her say sorry which she does “sowwy mammeee” and then she asks for a big “ugg and kwiss” and says “I wuv u mammee”. They are so damn clever, we are no match for them, but I will persevere:)
Yesterday I made her home-made tomato sauce with linguine to try and get her to eat something as she’s off food, she got the plate and threw the whole lot all over the kitchen floor. I even took a photo as I was taking photos for my food blog at the time.
She’s calmed down engrossed in Hi-5, whoever said TV is bad for kids doesn’t have one:)
ciao, wish me luck as I go into battle:)
p.s. all advice from experienced, traumatised previously battered mammies welcome!:)
The princess was 2 on Sunday. We went out to the Crescent on Sat to see Barney but what a disaster. We went out for the 3pm show but it was mayhem out there and not a sign of Barney. It was an absolute shambles with a queue of 100’s of families waiting to get a glimpse of him in some shop and 1 security guard taking the brunt of everything. There seemed to be nobody organising anything or providing info so everybody was just standing around trying to figure out what was going on. We gave up after half an hour and left but it really was a disgrace after all the advertising they did and the amount of people that turned up to be disappointed.
The princess wasn’t in great form on Saturday and I was worried she was coming down with something, we brought her out to eat and ordered her home-made chicken nuggets and chips and she didn’t touch them which is a sure sign she is getting sick as she LOVES chips – don’t ask!! We got up early Sunday morning and headed out to Killaloe to feed the ducks but the weather was awful but we wrapped up well and still went down by the river and fed them. I wasn’t much good though as I hate when the seagulls come down so I ended up throwing the whole lot on the ground. Bru and the princess weren’t impressed but I got a fright goddamit – Wussss!!
We went to the MIL’s for lunch and the biggest Barney cake you’ve ever seen made by the MIL and Zia Wilma but the princess woke up with a temperature on the way there so she was in no mood to party. We still did the “happy birthday” but she got very upset when the candles started melting and dropped on the cake and that was it, there was no going back then. It was 5mls of Calpol and home to watch Playhouse Disney on the couch for the evening.
She had a high temperature all day yesterday so I brought her to the doctor yesterday and she has a throat infection the poor pet. She is not the best patient and will not leave my side when she is sick, it’s hard to even go to the toilet and good lord am I sick of watching Barney:)
ciao:)
I think the biggest challenge facing any first time mom is the “feeding”. I only breastfed the princess for 3 days due to lots of complications so she was on formula from birth. I had been very positive about the whole breastfeeding thing and really planned on doing it after going to the ante natal classes and hearing how the Limerick Maternity had such a great breastfeeding rate and how the support was second to none so this was the way I was going to go, besides if I didn’t I was a bad mom, all the books said so. So it came as a big shock when the princess wouldn’t latch on – ouch, ouch, ouch, it was an even bigger shock that she was 10lbs and needed a cow to feed her and that there was only 1 breastfeeding nurse trying to show a packed hospital how to do it. The support they had all talked about was just not there, you nearly need a nurse per patient when starting out it is so difficult, I know this is not possible but I think there is unbelievable pressure on moms to breastfeed and they need support.
So she continued on formula when we came home but was so hungry, she used to feed every 2 hours so at 5 weeks we changed her to hungry baby and after a weekend of lots of nasty wind she thrived on it. I know they say “breast is best” and I have no doubt it is and would have loved to have continued with it but formula isn’t all that bad and your baby can still be healthy. The princess didn’t even have a cold or a temperature for the first 10 months, she was never sick whereas my sister who breastfed for 4 months had a constantly sick baby so it really depends on the child. I know a lot of people feel guilty over not breastfeeding but I never did, I tried, it didn’t work so I used formula and she’s here to tell the tale.
It’s a given that formula fed babies start solids a bit earlier than breastfed babies and if you have an Italian MIL like mine with a sooner the better attitude, it will happen on the dot of 16 weeks. A lot of people use the Annabel Karmel book of weaning but that didn’t happen in my house. I started her with a bit of rice for a couple of days and then the MIL arrived with a bag full of food for her first meal. Now I had read that you are supposed to introduce foods gradually but this obviously doesn’t happen in Italy as a pot with a small piece of carrot, courgette, potato and veal was put on the cooker with a drop of olive oil, cooked, liquidised, some more olive oil and grated Parmesan added and off we went and the princess loved it. She had no problems at all and took to solids so quickly. I basically stuck to a couple of variations
- veal, carrot, courgette and potato
- chicken, broccoli, potato, peeled tomato
- fish(sole or cod), peas, potato and onion
- broccoli, cauliflower, courgette, carrot and potato.
- lots and lots of baby pasta!! I usually gave it to her with home-made tomato sauce or bolognese as she got older but a really handy one is a triangle of laughing cow and parmesan!
To be honest I never varied from these and never bothered freezing either, I used to cook fresh every 2 days as it only took a few minutes to do anyway so this suited me while I was at home. She had the usual snacks of yogurts, biscotti, toast etc.
One of the most important things when feeding babies in Italy is to add grated Parmesan and olive oil to everything, I don’t think she ever had a dinner without it, even when she started in the creche I had to bring some Parmesan for them, they even had to put it on her chicken curry(yuk). It’s not something we do here in Ireland but I would recommend it as they are getting extra calcium and we all know the benefits of olive oil plus it gives the food a nice flavour, my sister used to finish off the princess’ dinner as she used to say it was so tasty:) I started her on fruit straight away too giving her some pureed apple and pear with a squeeze of fresh orange juice and lemon juice. I didn’t give her too much banana as it can cause constipation and it’s not recommended you give strawberries until 1 so she basically had the same fruit mix everyday. The one thing I never used was jars, it just wasn’t for me, I did use the odd dessert but that was it.
The one issue we did have was that she would never take water, I even tried it with a bit of sugar when she was constipated(this works really well btw) but she would only take a little, even now there is no way she will drink water, only “juicchi” or “in-up(grandparents tut tut!! I was adamant she wouldn’t get any junk in her first year and she didn’t have chocolate until she was 14 months even though it was a battle with everyone to stop them giving it to her! I’m glad I enforced it now because babies have this pre-programmed chip in their little heads that makes them want junk all the time once they start talking and making choices.
Re the bottles I put her onto follow on milk once she turned one and had her down to 2 bottles a day since 9 months. She didn’t like cow’s milk so I just continued with aptimal, they advise to switch to a sippy cup when they turn 1 but that’s easier said than done, we never used a soother so this was her only comfort so there was no chance of her giving the “baba” up just because the books say so!!!
Feeding in year 2 to follow which is a whole different scenario all together as they no longer just eat what you give them, ahh the good ole days!! Now it’s
the princess(standing in front of treats press) – “what does tessia(alessia) want”?? with a sneaky smile!
me – nothing from that press, how about a banana??
the princess(without sneaky smile) - mammmeeeee tessia not want nana, I want to see that press, I want choclaaaatee!!!
me – NO!!
princess – whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…………….
location – upstairs bathroom
me – Bruuuu, you have to change the bulbs in the bathroom!
princess – Daddddeeeee, chinge the bums in the barooom!
ciao:)
