Anyone still out there?

Well hello!
It's been a while!

I've been a bit busy. Since my last post in 2014 we've moved house and had another baby so I guess I can be excused. Oh, and the 2013 baby has now turned into a fully fledged 3 year old tyrant who has taken full control of the Norman household. He seems to turn slightly psychotic when I get the laptop out so it rarely happens now.

All that coupled with the loss of the desire to become a domestic goddess meant I abandoned the blog. But now I'm back.

I'm inspired again. I've got a garden, I've got a vegetable patch, I've got a growing boy to feed, I've re-found Pinterest. Heck, I've even got myself a slowcooker!!! Let's give it another shot and see if I do have it in me to come at least somewhere close to being a domestic goddess capable of providing my family with healthy, nutritious (and preferably edible) meals. Every day of the week. Every week of the year.

Let's see.....

Nx

Things I learnt today....

When leaving your baby on the bed while you have a shower, DONT leave a roll of toilet paper in arms reach.

Wow where did 2013 go?

It passed me by in a haze of pregnancy, sleepless nights, new born baby, sleepless nights, laundry, feeding and sleepless nights. It was an amazing year, my little boy was born at the beginning of June and he has bought us endless joy and giggles. I am constantly overwhelmed by the emotion I feel for this little person we created. Everything he does is exciting, interesting and just plain brilliant. He grins at me when I get him up in the morning, he eats everything we feed him, he goes to bed without complaining, he doesn't complain when he gets dragged round shops. He's just amazing. I LOVE him!!!

He is definitely a big part of my desire to become a domestic goddess. I want to be able to provide for him, to feed him healthy food, for him to live in a clean, happy, comfy home, for him to be happy, confident and make sensible choices. I want to read with him, play games with him, go to exciting places, see interesting stuff with him. I want to be Super Mum. That's easy, right?

I haven't made any New Year's resolutions since I was about 14 and pledged to stop biting my nails but I guess that this year would be a good time to decide to make a few changes, or to maintain some of the ones I made when the little man came along.

So I guess that this year I want to

• ensure I make decisions based on what is best for him
• continue to try to make fresh healthy meals for all of us
• perfect at least 8 meals so that I don't fall into the category of women discussed in this Daily Mail article

I guess that will do!

Happy New Year everyone xxx

If it stands still it gets mashed!

So..... Weaning.

The little man was 6 months old a fortnight ago and I'd put off weaning him til then for 2 reasons. Firstly, I wanted to exclusively breast feed him as long as I could and secondly because I just couldn't face all the boiling, steaming and mashing I knew was heading my way. 

But I have to say.... So far so good. I know you're supposed to do 2 days on each food to check they're ok with it but I figured that that would get really boring and as neither his dad or I have any food allergies, we'd just run with it and see how we got. We've tried apple, pear, banana, potato, sweet potato, carrot, swede, parsnip, peach, mango and yoghurt. And today we even tried some chicken.

He's doing really well. Apart from the yoghurt that is. The faces he pulled reminded me of those produced when downing shots of Sambuca. Maybe we'll give yoghurt a miss for a while.

I have to admit that it took me about a week to realise that once I've mashed this stuff and frozen it into ice cubes, I can pop the cubes out and into a freezer bag and make more ice cubes. Obvious I know, but I was wondering how many ice cube trays I'd need as I'd managed to fill the 2 I had with just apple pear and banana and was wondering how long I'd have to feed him that before the trays were emptied and I could re-fill them. durrrrrr.

It's an interesting journey, this weaning malarkey, made all the more fun when he bites down on the spoon and blows raspberries, splattering me with food. Nice!