Author: thethingsnotsaid

Feeding Children

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I’ve changed my little blog a bit to accommodate a new section I want to put in on family cooking.  My children are not naturally big eaters, certainly as babies they have not been the type to eat whatever is put in front of them.  This has forced me to work very hard on feeding them.  And what they have discovered is their mother is no push over on this matter. I was brought up on the ‘you cannot leave the table until you have cleared your plate’ regime.  And whilst I now feel that there are some down sides to how my parents ruled the dinner table, like eating beyond my hunger, I generally am in awe of what they did.  The result is that my brother and I will eat anything.  OK so I think eggs are of the devil but I would eat them if someone gave me them for dinner (please no one test me on this!). Here are the highlights from our upbringing that I wish to teach the future …

My girl

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My girl

Many times I sit down at the end of the day and think I have literally been dragged through the day by these monsters who are my children. And I am sad that I feel that way. But then some days they let me enjoy them and I am so proud and delighted to be their mum. Today Minnie was that child.

One month later

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I don’t know what I was thinking when I said I would start a healthy eating campaign the day after we moved into our new home, with no furniture, no heating, in the middle of winter with two small children.  I am now confessing that nothing changed on the 1st of July, in fact things may have got worse for the first ten days when we spent every night unpacking and building furniture – we ate chocolate constantly. So here we are on the 29th of July and I think I may be able to go on some level of a diet.  It helps that my husband is also keen to tone up – we are fighting the jabber together. Here it is, the seven point plan: exercise at least four times a week (Gareth gets this automatically with his hour of cycling to work and back!) strictly no sweets and chocolate (unless they are a gift, then that would be rude to refuse) moderate consumption of my baking (I do it for the children …

Three Hours

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Since moving to another country and drastically reducing our friends and responsibilities outside of the home, Gareth and I are getting to talk so much more.  Which is definitely an upside to being down under. In one of our chats this week we talked about finding some time for me when I am not cooking or looking after the children. Because one of the down sides of moving this far away and Gareth having a 45 hour week is that I have 12 hour days, seven days a week. Extra stipulations for this gift of time were that it couldn’t be a week day evening when I am shattered, it couldn’t be used for doing those things that I can’t do when I am cooking or looking after the children but is still not really “for me” i.e. picking up some more cereal and milk for the week, paying bills, going to the post office etc. and it could not be interrupted, so no cute but totally unnecessary visits from Minnie. We went for three …

Welcome Home

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Haven’t blogged for a few weeks, but I’ve been busy.  Moved into our Christchurch house on our ten year wedding anniversary (boy that was romantic), unpacked and built furniture for two weeks, turned 36 (feeling pretty melancholy about that) and had a week of Jackson being ill/teething (because he always does them at the same time). For the last few days I have started to have this unusual feeling, the feeling of being home.  We’re here to stay (don’t panic mum, not forever), we don’t have plans to move, this isn’t temporary, we can live our life.  Obviously we haven’t stopped living in the last nine months – I am shattered from all the life we’ve been living!  What I mean is we can build a routine, we can create a home and take time to watch our children grow up with time left over to pick up hobbies and spend time with friends. I’m excited. And for those of you who would like to see this home we’re making for ourselves… Come and have …

Film of the Week

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OK it would seem most mums-who-blog have themes in the week, Silent Sunday is a popular one for those who take photos (a theme I may plagiarise when I get my camera) and there are various cooking and creative ones.  Well I thought I would try and review a film I watch once a week and I have an idea forming for one around children and food but we’ll just have to see about that. We watched a DVD last night, The Descendants, starring George Clooney. As expected Clooney did not disappoint with an excellent performance as the conservative, kind and yet annoyingly unaware husband and father to three feisty, self absorbed women (one being his wife, two being his daughters).   So we enter at a point where you get glimpses of how he used to be unattached to his family, but now in a place where he is the pivotal character in everyone’s life and he can’t escape becoming an active participant.  You get the impression people have enjoyed living their lives without …

Muffin to go

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In cafes over here, when you order a muffin, they ask if you want it warmed with butter – weird.  But that’s not the muffin this blog is about. One of the problems with two winters in a row (there are too many to mention on one blog) is that you miss that time in 12 months where you are motivated and enabled to lose the jabber that appears over the cold, dark months. This coupled with the fact that we have lived in temporary homes for that whole time (meaning we are without all of our belongings, my exercise “stuff” being part of the packed up things) I have really struggled to keep off the winter padding – the hips don’t lie. Now we are two weeks away from moving into our new house (please God let it be so), 48 hours from the nights getting shorter and 22 days from me turning 36, which rather depressingly means I’m closer to 40 than 30 in this decade. Ergo THE MUFFIN (TOP) MUST GO! I …

Pooh Sticks

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Pooh Sticks

It was a pretty rainy day yesterday but we ventured out anyways (dragging along the Barnetts, so sorry!) – jury is out on whether it was worth it, Minnie was as grumpy as the clouds.

However we did have a successful five minutes of pooh sticks, Minnie and I watched them float while Jackson posed for pictures.

Time with one

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You don’t often get time with just one of your babies when you have two close in age.  How you do it with twins I have no idea! Most of the time I just have to sneak some time with one of them when the other is sleeping.  My eldest gets the rough side of this because when her little brother is sleeping Mummy generally has to get the dinner cooked or various other domestic duties.  Now that Minnie is going to nursery two afternoons a week I have some time with Jackson which we are both loving.  It makes me more aware that just-us-girls time is even more important to find. Last Sunday we went out for a coffee and a fluffy (hot milk with a marshmallow) and had a great time using up all her stickers in her new magazine.  It was so lovely having an hour where I had nothing to do but talk with my daughter. This week Jackson has been waking up later in the morning so I get to …

Jackson is 1

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A year ago today I met the second Cowles man I have fallen in love with.  We celebrated his first birthday in quite a low key fashion, learning from the traumas of an overwhelmed one year old daughter 18 months ago.  This is the diary of Jackson’s first birthday. I got up at my usual time this morning and shouted until my mum came for me, as I usually do.  In she came and wished me a happy birthday.  We then went downstairs and I checked out my presents. Before I/Minnie could open my presents I had my breakfast. The first present was a keyboard (thank you Gran and Grandpa).  I played on that while Minnie unwrapped all of the rest. After that I put on my new jacket (thank you Uncle Gordon and Aunty Rhiannon) and looked through my cards. We went out to the toy library to get even more toys (these weren’t all for me, the pink pram is Minnie’s), then it was home for lunch with mum. After lunch I had …