the things not said

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Feeding Children

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 generation:

– be thankful for the food you are given

– enjoy the healthy as much as the treats

– do not question or refuse what the chef has made for you

– put food in your mouth, only

– always have the evening meal as a family (unless you’re under five and daddy works late)

The things I would like to change or adapt are:

– you are allowed to leave things but only after you have tried it

– you don’t have to eat all your main, but if you leave some then you are obviously not hungry enough for any other course so that is the end of the meal

– sweet things are not a reward. That said, within a meal, they will only come after the savoury course has been eaten.

These guidelines appear so simple and really quite easy to follow but at five o’clock with two small children who have small appetites and tired minds it can be the biggest challenge of the day to not just hand over the chocolate and be done with it.

In my determination to follow the above I put a lot of effort into giving my children a varied, home cooked and pleasant menu of food to eat throughout the week. Sometimes there are successes and a meal is consumed without tears or tantrums but currently that may only happen once a week. A lot of the time I take an hour at lunch time to cook an evening meal that is forced down my two and a half year old and scattered across the floor by my one year old – fulfilling it is not.

Over the few years I have been cooking for children, I have spent literally hours searching for, preparing and serving meals that I hope will score highly with my children and be of nutritional value. As I go along I am gathering a repertoire which is invaluable to me. So I am going to start chronicling the successful ones on this blog, for my own reference but also to give anyone in the same position ideas and suggestions to test out.

Likewise please do send me your tips and recipes – I will try anything and so (by gum) will my children.

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 and guests!)
alcohol only on weekends (we already do this so it’s a bit of a freebie)
week day meals are as healthy and low fat as possible
yogurt, fruit and chopped raw vegetables are snacks
drink more water

That’s it. Keeping it simple will hopefully be the secret to our success. To be honest I know this is going to be challenging enough. ‘No chocolate’ will be the toughest for us, we can get through a large block of Cadburys in 24 hours. I have half a stone that has stayed on since losing the initial baby weight post Jackson. It’s actually crept up to a stone since moving to NZ. The long awaited Spring is only a month a way now. There are no more excuses – let’s do this!

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 hours on a Sunday afternoon. This is my first one, right now. Here is how I have spent it. At 2.15pm I crawled into bed, put the electric blanket on and went straight to sleep until 3.30pm. My alarm and Gareth trying to get the children out the door woke me up. Once they had shifted out I got up and raided the kitchen for sweets (next blog is all about that there diet I was going on) and poured myself a long glass of diet Coca Cola (I know terrible drink, but we’ve run out of Pepsi Max). I have just finished watching about a dozen film trailers (this is one of the most relaxing things I can do – it used to be my lunch break when I worked from home) and now I am writing all about my three hours. I feel I could do better at this.

Gareth and I expected that there would be a time of adjustment for me. Like how I nearly booked us all in for a family outing this afternoon because I’d forgotten I was getting my time. And how I’ve spent half of it sleeping. And how it’s basically totally unplanned. I hope to get more imaginative with my time and I certainly don’t want to spend any of it sleeping (what was I thinking??!!). Truth is, since Minnie was born I’ve been swallowed up in being a mum, and that’s fair, that’s as it should be, in as much that this is an all encompassing, full time, can’t turn it off, I’m always going to be a parent, life time commitment. BUT once they’re weaned and can get themselves about, (albeit pretty haphazardly Jackson) there has got to be some time when mummy gets to glimpse at who Clairey is, at least once a week.

The aim is that over time, as I punch in the hours and start to find some meaningful ways to use the opportunity three hours without anything to do can give me, we will see some fruit. I will find the Clairey version of mummy and I’ll enjoy being me.

Welcome Home

Published by thethingsnotsaid

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 a cup of ~~tea~~ coffee sometime.

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 his inclusion but quickly you see everything would have gone a lot better if he’d just joined in a bit sooner.

I liked him, I was for him right from the get-go and I enjoyed seeing him “switch on” and make the decisions he does. It’s just under two hours and we were tired when we watched it but for quite a simple, non-action story it kept us interested right to the end. And it’s one of those films where you connect with the characters enough that you want to carry on being in their lives beyond the conclusion of the film.

I was totally captivated by Shailene Woodley, who plays Clooney’s eldest daughter. Ridiculously beautiful and pitched a good girl wanting to be rebellious so her parents would notice her very well. ‘One to watch’ perhaps. It was lovely to see her relationship with her father grow and strengthen as the story unfolded and you go from thinking he’ll never manage to it’s going to be fine – which is always where I like to be left at the end of a film.

I’d give it a 7.5 out of 10 as it’s not going into my Top 20 but it was definitely good. Worth watching, maybe not worth buying as it’s not one you need to see a second time.

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 haven’t worked out my plan yet (I always have to commit to a plan for getting fit). It will be a combination of cutting out the naughty stuff (still bring back the Candy King you Barnetts!) and determining to do so many sessions of exercise in a week. The latter is no bother, I love exercise and can’t wait to be doing it regularly again, especially as my lovely husband has purchased from Sweaty Betty for my birthday present. It’s the first part of the plan that I struggle with – I like to eat.

Anyways as part of my commitment I will probably share with you all my plan. Sort of like the Biggest Loser blog. Just got to decide on it. I have two weeks. In the meantime I may be seen with a Crunchie or two….

If you have any words of motivation, hot tips or a recipe for non-fat biscuits, please do tell.

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 away 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 have a half hour of snuggling with my girl. How lovely is it to wake up to this face.

And then at the end of the day we get to see this.

Makes all the stress in between worth it.

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 a nice relaxing poo.

I had a short nap (I was too excited to bother with sleep) and then we all went for a walk.

When we got back our friends came for my birthday tea time. We had fairy cakes that mum didn’t make but she did design them in the shape of J1, which I totally appreciated. Also my sister carried the box home when she bought them with dad so six of them were all squashed and messy, which I totally didn’t notice.

I had half of one of the blue cakes that had a Thomas the Tank Engine sweety on. It was yum.

Afterwards I hung out with dad and Elsie (who I will play with when she can sit up) and her dad Jonnie.

Finally we turned off the lights and played with glow sticks, which you can’t see because mum’s flash on her camera phone makes it disappear.

After our friends left we went back to the usual routine, I had a bath with my sister, mum and I read stories together and I fell asleep.

I really did enjoy my birthday.

Jackson x