If you go down to the woods today...

Today was a beautiful day and after the usual toasty breakfast we had a lunchtime family picnic in the garden: ham, bread, coronation chicken (surprisingly Sam ate this) houmous, and tzatiki, followed by yogurt.

Afterwards we met up with one of Sam's girlfriends Pepper and her mum and dad, Sarah and Ben. We went to Staffhurst Wood to see the amazing bluebells and have a walk in the mud. On the way home we stopped for a well earned rest at The Red Barn pub - it has recently been refurbished and it was real y cosy and lovely.

Sam disgraced himself by grabbing Chris's full pint of bitter shandy and tipping it over himself and down my leg and Pepper practised for the future by clutching on to Ben's wallet and trying to suck it dry!

We lost track of time and so dinner was a rushed affair of vegetable stew - again refused from a spoon but eaten on bread (strange boy) with a bit of dairylea and some strawberry jelly.

What's not to like about cauliflower cheese??

Huumpf, not happy tonight, Sam has rejected my homemade cauliflower cheese that I spent AGES making for his tea.

I put some on a spoon and he took one sniff/lick and decided it was horrible. I am now worried there is something seriously wrong with him as I don't know anyone that doesn't like cauliflower cheese - I might take him to the doctors.

Eventually he had some because I cunningly spread it on some bread which he munched away quite happily on.

We had an exciting morning today as we all went swimming together for the first time. Sam really enjoyed it this time (before it was a bit cold and he screamed) and he was giggling away and doing 'swimming' movements with his arms and legs. Chris is going to take him swimming every week now and I am going to have an hour off - hooray!

More home cooking - call me Delia

Lazy boy Sam needed to be woken up this morning at 9 o'clock (!) for his breakfast. After his milk he had toast and jam followed by a bit of fruit puree.

As we were hosting a nappy stall at our local baby clinic Sam had a quick bit of milk before we left home, but he was not that interested in it and didn't have much. At the clinic we had a packed lunch of sandwiches; Sam shared a bit of my ham and colslaw one and then had his first ever Dairylea cheese triangle sarnie and he make quick work of gobbling it all up. Gone are the days where he just sucked his food then dropped it, now he shovels it in his little mouth and swallows the lot!

Dinner was another homemade affair from a recipe supplied by Nic called vegatable rissoles. Basically I grated some carrot, courgette and potato, mixed it with a bit of flour and then fried it in olive oil. It was really rather nice and me and Chris had some too... Next Sam had his first taste of baby sweetcorn, steamed in our new steamer, this was yum too.

Pudding was an apricot yogurt which produced an alarming reaction in Sam, he cried if I didn't give him a spoonful quickly enough and his arms and legs wouldn't stop wriggling, it was almost as if he went a bit hyper - the yogurt was a kid's one but had sugar in it so maybe that was it...I'll stick to ones sweetened with fruit juice in future I think!

Eggy, bready, Go!

Today was a real success on the food front even though our stocks are running very low, three meals and not a breadstick in sight!

We had no bread so brekkie was a pitta bread from the freezer with marmite and jam (not on the same bit), Sammy found this difficult to eat cos it was a bit tough and most of it ended up on the floor. We shared some Cheerios and I got very excited as Sam was picking the tiny rings up from the kitchen table and shoving them in his mouth - top marks for hand control. This was all finished off with a bit of orange juice jelly (Sam got very excited about this yumm).

Auntie Heather provided lunch of tuna sweetcorn sarnies made with homemade bread (get her!) and Sam shared some of Max's cheese spread sarnies too. Pudding was apple, strawberry and mango puree.

Dinner was provided by Grandma Gardiner and it was the first time either of us have made eggy bread!! Got the recipe from Babycentre friends and its so easy, and very eggy (yuk). Sam LOVED it though and found it really easy to eat as it was nice and soft. He polished off the rest of the puree for pud and was generally a very happy boy with a nice full tum.

Meltdown!!!

Today I had a crisis of confidence and got really stressy about Sam's diet and worried that I wasn't feeding him properly. I was wondering whether it would be easier to just buy some jars from Morrisons and feed him them. I don't know why today rather than any other day - maybe because there are lots of things on my mind and lots of things to do and I don't feel like I'm spending enough time planning and preparing his food and it's all got a bit much.

Anyway, breakfast was the usual TOAST! (said in a Harry Hill stylee) and jam, this time followed with half a blackcurrant flavour baby jelly which was a completely new taste and texture and resulred in a surprised and confused Sam .

Lunch was a shared veggie pizza and some ricecakes.

Then came the stressy worried bit...

After some advise from my Babycentre pals and recipe suggestions, and a chat and coffee with Nic I got back on track, and Sam really enjoyed his dinner of sun-dried tomato and mozzerella tortellini, served with chopped toms and mixed herbs, topped with grated cheddar. He also really liked the rest of the jelly pot but got a bit confused when he tried to pick some up and it turned to mush - cute!

Here's Sam expertly eating some pasta and cheese

Real nappy week!

Today was a bit nerve-wracking as I gave a talk about cloth nappies to a young parent's group in Redhill, in the end it was really good fun and I got to talk about my nappies for an hour to people who seemed interested so I was in nappy heaven and Chris was pleased too cos he didn't have to hear it!

It didn't stop my nappy addiction though as I still ordered some more...there are special offers on to celebrate RNW...but before you tell me off most of them were pressies for other people and the couple I got for me/Sam are brand new types and I NEED to try them for research purposes ;-)

On the food front Sam was especially hungry today and had lots of milk feeds as well as jam on toast followed by half a yogurt for breakfast, ricecakes, breadsticks and houmous and the other half of the yogurt for lunch and more toast and jam and fruit puree for dinner. Sam seems to have inherited his father's method of eating yogurts and foodstuffs from pots...

Prince pincer grip

...by the way, I forgot to mention that our clever little boy has started to use his 'pincer' gripi.e. using his thumb and index finger together. I've been watching his hands for the last week or so and he has stopped gripping everything in his fist and has started passing food (and toys and his muslin) from hand to hand and I am sure I have seen him use his thumb and index finger to manipulate stuff - hooray for Sammy!

Catch up

Well, it's been a busy few weeks and I haven't got round to updating Sam's blog so here's a quick summary of what I can remember...

New foods tried:

• resh ravioli pasta filled with mozzerella and tomato with a bit of tomato and marscapone sauce - this was very popular but created a terrible tomatoey-red mess and left lots of stains


• Organix carrot corn sticks (the things that look a bit like a giant wotsit) - again eaten with gusto and very messy as any bits dropped seem to turn into orange glue

• Organix apple, strawberry and mango fruit pots - he LOVES these and has lots of fun chewing the spoon and flicking it around the place


• Little Dish fromage frais pots with no added sugar, he loves these too as its basically a small variation on his all time favourite of yogurt, but I think these disagree with him as both times he's had it he possets a bit and it stinks!

• Chips from a fish and chip shop by the sea!!! We went to Falmouth and had fish and chips overlooking the harbour and they were delicious! Sam had a couple of chips dipped in mushy peas yummm

• A tiny bit of chicken

• and a few peeled and chopped up grapes

I think I am going to start being a bit more adventurous and giving him more 'proper' meals like the pasta rather than fruit and yogurts and ricecakes.

p.s. on the nappy front our Starbunz Ladybug nappy has arrived and it is extremely cute, hopefully there's a d'lish in the post and waiting for us when we get home.

So, here's today's menu:

4.45am milk - I missed the 11pm dreamfeed last night to see what would happen - what happened was that I was woken up in the middle of the night...Doh!

8.45am milk
9.45am toast with butter and marmite and strawberry jam
11.30am sleep for 2 hours
1.40pm a choice of steamed carrot, steamed green beans, houmous on breadstick, a piece of my roll, pear, and finally...yogurt. Items actually eaten and not thrown immediately on the table - a lick of the roll, and an entire adult sized yogurt!
2.15pm milk
4pm snooze for 30 mins
5pm apple flavour mini ricecakes, some chuncks of cheddar (both of these were shared with Sam and Harry the dogs who now think that Sammy is the bees knees)
6.15pm milk
7pm bed

So he is definitely dropping one of his daytime milk feeds and he's also dropped one of his daytime naps too...

I have decided to start writing down when and what Sam is eating every day...like I did obsessively for the first 4 months of his life (slight control freak alert). This is because I am finding it difficult to fit in all his milk feeds and food feeds and sleeps in a day, I think he is dropping a milk feed and I want to see what's going on.

So today this is what happened:
7.45am milk feed
8.45am weetabix
12.25pm milk
1.45pm roast sweet potato followed by mango yogurt
4pm 2 x mini apple ricecakes
4.45pm milk
5.30pm breadsticks with houmous

The mini ricecakes flavoured with apple were a resounding hit - they both disappeared with lightening speed and I kept expecting them to come back out or reappear stuck to his trousers or something but they were swallowed - thanks to Lucie for sharing her snacks - they're on the shopping list. Thanks too to Sarah for lugging her Tripp Trapp over, and for demonstrating it with Lucie! I definitely want one - now all I need to do is persuade Chris...purleeaase darling?xx

BTW I just had an email from the nappy company in America that I ordered my Starbunz from - they've just shipped it and I am v excited to see it.

Bluewater fun

I have been looking forward to today for weeks! An early start for us with Grandma Gardiner arriving in time for toast and weetabix, and then a quick clean up (warning - weetabix sets like cement on everything it touches), then off to the shops!

Bluewater wasn't too busy even though it's half-term, we looked at the Tripp Trapps and tried to measure the height from the floor to the baby strap - it needs to fit under our table as the one we've got is driving me mad as it doesn't fit underneath AND the tray doesn't fit on top...it is a real close fit so I am going to ask Sarah H to bring hers over to try it out before mum buys it...

For lunch we were very organised and had brought some bread sticks and a pear for Sam. He also tried some of our jacket potato but didn't like it and chucked it on the floor in disgust.

When we got home we just had time for cheese and tomato on toast, a slice of pear and a whole banana yogurt. Sam goes crazy for yogurt - it's really quite funny to see him get all impatient for the spoon and then ram it in his mouth as quick as possible!

BTW: we had a new nappy delivered today - it's a 'Funky Nappy' made by a WAHM (work at home mum) and it is beautiful - black with multi-coloured stars all over it lined with soft, bright red fleece - gorgeous!

sunday

Newly engaged Auntie Kathryn and Uncle Mike came round for Sunday roast today. Ruth and Al and little Ol were supposed to be there too but brand new baby Ben decided to put in an appearance instead - by all accounts he was born just as we were taking the lamb out of the oven! Congratulations to the Evans clan.

In their absence there was plenty of food to go round, Sam sampled the carrots, cheesey leeks and some lamb - he only really liked the carrots this time...

Dinner was houmous and breadsticks followed by raspberry yogurt yummmm

saturday

This morning I went out with Grandma Jones to get a fancy dress outfit for the party on Friday, and Sam stayed at home with Daddy and they had a boy's breakfast together...not sure exactly what they had but it was VERY messy.

friday

On the menu for breakfast today was weetabix and yogurt. The weetabix was definately second favourite after the yogurt, so much so that we had to mix them together on the spoon...looks like Sammy takes after his dad in the yogurt-loving stakes...

Lunch was houmous on breadsticks and cucumber with some steamed carrot and broccoli, it all went down ok apart from the broccoli that didn't get a look in at all - maybe because it was a bit old and limp.

Sam spent most of the day either sleeping or practicing his rolling over - he's getting pretty good but it definitely wears him out, and he definitely can do it grandma!

Grandma Jones came over and helped to serve up sugar-free apricot jam on toast and a bit of breadstick. She then stayed in to babysit whilst we went out...to the supermarket - woo hoo, what CRAZY Friday nights we have now that we're parents.

Anniversary and protest marches

Today is our four year anniversary of 'going out' - what a lot can happen in four short years!

I cannot remember what Sam ate today but I'm pretty sure it involved some yogurt, toast and breadsticks somewhere.

I do know that we all had ham and cheese on toast for lunch but Sam wasn't interested and wouldn't eat any of it, too much milk beforehand me thinks.

He did enjoy eating his new alphabet blocks though...


Sam took part in his first protest march today and was part of a large throng of people outside Oxted Council offices demonstrating against the plan to build on the greenbelt land surrounding Oxted - "what do we want? to save our greenbelt. When do we want it? NOW!" etc etc

Here is Sam sitting up like a pro and trying to get Bear's Baby Banz off so he can chew them - Sam is sporting his purple Happy Heiny nappy and Bear is wearing the new green camo Blueberry Minky - beautiful!

Pub lunch!

Today started out as a day like any other - toast and yogurt for breakfast followed by a lovely snooze. Lunchtime however was a completely different story and was very exciting and different.

We went to Redhill to meet Collette and Sam and baby Ethan for lunch - in a pub! Baby Sam and I shared some greek dips with bread and cucumber. He was particularly lively and insisted on grabbing everything he could see and dropping it on the floor, by the end of the meal the carpet beneath his highchair was littered with bread, houmous, cucumber, two socks, two toys and a couple of menus. He had a great time though and it was lovely to see Ethan who is 2 months older than Sam and starting to nod his head and wave!

Afterwards we had a trip into my office where Sam charmed everybody with his extreme cuteness.

When we got home grandma Gardiner had just arrived and we faffed around for ages playing and cuddling and changing bums, we then trotted into town and treated ourselves to some chips from the fish and chip shop as both Grandad and Dad were away - ha ha! We ate them back at home with fish fingers and mushy peas yummm. Sam had some fishfinger and a cooked carrot stick. He got really tired and tetchy and didn't eat much so went to bed pronto.

Dinner at Grandma's

Today we spent ages going around all the shops in Oxted and busied ourselves buying stuff from Floret and The Toy Shop, as well as a long browse at the Library. It was all a bit overwhelming for Sam and he had to have a long snooze afterwards.

Not content with a whole morning's shopping we went to Reigate in the afternoon to meet Nic and Thomas, and Dani and Noah for a coffee and a trip to Olimia. I was very excited to see they had the Silly Billyz bibs and so quickly bought two more.

Later on we went to Grandma Joneses to see great-grandma before she went back home - Sam was so tired that he had to spend the first hour and a half asleep in the car whilst I busied myself with a warm doughnut and a nice cup of tea. When he eventually woke up Sam was very hungry so had some milk and then entertained the rellies for a long while with his cute smiles and constant wriggling, he refused to perform his new back-to-front rolls though and we were accused of making it up!

Grandma has acquired a high chair and luckily I had just bought a splash mat in Reigate earlier so Sam had cheese on toast followed by a strawberry fromage frais yogurt for his tea (followed by more, previously sucked, cheese on toast as you can see below).

The mat came in handy on the carpet and the dogs helpfully cleared up for us - its a shame Pikachu is a bit more discriminating in his hoovering up duties than greedy Sam, Harry and Hampton the dogs

Aterwards uncle Simon enjoyed throwing Sam around a bit which Sammy loved - and he was only sick a little bit - it's a miracle!