surviving

Rough patch!

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Pfffff. Deflated is how I feel right now, been a really tricky couple of weeks. Monkey is going through a reeeally fussy patch and is so grumpy these days. He is getting so frustrated with things so easily and we have definitely got the start of tantrums when he doesn’t get his own way, or when mummy has to leave his side for a few mins! I get that this is really just to do with his age and I guess what’s making it worse is the fact that I am so shattered at the moment.

The reason that I am so shattered is that my hubby isn’t very well. It’s nothing serious or life threatening but his IBS is causing him a lot of pain at the moment and he is having to spend quite a bit of time in the loo, in a lot of pain, poor thing. I feel awful for him and he’s trying to carry on, but he just can’t. He’s working through it but when he is at home he’s tired and in pain. Which means he can’t help me as much as usual with Monkey.

I’ve always been a bit in awe of single mums and I know that when you have to cope, you just do because there is no alternative but I can’t imagine doing this on my own. One of my closest friends is a single mum and I know she struggles but I’m so in awe of her too as she really does an amazing job. The last week or so has given a bit more of an insight into what it could be like as from 6.30am when monkey wakes up, till he goes to bed at 7.15pm it’s pretty much just me at the mo. Like I say, hubby is trying to keep doing his usual pre-bedtime bathy and helping with the bedtime routine, but he can’t bend down or move around as quickly as monkey wants.

And the honest truth, I am really struggling with it. I really rely on hubby’s help first thing in the morning and when he gets in from work in the evening. For an hour or so at each end of the day I get to do some jobs or sit and read the news or stand in the shower while daddy is in charge. The last week or so I haven’t been able to do this as much and of course I am coping but it is wearing me down. Last weekend was a bad weekend as monkey was poorly too and I don’t physically have enough energy to be sympathetic and caring to both of them so unfortunately daddy has to be on the back burner while I look after monkey.

Monkey has been better this week, no more temperatures or crying through the night but he’s still not right and is so fussy and is dozy in the mornings (which I hate because it messes up our routine and I rely on our routine to get out and about to see people, get jobs done and generally stay sane!) and generally just keeping me on my toes! We have the bank holiday weekend this weekend and normally I would be jumping for joy as I have hubby for three whole days to help with Monkey and house chores and just lovely to have family time. But this week I am not looking forward to it at all because I’m worried that hubby is going to be poorly again, and I’m already low and again I’ll cope, but I won’t enjoy it.

I feel so selfish too as he’s the one who is poorly and he’s the one in pain, and of course I want him to get better so he isn’t in pain anymore, but I mainly want him to get better so he can help me! He went to the doctors yesterday and I was really hoping they would give him something to help but they basically said to keep taking what he’s taking, do what he’s doing and he’ll get through it. Great. Feel like such a rubbish wife that I am so concerned about myself but I can’t seem to help it. I’m just so tired and worn down, I have a huge mouth ulcer, which is always a sign with me, and a couple of times this week I have slept in the afternoon when Monkey sleeps, so the housework really isn’t getting done!

– I started writing this blog a couple of days ago but didn’t have time to finish it then! The weekend isn’t going as badly as I thought and Monkey is doing a lot better, but Hubby is still quite poorly bless him. Still, he is at least able to help enough that I am catching up on some jobs and we’ve spent some time in the garden enjoying the sunshine which has been lovely. Still shattered but not as low as I was at the start of this post, and after writing down how selfish I felt I have been trying a bit harder to give hubby some tlc. At least now monkey is doing better I have a bit more energy spare for hubby 🙂

Despite the rough patch, and even when I was feeling really low, I’m still happy overall with my decision to be a stay at home mummy. It’s not always easy but then what in life is really? Just got to cope during the down times and enjoy the ups 🙂 Monkey and Hubby are both asleep so I am going to grab my book and a cold drink and have a few mins peace in the garden I think!

A very trying day…

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Urgh, today has not been the best day in my ‘stay at home mum’ journey so far. On the whole I have been enjoying being a stay at home mum, the monkey is very fun and I’ve been keeping us both busy and happy, but today is a real low point.

It started at about 630 this morning, pretty normal wake up time, but instead of a happy chattering monkey he woke up crying for some reason and took a little while to cheer up. After that he was ok, but as his Granny would call it, he has been very eggshelly (fragile) all day and the slightest thing has made him upset. I think I’ve done well most of the day and been understanding that he’s having an off day. We all have them after all!

We had his 7-12 month developmental check this morning too, and although it went well, you can’t help feeling a bit judged being cross examined on what he’s doing, how much he’s eating, what he’s eating etc. I don’t think monkey enjoyed it either, being stripped off and weighed, measured and looked at, then being watched by a stranger while he played. Not today anyway, other days he may have taken it in his stride, but this morning he was pretty grumbly. He was also really tired most of the morning which didn’t help!

We got through lunch, which wasn’t exactly fun, then he had quite a long nap though it was a bit restless sadly, and he woke up happy. Great, I thought, maybe he was just tired? But the afternoon hasn’t gone that well either, reaching a low point at teatime.

Unfortunately after a day of being understanding and coping with the random upsets and crying I am shattered. Going over everything the nursery nurse said this morning hasn’t helped, worrying and feeling guilty over the slightest thing she said, about what cup he drinks from and how we serve his food and just, well, little bits and bobs that just generally leave you feeling like you’ve been scored and given a ‘could do better’ grade in the subject of motherhood.

I thought teatime would go well as he loves the meatballs I make and his steamed potato and peas…. but apparently not today. Today he is spitting everything out, not wanting to know then crying and gagging so he throws up the little bit that he has actually eaten (and he had seemed to enjoy the odd few bites).

At this my façade cracks and I lose my cool. I tell him off and throw the cup he is playing with, rather than drinking from, on the floor. Yeah, I know, who’s the parent here? Throwing things in a tantrum isn’t exactly the best example to set, but how else do you vent frustration to a 10 month old baby who can’t tell you why he suddenly doesn’t want to eat the food that he has liked every other time before? The food that you have spent ages in the kitchen preparing while he sleeps?

I try to tell him he needs to eat his food or he won’t get anything else, that’s all there is, but then I’m feeling awful because I know he’s hungry, he needs to eat. And if he doesn’t eat his tea then surely he won’t sleep well tonight and that isn’t good for any of us.  How do you teach them to eat what is in front of them while still making sure they go to bed full? Is he too young to be worrying about that? Should I just give in?

I realise I have to walk away and take a breather so because I don’t know what to do I give him two of the oat and apricot biscuits (that I made at the weekend but usually try to ration so he doesn’t just eat biscuits all the time), dump them on his tray with some raisins and walk out of the room. I sat on the stairs, text my husband because I needed to vent (lucky hubby coming home to such a happy home!!) and had a little cry. I then go back in, check and yep sure enough he is eating the biscuits and raisins, so not off his food completely. I turn the TV on and walk out again because I can’t be all smiley and serene yet.

Thankfully, hubby is now home to help for the evening and there’s only an hour or so to go before bed.

I know it’s not his fault, maybe his teeth are coming through and hurting, maybe he’s just feeling under the weather. Poor little thing can’t exactly tell me what is the matter. But honestly, days like this are not fun. Days like this are not easy. Days like this make you feel like a really bad mother.

Thank goodness not all days are like this! Tomorrow will be a better day… at least I really hope so!

Poorly house and crochet baby booties!

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Oh where is spring? Really I am so fed up with all this cold weather, and the germs that come with it! Every time we have a semi nice day it seems to be followed by a week of freezing! Been a bit of a poorly house for the last week or so too, I think I mentioned in my last blog that the monkey had been poorly, and sadly that carried on into the following week, and then I started throwing up too and well not a lot of fun to be had with poorly baby and a poorly mummy! If you work you can take a sick day but it’s not like you can get a sick day when you are a stay at home mum!

So it’s been all hands on deck and luckily my lovely mother in law was very happy to help, which meant daddy could get on at work, and, well, thankfully we are all much better now but we have been looking for some cheering up! We got these lovely Daffodils last weekend and thankfully they have been brightening up the kitchen nicely (and our moods!) although the pollen was so strong!

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Through all of the illness I have been managing to carry on a bit of crochet 🙂 mainly carrying on with granny squares for my blanket project. I am doing quite well but have worked out that for a really decent sized blanket I am going need to make well over a hundred… 11 down so far so it may take me some time! Loving how they look already though!

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As this project is going to take some time, and because I am massively impatient and like to see things finished, I have decided to alternate a bit and do some other small projects in between the granny squares. My lovely mother in law bought me a “Simply Crochet” magazine with some very cute patterns in, including one for these lovely baby booties which I couldn’t resist as they are so cute and as mentioned, we need some cheering up this week!

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Now they say they are for 0-6 months so way too small for Monkey now, but honestly I am not sure they would ever have fit our little one’s feet! A couple of friend’s have had little ones recently though so will see if they fit on their little tootsies. Also I have a friend due at the beginning of April, so I thought that if they go well I may make a little pink pair for part of her baby present 🙂

I started the pattern and all seemed well, although it was getting late when I started them and I seemed completely incapable of counting so I did get a little stressed at points. I mean really, how hard is it to count 9 stitches! hehe but once I got going the sole suddenly appeared, and then I decided it looked a bit like Iggle Piggle’s boat hehe 🙂

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Then came a phrase that completely flummoxed me! htr2tog. Um what? I get the htr bit but not the rest, isn’t 2 tog something to do with duvets? Luckily there is a list of abbreviations at the back of the magazine which said “work 2 half trebles together.” Unfortunately this didn’t make things any clearer to me and after looking through the guide bit of the magazine I was none the wiser and once again turned to my trusty friend that is Google. Seriously what did people do in the days before the internet? There I found out what to do. I don’t kid myself that I am able to describe it very effectively, there are plenty of other people who can explain it perfectly, such as here. 🙂

After that it seemed to quite swimmingly and soon enough I had first one, and then another booty! They are very cute but they are seriously small! So we will see if they actually fit on my friend’s baby’s tootsies!

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Had a lovely weekend with the hubby and now that the daffodils are withered we have realised that our kitchen windowsill needs some brightening up! We have done a lot since we moved in 10 months ago, including having a new kitchen put in, but we haven’t put anything apart from the occasional bunch of flowers on the windowsill and it does need a bit of brightening up.

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So yesterday when we were out buying some buttons for the booties (and some toy stuffing for my next project!) we popped in to our fave little Le Creuset shop. Yes the stuff is expensive but they always have colourful bits and we tend to buy one item at a time to spread the cost and make it fun 🙂 Anyway so to start off our windowsill we bought this lovely Jug! Think we should put something in it, it can be used for flowers of course but they are only temporary so need some ideas for things to go in there if anyone has any??

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We obviously need a few more things on there but it’s a start at least! 🙂

Making a Bakewell tart for Mothers’ Day – don’t forget the jam!

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When I conjure up an image in my head of a stay at home mum, they can almost always bake (maybe they don’t all bake in real life but this is how I imagine them). So in my quest to be a good stay at home mum I would like to be a better baker. As mentioned in my intro I am not the best baker in the world, I have improved since my first attempt but I rely on my husband’s help a lot as he is much more experience than me.  I can’t remember why but for some reason a couple of weeks ago I decided I wanted to make a Bakewell tart, something I have never attempted before. We had invited my mum and brother round for a roast dinner on Mother’s day so decided this would be the perfect occasion to try and make one.

My mum makes a lovely Bakewell tart, so I thought I’d ask her for the recipe, seemed a good idea, but, well it turns out she has lost her recipe book with the Bakewell tart recipe in (I only found this out afterwards) so I got a very vague description, that you use the recipe for a Victoria sponge but halve the flour and use the rest of ground almonds. Ummmm how do you make a Victoria sponge? 4444 apparently. I’m sure that means a lot to some people but to me it was like telling me in Russian. According to mum this is 4oz caster sugar, 4oz butter, 4 eggs and 4oz self-raising flour – which for a bakewell tart you halve and then use 2oz ground almonds.

This sounds simple but I am a bit of a planner and wanted more detail, so I turned to my trusty friend Google to find a recipe that backed mum up (none of our cookbooks at home seem to have a bakewell tart recipe in randomly). But none did, although I did find an article on Waitrose that said there doesn’t seem to be much consensus on what the correct ingredients are. Great! Helpful! I relooked through our cookbooks and a Mary Berry one did have one for Bakewell slices, which did seem to slightly correspond to mum’s version of the recipe, with the addition of baking powder so I though ah well let’s just give it a go!

It is worth mentioning at this point that Monkey is poorly (yes, again!) with a terrible tummy bug, won’t go into too many details but he really hasn’t been well so the routine has been a bit shot and both Daddy and I have been covered in output from one end or the other. Yesterday (Saturday) we popped to my lovely in-laws for lunch to see Granny for mothers’ day, but well I ended up eating lunch in Granny’s dressing gown and socks as my clothes were a bit vomit covered.

So it was that Saturday afternoon with Monkey asleep earlier than usual, hubby and I decided to have a bash at the Bakewell tart. I measured the ingredients and we mixed it up, though it definitely seemed a bit sloppy. Hubby then asked “Is there no sugar in this recipe” my reply, “err yes, oops”. Yep great start, I had forgotten to add sugar to the recipe. I blame the fact that my mind was on the monkey at the time. Seemed a bit thicker but still quite gloopy but what do I know, maybe it is meant to look like that?

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I very nearly handed over the reins to hubby at this point to roll the pastry (No, we didn’t make our own, Hubby’s business partner went on a pastry course a while ago and the master chefs there advised that for all the effort it takes to make good pastry, it won’t be better than bought, so just buy it. Good enough for me!) mainly because I have had disastrous attempts at rolling icing and pastry in the past and it has ended up stuck to the worktop etc. But no, this is my tart, I am going to do it. To avoid previous mistakes I put quite a bit of flour on the worktop, ok, well, loads, which hubby found very amusing, but voila the pastry came out alright 🙂

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We added the mixture to the pastry, very proud of ourselves, but d’oh! We didn’t put the jam in. What kind of Bakewell tart is it without Jam??? A rubbish one. We discussed putting the jam on top of the sponge, before we ice it, but that feels wrong. I suggested tipping out the mixture so we can put the jam where it should be and my husband found this hilarious, what a silly idea. Then all of a sudden he was on board. He had come up with a plan, it’s all about the tool, we need a flexible tool. So with a flexible plastic spatula we tipped/gently scraped out the mixture. We then put the jam in and the mixture back on top. What a palaver!

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It seemed to cook ok (thanks to mum’s vague directions we guestimated temperature and cooking time, not recommended when baking!) and looked pretty good when it came out of the oven.  By this point monkey was awake so daddy fed him while I iced it. In hindsight I think the icing was a bit too runny as it drifted off to the sides, but that’s all appearance right? It needs the taste test but that had to wait until today.

 

We had a terrible night with our poorly monkey, have been up since about 4/430 with a fever and horribleness and spoke to the GP out of hours at one point but thankfully by about 7am he managed a little bit of food and started to feel much better. Phew! Had a lovely roast lunch planned, with Cider braised ham (one of our faves) with my mum and older brother coming round. We briefly debated calling it off but decided what’s the point in that? These things happen and we are knackered but more people means more hands to help entertain the little one so while he was down for a very early nap we cracked on with the days plans.

To cut a long story short we had a lovely yummy Mothers’ Day lunch and the Bakewell tart, while it wouldn’t win any beauty contests, did taste pretty darn lovely  🙂 I may be being hard on myself but I thought it tasted a bit soggy and maybe too spongy so maybe 4 large eggs was too many? Anyway everyone else was full of praise (hopefully not just being polite!) and one of brother in laws came round later in the afternoon to help entertain the monkey (mummy & daddy are definitely flagging now!) and it definitely got his seal of approval.

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Definitely room for improvement but not bad for a first try!