Cauliflower and avocado

I had cauliflower for supper (on the side of my curry, rice and butternut) and remembered how much I love it. Hmmmmm. I don't buy cauliflower because D doesn't eat it and there's no way I can get through one all by myself before it goes bad.

Enter... the babies. I had a bright idea after looking through the Annabel Karmel book. So I made them some cauliflower with a cheesy sauce ("yummy" as we say to Connor to encourage him to eat), pureed it and it's in the little ice trays as we speak. I can't wait to see how that goes - who will be my fellow cauliflower eater?

Speaking of food, I HATE spending huge amounts of money (said she who is busy buying a house - but that doesn't count, does it?) for things I KNOW I can get cheaper. The avocadoes have been ridiculously expensive lately (and we're not in the UK where fruits and veggies are generally expensive - like R30 for two corn on the cob - goodness, we get about 8 or 9 for that price) so I can't bring myself to spend that kind of money.

Yet... every time we go see the baby nurse, she asks if I've given them avocado yet and I say no. I don't want to tell her I'm cheap so I just say I haven't got around to it yet LOL and then she kindly tells me it's a great first food.

This weekend was my weekend to do the grocery shop and yes, I spent R400 more than D does! But I got the darn avos. And Connor ate it - not with real enjoyment like cereal, but then again these days, cereal and plain yoghurt are really the only things he DEVOURS - but with no crying and no spitting. This is success for me these days (oh, how my standards have slipped).

Kendra let me know in no uncertain terms that she was not a fan of avocado - spat it out in my face. I tried again and again - same result.

Later I did a sandwich for them (Saffy, I told you I'd try) with avocado and cream cheese and she pulled that thing aside and THREW the avocado side at me but nibbled on the cream cheese side.

So there - definitely not a fan of avocado. Just in case I was unsure.

The food thing is going much better mainly because I'm pandering to him. This is another thing I said I'd never do when I had children "one day" and here I am, desperate to get food into him.

We know he likes cereal and yoghurt, so every day he gets fruit and yoghurt for one meal and for another, cereal with a chicken cube hidden inside. Oh, I'm a sly one. The third meal is the one where I still persist in getting some "real food" inside him.

We went back to giving veggies only (but I sneak cream cheese so he gets some protein), and now we're on 2/3 veggies, 1/3 chicken/ lentils. He often doesn't finish and then I put the leftovers into the cereal too. It sounds disgusting but what does he know?

Since he's taken a liking (I use that word loosely because what I mean is he doesn't scream when I feed it to him) to two of Annabel Karmel's dishes, both with chicken, so that's what he has 4 out of 5 days.

Nanny Viola told me the only reason he's eating the veggies is for the cream cheese LOL. Every day when I get home I ask her, "how did Connor eat today?" and we go through the whole debrief. She even has to rate the ease of eating (verbally, not in The Notebook!) from 1 - 10. Kendra is our benchmark as the way she eats is a 10. Most days she tells me 7 or 8 for Connor, but remember she has Patience with a capital P and I do not.

I'm in pajamas and going to get a nice hot mug of tea before working on my newsletter.

Today was lovely - grey skies, rainy weather and an empty office so I could get on with things and do good, focussed work. I then dashed to the shops to buy formula and nappies and then home for a quick tidy before the agent came to value our property.

We drove past the house after church yesterday and saw that it was a show house from 2 - 5pm (apparently show houses are different times all over Jhb; in our suburbs they're Sundays 2 - 5pm) so D went back to have a look after dropping us off. Of course I was on tenterhooks wondering WHAT he'd find to complain about.

He LOVED the house but did have a moan about one little piece of the property where we need extra electric fencing. I switched off as I do when talking about boring, man bits but ........we decided we're going to put in an offer based on what he tells us our house can fetch.

While technically we can pay what she wants for Number 46, I'm sure people won't give us what we want for ours since it's a buyer's market. And bottom line, I need x deposit on the new place as I don't want a bond bigger than a certain amount. Apparently everything is negotiable according to the agent - his commission, etc, etc. Hmmm. I don't even want to THINK about all the lawyer and bank schlep so I have to keep thinking about that view from the lounge.

But enough about me...

How has your Monday been?

P.S. The reason I haven't been commenting much is that my computer has gone in as they think there's a virus and I'm working on the slowest laptop known to man. When I get the other back, this one's got to go in for them to make it faster.

P.P.S. Tomorrow I want to give you a sleep update as it's been a while, hasn't it?

Food strike!

Connor is on a food strike.

Not all food.... only meat and veggies-type food (and yes, also our beloved Annabel Karmel food!)

Of course this is highlighted because Kendra is a DREAM eater.

Except for her new trick, spitting. I let her do it once but then thought, "what the hell?! this is a BABY spitting food at ME" so stopped feeding her.

She's very clever and stopped that nonsense the minute I got up from my
seat.

Normally she opens her mouth WIDE like a little bird and eats everything. We have to show her the empty bowl so she can see the meal's over, otherwise she'll keep opening that little mouth. Very very cute

I swear she gets cuter by the day. Example....

"Kendra, what are you?"

BABABABABA

"Good girl! And what's Connor?"

BABABABABA

(of course, I time my questions for when she starts her talking :)

Anyway, our feeding schedule is currently:

8 am - veggies and chicken/ lentils/ minced beef

10 am - milk

12 am - fruit and yoghurt

2 pm - milk

4 pm - cereal - since the 8-month appt, I give one block of food here too

5:30 - 6 pm milk


Back to Connor.

He started whining more at mealtimes a few weeks ago... but still ate.

Now he won't even open that mouth for the first mouthful!

This is what I've tried:

• I sing Wild Thing to him, which he loves, so he laughs and when he opens his mouth, I quickly pop a mouthful in. Just thought of something - maybe it's my SINGING he's laughing at. I know David (my friend, Nat's son) laughs at her when she prays :)
• not giving him any milk for HOURS before the meal just in case he wasn't properly hungry - not the answer because he does the same thing even if his last feed in the night was at 3am
• giving him whatever he doesn't finish (in the beginning, usually just a teaspoon's worth) mixed into his cereal - worked for about 3 days and then he realised what was happening so is now wise to my tricks

It all came to a head on Thursday afternoon.

They'd been out late for a walk so the mealtimes were running late and into the time V leaves (5 pm) so I said I'd feed Connor so she could get going (she's very committed and likes to do all the things on her list before even thinking of leaving).

Well, BIG MESS. He fought me like crazy - his entire face, hands, legs and feet were FULL of food so I literally took him straight to the bathroom and gave him his second bath within hours.

Next day I decided not to mess with V and her way of doing things and she fed him. Much better - still a bit of whining but very bad as with me.

Then on the weekend, he just flat out refused everything. Annabel Karmel food, plain veggies, sweet potato, even CEREAL, our go-to food. He thought the cereal had food in it.

I always SAID (all those things you say you'll never do when you're a mother) I'll never make a big issue about food but I know that no eating means no sleeping and frankly, I'm old and I need my sleep.

I even found myself saying things like, "do you KNOW how I slaved over a hot stove cooking this for you?" - it's true, my kitchen is blazing hot in the afternoons :) I cringe writing that but I'm committed to keeping it real.

Eventually I thought let's just try some banana and yoghurt, thinking he'd also spit it out so I didn't even bother with a bib.

BIG MISTAKE - look!

On Sunday he deigned to eat a few baby spoons' worth of food (not even teaspoons) and was properly back on his cereal - I tried no funny business initially but later sneaked in some cream cheese.

On Monday morning when V arrived I was stern with her.

"V, have you been telling me the truth about Connor's eating? Because he refused EVERYTHING with us this weekend."

She laughed and said he does whine at the start but he will eat with her. I've said before that she has ENDLESS patience with them.

Still, I'm not happy that he doesn't want to open his mouth and eat properly because HE USED TO eat nicely. If he'd always had eating problems I wouldn't mind this so much.

Yesterday, we did mostly veg...2 veg cubes and 1 with protein. Still a bit of whining.

So we've gone back to basics today.

3 butternut cubes with a teaspoon of cream cheese. He whined but not too much. V tells me she thinks he was only eating FOR the cream cheese. This boy is going to drive me nuts.

He will have butternut for 3 days and then we'll switch to sweet potato and carrots like in the early days but keep trying my Annabel Karmel meals since my freezer is FULL of them. I think I got addicted to the food ice cubes and went a bit wild.

Right, over to you. (I keep thinking, the nurse said they need two protein meals a day and he REFUSES)

ANY IDEAS???

(a funny thing just occurred to me - Nat told me David just SEES her approaching with the butternut and starts crying :) Typical South African male [meat, no veggies] as I've seen him happily eating biltong. I wonder if it's still the same - must check)

behind the scenes

People have been asking me some questions when I reply to their comments.

(by the way, if you have a blogger account, please go to your profile and check/ tick the box that says "show email address". What then happens is if you leave a comment, it comes through to my email and I can respond directly to you and we can have a nice CHAT :))

Okay then, moving along.

Baby monitoring in South Africa

Obviously if you're seeing the paediatrician, they always weigh and measure the baby.

Outside of those appointments, many of the big pharmacies have a little clinic (one teeny, tiny room) with a nurse who does wellness checks (all the stats), immunisations and also other things like flu vaccinations, cholesterol, blood sugar and BP checks. Nothing is free - the wellness checks at Dischem cost me R45 per baby and I've had my BP checked before at a Clicks pharmacy for R25.

Many of the larger companies (or maybe it's just insurance? because we have doctors who work in underwriting) also have on-site clinics operating at certain hours for staff to use (this is totally free where I work). I can literally walk 5 minutes to the other side of the property and get a cholesterol, blood sugar or BP check every week if I wanted to do so. When I was pregnant and had my one sick day, this is the nurse who checked my BP for me and told me to go home.

Back to the baby checks.

In some medical practices there are also nurses who do wellness checks and immunisations for babies. These are often more expensive but still cheaper than going to the paed.

We're now going to a new nurse who charged us R100 for the consultation but for twins, doesn't charge a double consult fee. This is unusual but I don't argue - less out of our medical savings account.

I prefer the environment of this small medical centre (4 GP's, podiatrist, psychologist and the baby nurse) to the craziness of Dischem.

What I've explained above is all PRIVATE health care for the 15% of South Africans (it may be less) who do have private medical aids.

I don't have any experience about the government hospitals and clinics except that the clinics are completely free IF you're prepared to sit and queue for hours and hours on end.

Our national health is not great. Just the mention of going to a "government hospital" sends shudders through us privileged folk :)

Yes, I moan about this and that, but I do know that I am extremely privileged to be able to afford a private medical aid. If we didn't have it, I dread to think what would have happened with C & K and the NICU.

Let me know in the comments if you want more detail on anything.

Now the baby food.

This is the book I bought at Sadia's recommendation and........... I'm loving it!

I'd never heard of Annabel Karmel before but she is genius.

As I was reading I realised that my kids have been eating really boring food!

On Monday I cooked up some chicken (with carrots, sweet potato) and pureed it like crazy as I was so scared they'd choke.

Tuesday morning they had this for breakfast (yes, my kids are weird - they like their veggies in the morning and their cereal in the afternoon) and.........

Kendra pulled her face as she does with all new food but she still eats it.

Connor? Connor loved it. He literally SMACKED HIS LIPS. Too cute - D and I left late so that we could see them have their first taste of chicken.

I asked Nanny Viola how they've been enjoying the chicken and she says "they LOVE it" :)

I'm trying a new recipe every few days - a different chicken one today - but I expect to have similar reactions.

I can't tell you all the differences she recommends (too many) but I do believe you should get her book if you don't intend to buy jarred baby food (a huge ripoff in my view).

South Africans - I ordered mine from Kalahari.net and it arrived on my (work) doorstep within 5 days.