serialdeviant.org(y)

The first time I’ve seen a yarn bomb in the, er, acrylic.

Baking. I’ve done it.

Not for no reason, mind. Anne’s first birthday is coming up and I promised myself I’d make her some low-sugar fruity muffins to help celebrate, and these were my practice run. Neil’s scoffed a few so they must be all right.

What the fuck has happened to me?!

If you need someone to fold and organise your cloth nappies really, really well, I’m your girl.

Anne, sadly, has an exaggerated version of my pickiness when it comes to food. She gets seriously bored if I repeat something she likes too soon and won’t find it anywhere close to as appetising the second time. And while she’ll try anything once, there isn’t too much she really likes. So in my currently narrowed world, a triumph equal to solving the youth unemployment problem in Southern Europe, is finding a new recipe that she wolfs down with little hesitation.

We’ve also just restarted getting a seasonal vegetable box delivered. There were (still are) loads of leeks and carrots in it. With the power of the Ingterneck, I found a recipe for a light starter of leeks and eggs:

Anne likes cheese. Anne likes eggs. She also likes leeks. And this was a new combination for her, so everyone’s a winner.

And I managed to make it taste pretty good. I’m no aspiring cook (I still prepare food while gritting my teeth a little), but it appears that I can do it, with the right motivation. That’s progress, right?

Don’t call social services on us — she only got to do this because Neil was watching her.

How about not having the wedding that cripples you with debt? It’s the marriage that should matter to you, not the wedding.

My daughter clearly isn’t impressed with having a ribbon tied round her head.

As a lifelong tomboy, I am extremely pleased.

So I tried this method of ‘mess-free’ finger painting (I used the second option). My conclusions:

1. Anne was more interested in trying to scrunch up the paper and put it in her mouth, so she’s probably too young.
2. If you use regular copier paper and acrylic paints, and your baby decides she needs to nap right now immediately after the activity, the paint will dry and stick the cling film and paper together. ‘Masterpiece’ destroyed.

Next: paint in a ziplock bag! I wonder if she’ll be more fascinated by that.

There was also a cackle-filled attempt at Greco-Roman wrestling between Anne and Bethany in Starbucks. They’re going to be a handful!

Anyone who knows me reasonably will be aware that I have never enjoyed cooking. Eating, yes, but food preparation just doesn’t do it for me. It stresses me out. And yet I have cooked almost every day for the past two weeks, at least twice a day (yes, making oat porridge counts as cooking in my universe). I’m no closer to liking the chore, but I at least know I can make decent food if I have to. And all because I want my child to eat a varied and healthy diet. Although her favourite thing at the moment is fromage frais because it tastes like ice cream.

It occurred to me that a business sure to fail would be that of a Sikh barber.

After ten months, I finally got round to making a sock monkey for Anne. Here is Doug, helpfully carrying the baby.

She tried to grab it when it wasn’t complete and we saw her first tantrum of sorts when I took it away from her. But now it’s finished (only took me a full week to make a tiny monkey) and she can have it.

What it doesn’t have is a name. She has so many soft toys I’ve given up. Her favourite cat plushie is named Cat. So help me come up with a name!

Update: his name is Boris.

Is a plastic cup.

Neil owns a huge stack of teeshirts (at varying levels of stylishness). But he does tend to wear a few over and over again. Here he is, with his first-born when she was about half a month old, and she’d just had her first bath:

And the same shirt again, after giving Anne her shower (she’s about nine and a half months old):

(It’s not the same towel. She grew out of that hooded one within a few weeks and complained that it was too thin.)

Even if loads of people didn’t like her professional life, all these parties and nasty postings and songs are just rather tacky and in poor taste.