Unpopular lemon shortbread

I made these lemon shortbread over a week ago. There are still 7 pieces left as pictured above. This is unusual in our household as most desserts are eaten very quickly. Husband doesn't like them because they are not sweet enough for his liking. Could it be that the recipe only use icing sugar and the sourness of the lemon mask all sweetness? I think they are allrigh. Anyway, I have to eat them all and I can only manage 1-2 a day. Anyone want any shortbread?

Dinner surprise

I had to go into work this week as my laptop wasn't working properly after installation of some new software. I left home early in the morning planning to be home at around lunch time to do rest of the work from home. I ended up staying for a lot longer.
When I got home it was already dark. Husband not only looked after Lara whole day, but also cooked dinnner and washed up. He even wiped the kitchen counter clean. I didn't expect roast pork for dinner! It was a pleasant surprise after a long day.

[32 weeks] New toy

Parents-in-Law's for lunch

Very warm Sunday today! 25 degrees! A huge change from last weekend's constant rain. We headed out to Parents-in-Law's for lunch. Mother-in-Law made steak Dianne with delicious 'bubble and squeak', an English dish made with fried mashed potato and vegetables. Lunch was eaten in the sunny backyard under the pergola.



Lara sees her Grandparents every 1-2 weeks. Today was the first visit after the recent 'stranger anxiety' episodes so I was a little worried - it would break Grandma's heart if Lara start crying in front of her. Luckily she didn't. Thank you Grandma for buying more cute pink outfits for Lara!

Stranger anxiety

(Photo: I don't know if you can see it but Lara's doing the "peace symbol" with her fingers here.)

I went to the toy library a couple of days ago to pick up new toys for Lara and thought I would also stop by to see a few people I used to work with . Lara was always sociable and very interested in other people on our outings together. Since those work colleagues have not seen her and one of them just had a baby, I thought it would be nice to take Lara with me.

She wasn't fussed in the car. However, she cried twice during this trip! There were lots of tears! She cried in a colleague's arms while I was talking to the colleague who just had the baby and looking through the cute newborn photos. She cried again when she was held by a lady in the toy library so I could load toys into the car. How fast things change! She was SO easy-going only two weeks ago at a friend's baby shower!

And it happened again yesterday! We had some of friends over for dinner. I was feeding Lara on the high chair when they arrived. Lara burst out crying (she was at home with me sitting next to her!). She did get better as the night went on.

Anyway, I remembered a book we borrowed from the library mentioned something about this so I got the book out again. The book is called 'Raising a Happy, Unspoiled Child". Husband initially borrowed it when we had disagreements about raising Lara. The book said this "Stranger Anxiety", normally happens between seven to nine months, is the start of a baby's development of "interest in people". So is the closely related 'Separation Anxiety" which happens after 9 months and can persist into the second year of the child's life. It was amazing that this 'stranger anxiety' seemed to happen overnight for Lara. It's almost as if Lara has read the book and decided that "I'm 7 months old so I should have this stranger anxiety they talk about"!

The book discussed the mental and social development of a child from birth to 3 years and the behaviours associated with each stage. According to the book, the special social abilities coming up (for 7-14 months old) are: (1) Using an adult as a resource (2) Expressing both positive and negative feelings toward an adult (3) Showing pride in achievement and (4) Engaging in make-believe or pretend play. It'll be interesting to see how these abilities develop.

P.S. I had no laptop for a few days. New software was being installed so I could do some work from home. I had to use/share husband's PC, which he was not too happy about.

[31 weeks] Crawling backwards

Lara has been having lots of "tummy time" as shown above and she is a lot "mobile" now. She can turn lying on her back. Many a time I left her lying on her play mat for a couple of minutes, her head facing a certain way. When I came back to her, her head would be facing a totally different direction.

And she crawled backwards on the weekend! Well, all right, it's more of a squirm rather than a real crawl but it made me very happy! I put her on the top of the mat with forbidden toys like remote control, camera just out of reach to lure her forward, but she pushed herself backwards instead and ended up at the bottom of the mat! She did it really quickly too, for a 7-months old that is. There were lots of knee bending actions going on. Husband thinks she'll be crawling in the right direction very very soon!

She does this (see below) a lot too, lying flat on her tummy as if to say "Do I have to do this now? Let me rest"


But then she gets up and do more "tummy time", Good girl.

Accidental sausage rolls

We have two fridges. We call the fridge in the laundry the 'dog fridge'. It is mainly used for storing Zebadeee's chicken wings plus some cold drinks. Sometimes when I buy too much meat, I borrow the dog's freezer until there is extra space in our fridge.

I took what I thought to be a bag of chicken wings out of the freezer to defronst for Zebadee but only found out later that it was actually a bag of sausages. We couldn't use them on the barbecue in the park this weekend because Husband is in a seminar the whole weekend. I decided to make sausage rolls with them.



It gave me a strange sense of satisfaction to see these sausage rolls lined up ready to be eaten. I had some for lunch. They are really additive. Every time I walked past the kitchen I ate another one. Better save some for Husband when he gets home!

[Reminiscence] Lara's birth story(II)

We arrived at the hospital at around 5.30pm Thursday 11th of January. There was a lot of excitement in the taxi telling the driver we are going to the hospital to give birth! I heard that a few "famous" people gave birth in the same hospital, including Sarah Murdoch, so I had a lot of faith in the hospital and wasn't overly nervous about the whole thing. Also I reckoned that the sooner I got this part out of the way, the sooner I could have some sleep (how wrong was I)....
Read Lara's birth story part one here.
We were directed to a delivery suite and the midwife on duty ordered some sandwiches for us. We flipped through TV channels while we had dinner. (you can tell my contractions weren't very bad at this stage, can't you?) I was also put on a monitor to check contractions and the baby’s heartbeat. Contractions started to come more regularly after dinner and I had to breathe a little harder through them (still not too bad). I tried different positions and found it more comfortable to be on all fours but my wrists hurt from supporting my body. However when the midwife came back to examine me at 8.30pm, I was still only 3-4 cm dilated, pretty much the same as when I arrived at the hospital. So it was decided to break my water around 9pm.

I realised afterwards that there was a shift change around that time. We were told in prenatal class that water breaking's usually done during shift change so the midwife breaking your water is usually not the same midwife delivering you. "You won't trust the midwife who hurt you" was how Jeanine, a midwife explained this in class.

The midwife(who was about to break my water) saw that I had not have any form of pain relief suggested that I gave gas a try as "things will speed up after water's broke". (It was extremely tactful for the midwife not to say what she really meant "you'll need gas as I'm going to inflict great pain on you") "Gas" was a great friend to me during this and for the next 5 hours. It seemed that I had an 'out-of-body' experience when my water's broke. I felt I was somewhere else (probably just the effect of gas) and when I came back to it, I was surpruised to find myself crying and the midwife was saying how sorry she was to hurt me. The fact was I really didn't feel like crying. It was a very strange experience to suddenly realise you were crying but didn't know why.

The water felt very warm as it came out. I took a shower to wash away the water and blood. My obstetrician came to see me and there was a shift change as well. Jeanine, the midwife we had in the prenatal class was also my midwife for the night. It gave me a great comfort to see a familiar face.

Husband commented afterwards that it was very strange to have the obstetrician, midwife standing in the bathroom with him while I showered. I had the same feeling but couldn't cared less then. After all, they would all be present at the birth.

I guessed things indeed started to happen fast because I didn't remember much in the next 5 hours. I knew there was pain but I lost all sense of time. I was in a drunken and dream-like state. I felt that many hours had passed and I remembered thinking if my obstetrician arrived (he went home after checking on me at 9pm), that would mean the end was near, so I kept asking for him. (Husband said afterwards that I started to ask for my obstetrician at 10pm....) I also had the feeling that I couldn't pull through and that I was going to die. I recognised later this (dying feeling) was what they called the "transition phase". It was the shortest phase but the most intense before the second stage of labour (ie pushing).

I was asked whether I wanted epidural early on (anaesthetist 'happened' to be in the next ward). As the contractions weren't very bad, I wanted to wait and see. I was not against the use of epidural. I heard/read some wonderful stories about it as well as the risks associated with it. I wanted minimal medical intervention but if I really required an epidural, I would have no problem asking for one. It just never entered my mind during labour.

They took the gas off me during the pushing stage. According to the labour record, I was ready to push at 2am and Lara was born at around 3am. The birth record also showed that placenta was delivered 4 minutes later, which I didn't know about. Again, I lost all sense of time. The only thing I remembered was pushing was a lot harder than I thought and I felt really exhausted. I also remembered getting different instructions from Jeanine and obstetrician on how to push. At one stage, I just wanted to shout "I don't want to do this anymore, just get her out". I think husband was trying to direct me towards following the midwife, who had 2 kids of her own rather than the obstetrician. I also remembered my obstetrician spent a long time stitching me up. Lara was born a healthy 4 kilos. Her Apgar scores were a excellent 9 and 10.

Husband told me later that after very little progress was made, both Jeanine and obstetrician tried to encourage me to continue pushing. Jeanine would say things like "you are doing very well" and obstetrician (being a man who never pushed a baby out in his life) would use scary tactics such as "we’ll have to use forceps if you can't push the baby out".

I read a few birth stories prior to Lara's birth. The more I read, the more nervous I got becuase you tend to hear more about the bad stories. Every birthing experience is different and nothing really prepares you for it. I think you just have to tell yourself that babies are born every day and women do this all the time so you'll be fine at the end of the day. Giving birth was an empowering experience as I discovered strength I didn't know I had. I was very grateful that things panned out this way and Lara and I were both fine at the end. End of birth just marks the beginning of motherhood and I know the road ahead is long and full of other surprises!

Walk in the park

It was so sunny and warm last week that we decided to enjoy the afternoon in a park. There were lots of people around cooking, eating, playing and having a good time. The ice cream truck had a very good day. I love the smell of sausages and onions cooking on the barbie. We found a nice spot with a electric barbecue and decide to go back later with our own sausages!

Lara fell asleep in the pram. To let her sleep longer, we sat on the grass and watched kids play. I made a mental note to remember to pack some nibbles and books to read next time.

One of my resolutions is to be with and appreciate nature more. We only spent a couple of hours in the park, but it really helped to lift our spirits after the stress of experiencing volatility in the share market for the last couple of weeks.

[7 months] First taste

Lara has been on pureed food for about a month, starting with one single vegetable once a day to now a variety of vegetables twice a day. She's eating well and loves her food just like her Mummy does. The vegetable and fruit she has tried so far are:
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Carrot, Sweet potato, Pumpkin, Broccoli, Green Bean, Peas, Swede, Apple

On the list to try next:
Zucchini, Cauliflower, Beetroot, Pear, Potato
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Carrot was the very first vegetable Lara tried followed by sweet potato. The early childhood nurse and friends have warned us about the possibility of baby rejecting first solid, so I kind of expected lots of spitting but it never happened. Lara did not resist the carrot puree at all probably because it was sweet. It did take her a couple of tries though to learn how to swallow properly - at first she would open her mouth wide to get more food but her tongue would push food out against her will.

The weaning book a friend lent us says to introduce potato last as some babies can be intolerant of it thus making feeding difficult. The book also suggests each vegetable be fed by itself for a couple of days to make sure there was no adverse reactions.

All the literatures I read suggest introducing vegetable before fruit. Because once babies taste the sweeter fruit purees, it's harder to get them to eat the blander vegetables. I totally agree with this. Lara especially loves the apple puree. She always opened her mouth wide for the apple puree even when she looked like she did not want any more vegetable puree.

I have never cooked swedes at home. Because of Lara, we all got to eat swedes! Of course, Lara had hers boiled with water which I later whized to make puree. We cooked ours in a roast with carrots and potatos, they tasted nice and sweet. I liked them, but Husband was not very keen on them.

I enjoyed making up the purees. They look beautiful like colourful crystals. Can you tell what they are?

Playful Zebadee

Lots of people tell me after you have kids, your pets will be forgotten. I have to admit that this is absolutely TRUE. Zebadee gets considerably less attention from me these days.

It has been beautifully sunny in the last few days so we spent a lot of time in the backyard. Zebadee provided some good entertainment for us. Lara loved to watch Zeb running around.

Here's a video of Zeb I took recently... a proof that she's not entirely forgotten ...