a new mum

a strength that is not born, but built
by being abruptly confronted by all your inadequacies

the heartache that simmers at the realisation that your child will miss out
in some small way
because you can only give as much as you are

the tiring, persistent labour of ways that you are not even sure of
but hope, that if you keep trying
will bring some form of success

the purest of joy at inspiring a smile, simply by your presence
and the most precious giggle, worth hours of giggle finding activites

the amazement at seeing the little toes
and the wonder that they can possibly function the same as my own

the new light that it casts upon old habits, priorities and relationships
the struggle to evolve to this new way of seeing, perceiving and relating

the greatest desire to see only the best for your child
and the emotional control it requires not to enslave him to this false utopia

the intensity of this sudden change, that jolts you
and feels like the world is spinning
too fast,
too fast to quite catch your breath

coming to see that
at times,
he is as terrified of this new world as I am

Glorious food!

Lately I have had a few successes with my food experimenting. I'm stoked because it builds my confidence to try new things. My first success was tomato chutney- surprisingly easy and very delicious for our sandwiches. It contained Grandad's tomatoes, onions, an apple, sugar, salt, vinegar and mustard powder. You soak the veges for the night in salt, get rid of the water in the morning and then simmer everything else together for a few hours. Great way to use up the tomatoes that are getting soft, although you do need a kilo and a half.
My next success was a mango and lemon sorbet. This was very easy and also very cheap for a nice dessert. It contained a tin of mangos that you whizz up and add to a cup of sugar dissolved in a cup of water, and the rind and juice of one lemon. You have to let it freeze then whizz it up again, back to the freezer and once frozen again it is ready to scoop up and serve. It did turn out quite sweet so I am thinking of halving the sugar next time, or maybe using lemonade instead of the sugar and water mixture.

Advice and Information

I'm not one of these women who has read every baby manual that is currently trendy, or that spends hours of free time agonising over parenting styles. Being mammals, I think the whole thing is alot more instinctive than we let ourselves have confidence in. I had a friend once who told me, "You should def get such and such book, great book to have by the cot and refer to when the baby starts to cry". I will not be refering to any manual when my baby starts to cry. Of course however, I do like to be informed, with correct information, from reliable research. I tire of smiling and nodding politely at everyone's opinion. I often think, wouldn't it be nice if people realised that mothers have a unique capability (given the oppurtunity for optimal attachment and bonding with their baby) of knowing and deciding what is best for thier child (and actually, I couldnt care less about what your cousin thinks everyone MUST do with their baby).

In saying all this however I have been reading this great book that makes me sigh with relief. It is called Mothering Denied- How our culture harms women, infants and society by Dr Peter Cook, who is a child psychiatrist. It looks at the infant/mother relationship from a biological, neuroscientific and evolutionary perspective and compares how it should be to how it is in our crazy western culture. How things like our capitalist motivation, christian heritage and feminist ideals impact on how we care for our children, and therefore how it affects their brain development. I myself am facsinated by neurosciences and think that a childs brain development is one of, if not THE most important considerations for me in raising our son, and I love it that this book discusses this with regards to everyday consequences. I love it that it looks at development through neurobiological 'glasses' and not through a behaviourist model that would have me creating some clone of who I thought was the right way to be.

Shoes shoes shoes

I have found a cute pattern for babies shoes online, and after a frustrating few attempts I have perfected the pattern and now am going crazy making shoes. Today I made three pairs! I have also been working on my own variation of a 'gym' for babies and some wrist rattles. Today I found some lemon flanelette at spotlight 110cm wide for $2 a meter. Perhaps tomorrow I will make some bassinet sheets as I only have one set. Maybe I could funk up the fabric with a bit of baby bling just for fun. Hmmmm
On another note my planting is not going so well. So far no sign of my wee stevia babies, and all the others seem to be a bit traumatised from being replanted outside. I have decided I wont bother mucking round with transplanting in the future, the seeds can grow or not grow where I put them. I am wondering about growing some ginger too, in all its 'genetically modified' thick root glory. Not sure if you can grow that here though.
I think I will move onto lotions and potions for a change tomorrow. There seems to be alot of wasps around so I want to make some sort of citronella concoxtion to repel them. Also I got some lovely beeswax from the honey lady at the market to make my babies bum balm or some nice calendula cream if I can find some flowers soon.
The ginger beer project is going very well. Andrew made a yummy one the other night with star anaise and it inspired me to have a play today. I have made 2 batches that are currently brewing for our wee party on friday, one with cinnamon and star anaise and one with cloves. I love cloves!!
Oh and to top it all off I got this cute wee ducky at the south Dunedin market the other day for $2! Bargin!

Nappy project

I have finally finished my nappy project, kinda. I made the mistake of doing the snaps last night when I was obviously too tired, broke some, snapped some the wrong way and ended up with not enough snaps to properly finish the jaffa nappies. They still all do up though, so I am thinking that I will make do for now. I ran out of black snaps so Andrew suggested I use pink (pink?), anyway I dont think they look as good but they will do also. The blue one is my trial nappy and hence has a few flaws, leg elastic being the biggest problem I can see. Of course I could always unpick and fix it, but I decided to add a couple of snaps to the legs and hope they do the job. I dont even know how chubby babies legs are!!!
I am feeling a bit lost now that this project is out of the way. I think I will take a break from sewing for a while though and maybe start on a bib making marathon next week.

Ginger Beer

After talking with Nat the other night I got all inspired to try and make our own refreshing and delicious beverages. Sometimes we splash out and get a raro sachet but this is wayyyy better! I found a recipe for a quick and easy ginger beer and made it last night. Tonight I noticed that the container was 'undentable' (the apparent critera for this recipe to be done) so we cracked into it. It was delicious, a bit to my surprise since when I was making it I -spilled the sugar and kinda estimated some of the amounts-used grapefruit rind instead of lemon- and added an accidentally large amount of cinnamon. Something I didnt know was that all ginger beer is alcoholic (apart from the shop bought stuff I assume, they would have to tell you if it was) so I have only had a wee bit so far. I wonder if you could substitue the ginger for anything else, star anise maybe?? Cloves?? I feel some experimenting coming on............
No signs of the stevia babies yet, but the other seedlings are going mad and I hope I will soon be able to figure out exactly which one is which.

Curtains and seedlings

Today I made replacement 'net' curtains for the baby's bedroom. I had made the pirate ones a while ago and realised today that I had the perfect fabric for making the new inner curtain. I got it at spotlight from the 75% off Christmas fabric table, but I didn't think it looked too Christmassy. It was nice to have a wee break from making nappies, which I will start again this coming week.
Today I also planted 5 wee stevia seeds for my challenge with Murray. Stevia is a natural artificial sweetener, heaps sweeter than sugar, and usually grows in the tropics. They are notoriously difficult to germinate so I will be super excited if they pop up. I am feeling on a bit of a roll with the gardening thing at the moment since all my coriander, basil and oregano have sprouted. The basil I think must have been a random mix because I have one wee purple baby and two green ones. Sarah is going to give us some radish seeds so we can plant some radishes in ice cream pots under the stairs.