Babywearing Japanese style

I've just finished reading my best find from the Borders sale. I'd never seen or heard of this book before, and could not comprehend that something could exist that could so neatly marry mine and Jamie's interests - autism (me) and Manga (him).

The book is a faithfully-translated Manga book (it reads right-to-left) and gives a fictional account of raising an autistic boy from birth through diagnosis into schooling. Apparently, these books and similar are widely published in Japan as guides to various aspects and difficulties of life. It's a lovely read, and my head has been translating everything into Manga ever since I started reading it.

My point for this post is that the mother in the book, Sachiko, is shown wearing her young daughter, Kanon, in a few frames. Over at Marvelous Kiddo, Leigh likes to big up celebrities seen out and about wearing their babies. I thought I'd further the cause by adding an example from a different medium.

45. Put curtains back up in lounge

After fixing the curtain rail, I put the curtains back up. They've been in the airing cupboard for over a year (2 years?), so they're a bit creased (plus they're linen, which is just silly). I will iron them and shorten them when I have the inclination. That's another thing to add to my Next Hundred list.

But anyway - woo hoo! Two in one day - go me!

And go on then, have some photos.

Curtain rail before (oh the shame of those cobwebs):

Curtain rail after:

Curtains:

Day 41: Mission complete.

44. Fix curtain rail in lounge

I went AWOL yesterday - a combination of exhaustion from wrangling a poorly baby; cabin fever; general malaise and realising that I hadn't done a list item at 11.30pm and wasn't about to start at that time of night.  Apologies, and today I have done two to catch up (I know, I know, I still haven't caught up from pre-Christmas illness, but I'll get there!).

Our house + curtains has always been a thorny subject.  We negotiated long and hard during the contract period in order to retain the fixtures and fittings, including the curtains.  Unfortunately, we hadn't really looked at them during our initial viewing and when we moved in we realised that heavy cream brocade, mixed with tassels, bucketfuls of voile, and curtains which had been designed so they didn't close (?!) didn't really marry with our tastes.  We put up with them for the time being, and a couple of years later, we decided to be responsible adults and get a kitten.

Poppy had probably been dropped on her head as a kitten, she was loveable, and loving, and funny, and did all kinds of tricks, but she was also certifiably insane.  Within a couple of months, she had ripped all the curtains down, necessitated the removal of the delightfully-draped voile (twisted around the curtain poles, from whence I had to rescue an upside-down crying Poppy, frantically clinging on for dear life), broken all of our nicest Things, and we had given up trying to maintain any semblance of Having Things On Shelves.

Poppy owned us for 3 years, at which point (on Boxing Day) we were devastated when she died from a blood clot.  Just before she died, we'd adopted my old cat Chokki from home, as my parents were moving house and the process was upsetting her.  I was 8 years old and present at the birth of Chokki, and it was lovely that she came to live with us for her last year.  Slow and arthritic, she stood no chance of getting onto the sofa, let alone going anywhere near curtains, so we gradually replaced all the plastic curtain tracks with nice shiny poles, and started being warm again.  Chokki got older and slower over the following year, was sporadically hobbled with crippling pains the vets could never find the cause of, and in the end it got too much for all of us to bear.  She was 4 months shy of 20 years old when she died.

Tilly and Maeby came to live with us just a couple of months before I found out I was pregnant, and much though I love them, I think I would rather have a baby with no cats.  Not only does he torment them by grabbing and yanking handfuls of their fur, but there's all the litter, and cat food, and they won't wipe their feet when they come in, and Maeby still forgets where the litter tray is sometimes.  But they're here to stay, and they followed happily in Poppy's pawprints by pulling down the lounge curtains not long after they'd moved in.  They actually managed to go one better than her, by pulling one of the curtain rail brackets out of the wall (and I'm sure this had nothing to do with me using the wrong pluggy things when I put it up).

I figure that now they're older and wiser (ha!), and are allowed to expend their energy by chasing each other around outside, that curtains might be safe once more.  Plus it is so damn cold that I'd do anything to help retain the heat a little more.

This evening I have tugged those dastardly wall plugs out, replaced them with Proper Ones, and screwed the bracket thing back in.  It made my arms ache and Maeby hid under a blanket.  Maeby is Special.

I thought you'd rather see some pictures of cats than pictures of a curtain rail, so here you are.

1. Tilly as a kitten, 2. Tilly attacks a sleeping Maeby's tail, 3. Hello Maeby,

4. Chokki in the sun, 5. Poppy reading, 6. Popstar

82. Write Christmas thank-you cards

We're all exhausted today after a very poorly baby didn't go to bed until well after midnight. I rang NHS Direct while he was having his tea, as his breathing was very raspy and gurgly, and I was getting concerned. The lovely nurse suggested we sat in the bathroom with him with the shower running, so the steam could loosen his chest a bit. Neither of us could bear the thought of wasting all that water so we took it in turns to have showers while the other one tried to entertain J-cub in the 3-foot-square available floor space - not an easy task. The nurse also suggested we raise the head of his cot, but as he frequently changes which end his head is at during the night, that didn't really work. After 3 hours of us taking it in turns to go up and down the stairs, cuddling, rocking, and bouncing him, all to no avail, we brought him back downstairs again.

The one suggestion we hadn't taken was to leave a window a little open - with minus 7 degree temperatures outside I was really reluctant to do that. With him downstairs, we opened the window of the nursery and shut the door, and within 2 minutes the temperature had dropped from 18 to 12 degrees. I left the window on the latch then, and let the room warm back up to 16 degrees. It seemed to do the trick though, as when I eventually took him back to his cool but full-of-fresh-air room, he dropped straight off and slept until 7.30am.

The upshot is that we don't have any energy left, after the 4 hours of screaming. I can't imagine doing anything energetic, so sat on the floor this morning and wrote J-cub's thank you cards for all his lovely Christmas presents. We took photos of him with each of his Christmas presents, then got cards made up by Truprint. They are lovely, you can put 3 photos on the inside as well as one on the front. They were expensive, but with all our recent illnesses I knew that if I was to handmake them, the recipients probably wouldn't get them for another month.

Now they're all done, and ready to nip round to the postbox when either of us can muster the energy to get dressed.

Cards:

Insides:

My 30th birthday stamps (I got given 30 of lots of things: 30 pound coins, 30 pairs of earrings, 30 stamps with J-cub's picture on them):

Day 39: Mission complete

12. Replace bookcase in lounge with Billy bookcase and cupboard with doors

As I may have previously mentioned, we were supposed to be having a delivery from Ikea, of a TV table (with doors!) and a new Billy bookcase. We ordered well before Christmas, but they couldn't deliver until January 6th. That delivery then got postponed due to the snow, until the 8th, at a point at which I was going to be out. I rang to reorganise, they said they couldn't give me a different date, but it would be within 24 hours. Today, I realised that I will be in tomorrow, as it would be madness to take J-cub swimming in his current flu-ey condition, so I rang them back to see if I could have my delivery tomorrow after all. Not only was the answer no, but the re-arranged delivery was for January the 27th! Stupid Ikea.

I just can't wait that long, as it's one of the main things we've wanted to do since J-cub got mobile. Ordinarily, we would just drive to Ikea and buy the stuff ourselves, but a Billy bookcase will only fit in the car with the back and front seats folded forwards, so the passenger (who has to be present to help with lifting and carrying) has to sit behind the driver, leaving no room for J-cub's car seat.

So this morning we sat, and thought, and mentally rearranged furniture. Our house has no shortage of Billy bookcases, since we harbour dreams of one day living in a house with enough space that we can have a library, and all the Billy bookcases will be reunited in one room together. Our best option, we decided, was to swap the annoying designed-for-under-stairs sloping bookcase with the Billy bookcase in our bedroom. Then, if and when the Ikea delivery ever comes, the new Billy can go in our bedroom, and the old bookcase can get turfed out.

A couple of hours later, and the amazing Jamie had unscrewed the bookcases from the walls, taken everything off them, moved one downstairs and one upstairs. We spent the evening lovingly putting our books onto the shelves (if you think they're not very recessed, that's because we're doubling up the shelves with DVDs we don't watch very often) and tidying the cables for the thermometer, baby monitor, phone and lamp. It looks lovely and neat and, most importantly, baby-safe.

You'll note that the title of this item also specifies 'and cupboard with doors'. I would like to refer you here to see what happened to that. It was going to go next to the Billy bookcase, but now it's under the stairs, so that's done too.

Before (forgot to take an actual before photo, so had to search back through the archives. This one is not very good, you don't really see the shape of what was there, but you get the idea about the mess):

After:

Mmmm books:

Day 38: Mission complete.

54. Make stock of healthy food for freezer

We're pretty much completely snowed in today, although we haven't actually left the house to try and go anywhere. Our long-awaited new TV table (with doors!) and Billy bookcase were supposed to be delivered today, giving me lots of list items to crack on with, but they had to delay due to the snow.

On Monday, being lazy and not wanting to go and do a Tesco shop, I did our second-ever online shop, which thankfully was delivered yesterday evening. It's the first grocery shop we've done since before Christmas, so we were out of pretty much everything. If we hadn't ordered it, I would have had to brave driving on the snow, which I hate doing. So I'm very thankful for our uncustomary foresight.

We received 2 bonus items - we ordered 2 loose sweet potatoes and 3 loose bananas, but due to lack of loose stock they sent a whole bag of each, only charging for what we'd ordered. I thought I'd better get baking to stop it all going off, so I spent a happy and warm afternoon in the kitchen, making banana bread, sweet potato muffins and couscous cakes.

I would have kept going, but I'd run out of flour and had already sent Jamie to the shop once for butter, and the freezer is so packed full that I wouldn't get much more in there.

Once they've cooled I'm going to pack them up and freeze them, so I can defrost a few bits at a time for mine and J-cub's lunches. They're all sugar- and salt-free, very yummy and healthy(ish).

1. Baked goodness, 2. Mini couscous cakes,

3. Banana and cranberry bread, 4. Sweet potato muffins

Recipes

Mini couscous cakes (from 500 cupcakes & muffins by Fergal Connolly):

90g couscous

115ml boiling water

225g plain flour

2 tbsp caster sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

Pinch of salt

1 tsp toasted cumin seeds

1 tsp ground coriander

1 egg

4 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp lemon zest

2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley

Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Place 24 mini paper cases in a muffin tin. Put the couscous in a medium bowl and pour the boiling water over it. Cover and leave for 5 minutes, so the grains absorb the liquid. Fluff the grains apart with a fork.

Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl with a spoon. Beat the egg and oil in a large bowl with an electric whisk until combined. Add the couscous and the dry ingredients and mix until nearly combined. Fold in the lemon zest and parsley. Spoon the mixture into the cases and bake for 20 minutes. Remove tin from oven and cool for 5 minutes, then removes the mini cakes and cool on a rack.

Store in an airtight container for up to 3 days, or freeze for up to 3 months.

Makes 2 dozen.

Amendments: I didn't have any plain couscous, so used a pack of Mediterranean flavoured, and left out the cumin, coriander, lemon and parsley. I also left out the sugar and only used a tiny pinch of lo-salt. Mine are very crumbly, and not at all like they're supposed to look, so I don't really know where I went wrong. Is sugar really that important? Oh and I was getting annoyed by all the washing up at this point and so didn't use the electric whisk, I just whisked with a fork. That might not have been whisky enough. And I made 35 small and 4 large, as opposed to the 24 indicated. Ahh well, we live and learn.

Sweet Potato Muffins (from Sensational Vegetable Recipes):

1 cup (175g) sweet potato

2 cups self-raising flour

1 cup finely grated tasty cheese

90g butter, melted and cooled

1 egg, lightly beaten

3/4 cup buttermilk (that's three-quarters, not 3 or 4)

salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Brush melted butter or oil into 12 deep muffin cups (or use silicone bakeware - no need for oiling etc, it rocks!).

Finely grate sweet potato and cheese. Sift flour into a large mixing bowl. Add sweet potato and cheese, stir to combine. Make a well in the centre.

Add butter, egg and buttermilk all at once to dry ingredients. Using a wooden spoon, stir until just combined; do not overbeat.

Spoon mixture into prepared tins. Bake for 25 minutes, until puffed and lightly golden. Turn onto a wire rack to cool for 10 minutes, before serving with warm butter.

Amendments: I didn't use salt or pepper, and I didn't have buttermilk (I don't even really know what it is), but google told me a myriad of alternatives, once of which being to add a tbsp of white vinegar to a cup of milk, and stand it for 5-10 minutes, so that's what I did.

Banana (and cranberry) bread (from the Baby-Led Weaning forum)

8oz banana

3oz raisins

4oz self-raising flour

2 tsp baking powder

2oz butter

1 egg

half tsp spice (eg. cinnamon)

Preheat oven to 175 degrees C. Line a loaf tin with greaseproof paper.

Melt the butter in a jug in the microwave. Mix the dry ingredients (including raisins) in a bowl.

Add the egg to the butter and fold into the dry mix with the mashed banana.

Bake for up to an hour (50 minutes usually suffices - check done by inserting tines of a fork, if they remove clean then its done).

Amendments: I had several *I am so dumb* moments making this. I checked all the ingredients before I started, but neglected to notice the raisins were well past their use by date. Luckily I had some cranberries, so substituted these. It's nice with cranberries, but better with raisins. I made the whole thing, thought "Gosh, that was easier than usual, I must be getting better at this", then realised in one fell swoop that a) I hadn't turned the oven on and b) I hadn't put any banana in. I quickly rectified these, and it turned out lovely. You can substitute pretty much anything for the banana - apple is lovely, or carrot (grate them). Try it - it's delicious, and sugar-free, and you won't be able to get enough of it.

Day 37: Mission complete.

18. Finish crocheted mobile for J-cub's room

I've been working on this for about 5 months (not non-stop, there were plenty of times when it sat in a bag for weeks on end). I realised today that actually, all the components were made, and it just needed putting together.

We had another snow day today, and J-cub has come down with a raging cold - high temperature, listless, exhausted, hungry, pouring with snot and just very very miserable. So he's mostly been parked in front of the telly, as anything else made him cry. That gave me plenty of time to get on and do it, and do it I did, but I still didn't finish until about half-past midnight (it still counts, right?!).

I am exhausted. My fingers are covered with pin-holes, my eyes are aching, my back is sore, but I am so, so happy. It's the most intricate thing I've ever made, and it's almost defeated me (I read the pattern wrong, which means I also have a bag of unused crocheted leaves, each one took about 10 minutes to make, and there are SEVENTY of them).

Hopefully J-cub will love it. There was a little pink bird which hung above his head in his moses basket when he was little, and he fell desperately in love with it. We found some video earlier of a very tiny J-cub, frantically waving his arms about, and cooing to this little bird. When he outgrew the moses basket, the bird was safety-pinned to the canopy of his pram, where they carried on their love affair. Birdie now lives in the soft toy basket, occasionally to be taken out and chewed.

Maybe the mobile might be a bit too late, developmentally, but I don't care. I love it, and it'll look nice in the nursery.

Pattern

Day 36: Mission complete.