Carrot cake
I made a carrot cake today for Evie. The recipe is from Vegetarian Baby and Child by Petra Jackson. It’s a fairly standard carrot cake recipe, but uses wholemeal flour, and obviously the addition of vegetables to any kind of confectionery changes it from something sinful, to something positively healthy. I didn’t add the cream cheese topping because to be honest, it’s moist enough without.
I had to try it out before inflicting it on the Veggie Baby, and decided that it was very nice. Veggie Baby is now just having some for her tea, and it’s a big hit with her as well. Partly I think because it’s yummy, and partly because she can feed herself with it.
I don’t want to start giving her lots of cakes and sweet treats, but I think that the odd piece of homemade cake with good quality ingredients and wholemeal flour isn’t going to do too much harm.
Filed under Veggie-baby | Comment (0)A new problem
I eventually found the missing piece of the jumper – phew! And managed to assemble it, but then it wouldn’t fit over Evie’s head (cue strange flashback to childhood and trying on Grandma’s jumpers – wonderful, but such tight casting off that you were in danger of losing your ears whenever you tried them on!).
So I unpicked the hood and the neckline fits, but the hood definitely does not. Grrrr. I doubt it’s the pattern, probably more my random substitution of an unsuitable yarn. OK. Not to panic. So, I think I’m going to have to frog the hood and rework a plain neckline. Not sure what really – I don’t think I have enough ease to do a standard rib one. Hmmmm, maybe just a very simple pick up and knit, then cast off to bind it all together. If I could crochet, I’d do that, but I can’t.
And I’d love to show you photos but something has gone wrong with Gallery – DH is blaming the hosting people, I haven’t got a clue. So I can’t.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (4)Very exciting day
Some time ago, somehow, I found out about the Child Study Unit at Manchester Uni – I can’t remember how. Anyway, I added Evie’s details thinking it would at least get us out of the house. Well, today we went for our first study, and Evie LOVED it!!! New toys to play with, and new people paying her all of their attention, all the time.
It’s a communication study, and must have something to do with pointing, because there was a lot of that going on! First of all she got to play with some new toys in a bucket, which she thought was fab. The two researchers were talking to her and playing with her. I didn’t really join in, because I think the idea was to get her used to them. I think.
Then she sat on my knee while there were puppets and lots of pointing, and she got rather excited. Then there was a game where the researchers hid some toys, and some more pointing. She liked that too. Then they read books with her and guess what – more pointing. Then – bubbles. Oh my goodness! They had a bubble machine and Evie was entranced. She just stared and stared at them!
Then they had some toys popping out from behind some curtains, and Evie had to get our attention before we were allowed to interact with her. That was quite cool. There was definitely a difference between the quiet and noisy toys – she was content to just watch the quiet ones, whereas she looked for my opinion (or something) about the noisy ones.
We have homework too! We were sent home with two books, and our own bubble machine, and I have to play the same games, and do pointing with her for 15 minutes every day. We go back to the centre in 2 weeks, and then again 2 weeks after that.
A bit of a hassle getting there, but I know where I’m going now, and Evie had the best time EVER, and I enjoyed it too because she was so happy.
Filed under Veggie-baby | Comment (0)She’s more capable than I thought!
I’m not good with sticky mess, so I haven’t really been embracing self feeding and finger foods and all that. But over the last week Veggie Baby has been becoming more and more keen on grabbing the spoon and trying to feed herself. So I’ve been trying to do some finger foods at every meals – chunks of fruit and veg, breadsticks, oatcakes with hummous, pasta and so on. She’s actually much better at it than I’d thought. So I threw caution to the wind and gave her some sultanas and halved prunes. Oh, the choking hazard! I know. But as far as I can work out, all food seems to be a choking hazard, so I thought I’d see how she did. Most of the sultanas ended up on the floor, but I did see some in a later nappy, so some must have gone in! The prunes were a success, she sort of sucks the flesh out of the skin. 
I got several ideas from a website on Baby Led Weaning. I think it’s probably a bit too late for us to go down this road as she’s almost there anyway, but I’m definitely going to use a lot of their suggestions for finger foods, and just give Veggie Baby a bit more freedom. Yes, it’s messy, but she’s waterproof and i can wash her!
I’ve also been letting her have a go with a spoon, and she’s better at this than I’ve been giving her credit for. As long as the food is sticky, she can manage to get some of it in her mouth. So now we have a spoon each and while she concentrates on spreading the food around, I try to sneak some into her mouth. She’s not eating vast amounts, but we get a little bit more down her with this method.
Filed under Veggie-baby | Comment (0)Arse
Arse. Arse. Arse.
Something terrible may have happened. I began to try to make up the hooded sweater for Evie. Now, when I was knitting this, I used yarn that I’d found in the bargain bin – two 100g balls of Jarol Inca Natural, now discontinued. The pattern called for three 50g balls of Sirdar Snuggly DK. Now I know you need to go off yardage not weight and all that, but there was no yardage on the Jarol balls, and I thought that an extra 50g would be plenty. Well it wasn’t. I ran out just before I started the hood border. So I had to go and get something that vaguely matched. After much hemming and hawing in the wool shop, we all (me and the assistants and two other customers) decided on a peachy shade of Sirdar Country Sytle DK, not perfect, but it’s OK for the border.
So I finished the knitting, and I’m about to start pinning pieces together to start making up. I find both the sleeves, the hood and a piece that might be front or back (and curse myself for not marking it), but that’s it. No other front/back piece. Not in my main bag, not in my other bag, not in the bag that should only have needles in it, and not in the bag I recently took to the wool shop. It’s nowhere to be found.
This leaves us with three possibilities:
1. I’ve lost it, but it will eventually be found lurking at the bottom of my sock drawer, or in the fridge or somewhere else random.
2. I’ve lost it and it’s never to be found again.
3. I never knitted it in the first place.
Possibilities 2 and 3 are just too horrible to contemplate, because I have no more yarn to reknit the missing piece. While I can live with a hood border in a slightly odd colour, a whole front/back piece will just look too bizarre even for me.
So please send good thoughts for the missing piece. And hope it returns home soon.
Filed under Uncategorized | Comments (4)