When Breastfeeding Comes to an End

When Breastfeeding Comes to an End

I've been dodging this post for a few weeks now, but at 2 years and 11 months there is no denying the fact that Miss Olive is well on the way to self weaning.

It wasn't like she was nursing very much: For the last year we had been down to a single bed time feed, but then at some point, she decided that a cuddle was just as good and simply ... stopped asking.

Mind you, Olive hasn't fully committed to life after weaning - she is only too happy to fall back on the comfort of nursing when she has a sore puku or an especially irksome day - but the onus is usually on me to offer. 

This was a time I wasn't sure would ever come, and my boobs are officially in mourning. 

For the last five years they had found a real purpose in life - beyond looking stellar in a low cut top - and now it's on the verge of being taken away. In one fell swoop, they have gone from Angelina Jolie, directing Unbroken, and going on a humanitarian missions to Africa, to Angelina Jolie hacking on the 90s interwebs with Jonny Lee Miller, despite being acutely aware that the world has moved on from the days of "Zero Cool".

And it's not like I would claim to have been the world's most successful nurser. It would be a fair comment to say that the only measure by which my abilities could be called successful, would be if the measure of success were sheer bloody mindedness.

But for all of that, I can't help but feel more than a twinge of sadness that my time as a nursing mama is coming to an end. And like some hackneyed, soft focus, emotionally sound-tracked, "let's look back at your best moments" TV segment, I'm going to take this moment to recap the three biggest achievements of our nursing journey.

1. Mastered a Supplemental Nursing System

When I first started using an SNS, I felt a like a one man band. Feeding at home required several sets of hands to juggle a soggy newborn, while unclipping tubes, poking bits in mouths, rubbing jaw lines, dealing with unexpected vacuums, clipping tubes back up before the baby got water-boarded, all while ignoring the damp cold cord round my neck, and the chilled milk resting on my chest.   

If we were out in public, add onto that list installing the SNS under my clothing and latching on the baby, without giving the old couple at the next table an eyeful.

I say that because the only time I have ever had a negative experience while using an SNS, was in the early days of feeding in public. I was sitting at a cafe, and had very impressively managed to hang the SNS round my neck, and tape on the tube entirely by feel. I was about to take Esme from Keith, to latch her on, when I looked over, to see the old lady at the next table, with a mouth like a bulldog chewing a wasp. To this day I have no idea what her complaint was, but I very much enjoyed flashing her my widest grin as I latched my baby on in expert style.    

Those were the days before I figured out how to feed lying down, which meant shivering through night time feeds, from the "comfort" of the bedroom chair, while my babies were toasty warm in their blankets. After that came the winter where I had nailed nursing in bed, but hadn't yet figured out that the way to avoid cold shoulders, was to invest in an old fashioned pyjama top, which came pre-installed with a perfect access system, known as buttons.

I've come a long way from there. Two children, two videos and several articles later, using an SNS feel like second nature to me now.

2. Survived a major nursing strike

If nursing has taught me anything, it's that the mechanics are the simple part; it's the emotion that gets you. I've had my fair share of emotions in feeding all of the children, and with Olive, the darkest times were during her five day nursing strike, at the age of ten months.

Five frickin days, man! I don't think I have ever pumped so hard in my entire life. I had to, it was the only thing that stopped me falling to the floor and wailing like a toddler who got triangle toast instead of squares. Besides the tears I admitted to at the time, there was a lot of self pity, and a metric fuck-ton of wobbly lips going round that week. 

I threw a full blown pity party and forget to send out the invites. I was Googling shit like "depression after weaning" and "mourning and grief after breastfeeding". I mention this now, not to mock my former self, but because when someone with a normally unshakable sense of purpose decides it's time to sit in a corner and eat worms, you know that person needs a warm hug and a stiff drink.

Well, former self, here's your Jameson and Ginger. And a hug.

But this is what I mean about breastfeeding being an emotional journey; when you have overcome a tough start, you reach a point where you feel like you can finally be proud of your body. I paid my dues to those tough newborn days, and I'm entitled: I've earned my stripes, I've proven my credentials, where's my damn Easy Street?!?

Of course looking back, it's no surprise that soon after the lows of that week came the excruciating lows of blocked milk ducts. If I had been in a slightly less emotional place, I would maybe have eased up on the pumping a little sooner, and saved myself several awkward conversations with colleagues about why there appeared to be foliage in my bra.

3. Normalised breastfeeding for my children 

I'm gonna skip straight past the part where I have to explain that I've only just managed to convince Alfie that he won't be required to step up to this particular parenting challenge. Hey, we have a non traditional set-up over here, I'll forgive him the confusion.

The girls, on the other hand, have got their technique nailed, and are turning into nursing pros. And not just their babies either, oh no, these days they have progressed to dinosaurs, puppies, ninja turtles, or anyone who stubs a toe.

And this is where I start using words like "legacy", because now that I am the official owner of a grey hair, I like to think about the way in which these parenting choices of ours will manifest as the children grow. 

I sometimes wonder whether any of them will have children of their own, and whether I will one day sit around our table watching Esme sneak a sip of tea while dodging her nursing toddler's foot, or pass Olive a piece of kitchen paper to wipe pasta sauce from her nursling's head.

If those things come to pass they will be a blessing. 

If they don't, I'll be content to know that none of my children will ever be that old bulldog-wasp lady when they see a mother nursing in public. I'll be happy knowing I was that mother who fed her children as best she could; imperfectly, with a ton of help, but passionately, and with love.

Monday, 16 May 2016 Comments: 0

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Slow Cooked Orange Pulled Pork - A Guest Post

Slow Cooked Orange Pulled Pork - A Guest Post

The fam and I are currently off on our world tour, which left me with a bit of a conundrum: Do I give you all a rest from my inane drivel, or do I make judicious use of the schedule function?

I sort of did both, and I am over the moon that Genie from Bunny Eats Design has agreed to share one of her super tasty recipes with you. She may not be a mum but she's got it dialled when it comes to what sort of food makes kids tick. 

I also reckon this would make a great dish for early Baby Led Weaning when junior hasn't got the chompers to get through tougher cuts of meat.

......

I was delighted when Tasha contacted me about writing a guest post for her. The Maybe Diaries is one of the few “Mummy blogs” I read. 

I don’t have kids but I was a child once and my parents never made us a separate children's meal. My family are Cantonese, and the Cantonese are a people of adventurous, curious appetites. We ate whatever they ate, even if it was whole fish with fins and bones intact, tongue stew, raw oysters or sushi. I know that lots of kids love sushi today, but I can assure you, back in the late '80s and early '90s, Kiwi kids (and some adults) thought eating seaweed, raw fish and cold rice was weird. 

Today I'm sharing a recipe that I love to make and appeals to kids of all ages. The combination of savoury and sweet as well as the ability to customise each plate easily works well with different tastes and appetites.

I use my slow cooker’s removable ceramic crock and glass cover as a container to marinate the meat overnight. Feel free to use a different container if you don’t have the fridge space.

Slow Cooked Orange Pulled Pork

Serves 8

Ingredients

• 2kg (approx 4.5lb) pork shoulder, skin removed (see crackling notes below)
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and smashed
• 3 bay leaves
• 3 oranges
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 pinch chilli flakes (optional)
• 1 onion
• Salt and pepper to taste

To serve:

• Soft tortillas, bread rolls, salad greens, coleslaw or potato salad
• Sour cream, mayo or guacamole
• (or all of the above)

Preparation

1. Using a sharp knife, remove the peel from the oranges. Cut each orange in half, squeeze the juice into the slow cooker and add the halves into the slow cooker, cut side down.
2. Add soy sauce, brown sugar, chilli flakes (if using), garlic and bay leaves to the to the the ceramic crock. Mix.
3. Add the trimmed pork and turn the meat in the marinade to coat all sides of the pork. Pop on the lid on the ceramic crock and place the crock into the fridge to marinate overnight.
4. Take the ceramic crock out of the fridge and place into your slow cooker for 20 minutes before turning it on. Peel and slice 1 onion. Add to slow cooker.
5. Cook pork for 8 hours on low. Turn pork once (if possible) during the cooking process for more even cooking.
6. When pork is cooked, remove and discard all mention of bone and the 3 bay leaves. Ladle out as much liquid as you can into a saucepan and boil, uncovered until reduced by at least half. In the meantime, shred the meat while still inside the slow cooker by gently pulling it apart with 2 forks. Add the reduced sauce back to the slow cooker and mix the shredded pork into the sauce. Taste and add salt and pepper to your own preference.
7. Serve with your choice of soft tortillas, bread rolls, salad, sour cream, mayo or guacamole. I also make sure there’s a bottle of hot sauce on the table. Keep tea towels or napkins in easy reach.

Crackling

I once thought you could only crackle the skin on pork belly but you can actually work magic on any pork skin. I used to throw out pork shoulder skin, now I know better!

Save your pork skin and follow these instructions:

1. Once the pork skin is removed, place on a chopping board, fat side down (skin side up). Using a sharp knife, carefully make vertical or diagonal cuts 5mm or ¼ inch apart along the skin, cutting all the way through the skin but not all the way through the fat. This will enable the skin to crisp up nicely and make it easy to cut later (or break apart once cooled).
2. Cover with a generous sprinkling of coarse sea salt, rub salt into cuts and place the skin on an oven proof tray (I used a square cake tin) and refrigerate overnight uncovered. This will dry out the skin further.
3. An hour before serving, pre-heat the oven to 220°C. Bake pork crackling for 20-30 minutes until crunchy and golden (even bordering on black in the tiniest of places).
4. Remove from oven allow to cool enough to cut or break apart. Adds a lovely crunch to a pulled pork tortilla!

Tip: The more fat clinging to the skin, the more chewy your pork crackling will be. Too little fat and your crackling will be dry and hard – like a potato chip. I like a little bit of that lovely gelatinous fat so remove the skin accordingly.

Tuesday, 25 August 2015 Comments: 2

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A Review of Squish Delish Reusable Pouches

A Review of Squish Delish Reusable Pouches

This is a review that comes with a tale of woe.

Of course it is, frankly the only reason I do reviews is as a cheap form of talking therapy so that I can exorcize the demons of my toe curling parenting failures.

The year is 2010, and for those who have joined the party more recently let me set the scene. Alfie - my glorious, adorable first born child - is six months old. His favourite things are throwing, trying new foods and motorsports, sometimes all at the same time

There is only one small fly in our parenting ointment and that is the severe eczema that covers our son’s entire body. It keeps us awake at night while we stop him rubbing his skin raw. It stops us feeding him vast swathes of food that contain one of the many things that makes his eczema worse and most importantly, it makes eating out a tour de force of planning. 

I'm talking nutrition factsheets for potential eateries downloaded and analysed ahead of time here people. Nothing left to chance and options picked out in advance, because no meal is worth the punishment of a screaming, oozing baby.

Sometimes though, just sometimes we knew we were going to get caught short. 

Sometimes we were going on a long journey, or to somewhere outside of a major city where “alternative” food options were going to be limited and sometimes after a working week, my brain just wanted just the smallest of breaks from having to think about where the next allergy friendly worm was coming from to satisfy my baby bird.

The solution? Take food with us, of course.

We experimented with various items. Baby biscuits were a favourite as long as they were eaten soon enough to stop them from being crushed into rubble at the bottom of the change bag. A boy cannot live on biscuits along however, which is how we come to my tale of woe.

This story takes place on a Saturday. It involves Keith and I running around the house throwing together supplies because we needed to get out of the house. 

We were running late to meet people and do things, which is how I found myself staring into our fridge look for something “sensible” to take with us.

A soy yoghurt. 

Yeah.

It was joined in the change bag by nappies, wipes, keys, wallet, dummy, toys, a change of clothes (remember I'm a first time mum at this point), small kitchen sink, Lord Lucan, a book, and the obligatory pack of baby biscuits for when I got peckish.

We ran out of the door in a tumble of last minute reminders and mental check-lists and set off to meet our friends. 

Sometime later, car parked, friends reunited and entry tickets to the local farm requested I reached into the change bag to grab my wallet.

It took my brain a little over ten seconds to process the messages it was receiving from my hand ...

Wallet is slimy. Wallets aren't usually slimy, why is the wallet slimy? Did I leave a dirty nappy in here without realising? No, not a nappy. Lord Lucan perhaps? No, he’s not even real, he’s just a comic device for the purposes of this story. Hang on, the book wasn't slimy yesterday, I'm sure of that, and what the hell is that on the end of my keys?

A yoghurt pot Tash, THAT’S what’s on the end of your keys.

The soy yoghurt that was previously inside the yoghurt pot? That was not on the end of my keys. That was all over my keys, and the book, and the change of clothes, and … you get the idea.

There was a certain shame in all of this, which only a first time parent will truly appreciate. 

A shame made infinitely worse when surrounded by other, more experienced, parents watching with delighted horror as you expose your rookie mistake, item by yoghurt smothered item.

This would have been a very different story if I had used a Squish Delish Reusable Pouch

My keys would have glanced off the thick plastic of the pouch; Lord Lucan’s ample aristocratic backside would have been no match for the leak-proof zipper; in short, I would have arrived at snack time with a full quota of allergy free snack.

Instead, I arrived at snack time with nothing more than a slightly slimy packet of rubbly biscuits and a son making known his disappointment in my parenting skills.

Five years later and I can still find a home for these pouches in the school lunch box. They’re a great size, easy to keep clean and sturdy - oh so very sturdy - even in the hands of an older child.

If that – and the knowledge that you will never have to empty yoghurt out of your change bag – is something that appears high on your parenting list, give these pouches a whirl.

Your change bag, and comic devices, will thank you.

Thank you to Kiwi Mummy Blogs and Munch Cooking for sending me that little slice of awesome. And thanks to Cole for modelling the correct use of the pouch.

Tuesday, 24 March 2015 Comments: 0

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The Story Of The Watermelon Seeds

The Story Of The Watermelon Seeds

We eat a lot of watermelon, mostly because it is one of the few fruit that Miss Olive will allow to pass her lips. That wasn't always the case, at first her opinion of watermelon was the same as any other fruit and could probably be best described as deep mistrust.

Then I took a gamble and shoved a small piece into he mouth mid complaint and lo, she doth adore the melon made of water.

But that's not the real story here, the story is the story that I have to tell the children every single time we eat watermelon (which as I have already mentioned is A LOT) so I thought it might be nice to write it down ready for the moment we have to write wedding speeches:

The scene is set; Keith has brought the melon to the table on a board and is busy cutting it into cubes when one of the children, usually Esme, will turn a furrowed brow to me:

Child: Tell us the story of the pits

Me: Again?! OK, so once there was a watermelon plant who wondered how it could get its seeds far away so they could grow in their own soil.

Child: And a dog has legs ...

Me: Umm, yes a dog has legs, but the plant doesn't so how can it spread its seed?

Child: ... and poo!

Me: Again yes, but we're still talking about the watermelon plant. So the watermelon plant puts all its seeds into the biggest, sweetest, juiciest fruit it can grow

Child: And I eat it

Me: Yes! Yes you eat it. An then the pig comes along and nom, nom, nom it eats a bit ...

Child: And does a poo

Me: After a while, it does a poo, a bit like you. When you eat something it goes through your body and once you have taken all the ...

Child: And the seeds are in the poo.

Me: They are, but when you do a poo where are you?

Child: In the toilet

Me: OK I walked into that one. What I mean is that you are a long way away from the plant aren't you?

Baby: AH POO!

Me: You've done a poo?

Baby: Uh-oh! POO!!!

Me: A poo or a wee?

Baby: POO!

Keith: She's done a wee

Baby: A POO!!!!!

Child: And the pig does a poo too

Me: And the poo has seeds in it that will land in new soil and ...

Child: GROW INTO MORE WATERMELONS!!!

By this point I need a damn rest and I have missed out on most of the watermelon that the children have been shovelling into their faces between poo references. As a final insult, Miss Olive has spent the whole story throwing her gnawed watermelon rind at the side of my head to really emphasise the point that she is eating melon, and I am not.

Like I said, just wanted to write that down for future reference.

Wednesday, 18 February 2015 Comments: 0

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At My Mother's Table

At My Mother's Table

Tables are pretty much the most important pieces of furniture in any Mediterranean house. 

When Alfie hit six months and we started to think about weaning, we got rid of the sofa, and crow barred in a small but perfectly formed table. We kept that table even when three diners became four and eating became an exercise in dodging surprising long toddler arms.

When we moved to Wellington, we had a chance to buy a more suitable table: Something big enough for us all to enjoy.

I have read an interesting article recently challenging the traditional role of "dinner time" and the value of forcing everyone around a table three times a day.

In my family, tables aren't just a place to rest your plate, they are a place to commune.

A place for sisters to research cake recipes.

A place for little boys to build houses.

And a place for husbands to tie fishing rigs.

Together.

That one word is why I resist the idea of giving up meal times. 

There are a million easy ways to disconnect from the people around you and precious few conscious moments where we, as a family, commit to put distraction aside and give our attention to each other. 

A mother's table (and where I come from it is always a mother's table) is the epicentre of that commitment.

Tuesday, 18 March 2014 Comments: 2

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