Water Babies

I wanted to introduce swimming to Jayden much earlier, but I guess I was just somewhat lazy, and only started taking him to lessons about 5 months ago. He was initially very scared – cried when he had water on his face and clinged on to me like a koala throughout the 30 minutes lesson.

But kids learn so fast, every week I can see good progress with his swimming. The main important thing is for him to be comfortable in water and to know what to do to stay afloat. We sing the songs and do the actions at home over and over again so that he would be familiar with them during class. At least this way, he would also enjoy the lesson more.

Now, he still doesn’t really like back float, but he loves monkey walk (which is walking on the edge of the pool on his own) and also mat time where he gets to walk and jump into the water. This clip reminded me of Stella when she was younger, she used to do the jumps into the water too. Now, 2 years later, she is one brave water baby!

 

 

We hope to keep swimming throughout winter, even though I find it very tiring at times – not only the classes but the showers and getting dressed after the lesson. If you know Jayden, he never stands still, so it really is a tough mission for me to get him dressed 🙂 But, at the end of the day, I know that we both enjoy it. I thank God everyday for giving us a funny, cheerful, sometimes annoying (well ok, most of the time), cheeky, loving boy.

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Happy Birthday Vea!

It was Vea’s birthday party on Friday.  We had so much fun!  Stella wanted to dress up as a ballerina, so at 9am in the morning she got into her Dorothy the Dinasaur tutu…  The party was at 11.  So you know, Stella was extremely excited.

Cookie decorating

When we got there, the kids got to decorate some cookie.  The decorated cookies were supposed to be packaged nicely in a bag and brought home as a goody bag… BUT… it was just way too tempting for the little kids… and yep, they ate it straight away!

Then there were playdough and the 100 piece cutters.  Even I got excited looking at the cutters!

 

best friends

It was so cute to watch Stella and Vea together.  They were holding hands and playing together most of the times.  Vea does remind me of Stella when she was two.  I think they have a very similar characteristic, both very quite and observant, both really likes craft and cooking.

I made a some cupcakes for Vea.  Thinking that she was born in the year of a pig, I couldn’t wait to put my piggy jelly into good use.  So, I made Vanilla cupcakes with jam and cream frosting. I will post the recipe soon 🙂

If you are wondering why the kids are sitting in a line?  They were all waiting patiently for the cupcakes… so well behaved!

 

Happy 2nd Birthday Vea!

I had a great time too at the party, I met new friends and got to eat good food!  And, I also met a mum Maggie, who also had a boy with dairy, egg and nuts allergy.  Her little boy is now 2 and is completely allergy free!  So, there is hope that Jake might be allergy free one day!

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Fettucini Carbonara

Now I’m not a pro masterchef like Caroline, but I can cook a thing or two. My specialty – fettucini carbonara.  My Italian friend taught me this recipe and it’s great… but I’ve added a few things here and there to suit my tastebuds! 

 

What you need: (serves 4)

1 onion, chopped

bacon rashers, sliced

10  mushrooms, sliced

400g fettucini

thickened cream

grated parmesan cheese 

4 eggs 

salt and pepper 
 

 

– Add fettucini to boiling water and cook until al dente. 

– While the fettucini is cooking, heat some oil in a saucepan then fry the onion,  bacon and mushrooms. 

– On the side, crack the eggs in a bowl and add parmesan cheese (to your liking) to the beated egg mixture.

This next part has to be done quickly so that the heat from the pasta will cook the egg but not so it’s scrambled.

– When pasta is ready, drain (do not run cold water through it) and add to the saucepan and mix.

– Add a little bit of cream, enough to make the mixture silky.

– Add the egg and parmesan mixture and quickly mix through the pasta and other ingredients. The egg should be mixed in evenly to become part of the creamy sauce. 

– Season with salt and pepper.
 

 

Ta-daaa! Quick and easy fettucini carbonara!

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Little Mr. Cheeky

This morning I found a little car in the fridge, a little train behind the TV and our wiimote sterring wheel in the BIN! I wonder who did this? ……

 

 

This little guy also like to talk to his cars…

J: What’s the matter Car?

J: pall down

J: Ooohhh Ca-Car

and loves to pick up my mobile phone or calculator and pretends to call his papa.

J: Calling Papa, HELLO

J: Ooohhh Papa busy

J: Papa in the oppice

He likes to say oooohhh in front of everything. Oooohhh he cracks me up! 🙂

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Baby Jake and his allergies

 

2 days old jake

 

My 9 months old son Jake is allergic to (drumroll…..) eggs, dairy and nuts. We first found out that he was allergic to dairy when I bought a tub of baby yoghurt from the supermarket, fed him the yoghurt and ended up in the hospital emergency 40 minutes later.  He had hives all over his face 30 minutes after he had the yoghurt and was rubbing his face everywhere.  We didn’t want to wait and headed to the emergency straight away.  When we got there the hives was all over his body too.  He was very very grumpy! Cried a lot and you can tell he was uncomfortable.  He was given anti-histamine, which made him really really drowsy! He slept for 8 hours.

The first 3  months since Jake was born, he was a very happy baby. He fed and slept well.  However, when he was 4 months old he has a very bad eczema on his face.  On his cheeks, chin and sometimes on his ears.  I did take him to the GP who first gave me sigmacort (which didn’t help at all) then gave me advantan (only works for few days).  His eczema was so bad that he wakes up every 2 to 3 hours and start rubbing his face.  It was really painful to see him so uncomfortable.  I was still breastfeeding him, when he had the hives from eating the yoghurt.  Immediately I stopped eating dairy products.  I was told to try and see if that makes him better.  It didn’t! 

After about a month, we got an appointment with the allergy specialist.  When she told me that not only he is allergic to dairy, but eggs and nuts.  My jaw dropped.  I remember thinking, poor boy, what are you going to eat?  I went home feeling confused, guilty and to a certain extent – relieved.  Confused, because I don’t know what to feed him.  Guilty, because I ate everything and that makes him sick.  Relieved, because now I know how to make him feel better.  Since I was still breastfeeding, that day I stopped eating dairy, eggs and nuts.  Two days later, Jake was sleeping 6 hours at night.  His eczema was better by the first week.  It was amazing.  He is smiling and moving more. 

 

8 months old

 

Of course I still have to be cautious with the thing that I fed him.  I kept a food diary.  I told everyone that he is allergic, and it is VERY serious.  I try to get as much information as I can from the library and the internet about food allergy. 

Here are some of the useful websites for support and information:

Australasian Society of Clinical Immunology and Allergy

Anaphylaxis Australia

Royal Prince Alfred Allergy Unit, NSW

www.kidswithfoodallergies.org

www.fankids.org (for children)

www.fanteen.org (for teenagers)

 

Allergy free cookbooks:

Everyday with Allergies (written by perth mum, Tara Humphries.  Get sample recipes and order online at : www.everydaywithallergies.com)

Allergy Safe Family Food (written by Suzanna Paxton, Australian)

The Tolerant Cook, The Allergy and Food Intolerance Cookbook (written by Tish Richardson PhD, Australian)

The Kid-Friendly Food Allergy Cookbook (written by Leslie Hammond and Lynne Marie Rominger, USA)

Allergy-Free Cooking for Kids (Antoinette Savill and Karen Sullivan, UK)

Websites for home delivery of various allergy free products withing Australia:

www.glutenfreefavourites.com.au

www.allergyblock.com.au

www.crueltyfreeshop.com.au

www.groceries4u.com.au

www.crdirect.com.au (Western Australia)

www.looseproduce.com (Western Australia)

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Flag Ball

Lately for some reason we love going to the arcade. Maybe it’s the noise or maybe it’s just the tickets that you get from playing the games 🙂 Clara and I always play this silly game, where you press the button to drop the ball into rotating plate of holes with different numbers written on each hole. Basically the number represents the number of tickets you get. That’s all! So, we managed to get quite a few tickets from that and was given a choice of exchanging them for a large range of useless things. 

We picked this soft flag ball, which turned out to be very good and educational for Jayden! I go through the flags with him and he used to just point to the flag when I name the country. But now, he can actually say the country when I point to the flag. He tries so hard to pronounce it right, especially Australia and Switzerland. It’s funny! 🙂

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Banana Weet-Bix Sultana Muffin

Despite being an egg-free and dairy-free muffin, this is really yummy! We all loved it! Stella ate heaps. It is really a healthy muffin, it has Wheet-Bix and only 2 Tbs of sugar.  A great snack for everyone!  Once again, if you are not following an egg and dairy free diet just substitute the ingredients to the one in italic.

A very Little Chef friendly recipe.

4 ripe bananas

4 weet bix

3/4 C soya or rice milk (3/4 C milk)

2 tsp orgran no-egg mix with 4 tbs water (2 eggs)

4 Tbs dairy-free margarine (4 Tbs margarine)

1 1/2 C self-raising flour

2 Tbs brown sugar

1 C sultana

Preheat oven 180C

 

For the Little Chef:

Mash bananas in a bowl, then crumble in Weet-Bix and stir in the milk. Set aside for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, using a wooden spoon beat together orgran no-egg and dairy-free margarine together, then add the banana mixture. 

Combine flour and sugar together in a large bowl and add all the wet ingredients and sultanas.  Stir until just combined.

Spoon into muffin pan and bake for 15 – 20 minutes. Or until skewers inserted in the centre comes out clean.

Makes 12 muffins.

gooey chocolate centre, yum!

Grown-Up variation:  we had some leftover mini easter eggs, so I put some in the middle of the muffin before I bake them.  So when you bite into it, you got a nice gooey surprise in the middle!  Anton had these muffins for tea the next day…

 

Tips: for dairy-free margarine I used Nuttelex.

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Cars for colours

Jayden loves anything with wheels, especially cars! He can name quite a few different models of cars, such as Mini, Hummer, Honda CRV, Smart car and Boxster. He can tell the difference between an old vintage car to a sports or rally car. It’s interesting to see him play with these cars, he would slowly push the car back and forth while studying how the wheels turn. I’ve noticed that, it really is all about the wheels!

I’ve been trying to teach him all the different colours using books, but I have a feeling that he’s not really getting it. I’m starting to wonder if he’s just insensitive to colours or he just simply doesn’t get what I’m trying to teach him 🙂 So I thought, maybe we can use his toys and his obsessions with wheels to learn about colours.

 

 

I grouped all his toys together according to colours and took pictures of them. My sister suggested to get these printed and laminated and use it as a table mat. Then we could have a “red day”, where we use the “red” table mat, wear red shirt and eat red apples; followed by a car hunt, where he has to find all the red cars on the table mat. This way, hopefully it would be fun for him too. What a great idea!

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