May is for Moms - An Interview with My Daughter

And we're back with the third and final installment of the May is for Moms series today. I have had the best fun with these posts, and I'm very sad to see the end of the interviews today.

Now today's interview is special for me because it's my baby girl's turn in the spotlight. Of course around here she is the centre of attention all the time, but given her inability to read, write, or even really talk, it's hard for her to be a part of my blog except for me to tell stories about her to you guys.

Now given Miss K's above mentioned inability to talk or write; how did I get any answers out of her? Well that's simple of course, with a video camera. And how did I get her to sit still long enough to actually get any answers out of her? Naturally I bribed her with food. Now even though I sat through all of her answers and even responded to her, I have no idea what the heck she is saying here, so please, please don't ask me to translate.

If for any reason you can't see the above video, you can view it on Youtube here

Well that's it, I don't think television is really ready for my hard hitting style of interviewing just yet, but it was fun to sit and chat with Miss K for your amusement. I'm glad to know that Miss K appreciates the sandwiches I make for her so much, especially since she gets one every single day. (Except when she decides she wants a banana.)

A huge thank you to Amy at Not Your Average Crazy for coming up with this awesome series, and for allowing us to join in the fun with her. I hope you've all enjoyed the glimpse into the life behind the scenes around here. To check out the rest of the interviews, please visit her website and enjoy some more fun.

May Secret Subject Swap

Welcome to take two of May's Secret Subject Swap. This week 11 brave bloggers picked a secret subject for someone else, and were assigned a secret subject to interpret in their own style. Today we are all simultaneously divulging our topics and submitting our posts.




Below are links to all the sites now featuring  Secret Subject Swap posts. So sit back, grab a cuppa and check them all out.

Baking In A Tornado
The Insomniac's Dream
Dinosaur Superhero Mommy
The Pursuit of Normal
The Momisodes
Searching for Sanity
Black Sheep Mom
Moore Organized Mayhem
Daily Dose of Damn
Tiny Steps Mommy
Mom Rants and Comfy Pants

My subject is When you were asked as a child what you "want to be when you grow up" what did you say? Are you doing what you thought you would be doing? and it was submitted by Tiny Steps Mommy

When I was a kid, what I wanted to be when I grew up changed fairly regularly. At various times I wanted to be a writer, a nurse, an actor, a beautician, a librarian, a singer and Mrs Johnny Depp. Now there are slight problems with wanting to become every one of those things, which I shall go through with you guys now, in list form, because hey, who doesn't love a nice tidy list?

A writer
I love to write. I have loved it for as long as I can remember it. The problem is I hate my writing. I write here as often as I can, and while I think some of the stuff I put on this website is freaking hilarious, I'm always terrified I'm the only person who enjoys it. And writing here is actually pretty easy because I'm just writing about stuff I know. This is just like the most public diary I have ever owned. The minute you ask me to write a piece of fiction my brain goes into overdrive with every big and fancy word it knows, and before long, the reader needs a thesaurus just to understand that I'm talking about a meadow. My dad suffers from the same disease, except he doesn't proof read his stuff as well as I do, resulting in one descriptive piece where he described a field as "verdant, emerald". (For anyone who doesn't understand the irony, he just said green, green.) Every time I think of this piece of writing I start singing the green green grass of home. Now I actually took a creative writing class with my mum when I was about 12 or 13. I was the only child there in a room full of brilliant adults, my mum included, who could write with the best of them. One or two of these wonderful people have actually gone on to have works published, which makes me verdant emerald with envy, but their success is well deserved. I on the other hand struggled to make sure every piece I wrote didn't turn into an essay, and I ended up giving up on my dreams of being a famous writer.

A nurse
I come from a long line of nurses. My mum was a nurse, all of my aunts are nurses, one of my uncles is a nurse, my grandma was a nurse, my great grandma was a bartender. (That has nothing to do with anything, I just think it's cool.) A lot of my best friends from high school went on to become nurses, and one of them even works in the maternity ward of the local hospital where Miss K and I spent 3 weeks after she was born. It was nice having a familiar face around, especially during the long nights where hospitals can be pretty lonely and scary. But it takes a very special person to be a nurse.  For one, you can't be squeamish. I am a sympathetic vomiter, and I can't even watch a scene on television where there is puking. I've watched Youtube videos where people squeeze pimples, or pull cactus spikes out of various body parts, and while it is absolutely fascinating to see, I couldn't actually bear to see it in person. Of course when you have no choice but to cope with stuff like that, I'm OK, but I turn to jelly as soon as the crisis is over and I can go back to being a sook. So that ruled out becoming a nurse.

An actor
So from grade 3 to about year 11 I was convinced I could become an actor. I even got all the enrollment information from the National Institute of Dramatic Arts so that I knew what I had to study in order to be accepted there. And then I got to year 12 drama and hated it so much I decided I never wanted to become an actor ever. I think I suddenly realised that I didn't enjoy making a fool of myself in public anymore, which kind of makes acting a bad career move.

A beautician
I actually held on to this dream well into my twenties, and even though I couldn't even get my local TAFE to accept me into their course, I went and took a couple of short courses that would help me get my foot in the door. But then I learned that the world of beauty salons is actually pretty cutthroat, and being a plus size beautician is not an asset when you are trying to get established. So I could have tried anyway, and put in a lot of hard work just to be accepted, but I realised quickly that I didn't have that kind of fight in me.

A librarian
I love the library. I have ever since I was a kid and mum used to take us up every few weeks to pick out some new books. I decided given how much I love libraries and books in general, then a librarian would be a good career. Then I found out you have to go to university to become a librarian. Why the heck do you need to do that? Does it seriously take 4 years to learn the Dewey Decimal system?? Do they have a special class to master the art of shushing loud patrons? Can I take an elective in the best disapproving stare to give to someone when they return a book in a terrible condition? I was not going to spend thousands of dollars and years out of my life learning those things, so that put an end to my dreams of being a librarian. (Apologies to any librarians reading this now, I'm sure the course was entirely necessary for you all, and you must now all be masters at wheeling trollies full of books around bookshelves.)

A singer
Now I spent years thinking I was a terrible singer. In school musicals I would hum quietly or just mouth the words if I could get away with it, and when we sang the national anthem every Monday at school I would sit there quietly mouthing what I thought the words were hoping that no one noticed that I was stuffing up our country's song every single week. In year ten my music teacher pulled me aside and told me I had to come and get singing lessons with him every single week. I thought it was because I was so terrible that I needed extra help, but apparently he thought I had a good voice and needed guidance to make sure I was using it properly. So for the next 3 years I had weekly voice lessons, and I joined the school choir and the blues band and got lead singing roles in the school musicals. But I still didn't think my voice was all that good. Which is why when I left school and there was no longer a whole team of music teachers propping me up every day, I quickly gave up on any illusions that I could be a singer. And now the only person who hears me sing with any regularity is Miss K, and she quickly tells me to shut up as soon as I begin. So I guess that answers that question once and for all.

Mrs Johnny Depp
Ok this one should be pretty obvious, but just in case you can't tell why this one would never work, let's compare the two of us.

 

Johnny Depp

 

Me

It's simple really. Until I look like Vanessa Paradis, I'll just have to settle on dreaming of becoming the next David Boreanaz.

 

That, I want that.

Well that's all from me, thank you to Karen from Baking In A Tornado for letting me be a part of the May Secret Swap, and thank you also to Nicole from Tiny Steps Mommy for my subject for this week. Be sure to check out the rest of the bloggers before you leave here today, in that list is some of the funniest and most brilliant bloggers I know, so you're in for a real treat.

Baby's got a brand new bed

Well I don't know about you guys, but right now I am dying. I have the man flu. Everyone keeps telling me that I just have a little cold, but they couldn't possibly be right. I feel like absolute crap, and I'm about to go visit WebMD just to find out exactly how long I have to get my affairs in order. And then I'm going to disown Miss K for passing this horrible cold on to me. Of all the things she shares with me, her bugs are definitely the worst.

Well I'm not actually here tonight to complain about how sick I am (which I really am), I'm actually here to share a pretty big milestone for Miss K and I. And like all milestones, this one comes with photos.

 

Believe it or not, she is the spitting image of her aunty Sam in this photo.

Now it may be hard to tell from that photo, but what you are looking at is Miss K's first night in a big girl bed. It's really just her cot with the wall taken off, but it's just a temporary bed until I can get her a real big girl bed. We've had to do this because with her jumping on the bed every morning she's managed to break one of the slats, so I had to do something to put a stop to the jumping, and this was really my only option. 

The photo was taken last night while I was madly trying to get her to settle down and actually stay in her bed. She was fine while I was in the room, but the moment I stepped out she'd be up and running after me with Elmo in tow. I actually tried at both nap time and bed time to get her to sleep in there. Nap time was much worse, because she cried the whole time, and I ended up taking all her toys out of the room, because as soon as my back was turned she'd be up and playing with something new. My favorite time was when I walked in to find her having a bash on the drum kit. Subtlety has never been her strong suit.

So I decided to skip the nap yesterday and try again at night. This time I sat in the room with her, slowly getting closer and closer to the door, but again, as soon as I left the room she'd be up. We ended up taking a break from bed time for five minutes so I could have a breather, and she fell asleep on the couch in less than ten minutes during this break.  I'm considering this one a win even though she technically didn't fall asleep in bed, because once she was down she stayed down till 7 this morning. 

So tonight I decided to try again. She'd missed her nap again today, and we went to speech therapy this morning, so that's always good for wearing her out. Plus she spent the afternoon at my big sister's house playing with her cousins so that I could have a much needed rest, so needless to say by the time bed time came around she was well and truly ready for sleep. I tried sitting in the room with her again, but this time I didn't move. I sat on the ground at the foot of the bed very quietly ignoring her, and within 10 minutes of going to bed she was fast asleep. So even better.

I'm going to keep doing the same thing for another couple of days, and hopefully by this time next week she'll be OK with going to bed by herself and we'll be one step closer to her being a big girl. I've actually been dreading this step for a long time now, but we'll get through it like we do with every big change, I guess I just hate the fact that my little girl really isn't a baby any more. 

Well that's all for me, I'm off to go sit on the couch and feel sorry for myself until bed time. And maybe eat an entire bag of jelly beans too. Stay awesome everyone.

May is for Moms; an Interview with my Mother

Hello again and welcome back to the second part of the May is for Moms link up parties, as hosted by Not Your Average Crazy.

Today is all about my mum, and although I talk about her a lot around here, as she has been kind enough to let Miss K and I live with her for almost 4 years now, she has never come and talked to you guys herself. It's probably just because she is such a shy and retiring person, just like me really.

So the deal is the same as last week, Amy has asked a series of questions, and I've asked mum to come along and answer these for me, and then you guys come along and read it and marvel at how awesome my mum is. So please be upstanding and give a big round of applause for mum.

1. How did you feel the moment you found out you were pregnant with me?
I was very excited because I had been trying for you.

2. Was I a wonderful surprise or carefully planned?
Not carefully planned. We wanted another child, but we got you instead. Thanks mum, I feel the love.

3. What was the most challenging time in my childhood? Why?
When we discovered that you had Epilepsy, getting you tested for that and treated was nerve wracking because we'd never come across any of that before. You were also a very introverted and introspective teen who had a lot of trouble at school, and you made a lot of silly mistakes, so it's a toss up between those things.

4. Did you worry more about me as a child or now that I am an adult?
I worried more about you when you were a teenager. Now you have settled down and you don't do silly things. You were a VERY silly teenager

5. What is one thing that you thought was deeply important when I was a baby that you now realise did not matter at all?
The one thing I worried about when you were young that I didn't worry about so much with the other kids was not letting you get hurt, and protecting you too much. You made your mistakes, you had your accidents but you're still alive today so it's all good. 

I certainly am. Well thank you to Amy for another awesome set of questions. To check out Amy's post, plus the link up to the rest of the party goers, visit Not Your Average Crazy here. And be sure to tune in again next week for my last interview with Miss K. You won't want to miss this one, trust me.

Well until next time, stay awesome.

Mother's Day again

Well we're here at yet another pseudo holiday designed to get people to buy chocolates and flowers. But because I get gifts this time, I say HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY BITCHES!!!

This morning I had a wonderful sleep in until 9:30, and then mum and I exchanged gifts through Miss K. She got the new My Kitchen Rules cook book, and I got a brand new pair of winter pyjamas and a box of Malteasers. You may not think that a person could get excited about pyjamas, but given that the last time I was given a new set was when I was getting ready to go to hospital to give birth 2 years ago, they were well overdue, and I was super glad to get them. So much so I even took a photo of them.

They're so warm and fleecy.

Some of you may remember last year I made a card for mum for her Mother's Day. Well this year I did exactly the same, but given how much things have changed over the past 12 months it only took me an hour to complete this one, instead of the 3 days I spent last year, and I'm just as pleased with the results.

The colours aren't that purple in real life, my camera just hates taking photos indoors with energy saving light bulbs on.

Miss K and I also spent an hour at the park with her dad and his new girlfriend, and I got a second gift there too, a dolphin statue like the ones I used to collect while Miss K's dad and I were still together. 

Again, not that purple. Stupid camera

Firstly I was surprised I even got a gift today, given that yesterday we had an argument at the end of his visit with Miss K, so to have a civil conversation with him today was going to be good enough for me, but I got more. Secondly thanks to my darling daughter, the statue you see there isn't exactly what I received, as I let her play with it when we got home, and it got dropped, so one of the dolphins is now missing a head. 

Well that's all from me, I'm now celebrating the best present I could have asked for today, and that is complete silence. Miss K is in bed, mum is at my big sister's house babysitting, and my baby sister is staying close to work tonight, so I have a whole house to myself and a big box of Malteasers begging to be eaten.

So Happy Mother's Day to all the mums out there, you know who you are, and an especially big Happy Mother's day to my own mum, plus a big hug and kiss for putting up with both Miss K and I for as long as she has, anyone who has lived with me can tell you that can be difficult at times, but she does it with love and patience, and it is because of this that I still maintain that she is the best mum in the world. 

Be sure to tune in tomorrow, because as a special treat, my awesome mum has agreed to answer some questions for the May is for Mom's series linky party, so that will be posted up some time soon.

Stay awesome everyone, and I'll be back again with reinforcements soon.

What it means to be a mum

So Miss K and I had another fight this evening. It was a big one too. There was screaming, and yelling, and smacking and yes, even a little bit of vomiting. Gotta love a two year old for being able to throw a tantrum. And what was the reason for the tantrum?? I was yet again forcing her to eat something she didn't want to. It isn't even that she didn't like tonight's meal, it's just that she's had it 3 days in a row now and she's quite frankly sick of fried rice. She's like her grandma in this respect. Mum can only eat something for so long before it becomes tedious and she needs a change. I on the other hand have been known to eat the same meal for a week straight with no problems. But then I'm also the person who watches the same DVD every single night for a month at a time when I go to bed, so perhaps I'm not the best person to speak to about mixing things up.

The thing is, as angry as I was at Miss K, and as frustrated as I was that I had to clean up the thrown rice, and spew, and dodge her little hands when they swung out at me (she really stings when she makes contact with you, I've learned that one the hard way.) I had to be the one to get over my anger first, otherwise she wouldn't have calmed down. Of course I still needed a few minutes with my back turned to her, both to get my point across that tonight I was really mad, and to give myself five seconds to just breathe, but being the adult in this relationship means that I have to get over my crap really fast and help her out, and that's just what it means to be a mum.

We had a talk after the fight was over and she was out of her dirty clothes (well I talked, and she lay curled up in my lap whimpering.) She was taking such a long time to calm down, which is odd for her. Normally once I'm talking to her again she cheers up and moves on with her day, but this time she clung on to my shoulders and wouldn't let go, so I asked her if she thought I didn't love her because I  yelled at her. She said no, but I'm not sure if she didn't mean yes. (No tends to be her stock answer for every question that isn't do you want a drink.) So I explained to her that even when I'm yelling at her and making her eat food she doesn't like, it's because I love her, and I want her to be healthy and happy. And when I'm stopping her from climbing in the window, or jumping on the furniture, it's because I love her and I want her to be safe.  It was a strange conversation to be having with a two year old, but it seemed to do the trick. She still clung to me like a barnacle, but at least she'd stopped crying.

I don't know whether to call tonight a win or a fail. I let my baby girl get so upset that she threw up, something I've been so careful about in the past, and I wasn't sympathetic to her when it happened either, in fact it took everything in me not to yell at her even further. And sure, I managed to get her to eat some of her dinner, but tonight definitely would have gone a lot smoother if I had given in and just made her a Nutella sandwich. Then I would have been the awesome mum who gives her kid everything she wants in life. Sadly this fight, just like every other one we will have isn't about being the popular mum, it's about being the mum who teaches her kids right from wrong. It's about being the  bad guy in their eyes now so that they can be decent human beings when they grow up. That's just what it means to be a mum.

Recipe - Potato, Chicken and Leek pie

Hello again and welcome to another recipe Monday. For all of my Aussie friends, sorry that I didn't get this posted in time for your dinner tonight, but there is always tomorrow night. And given that it will be Tuesday, maybe you'll be in more of a mood to cook. I never feel like cooking on Mondays, sadly my local pizza store has also chosen Monday to be the one day out of the week that they don't open, leaving me absolutely no choice but to throw something together so that Miss K doesn't stare at me like a starving lion.

Now the recipe that I am about to share with you is definitely not something that I'd cook on a Monday, it's more like a Friday or a Saturday recipe. I need a lot of energy in me before I tackle anything as challenging as a pie. (For anyone who isn't completely impotent in the kitchen, you can do this every single day, I just have special needs as a cook.)

Ok so to make a potato, chicken and leek pie, you will need several things first.

2 sheets Shortcrust pastry for the base (or 2 sheets puff pastry if you prefer puff pastry and are happy blind baking it, I have given instructions for both methods.)
1 sheet Puff pastry for the top
500g chicken breasts diced
1 leek sliced
3 - 4 medium sized potatoes diced
1 and a half cup roughly chopped mushrooms
2 tablespoons of plain flour
1 cup chicken stock
1 cup cream
Salt and pepper to season
Milk or egg for the pastry crust

Serves 4

To make your pie:

Pre heat your oven to 200 degrees celsius (390 degrees farenheit) or 180 degrees celsius (350 degrees farenheit) if you have a fan forced oven.

If you are going to blind bake your bottom layer of puff pastry, do it now. It is fairly simple, just grease your pie dish and lay down your puff pastry sheets so that the entire tin is covered, including a lip at the top. Trim off any excess pastry. Pierce the pastry in several places to prevent it puffing up while it cooks. Place a sheet of greased baking paper or tin foil over the pastry (greased side down) then cover the top of the paper/foil with a layer of pie weights, or a generous amount of rice, making sure that the coverage is heavy enough to keep the pastry flat. Bake in your pre heated oven for 15 minutes, then remove the pie weights/rice and paper/foil covering and bake for a further 10 minutes until golden brown. If you haven't placed enough pie weights or rice on your pastry and it has puffed up, just press it down lightly before returning it to the oven. 

In a fry pan pre heat some oil, then cook the chicken for 5 minutes until it is lightly browned.
Add the leeks, potatoes and mushrooms, and cook for another 5 - 7 minutes until the leeks are softened.
Mix the plain flour into a small amount of water, to make it easier to combine with the other ingredients, then pour the liquid into the fry pan. Cook for another minute stirring.
Add the chicken stock and cream and bring the mixture to the boil.

If you are using shortcrust pastry, grease your pie dish now and line it with a layer of short crust pastry, ensuring that it has a lip. Trim off any excess pastry.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared pie dish, and brush the edge of the pastry with milk or egg.
Place the top sheet of puff pastry and press the edges down with a fork or your fingers.
Cut a small slit into the top of the pastry, then brush the top with egg or milk to give it a nice shine. Remember that the heat from the mixture inside will make the pastry quite soft and fragile, so you need to be gentle when brushing liquid on top so that you don't tear it.
Bake for 25 - 30 minutes until the pastry is golden brown.

Now that right there is one slice of pure delicious. Sadly it didn't last long in our house, but I always take that as a huge compliment.

And now it's your turn. Go and make this pie and impress your friends and family with the ancient art of pie-making which is really being lost in this day and age, especially with the freezer section of every supermarket full of row after row of machine made pies. 

Well I'll be back again tomorrow with another life hack, but until then, stay awesome.