The Mother of Lions…

Chilling like a boss

Those of you who are Game of Thrones fans will appreciate the analogy: Mother of Lions. I am not quite in the realm of Khaleesi and her dragons but we are all mothers right? My husband’s totem is the lion hence his reference to me as the Mother of Lions. I referred to Malaika as our lion cub before she came and she’s proving to be true to the nickname. I appreciate that all babies have nails that grow at the rate of knots that need to be cut quite often, they end up being sharp because they use them as tools scraping at everything but my daughter has taken to scraping and pinching me…. I can see the puzzled look on your face. If I ended up in ER they’d probably call child services for me, not her, its ‘mother abuse’… LOL! So this is what she does, when she’s breastfeeding she likes to clutch, pinch and pull at things, I guess it gets boring and she needs something to do. The objects of her entertainment end up being my arms, lips, nose, neck and anything else fleshy enough for her to claw at. It’s a real problem, I need a trauma unit! I hope it is just a phase and she’ll move on to the next thing much like the grunting she was doing a few weeks ago. Why let her do it you say, why not stop her?  I refer you to Einstein on the definition of : “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”, she doesn’t understand why I keep stopping her, she doesn’t understand me when I say ‘Malaika that hurts mhamha don’t do that’, if I pull away it is I who has wronged her, she gets annoyed and tightens her grip, hmmm, so lest I do become insane, I will let her be and hope she moves on soon… like tomorrow.

 

Nursing Necklace

In the meantime I have come across Nursing Necklaces, the very efficient and helpful Angie is sending me one from her Etsy Store. It is supposed to give her a focal point, something she can reach for, grab and play with saving the ‘feeder’s’ hair, clothes and skin. It also doubles up as chewbeads for teething. Hmmm, I hope it works, don’t need scratched up arms for summer.

On the subject of moving on or more precisely growing up she certainly is. She no longer looks like a baby, she looks like a little girl. She’s sitting up quite well one her own and moving around more easily. Yesterday for about 20 minutes whilst I was making more chapati/roti (her current favorite snack that she chomps with her gums) she got the giggles. She giggled at anything and everything.

She continues to be very engaged and alert to her surroundings, something that people always comment on when we are out and about. Another person cautioned me last week that I ought to be careful, she’d get stolen, you have to wonder if this is a valid concern. Imagine the reaction of the grandparents if such a thing happened, how would you even say, ‘Mwana abiwa’ (the child has been stolen). Good luck getting a ransom payout.  Bhabha is the only one paying the bills whilst Mhamha is on EI/benefit and the grandparents only have Zim kwachas (dollars) that you’d return quicker than Western Union could wire it to you!

In the meantime we count down to all our summer visitors Gogo, Mai Nove, Nove, Auntie Ethel, Jakob, Auntie Lucy, Mbuya, Sekuru, Uncle Nelson … Oh my, even the Queen doesn’t get this lucky…

Chapati chomping

Mealie meal porridge: The Final solution

Carrot delight

So we started solids a few weeks ago. This was really the second attempt. The first time she was about 4 1/2 months old. She was sitting on her own, showing a healthy curiosity and reaching out to our food. We talked about it and I kept saying lets wait for 6 months because that’s the recommended. Karl said a few times his mother said to give her porridge, this was from about two months which I definitely felt was way too soon. Especially given her earlier digestion issues. Anyway, one morning we are having breakfast and she’s persistently reaching for the banana. So we mashed it up and gave it to her. She eagerly gobbled it all up, made a huge mess, stained her bib but she was happy as Larry. Since that went quite well and it was an organic banana I did it again a second day. For whatever reason I didn’t give her any on the third day and that is when the grunting kicked in … Poor baby was grunting and squirming to get her poos out. Bananas can cause constipation apparently, really? Karl and I both have one on a daily basis, never had these issues, maybe that’s cause we are more than 4 months old, hmmm… Research Fail modern-eco-mama!

She went from 8 poops a day to three! She cried sometimes when she was uncomfortable… OH MY WORD I damaged the baby! This carried on for 10 days, even in her sleep, needless to say I stopped the bananas and prayed for the squirming to stop. It did eventually, phew! No permanent damage (we hope). About a month later, after one of the nights when the night-feeding is every 2 hours I thought I would try solids again, maybe she’ll sleep better ( I have read any times that there is no connection between the two but I still hope it’ll make a difference ). So this time I am more prepared. I buy a hand blender, organic veggies, 2 oz containers for the freezer, we already have cutlery, plastic bibs and her high chair so we’re good to go. I spent a whole afternoon boiling , pureeing, portioning, cooling and freezing. We had carrots, mbambaira (sweet potatoes) and pears, avocados ready to mash and watermelon ready to chop. So because of food allergies you try one new thing for two or three days then move on to the next. Carrots started off well, then mbambaira but when we got to the pears ‘lemon face’ kicked in. She makes this face like you just gave her lemons, complete with the shoulder shuffle we all do when you taste something bitter… from then on it was a downward spiral…. I gave it a break for a day to and then went back to carrots that had been the most successful of all the experiments. Further reading indicated that one grain cereals were really the best thing to start off which. So organic-fresh-is-best mom gave her porridge rehupfu (mealie-meal porridge)! Success! It’s like manna from heaven! She gobbles it up and even opens her mouth for more….hmmmm…. she definitely African… or is the little bit of brown sugar in there…whatever it is, she’s sold on it and I probably should’ve listen to my mother-in-law earlier though I still maintain two months was too early!

An apple a day

So now we have porridge in the morning and veggies in the afternoon, fresh out of the pot and into the freezer today is potatoes and green beans. Hopefully Lemon-face doesn’t come back.. and oh she’s also into apples. The story is that her father was eating apples even before he had teeth, she is her fathers-daughter for sure!

New Year’s Resolution: The Weekend Vegetarian

• I can’t remember the last time I actually even contemplated a New Year’s resolution. I have probably thought of doing something for lent more than I have thought about a ‘New Year New Me’. Now that I am living in North America I am more horribly aware of the mistreatment of the animals that are breed to nourish us. Recent health issues have prompted me buy local, organic, eat grass-fed and try not to consume anything I can’t pronounce. Since I was born and raised in Africa and became a young adult in Aotearoa (New Zealand) what I ate was rarely in danger of being artificially modified or obtained by dubious means, at least this what I think…. I am sure someone will set me straight.  The recent launch of African Sally has prompted further research into eco-friendly; sustainable and pro-life options that any person who has even a tenth of a brain realizes are essential for the survival of future generations.If you ever shared a meal with will know my mantra when it comes to food: “No meat, No meeting” with perhaps the exception of breakfast, but even then a sufficient amount of protein in some form should be consumed. As an African I feel it is my responsibility as part of the circle of life to consume meat, they’d be little reason to eat let alone keep breathing! That being said, times are changing………… well, more that my mind is changing…………… In my quest for all things sustainable I came a across a line of vegan shoes founded by New Yorker Elizabeth Olsen.  From Olsenhaus you will find a stunning variety shoes from anything but leather, hard to believe you get the same look and feel as you would from a pair of plush Italian leather boots but a recent purchase of shoes made from recycled TV screens proved just that. Elizabeth is pioneering the shoe industry and highlighting The Truth about leather sources.

  So with 2013 upon us I found myself thinking how can I make a difference? A recent post on twitter from @SLOSolstice informed me that becoming a weekend vegetarian and cutting meat out of your diet for just two days a week can decrease your carbon footprint by about 1/3 of a ton, I don’t know what time period we are covering here but this doesn’t seem like too much to ask. I have heard from a few people about the terror of dairy farming and how if only you knew, you wouldn’t eat that. In the last 18 months I have developed a palette for wholefoods such as quinoa, cousous, lentils, organic vegetables, fruit and nuts. According to @Skinnygirldaily, “whole foods are unprocessed and unrefined food products or processed and refined as little as possible before being consumed”, easier said than done in today’s world……….. The more I increase the variety of vegetables that I eat, the more I realize that they can be pretty wholesome and tasty and the more I think I can survive without meat two whole days week……….

  Any recipes would be most welcome………. Here’s wishing you all a Happy 2013. What’s your New Year’s resolution?