The start of a love affair with food


The first smile is a classic landmark. The first smear of curry across your baby's face? Not so much. The first time she shovels more chicken into a mouth full of chicken while trying to babble? It's pure delight. Talitha started eating solid food the Read more

Taking it one breastfeed at a time


I used to make long term breastfeeding plans but recent events have reminded me to enjoy it just one breastfeed at a Read more

Bottle feeding with love


A lot of this has come from realising that losing some of breastfeeding's nutritional value doesn't have to mean losing the bonding involved with it too. So, I'm taking some conscious steps to bottle feed with Read more

Postnatal surprises


With two sets of antenatal classes, scouring of blogs and forums and a fair bit of book-learnin', there are a few things I still wasn't quite prepared for before getting to the other side of natality/natalism/the dark side of the moon. Read more

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Survival

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Blogging | 1 Comment

You asked for a story of survival. So I’m sitting here, opening everything up and wondering what to show you.

There is no war, no famine, no physical disease here. I can’t pretend there’ve been any to avoid disappointing you. I’ve had to live through so little.

Yet, the frightening thing is that this little has been such a strain, I wonder whether I could have survived “real things”.

I could tell you about surviving something that happened in my family a long time ago but in many ways it’s not my story to tell. At least that’s how I feel.

I could also tell you about surviving braces, adolescence, breakups, depressive episodes, migration, my Masters, giving birth… It all seems so small.

These are the little things I’ve had to survive so far. They are things I am surviving. I’ll put them away now somewhere safe.

Maybe when something bigger comes along, they’ll collectively remind me that we are designed to survive. That I can survive.
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C’mon, let’s clean those gums

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Stuff I've tried | 2 Comments

I’m pretty laid back about baby hygiene. No, scrap that. I don’t want you getting the wrong idea. I’m the right amount of laid back. Now you decide what the right amount is and, yes, I’m that.

I’m not the mum who gets the wipes out for every toy at Rhyme Time before her precious child touches one but I do reserve the right to reject anything with food or snot dried on to it. There. That sounds pretty balanced.

This is probably why I haven’t quite made up my mind about dental hygiene pre-teeth. Brush-Baby sent me some DentalWipes and a chewable toothbrush a good while ago but because I was so insistent that my daughter was going to get teeth “any day now” I waited to use them.

Well, despite teething on and off for the last five months (hold me in your prayers) those stubborn things seem to have no intention of making an appearance.

Before you say it, this has in no way prevented her from biting my boobs – but we’ve moved on from that, for now anyway.

So I decided it was time to accept the claim that cleaning gums is important for growing healthy teeth and was helped along by seeing two infants with teeth that came in black with tooth decay.

Now, I know that that scenario is relatively rare and, as my in-laws pointed out, the generation before us didn’t bother with cleaning gums and most of their babies didn’t end up with the teeth we usually associate with bottle-mouth.

BUT, I was and am a teensy weensy bit scared, I’ll be honest. Especially since Talitha has a significant lip-tie which has been associated with milk pooling in the front of the mouth.


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Crawling backwards

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Our life is a Circus | 10 Comments

Talitha has started crawling. It’s exciting but she can only go backwards. Mostly she doesn’t mind, until she does.

Usually she’s crawling merrily backwards going “Dadadadadada” until she’s obstructed by a wall and launches straight into wailing “maMAAAAmaMAAA”. Someone tell me, why is “dada” for happy times and “mama” when she needs something?

I try turning her to see if that resets the system but once she’s started bawling, that’s it, she wants to be held. It’s all very cute, if a little inconvenient.

She can move forward but I wouldn’t call it crawling. It’s more what a friend termed “sprawling”. It’s a movement that happens without me quite discerning how she’s managed to make it happen. I often wonder if she even notices that she’s doing it.

This she seems to do without effort but as soon as she focuses on something she wants to get to, usually something gross like a hairball, which I shouldn’t admit to having on my floor, the backwards crawl begins.
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“Hooray for boobies”

Posted on February 19, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Breastfeeding | 13 Comments

Knowing that I’m the kind of woman who is a bit obsessed likes to talk about breasts, Carolin over at Mummy Alarm tagged me in her breastfeeding meme “Hooray for boobies”. Ok, my loverrr, I’m well up for it. Let the boob chat begin.

1. Why did you choose boob over bottle?

Before I got pregnant I wasn’t too bothered about the breastfeeding thing. Maybe I would, maybe I wouldn’t. I was pretty blasé in admitting this, which especially horrified a friend who was trying to convince his wife that she should give breastfeeding a go (she’s ended up breastfeeding quite successfully, actually, despite both of us having misgivings).

From the moment I found out I was pregnant, though, I knew I would try to breastfeed. It was the natural extension of pregnancy. My body would continue to nourish and protect my baby. The more I read about breastfeeding and about formula, the more convinced I was that I would feed her as biology intended.

2. How long did you breastfeed or are you planning to breastfeed?

I used to say until she’s at least two years’ old or whenever she self-weans. I now approach this question with caution. In light of all the difficulty we’ve had, I’m grateful to still be breastfeeding my eight-month-old. I really hope we can make it to a year but if not, I feel relieved and satisfied about having got here. If she hits three and I’m still breastfeeding her, you’ll know it’s because I worked too damn hard to give it up! That sounds so tiring though…

3. What is the best thing about breastfeeding?

Breastfeeding is powerful. I’m reading The Politics of Breastfeeding – When Breasts are Bad for Business at the moment and what’s hit me in its introduction is the power my body possesses in being designed to sustain another human life.
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Why is it important to get together with other parents?

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Blogging | 14 Comments

Because…

1. Peekaboo is not a conversation
2. They give you a reason to have a shower
3. They understand if you’ve not had a shower and they probably haven’t had one either
4. You won’t bore them – they’re well-versed in nappy contents, first sounds and sleepless nights too
5. Parenting is a big deal. We’re not meant to go it alone
6. When something really scary happens you need to talk to someone who understands how terrifying this kind of love makes things
7. They get that you’ve changed
8. They get that you’re still you
9. They get that you don’t feel quite like you but that you need to
10. This is the only time you get to choose your child’s friends
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Love’s new language

Posted on February 14, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Breastfeeding, Our life is a Circus | 7 Comments

Last week I had to write down a series of “feeling” words which described my breastfeeding experience. They were for a course I’m taking to become a breastfeeding peer supporter. As I wrote them down, I realised that their scope reached well beyond this single aspect of the last few months.

Each word on its own seems either negative or positive, something to empathise or rejoice with. Together, they become something altogether different. I haven’t journeyed from one end of this list to another.

I feel almost all these emotions every day. Sometimes I experience many of them at the same time and cannot really differentiate between them.
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A dedication

Posted on February 13, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Faith, Our life is a Circus | 6 Comments

I’m over at Mother’s Always Right today with a guest post, “5.30am is not morning”, go check it out and leave some comment love, why don’t you?
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Over here, I’m thinking about my daughter’s dedication. We went to a dedication yesterday for another baby girl we know, so it’s on my mind.

What’s a dedication? It’s kind of like a christening, I guess, except the thrust of an infant baptism (as I understand it) is to make a statement of belief on behalf of the child, with the intention to raise them in the faith, confident that they will one day claim it as their own.

I see the value of some of that but, generally, baptising babies just doesn’t sit well with me. Talitha will one day reach an age of reason and it is for her to decide where she will walk and with whom. So, instead we dedicated her.

Really, as I see it, we were doing two things.

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The week in baby led weaning

Posted on February 11, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Baby led weaning | 11 Comments

I literally trawl the internet looking for photos of babies eating and real-life experiences of baby led weaning. If you are similarly inclined, read on.

Lamb and vegetable pot-roast-stew-thing.

Probably a bit too fatty but Talitha absolutely loved it. In fact I think she kept forgetting she already had stuff in her mouth but, hey, if she doesn’t mind spitting things out and putting them back in her mouth, who am I to criticise?
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On his birthday

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Our life is a Circus | 11 Comments

Thanks for not laughing when I didn’t know what dub step was.

Thanks for ignoring me when I found out what it was and told you it was awful.

Thanks for having a million ideas and trusting me enough to think them out loud.

Thanks for being so “present” at our daughter’s birth.

Thanks for taking the placenta home.

Thanks for not growing a moustache.

Thanks for pursuing your passions and making me pursue mine.

Thanks for not pushing me around.

Thanks for not letting me push you around.

Thanks for helping me have the courage to breastfeed when it really, really sucked (pun intended). Talitha and I both thank you for that.

Thanks for being up for discussing most ideas no matter how “out there” you think they are.

Thanks for always making that extra effort when you cook.

Thanks for the hours you’ve spent jigging the baby like it was an endurance sport.

Thanks for always meaning what you say.

Thank you. It’s been a great year.

Making a treasure basket

Posted on February 9, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Play | 7 Comments

OR Finding the time to write a blog post…

I noticed at a La Leche League meeting this morning that Talitha was particularly taken with looking inside the baskets on the floor and taking things out of them. So, I thought it was about time we made a treasure basket.

The idea came from Margaret Atieh’s article in Juno’s Winter 2011 edition. The idea is to fill the basket with safe objects from around your house and allow the baby to explore it. It’s both fun and a learning tool.

First, I emptied all the rubbish out of a basket. This included endless “New Baby” cards, the odd bank statement and some leaflets I was given about what her newborn poo should be doing. Better to put new toys in here than end up cleaning bits of card and paper out of her nappies, I thought.

Then I asked Talitha what we should put in it. She seemed to think bananas and my laptop would do the trick. I felt she was not taking the exercise altogether seriously.
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I’m going to BritMums Live! 2012

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Adele Jarrett-Kerr Posted in Blogging | 12 Comments

In June, I’m going to BritMums Live!, a conference for parent bloggers. There. I said it.

Eight months in and I still find it weird thinking of myself as a mum. Blogging has become more than a little maternity leave hobby. In fact, it’s got well out of hand.

Sponsoring me to attend BritMums Live! (and fuelling my mummy blogging problem) is reusable nappy brand Bambino Mio. Remember I took on their miosolo challenge a few weeks ago?

Well, it turns out that we decided we’re the perfect match for each other. I fall head over heels for a gorgeous cloth bum and they like this little blog enough to sponsor my conference ticket, journey and accommodation for the event.

I’ll be talking about them and their innovative, eco-friendly, utterly beautiful products in the lead up to the big weekend.

In the meantime, I’m just letting you know about the competition Bambino Mio is running with Brother Maxx on their Facebook page. There are three prizes each worth over £100 up for grabs:

2 x miosolo, 3 x mioboost, 160 x liners, 750g miofresh nappy sanitiser, 60 x miowipes, 3 x Baby Bibs, One-Touch 3-in-1 Digital Thermometer and a Ray Digital Bath & Room Thermometer.

I’m really looking forward to meeting other bloggers at BritMums Live! so I’m joining in with Stepford Wifey’s Meet and Greet…
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