The Gallery - Serenity

A Mellow Puma (not my Puma, I might add)

I am in a happy place.

Satiated. Stretched out in the comforting warmth of an English summer. The sun gently caresses my face and soothes my satisfied belly.

This bed of cool, bouncy grass creeps up around me as if I had been lying here peacefully since Spring. Alone with my thoughts, I drift aimlessly through a field of wonderful daydreams. A giggling child, a gently rocking swing, the murmur of a passing bumble bee. Where am I?

Oh yes, I'm here, relaxed and mellow. Listening to the distant rumble of traffic and watching the slow progression of a plane at 34,000 feet sharing my vast blue sky.

This is serenity.

Now, I wonder whether it's dinner time yet?

This post was written for this week's writing workshop and photo gallery with the theme 'Emotions' - Serenity is a state of being devoid of stress and emotion.

Travel With A 1-Year-Old : Be Airport Savvy

Airports. Ug. I found them stressful enough before I became a parent, but now... OMG! I've travelled abroad twice now with Lara so I have some tips and rants to share...

The first tip I have is to make sure you know what your plan of attack will be if you are bottle-feeding your baby.

The first time I took Lara on a plane, she was 3 months old. At the time, I had just started combination feeding and as we were going to warmer climes, I also needed to offer cooled boiled water. I did my research in terms of what I would/wouldn't be allowed to take through security in terms of formula and water and found that although the rules are clear (you can take what you need for your child during the flight but you may be asked to sample it), that in reality, it is very much up to the individual member of staff you meet at the security desk and that the rules and approaches differ greatly between airports.

We were told that at Gatwick you could buy cartons of ready-made formula from branches of Boots in the departure lounge. They only had SMA available so if you are after a specific brand, I'd recommend giving the branch a call beforehand as I believe they are happy to get different brands in on request but it does all seem like a bit of a faff. At Heathrow, I've found that the Boots branches stock a much wider range of brands and types of formula.

That first trip, I chose to take powdered formula and bottles of cooled boiled water through UK security. We were asked to taste the water but, more stressful than that, Lara was subjected to a detailed search! After queueing over 40 long, hot minutes for an X-Ray, we were stopped as I passed through the scanner and they member of security staff insisted on running the metal detector over her causing to scream even louder than she already was.

A random photo of a sleepy Lara

This time around, UK security was a lot less stressful now that I don't have to deal with cooled boiled water and sterilised bottles. We were however asked to taste the sachet of emergency fruit puree that we took for Lara, even though it was well within the guidelines for the maximum volume of liquid allowed. This is particularly annoying given that it then had to be used within 24 hours when I had been hoping not to have to use it as all. I'm pretty certain they only did it because they didn't recognise what it was.

My second tip is to make sure you take plenty of supplies of all the essentials such as nappies, wipes, cream and snacks.

On my recent trip to the states we took just enough disposable nappies and infant formula to last the trip. On our last day I had 6 nappies and 3 sets of powder left for the journey, which should have been plenty. As we entered the airport we discovered that our flight was delayed by 15 hours – argh. In Newark airport there is simply NOWHERE that you can buy any of the above baby essentials... NOWHERE. As the day wore on we were getting low on nappies, so low that I begged the airline for some but they bring them in from the UK and had already run out on our plane. Argh. We finally made it home with a single nappy to spare – that was close!

My final tip is to pay attention to what the airline want you to do with your buggy! Not every airline or airport is the same. Some places like you to take the buggy all the way up to the aeroplane door, others require that you leave it at the departure lounge or gate. Some places will send your pushchairs through on the conveyor belt to baggage reclaim, others will plonk them at random places in the airport. It is best to find out from the staff on your plane exactly what will happen to your pushchair otherwise you may find yourself hanging around like a lemon, as we did, waiting for a pushchair you should have picked up miles away.

The Sunday Review - The Wean Machine

Images courtesy of Cheeky Rascals

I recently met a fascinating and inspiring local business woman – Tilly Beazeley, inventor of the Wean Machine. Tilly is a bubbly soul who is passionate about feeding our children healthy, REAL food.

If you've read my post about Baby-Led Weaning, you'll know that I take a pragmatic approach to feeding my daughter – for us, the first stages of weaning were not all about finger-foods but about home-made purées getting lumpier and more adventurous every day.

It's a shame that I didn't discover the Wean Machine until after Lara had started feeding herself – it would have been absolutely perfect for us to make lumpy, textured baby foods to challenge Lara's taste-buds, teeth and jaws during those early days of weaning. The Wean Machine is a plastic gadget (BPA-Free, Phthalate-Free and PVC-Free, naturally!) designed to help you turn real food into baby food anywhere and everywhere you go. It is incredibly easy to use – just insert the food, give it a squeeze and hey presto, baby food!

As a travel gadget, the Wean Machine is pretty nifty. I was (and still am) often tempted to take pre-packaged food out with us when away from home for meal-times because it avoids the mess of spoons and bowls having to be brought home in the changing bag. The Wean Machine is self-contained, the food gets squeezed into its own integral 'bowl' and the spoon that accompanies it stashes tidily away inside the lid during travel. As a plastic tool, it is dishwasher safe too, so very easy to clean.

Images courtesy of Cheeky Rascals

The Wean Machine is pretty sturdy – you can squish all sorts of cooked foods in it, and a few softer, raw ones too. It encourages you to offer your child real food. When you're at home, at friends or at a restaurant, if you're careful with the choices you make, there is no need to buy different food for your baby, you can use the Wean Machine to squish some of your own. Right from the very beginning, Lara has (where appropriate) eaten the same meals as us; I don't want her to grow up thinking that there's a difference between 'children's food' and 'grown-up's food' and the earlier I can get that message across to her, the better. I spent many an evening zuzzing samples of our dinner with a hand-blender, and I know plenty of people who invested in mini food-processors to get them through the first stages of weaning but an electronic blade, however efficient it may seem, breaks down many of the chemicals in food, and can cause them to change state (such as potato which goes incredibly stodgy).

The Wean Machine has had a lot of thought put into it. The gadget is often accompanied by a picture board-book called “What Am I Eating?” which has some suggestions for recipes and large, bright, bold pictures of foods for your baby to identify. It may be awfully middle-class of me, but, as a foodie, I'd much rather that Lara learned to say 'Butternut Squash' before she learned to say 'Crocodile'.

You can find the Wean Machine at Kiddicare and Mothercare and some specialist baby outlets for around £19.99 (similar to the cost of a mini-food processor which you can't take out and about with you!).