both babies dressed up for halloween

Emm went as Pippi Langstrumpf (Pippi Longstocking). To get her fine straight hair to stay in braids I soaped up my hands and rubbed them through her hair, then plaited it. I pinned the two plaits up with bobby pins, and sprayed the lot with hairspray. When we arrived at the party I took the bobby pins out and the plaits stayed sticky outy for about an hour. The freckles are done with my eye liner pencil. We already had the cute little wrap dress, the pockets and the patch are just roughly sewn on with embroidery floss. She's wearing red tights, with stripy long socks (a too small stained pair of tights cut up!), and her winter boots.

For baby number two I just painted a pumpkin face onto an orange top, and flashed it when appropriate.

a break from worrying ourselves sick

we're making a conscious effort not to worry ourselves sick this weekend. It's not long now until the tests, the MRI is on Tuesday, and the eye exam under general anaesthetic (including fluorescein angiography). We've done all the googling we could, and talked every day about what it could be and how it might affect her, and I've cried every day, and lay awake every night, and it hasn't changed a bit about her eyes. I'm so glad I got through to a nurse that took the time to pull Emm's file and explain what the consultant wrote and what tests she ordered!

We're now doing what we knew we should be doing all along, look after her and care for her and let her have fun, and not pull ourselves apart worrying about things we can't change. It's ironic, that we got the news just after I finished reading 'eat pray love' a book all about acceptance and living in the moment, and everything i'd learnt went right out the window... But I'm getting back to it.

We've made no plans, we're just at home, spending time with her, playing, baking (apple cake), cooking (chicken and chorizo gumbo (loosely based on this recipe, ignoring the turf and using free range chicken portions instead)), going into the garden, the beach, a birthday party yesterday... this evening we've put down a nice fire, the first this autumn, and let Emm stay up a little longer, letting her enjoy the fire. She was playing with her Clipo bricks, for a good hour and a half, chatting non stop, repeating all the words and phrases she learnt today.

I'm not making plans for her birthday next week, we'll play it by ear. There will be a small party of course, and  a cake with candles, and her auntie and uncle are coming for the weekend, but I'm not planning a big party for all her toddler friends. We've also ignored Halloween so far! But we might get a pumpkin tomorrow, and we're going to look for shoes for her, so maybe we'll find a little costume, too!

Now, back to enjoying the fire and talking to my husband, and paying some attention to the kicks from my unborn!

scary times

Emm has been cross eyed  since birth, sometimes more, sometimes less. After finally getting a referral for the eye clinic she was diagnosed with a retinal fold on her right eye, which disturbs her central vision.Her left eye was declared perfect and I was consoled with sentences like 'she'll be fine, she has perfect vision in her left eye'. We were advised to patch that eye for two hours a day to make her learn to use the weaker eye, too.

We had another eye appointment for Emm this week, as at the last test she seemed to see less on her 'good eye', probably due to the occlusion therapy, which was stopped. So for this week she got a 'double appointment', meaning she first does the test where she 'reads the charts' (pictures of fish and shoes and houses and so on.), and then goes in to the consultant who has a look at her eyes with lenses and lights. For that they put eye drops in, to dilate her pupils. She seemed to recognise a lot more picture with her 'weak eye', than with her 'good eye' again.

I had thought that maybe Emm had just had an off day where she wasn't as interested in the charts, but after the consultant examined her she said in addition to the fold at the back of her right eye, she was now seeing another one in her left eye! She seemed confused and wondered if she might have missed it the last time. I can't imagine she did as she had a good look at drew each eye fore me in her file, to explain what she had found. It was meant to be a congenital thing, that happened before birth, but finding a second one, now at 23 months, doesn't fit in with this! She wouldn't tell me what she suspects but arranged for a different eye exam, where Emm will be under a general anesthetic, and an MRI brain scan, both to be done within the next two weeks!

Of course i burst out crying but she wouldn't say any more, just that she's sorry about having bad news for me and that she won't be able to say anything until after the tests. Since this I've been crying my eyes out, and fool that I am, googling everything about eyes. The condition that matches the consultant's drawing most, is a persistent fetal vasculature, PFVS, a little stalk that's present while the eye develops, in the womb, and normally disappears before birth, but persists in some cases. The way I understand it's a bit like scar tissue, and over time, as the eye grows, will pull the inner eye out of shape, and distort her vision more and more! It then can also lead to glaucoma, and complete blindness. Or PHPV, a similar condition with clouding of the vitrous... It could also be a kind of vitreo-retinopathy, a degenerative condition that can lead to blindness. I could have coped if this was happening in one of her eyes, but in both! I don't know if this is what she has, but all the other eye conditions in infants and children are even scarier, being linked to genetic syndromes, some in combination with loss of hearing, too!

This is such a terrible time, not knowing, not being told anything, a brain scan for my little baby! I keep sending up little prayers, hoping they'll find it was all a mistake, and crying my eyes out realising that that's very unlikely. I sometimes see Emm looking at small items really close up and i find myself taking them away from her, because it freaks me out so much. She is such a bright smart happy little girl, loving her drawing, and books, knowing her colours and counting to ten and even recognising some letters, it just can't be right that she shouldn't be perfect and healthy! She's always picking flowers and looking at bugs and leaves and asking what everything is...

I've been crying at least every two hours, and I'm starting to worry it's not good for my unborn baby, 26 weeks today. It doesn't help that my cousin and her family are visiting, so when they are in the house  I really have to pull myself together. On the other hand, Emm is having such fun with her cousins, who are 4 and 8, she doesn't notice my state, as she might otherwise. Then I look at them running and dancing around, and admiring each others' drawings, and wonder if she will still be able to do that in 2 years time. Then I have to find an excuse to leave the room and have another cry, and splash a lot of cold water in my face afterwards.
I'm glad I'm on a career break at the moment, I wouldn't be able to function in the office, at all!

plum cake, blackberry jam and crumpets!

i had a bit of a cooking day! no photos unfortunately, but i made crumpets and blackberry&apple jam from darina allen's 'forgotten skills of cooking' book. The crumpets turned out beautifully, I made the whole recipe, thinking i'd wrap the leftovers in clingfilm and toast them tomorrow... alas, i am a pregnant lady, and over the course of the afternoon they were all gone!! and Emm had no more than one! i had to throw out the first three though, in my defence, but still, i must have eaten about 10!!!
For the jam I made the mistake of listening to too many cooks, using Darina's recipe but adding my mum's advice that I definitely should use jam sugar rather than ordinary sugar, so the consistency was on the verge of wine gums!! very very set. i added the juice of half a lemon because i knew the berries were quite sweet, from my friend's husband's jam experiment, which worked a treat, my jam turned out just the right balance of sweet and sour.
I used the last of the plums from our tree to make a small 'Pflaumenkuchen', using a pastry base instead of the favourable yeast dough base. (I made that one last week and I think out of the two versions it's definitely the better one) The bready base makes you think of bread and plum jam, only it's less sweet, much tarter and with only just cooked plums, rather than mushy sugary jam.
In the evening I still managed to cook a yellow thai curry, inspired by Jo's post! Emm was tucking in, except for the peppers and mushrooms. I had to make sure she drank lots of water afterwards, because I suppose the paste is quite salty, much more so than other dishes I cook. I forgot to put in the broccoli, my concentration was definitely waning by then!

I had bought Bill Grangers new book (can't find it on the amazon associates search engine), but returned it when I realised it was 12.50£ on amazon (13.25£ at the moment), after I'd paid 33€ for it in the shop! I know there's exchange rates and shop overheads, but I don't think that kind of price difference is justified!! They took it back, no problem. I haven't ordered it yet and am thinking almost everyday of a dish i saw in it and then remember, oh yeah, must buy the book! I had half decided to return it when I realised what most of the ingredients were going to cost!! If I was able to source them, that is... But now I keep thinking back and I think I will get the book again. Or maybe I should just get his first book? Are chef's first books usually their best?

blackberries and cookies

http://www.flickr.com/photos/markhillary/

We went picking blackberries today, yum... A friend of mine, Kate, recently bought a new house, on a bit of land, which happens to be covered in brambles! They've made jam already, and today, when Emm and I dropped in to bring cookies and borrow some maternity clothes, we decided to pick some more! Her two boys, and my little one, of course picked all the berries straight into their mouths, thoroughly destroying their clothes and covering their faces! Such a pity I didn't have my camera with me, it all looked so idyllic, Emm hasn't had the freedom to just roam around such a big area since we were at my parents'! The sun was on our backs and when we had enough berries, we picked a few cooking and eating apples to go with them. Kat's youngest started to get tired and cranky, so we headed back to the house to put him to bed, and I cooked the rest of us some sausage sandwiches.

When we got home Emm happily went to sleep, and I checked my mobile to discover to my embarassement that I'd totally forgotten about the window cleaner, for whom I was going to be home hours ago! He did my windows anyways, accidentally setting off the alarm, which called my mobile (unanswered in my handbag in the car), then P's mobile, who thankfully managed to switch it off remotely and then sent a neighbour around to check... How embarassing! I spent the rest of Emm's nap making phonecalls apologising to people, and the rest of the cookies went to support that cause...

Tomorrow will most likely be spent making something with the blackberries, maybe blackberry and apple jam? and something else with the last of the plums from our tree, i'm thinking german pflaumenkuchen! And I'll have to get the rooms ready for my mum and my aunt, there's some more tidying and bedmaking to do. And I'll have to try and spot and fix all the little things that i generally don't notice, like spiderwebs in the corners, the ironing basket, and dust behind the TV!

yippie, the last of the hideous 'buttermilk' paint is gone from our house!

When we moved into this house every room, bar the bathrooms, was painted Dulux 'Buttermilk', a sickly, light zapping, depressing, pale yellow. The new paint is Dulux 'Abbeylands', a neutral beige, not too dark, but dark enough to provide a nice contrast to the white woodwork, no yellow undertones, just perfect! I usually like colour, but in the bedroom we have dark purple curtains, a bright orange anglepoise lamp and a green woolly throw that has flecks of purple, orange and turquoise in it, so I thought I better keep it neutral! 

I think I'll get these photos printed and frame them white, they'll be great for the room! 

That duvet cover is quite faded, and I should probably get a new set, but this one has just about gotten perfectly soft! The other problem is finding affordable 100% cotton bedlinen! I don't like the poly cotton almost everything in the shops here seems to be made of, and the linens in Ikea and in Germany have different measurements. Plus I would have to come across a nice design, in the right colours, and without any glitter or beads!! So for the moment, we'll stick with this one, and the 2nd set, which is all white, and let them both get softer and softer with every wash. 

I'm not showing the side of the room with the hideous built in wardrobes, or the less than perfect chest of drawers, maybe if we paint them, or get rid of them, but that'll have to wait for better times! 

On the dinner front, we had Hugh Fearnley Whittingstalls 'slow roasted shoulder of lamb with merguez spices'. I've been looking online, to see can I find the recipe to link to, but no luck. I did, however, find this blog post

http://www.them-apples.co.uk/2009/11/very-slow-roasted-shoulder-of-lamb-with/

with a nice photo. Ours looked equally delicious, and when P lifted the bone, the meat just fell off! Really really yummie...We had roasted spuds, spinach, and the meat juices with it.  Emm was tucking in, she probably ate more than me! We have lots of lamb left over, and i have a beetroot and feta salad prepared, so it'll be an easy dinner tomorrow!

finished knit dress

It's long enough, after all! She should be able to wear it all winter :-) She looks a bit grumpy, but that's because I put the dress on her right after her nap, and took her soother away to get a picture! Bad mama... 

And I already started the next project, http://www.purlbee.com/crocheted-linen-grocery-tote/ a groceries bag. I'm doing it in ancora cotton, it's really thin, it's meant for lacey crochet projects, i think. I bought it in Portugal. I'm using a 2.5mm hook and am already changing the pattern a little, as I go on, so no idea how this will turn out! But the bag is meant to be very stretchy, so it shouldn't matter too much! 

late summer visitors

the lavendar plant is really popular with the bumble bees and butterflies! i should probably try to take cuttings, it's huge now and i don't know how long a plant lasts?

control freak boyfriend

Oh, scary, I'm just watching Oprah, and they are talking about violent relationships. They are describing how violent relationships start, what patterns are telltale warning signs, 'red flags', and it's like a step by step account of my last relationship before I moved to Ireland! The flatteringly persistent guy, eager to move the relationship on quickly, always wanting to know where I was, hating if I spended time with my friends or family and always making me feel guilty about it, really jealous und untrusting (with no reason!), trying to control every aspect of our life, down to the way I washed the dishes... I am so glad I got out when I did (even that took a while because he wasn't taking no for an answer and hassled me, and then, when I moved away, my parents...)! The women in the program were later hit by their husbands, seriously injured, and some nearly killed...

Only got about 3 hours of interrupted sleep last night, better go and get some more while the little one naps!

more work on 'Puppe'

She got a pair of trousers to go with her top/very short dress, and I put her felt hair into pig tails. There was more minor surgery to her hands to get rid of the lobster look.

I also looked my pattern over and made some adjustments, mainly to the hands and shoulders. Will have to make another doll to see if the changes worked! But, as you can see from the photos, we're having an unusually sunny day, so I'll be off to the Grange with Emm and my friend Cath, for some coffee and cake and sunshine, and then maybe for a little dip in the sea! Just waiting for Emm to wake up!

link to a wonderful blanket in progress

http://blairpeter.typepad.com/weblog/2010/08/hands-busy-blanket.html

Isn't it just gorgeous? I love the colours... and the idea of different textures!

News here, i felt the baby kick for the first time last friday (18w). I felt it, and told P, and he put his hand on my belly and said 'you know it's very unlikely that I'll be able to - ooooooooh!' and he could feel it, too! I love it, it makes it so much more real, for both of us... And soon for Emm!

The second rag doll

I've made a second doll! She's as of yet unnamed, she goes by 'Dollie' or 'Puppe' so far. I really like her, she's so much better than the last. Here she is:

I meant to post as I go on making it, but my sister being over to visit meant that I didn't spend much time on the computer! I did however get time to do some stitching as we were sitting and chatting. I don't have photos of all the steps but I have some:

 This is my amended pattern (I used the one from before as a base): I added a neck and a dart to the head, rounded the shoulders and made the bottom narrower for the body. I made a different back body pattern by adding darts and increasing the width and length so that it would still match up. I added a foot shape to the leg and made it much wider,and  I added a hand shape (mitten style) to the arm and made it much wider, too. I got the idea for the hands and feet and the head dart. from the hop skip jump dolls, I just love her dolls! I know I could have bought the pattern, and be done with it, but I like the challenge of making my own, and changing it a little which each doll (I already have lots of amendments for the next doll planned!).

I cut all my body pieces from pale pink baby cord, and sewed the darts, neck and limbs with the machine. After turning and stuffing the limbs I basted them to the body pieces and handsewed them on. At this point I realised that I wouldn't just be able to tuck the limbs into the body while sewing all around it! Instead I turned the body, I thought I'd never manage it!

oh dear...very hard work!

Phew!

I hand sewed the body and what was left of the head, and stuffed with some more pillow fiber. This sounds like I was nearly done at this point... But then I attached a lot of wool hair, strand by strand, decided I hated it, removed it, tried to fix the angle of the arms (which looked nothing like the above once the body was stuffed), gave up on that and ripped the seams and handsewed the arms back on. All this over the course of a week or so! 

After the woolly hair disaster I decided to go for felt hair instead, and found a great instructions in this purl bee felt doll tutorial :

 as i wasn't happy with the head shape

 i stuffed the 'felt wig' with some more of the polyester filling

 and then tried it on and whip stitched it in place.

I embroidered the face and M played with the naked doll for the afternoon. 

Here the two dollies are having a rest on the window sill. 

Emm's main demand was a nappy for the doll, and 'anziehen' (getting dressed), so in the evening I made some quick white knickers, and in the morning a simple sleeveless dress, held together with elastic at the neckline. Which brings us back to the first photo of this post!

Once I'd decided to make another doll I did lots of image googling, scanning through the pictures and checking any websites with those that I liked, this especially worked when I was looking for hair inspiration and tutorials! There are lots of great doll making resources out there, and photos for inspiration! 

I made a doll

She's a bit weird, something went wrong when I printed the pattern, I'm pretty sure the body and head turned out wider, and the arms and legs narrower! I started her last winter and stopped the work when I realised how skinny the arms and legs were. This weekend I took her out again and finished her today. I didn't want to invest too much more time in a wonky doll, so she just got a single layer of hair and a quickly embroidered face.. My mind is already on modifying the pattern to get more shape to the head. And bum, so she'll sit. And obviously fatter arms and legs! Emm seems to like her anyways, she's reading her 'Owl Babies' at the moment.

The pattern I used was from make-baby-stuff.com , I think it's a great and easy pattern, just be smarter than me and check your printer settings before you print!

djeco fishing game

The little one got this gorgeous fishing game from a friend who just returned from her french holiday! Isn't it lovely? (took me ages to find a link to the right version of the game, she definitely got the cutest of them all!). I tried the amazon associates link, but it can't find it even though they have it:  http://www.amazon.com/Djeco-Magnetic-Tropical-Fishing-Toy/dp/B003ATO1NA . Not sure how it works, I thought it would be a handy gadget to find links to stuff, but it still seems to have bugs...

Anyhow, she thinks the flying fish is a rabbit, and starts singing 'twinkle twinkle' whenever she gets a hold of the star fish.

I have to stay away from the big toy shops here and constantly remind myself that toys don't have to be garish and plastickey! This game is such a nice example of beautiful design, colours and materials. We're just back from the house of a friend, who's boy's plastic toys were all over the place, and I'd just started wondering if I'm depriving my child because her toys mainly fit into 2 big boxes, and a lot of them are wooden or fabric. Then I remembered that she seems happy, and always finds something to do! And that I'm much happier in a halfway calm looking house! Trying to only get beautiful things for her also stops me from spending too much money, because I think three times before I buy anything!

making gnocchi (a fairly colourless post)

I made gnocchi today. I figured it was time to have potatoes as we haven't all week, but fancied something different! The Silver Spoon had a recipe, it's basically a kilo of spuds, a fifth of that in flour, a pinch of salt and an egg, quite simple! I steamed the peeled potatoes (Queens), mashed them and mixed them with the flour, salt and egg (make sure the mix isn't too hot when the egg goes in!). This mix is kneaded until you have a flexible dough.

I divided it up in two batches, as 600+g seemed quite enough for the three of us! One half I put aside, for Kartoffelklösse tomorrow.

The other half I divided up again, and rolled into thin sausages.

Those I cut up with a pairing knife, into little pillows.

The pillows were rolled into little balls

 ...lots of them! You can see how I started to flatten them a little with the fork (I think too much, I was looking up some other recipes and you're supposed to hold the ball in your hand while pushing on it with the fork, but I left them on the plate! The Silver Spoon says to push them against the underside of a grater.). The other half of the dough I made into 7 Klösse (or Knödel) which I wrapped in cling film.

Emm was fascinated with the process, she probably thought it was playdough! I gave her a little piece to play with, but she immediately tried to eat it, and with the raw egg I reckoned that wouldn't be a good idea!

I didn't get to take pictures of cooking them, as I was too busy cooking them! You put them in small batches (I did seven or eight at a time) into salted boiling water, and when they start to float to the top you take them out with a slotted spoon.

I made a spinach and philadelphia sauce, improvised, to go with it, with some of the perpetual spinach from the garden. (I fried some garlic and chili in a bit of olive oil and butter, and removed them as soon as the garlic started to get golden. I added the washed and chopped spinach and put the lid on, for about 5 minutes. Then I added cream cheese and tomato cubes and seasoned with nutmeg, salt and pepper.)

I know, it doesn't look too appetizing in the photo, but trust me, it was delicious! They were light, soft and kept their shape and didn't disintegrate or dissolve! All in all a quite colourless dish, it could have done without the philly, but I tend to not think much before I throw something together! I might serve the gnocchi with a tomato sauce the next time, or with sage butter and a mixed salad!

By the way, Gnocchi is pronounced something like [n'yog-kee] rather than [g'nok-chee] or [g'no-chee[ as you might often hear, to the confusion or despair of Italian waiters wordwide, depending on the level of their experience!