Author: Veronica

…cook Cornish Pasties with a Toddler in tow.

Make the pastry. At various intervals remove Toddlers fingers from the flour/butter/milk.

Cover the pastry and place in the fridge. Stop the Toddler trying to wee on the puppy (I couldn’t make this up).

Check your mince defrosting on the sink. Sigh and complain about how you forgot to get it out of the freezer last night.

Stop the Toddler climbing up and removing books and DVD’s from the bookshelves. Stop the Toddler sitting on the puppy. Clean up the puppy wee. Clean up the Toddler wee.

Peel potatoes and place on the bench. Stop the theft of the potatoes by giving Toddler an apple. Sigh when you notice all the potatoes in the Toddlers lap, along with ALL of the apples.

Slice the potatoes finely, dodging Toddler fingers as you go. Curse the setup of the loungeroom that means the couch is up against the bench. Wonder if locking the Toddler in her bedroom is worth the effort.

Finely dice carrots and onions. Pretend that tradtional pasties contain carrots and onions.

Stop the Toddler removing all the carrots from the bowl. Put the (now full) bowl on the bench behind you.

Yell as the toddler removes your knife from the bench. Growl. Lots.

Then find the bandaids and patch the Toddlers thumb up.

Check the mince.

Discover the frozen bits in the middle. Get shitty and stab the mince with a butter knife to break it up. End up using your fingers.

Yell as Toddler tries to eat raw mince. Growl when she won’t get off the bench (she was trying to sit on it).

Sigh as Toddler has a full blown tantrum on the floor.

Mix salt and pepper into the meat and set aside.

Wash hands and cuddle Toddler until she is happier.

Remove the pastry from the fridge and roll it out using a wine bottle. Curse your lack of strength as the pastry refuses to yield. Use all your weight on the bottle.

Stop the Toddler from poking holes in the (now rolled) pastry. Give her a glass jar and some pastry of her own to roll.

Resume rolling pastry and cutting into circles.

Freak out as the Toddler sticks pastry in her nose and ears. Clean Toddlers ears and nose and try to distract her with her blocks.

Fail.

Slowly put together the pasties and crimp the edges. Stop Toddler eating the onion skins.

Place pasties into a moderate oven and baste regularly with milk.

Cook the rest of the mince and serve with tortillas. Discourage Toddler from putting the tortillas on her vagina before eating them.

Finish eating and feeding Toddler.

Baste pasties.

Lots.

Wonder what that smell is. Toddler comes up and says ‘Yuck! Bum!’

Notice Toddlers feet. Chase down Toddler and clean poo off her feet.

Clean the carpet.

Clean more of the Toddler.

Swear that you are buying a potty tomorrow.

Wash hands and baste pasties more.

Once pasties are golden brown remove from oven and discourage Toddler from trying to eat them while still hot.

Serve with tomato sauce.

I know some people noticed my new header (if you can’t see it clear your cookies and refresh the page or click over from your reader) and I just want to give a big thankyou to Angie from Rio Oso Designs for it.

Sorry that it took me so long to get it up, but now it is here it looks amazing. Thankyou SO MUCH!

I actually won the header design in a competition. First thing I have won, EVER!

Now I need to modify the colour scheme a little to suit it, but that is work for tomorrow. Or whenever I get a chance to actually get near my computer to do more than check emails and write blogs.

———-

Easter was good fun. Unfortunately we sort of forgot that chocolate contains milk.

And Amy’s tummy doesn’t handle dairy products.

After Amy pooed 2 times (and I still hadn’t clicked that it was chocolate induced) I let her run around with no nappy on.

I know, I am STUPID.

Oh yes, she did poo on the floor. She even had the decency to TELL me she pooed on the floor, just not exactly where she pooed.

So there I was trying to herd a toddler and a puppy away from poo and I didn’t know where it was. Somehow they both found it while I didn’t.

And they walked in it.

All through the loungeroom.

And yes, I was a bad bad blogger (but a good mother/housekeeper heh) and didn’t take photos because I was much too busy trying to stop Seven simutaneously eating and walking poo through the house.

Fun times.

Do you know how hard it is to put a puppy outside, while wiping a toddlers feet (so that she didn’t make any more mess) and cleaning up millions (yes, there were millions. No, I have no idea how they managed to take so many steps in so little time) of poopy footprints?

Then I accidentally locked myself outside.

Next Easter if we still have dairy issues Amy is getting dark chocolate.

And no nappy free time.

Happy Easter and hello Weekly Winners. As always brought to you by the lovely Lotus.

It has been a trying week. However, Easter is all about the BBQ and the chocolate. Mmmmm, chocolate. You know, baths are good for removing chocolate?

 

The poor puppy hasn’t been getting any chocolate (chocolate can make dogs very sick) no matter how long she follows Amy around. Amy is very particular about eating all the chocolate.

 

We had some smoky days early in the week, which made for fantastic sunsets.

 

See?

 

Amy stole my camera and proceeded to take some interesting photos. (I suppose, it could have been heaps worse. I’m pretty sure she was naked for the photoshoot she did.)

 

Oh and remember this photo from last week? The one where I was astounded some people liked the colours?

 

I got sort of busy and pulled all the paint off. Yes, the paint did just peel off. Yes, in keeping with the theme we noticed when we moved in, they had just painted OVER the grease, grime and food scraps on the cupboards. I used a scrubbing brush to clean them.  Now all I have to do is sand them back, along with the GOD AWFUL pink edges and stain and re-varnish the cupboards.

 

Amy may have unwrapped her Easter egg this morning and then spent all morning either nibbling at it, or cuddling it. The glee on her face when she realised that the eggs on her highchair we actually for her was amazing. I only gave her 3 eggs, but it was totally worth it.

Happy Easter everyone! I hope you had a great time.

See more Weekly Winners here. 

Tonight bedtime was at 7.30pm, like always.

Unfortunately, like every other bedtime recently, Amy didn’t go down until 9.15pm and only then with a LOT of coaxing.

I am fucking exhausted.

Add into the mix that this is what she has been doing for the last 2 weeks (ever since the novelty of the new house wore off) PLUS waking up 4+ time a night for a least 30 mins each time and I am tired. Just a little bit tired.

[During the night, the first wake up is generally about midnight where I will get up and resettle every 10 mins for an hour, then she will wake 3+ times between 1am and 6am, generally needing resettling twice each time. Sometimes the 3am wake up will need 4+ resettles]

Bear in mind, that we have the exact same routine as we were using when she was sleeping through and that nothing in her bedroom has changed.

Add into the mix, a puppy who can’t sleep through the night and a mother with a rather bad run of CFS [I am spending alot of time attaching my heat pack to my hands and wrists] and we have a meltdown waiting to happen. [Me, not Amy]

So yes, this is ME whinging to you, my loverly internets.

I’m not sure if it is the sleep thing, but today? I had trouble making anything I wanted to say come out of my mouth correctly. This would have indeed been fine, had we not been visiting family.

Who I’m sure thought I was odd when instead of saying, ‘I’m fine thankyou, how are you?’ I just looked at them strangely and smiled. I’m sure they will forgive me.

You know, I also forgot how old both Amy and I were.

And I couldn’t for the life of me manage to tell Nathan where to find the towels. I just kind of waggled my hands at him. [Luckily he understands my hand waggles]

My point being, does ANYONE have any ideas for how to help Amy sleep better?

-She doesn’t get boobs for bed.
-I try very hard to settle her in her bed before she is asleep.
-She has 2 bottles of water and numerous dummies, just in case she loses one.
-She has her soft toys.
-She is warm enough.
-The room is not pitch black because then she wakes terrified.
-Her teeth have stopped moving for the moment.
-The routine is the same as always.
-She goes down equally as badly for Nathan. She used to be better for him.

I mean, obviously I am missing something, or she would be sleeping through.

I can’t see it from where I am sitting though.

*******

Updates.

My finger has dried out nicely and is well on the way to healing as long as I don’t bump it.

I came off the pill 5 days ago and slowly my insanity is receding. I have had some very minor spotting since, but no period. I am waiting to see what happens.

Seven has had NO accidents inside today. I am very proud.

Amy runs around the house chirping, “I happy, happy, happy. I happy, happy happy.” She also jumps and exclaims ‘BOING!’or ‘BOUNC-EEEE’ as she does it.

There are so many things I could blog about (Seven the puppy refuses to toilet train, Amy has molars coming down and is refusing to sleep, my phone cord is playing up causing the phone to ring and disturb my sleepless child, I have eaten too much chocolate, my fast internet won’t be connected until Wednesday, it is Easter, etc etc.)

However, all of those things are boring (unless you really want to hear about puppy poo? No?) so I present you with a photo.

Of my finger.

If you get ill at blood, please look away now.

 

You know, it doesn’t look nearly as bad in the photo. It hadn’t started to bleed (or hurt) very much at this point (hence me being able to photograph it).

I seem to have removed the side of my finger near my fingernail. My father assures me that he has done the same thing and that the chunk removed will eventually grow back and I won’t have less of a finger.

Nathan was quite rapt that he was able to examine the chunk of finger I cut off that was left on the knife.

However, it looks lots better this evening after I let it dry out. (The bandaids kept sticking and removing them hurt enough to make me nauseous and cry lots. I decided risking bumping it was a better option).

Hopefully it heals nice and fast, because touch typing minus one finger is an awfully hard thing to do.

</end sympathy request>