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Emma’s Halloween Buns

Published by Oana

Halloween week, can you believe it? This autumn has flown in for me, I can’t believe I have less than 3 months left of this pregnancy!

Well, it’s also half-term officially. Emma will be going to playgroup until Wednesday, when she will have a Halloween party with her friends there, so she has been asking from today for some “scary” buns for the boys and girls.

I am not very inventive when it comes to baking so I had a wee look around the Internet and found this Hearty Spiced Carrot Muffin recipe which sounded quite straight forward and mentioned a “toddler who devoured her muffin all Tasmanian-devil style”. I thought this would be spot on if we were to take them to the party on Wednesday and if we adapted them a little bit to look more…spooky.

So here is a list of my ingredients. I forgot to include the olive oil (of which I added half a cup) in the picture:

2 cups of self-raising flour(approximately 250 grams)
2 teaspoons of baking powder (I learned my lesson this summer and always add baking soda for fluffiness, even when my flour is self-raising)
one cup of porridge oats
one medium carrot, grated
half a cup of brown sugar (I don’t like my buns to be too sweet, especially when designed with children in mind!)
a cup of milk (the initial recipe stated applesauce but since I had none I double the amount of milk)
one egg
two teaspoons of vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon each of ground cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and ginger
spooky Halloween Hariboes
edible shimmer spray (optional)

The recipe recommended mixing dry ingredients first, then wet ingredients separately and adding them to the latter. I am a simple sort of baker and added everything together as they were listed, I’m afraid. No harm occurred.

My eager little baker stepped in to help me with the stirring: “That’s why I’m here, mummy!”

We placed the mix in Halloween muffin cases (bought especially from the occasion from Home Bargains, at £0.59 per 48 cases) and placed them in the oven for 20 minutes.

Emma insisted on adding a Halloween sweetie on each while they were still warm and asked me to spray them with the edible shimmer spray to make them more presentable and eery-looking.

Then she proceeded in sampling them (although she was a bit worried about the grated carrot she had seen going into the mix and had to be lied to: “Yes, love, I got it all out!”…) and declared them the best muffins mummy has ever made.

For me, this is the ultimate proof of success in a recipe and I will definitely make these little babies again, since it’s a sure way to get Emma to eat disguised carrot, if nothing else :-)!

Silent Sunday-27/10/2013

Published by Oana

OralB Love Your Gums Challenge

Published by Oana

The lovely people at Oral-B, together with the wonderful team at BritMums, teamed up this month to ensure that British mums are looking after their own oral health.

I received a tube of the new Oral-B Pro-Expert Premium Gum Protection toothpaste to try out. Who would have thought that a simple tube of toothpaste would act as such a catalyst for change in our family?

As you know from my previous posts, I am pregnant and yes, indeed, my gums have been bleeding like crazy since May. I sort of brushed it under the carpet as this is not the first time I get bleeding gums and used traditional methods to try and stop the bleeding. One of the methods is what my mum would have advised, which is brushing my teeth with a mixture of fine salt and baking soda. It didn’t really do the trick and besides, left my gums feel a bit tender due to the harshness of the salt grain.

So I started using the Oral-B toothpaste I got and things got slightly better but the bleeding didn’t stop completely. I liked the taste, it’s quite minty without being overpowering and drying your lips, but since I was now taking active steps to look after my gums, I decided to go and see the dentist about the issue.

The dentist reassured me that my gums didn’t look too bad and that the bleeding was probably more hormonal than anything else. She nevertheless recommended a specialist mouthwash which in conjunction with my Oral-B toothpaste has worked wonders since and, what do you know, I am now bleed-free at last!

Not only that, but I got my teeth cleaned in the process and Emma got introduced to the dentist’s chair for the first time. “She has only counted my teeth!” she told her friends proudly afterwards :-). I wish I could have taken a photo of her while in the chair but I thought it a bit insensitive towards her since it was her first visit and all…She is going back in six months and is now all chuffed about being “a brave girl.”

Hubby got into the swing of things too and he has an appointment himself tomorrow morning since one of his teeth is sore!

So, receiving a tube of Oral-B toothpaste meant much more for our family than just receiving a freebie. It did encourage us all to re-acquaint ourselves to the dentist and, in the process, look after our oral health a bit better!

This post is my entry for BritMums’ #OralBLoveYourGums Challenge sponsored by Oral-B, promoting healthy gums – something especially important for pregnant women. to get more tips and advice, visit www.oralb-loveyourgums.com.

Gnashers out, the dentist says we’re all good to go!

Giving and receiving

Published by Oana

This post ties in well with what I wrote yesterday but it looks at our children’s side of things, for a change.

I was writing yesterday about how busy a mummy’s life can be when it is centered around her children, her work and the well-being of the ones she loves.

We work to provide for our children. We strive to ensure they get opportunities to develop and thrive. We sacrifice our careers, our comfort and our healthy sex lives 🙂 in order to bring up individuals who will serve the society and themselves well as adults.

BUT there must be a balance, and this balance needs to be introduced early on in our children’s lives. They need to grasp the concept of giving as the natural reverse of receiving. They need to understand that the sacrifices we make for them, done in love and with the utmost pleasure and enthusiasm, need to reflect a similar attitude in themselves.

And folks, flash news now, giving ain’t natural to a small child!

The natural thing is for Emma to watch Nick Junior and ask for about half a dozen birthday presents “inspired” by the glamorous ads. The natural thing is for Emma to wake up and demand breakfast, even when mummy and daddy are having a lie-in on a Saturday morning. The natural thing is for her to eat ALL the chocolates auntie sent from Greece, “because they were mine!”

The natural thing is for Emma to ask me to buy her a new toy or treat every time we step into Home Bargains.

I said it before and sorry if I repeat myself here but I believe it is our duty as a parents, alongside the provision and the nurturing we do daily and consistently, to raise children who are well aware of the world around them and not focused on themselves only.

Selflessness is teachable, like any other virtue.

So…when Emma asks for half a dozen birthday presents for herself, I gently remind her that due to lack of storage in our home, she can only pick two. She hears this daily and now she knows she needs to narrow it to two.

When Emma gets noisy on a Saturday morning, I remind her daddy works very hard during the week and he needs some extra sleep and she would break into a whisper and wait patiently until he wakes up.

When Emma gets chocolate I encourage her to save some for later, so she can share with her visiting friends.

When Emma does get a new toy or book, we make a point of going through her older toys and books and choosing some to donate to the local charities or her playgroup, so that other children can enjoy them.

And it does work, once you are willing as a parent to put the legwork in.

It melts our hearts when Emma shows compassion, even towards her smaller fellow apartment co-inhabitants, the spiders, and wants to offer them a home :-). It makes us proud to hear her enquire about the Smartie tubes her playgroup is collecting as a means of fund-raising and empty our pockets of change. It makes me go to sleep with a smile when the last thing she has asked me that evening was: “Are YOU comfortable, mummy?”

I do encourage you to introduce the concept of giving even to your small children. The earlier they start learning, then better they will get at it!

This is my entry for the monthly BritMums carnival. This month it is hosted by Sarah Hill Wheeler at Crewcut and Newt, why don’t you pop by to say hello and write your own view on the subject?

We consistently encourage Emma to donate the books she no longer needs to people who would appreciate them. These ones are going to her playgroup today.

The Juggle of Modern Motherhood

Published by Oana

I remember asking my mum as a child, as I saw her working hard every day until late: “When is your work going to finish, mum?” Her reply stayed with me forever. She told me, juggling cooking and helping us with homework: “Never, it will only end when my days end!” At the time, I found her answer weird and stuck in the “weird things mums say sometimes” box, in a corner of my consciousness.

Now that I am a mum, I totally get what my mum said back then. Although I don’t work in the traditional sense of the word at the moment, my “work” never ends either.

A typical weekday for me at the moment includes playgroup runs, shopping errands, blog posting, PR email approaching…and this only describes my mornings. Once I pick Emma up from playgroup, it’s lunch prep, drama, ballet and girls’ brigade lessons. Then rushing home to cook wholesome dinners for the family, packing lunches for hubby and ironing/laundry/house cleaning. And if you thought I had the evenings to myself to relax, you would speak metaphorically for most times. I would normally spend my evening catching up with my Open University course material and only in very rare occasions, relax with a movie. More often than not, I crawl in bed exhausted close to midnight only to start the same routine early in the morning.

I love what I do and who I am at the moment. I have recently contemplated “letting go” of some of my daily tasks (since I got pregnant I have had trouble sleeping and found some days overwhelming due to lack of rest) but I concluded that these are things I have chosen to do for the well-being of my family and, more importantly, to maintain my mental health. I know, it sounds strange, but keeping busy with studying for better job prospects and trying to “earn” some money/products through my blogging gives me energy to go through the day as I have tasks and goals I set myself and strive to achieve. And ticking through the boxes during the day gives me immense satisfaction that in return fuels me with energy for the following day!

I have also considered the challenges of modern motherhood as society-imposed norms and criteria. I suppose I am not immune to them, no-one is, as long as they live in community, alongside other fellow human beings. But my strive to contribute to my family’s finances and the desire to gain better employment come primarily from within me, as a deep longing to be useful and to role-model a good example for my daughter.

To conclude, I would say modern motherhood presents its own set of unique challenges. Truly, it is a daily juggle of tasks and self-imposed goals but at the end of the day, for most mums, it is a choice joyfully and responsibly assumed.

This is my entry to the Mum Network Trusted Blogger Club Autumn Blog Carnival, hope you have enjoyed reading it!