laurasaur

Over 2kgs. I am the queen of gaining the last 5kgs, losing it, then gaining it.. getting pregnant etc etc I feel I should document how I do it.

I figure I’d quite like to lose 6kgs before we start TTC (trying to conceive) again. It’d be nice to start from “my ideal” place.
Also my ideal health. I’ve been feeling less than 100% basically since I stopped breastfeeding Reuben and my diet went down the drain like you can’t even imagine. My post-shower-crazy-itching is back with a vengeance which I can only assume is down to too much refined carbohydrates (basically what my diet consists of right now). My skin is not good and there’s only so much makeup you can put on to hide it. I’m just sick of being not 100% with how I feel and how my clothes fit, and not doing anything about it.

I feel like I kind of forgot that no one was gonna do this for me, and it’s a bit ridiculous that I have all this knowledge and experience on what to do and how to do it to not just dominate it. It’s getting me down dwelling on it. What a loser.

So lets do it!

Starting with tomorrows breakfast: 2 eggs, salad and beans! Whatever kind of beans you feel like. For me – it’s whatever happens to be in the cupboard, in a can . A cup of black coffee, and lot of water.

And then, for snacks/lunch/second lunch/whenever:
*more eggs
*hemp protein shake (spinach/berries/yog/water)
*frozen fish either pan fried or oven baked
*sachet of tuna (flavoured)

I’ll update with my actual diet tomorrow. But for now, its past midnight and I’ve got washing to hang out. Time for bed.. nighty night. Please share with me what’s worked for you if you’ve lost weight, or if you are happy with your body, how do you keep yourself happy with your body? xx

I think Reuben can almost be considered a toddler. He’s now walking 70% of the time, the other 30% is an extremely fast crawl

Ah I love him so much. He learnt to say “car” two days ago and can say it if you point to a car. It’s kind of a big deal because everything else he says with his mouth totally closed haha but this one he pronounces it so well with kind of a gutteral C sound if that makes any sense. Also because a family(in-law) members seems to think I don’t talk to him enough and therefore its my fault he hardly talks lol. Whatever I talk to him all day long!

We may have just had an indoor sprinkler party where I spray him with the mister bottle I use for ironing and he goes crazy hysterical. We may or may not have been right next to the TV and stereo system… ahh I’m such a good mum.

He’s kind of a danger child and likes to pretend to climb over the sides of the couch and stuff like that. He loves books, both reading them by himself and being read a story.

That’s him holding a wicket from his cricket set that is rather sharp on one end … great for bashing stuff with

What else is new.. ummm… I’ve been doing some stuff around our crappy flat, man it’s hard work living on the second floor with a baby! I can highly NOT reccomend it. Just don’t ever pretend it’s a good idea unless you have a lift. Anyway, I digress, I give to you the bathroom shelf:

easy installation and led me to the discovery that our bathroom wall is curved. cool. ah the joys of renting. Also bought some new bedding which clashes horrificly with our magnolia bedroom walls, it’s making me really want to paint them but can I really be bothered? My guess is … probably not. Watch this space (or not)

Made a hat, I don’t love it I was going to give it to one of the mums who is expecting in my knitting group but the wool isn’t very nice. I should have guessed, It’s Sirdar Eco Wool and I don’t feel like it’s the nicest thing I could have picked from my stash for a newborn gift so not too sure what I’m thinking. I might give it to charity when I send off the jumpers for african babies…. and reknit this in Sublime merino cashmere silk or something.

Wow that was a boring ramble. Big love to everyone – be happy xoxox

Mine started out fab. Reuben & I had breakfast, he had a huge nap, I drank lots of coffee and did some knitting, we went out to browse a knitting shop and have coffee with some gorgeous knitty friends and gorgeous babies,

happy happy

and then

get home, Reubey is playing so happily, I’m knitting in the lounge and he crawls off into his bedroom and I stay put, can hear him crashing around with his duplo and stuff… 20 mins or so later he crawls out all smiley

and then

OOOOOOOOhHHHHHHMMMMMMMYYYYGOD there is POO EVERYWHERE. He has somehow managed to undo one side of his nappy resulting in complete poomageddon. Did you read the bit above where he had crawled from HIS BEDROOM TO THE LOUNGE??? yeah. with half a nappy on. And poo everywhere. Ohh. Funn. Then it dawns on me that this is my child… and I’m the one that has to clean it up. Haha. Glorious Mum moment.

So shower/bath/30 mins later OKAY So he’s clean. Back into his room, try not to cry while seeing poo smushed into new carpet … room looks like some kind of crime scene with duplo covered in poo…  he had obviously taken his walked and rolled it back and forth over the poo.. anyway.. I digress from the next moment in my day… So I plonk him onto his change table and unwrap the towel from around him…

Reubs is coooooooovered in  rash. Slight panic.
/skip the boring trip of my day/
MEASLES.

Oh joy. That was a surprise. I like to think I’m pretty in touch with how wee man is feeling etc as we are quite joined at the hip for a good portion of every.single.day.. and he hasn’t been acting terribly out of sorts. Last week I had to go to hospital after I had a miscarriage (that’s a story for another day) and then again for an oral surgery appointment for my jaw so we spent a good amount of time in that disease ridden place…. and I’m sure he picked it up from there. Apparently 7-14 days from infection to rash so that would work out.

Sigh.

Trap him in a corner of his room behind the couch while I deal to the aftermath of poomageddon…. except I hadn’t trapped him, he had crawled off and slithered out into my bedroom.. prceeding to empty everything from 2 drawers of a bedside table.. containing all my makeup.. yay!!

Carpet is clean. Room no longer smelling 110% of excrement. Now like 50% poo 50% wet carpet. Go baby hunting… aha! Reach for baby and step on a square jar of moisturiser and roll my ankle, almost fall onto squishy baby…

and so on and so on

rah rah rah.. day didn’t get much better for me or reuben poor boy developed a bit more of a fever and spent a lot of time snoozing on my tummy in the evening. oh well I ate lots of cake……. wait that’s not a good thing either :<

but seriously, at not one point in this day did I feel unhappy or despair (until my husband got home, but thats another story .. f**king cricket) .. because I love my sweet little poo making baby.. and I feel so bad for him that he’s all uncomfortable with the measles… If I could have it for him I’d do it in a heartbeat.

Loving on my stinkster squiggle machine…….. Lau x

If you don’t know what these are, go and buy one. And at the same time buy 2 x 500g packs of stoned dates (£1.34 from tesco each) and some pecans (£4.49 for 300g… ouch more than I remember) and then you can make 37 of your own (pretending you make them exactly 35g each) for £7.17 opposed to £26ish.

You can  make these way way cheaper by using cashews instead of pecans – I just way way prefer pecans. There are infinate variations, add other dried fruit, add cocoa, cinamin, spices, whatever you fancy. I think this would be a great project for little ones to help out with, such a fun texture to mash up and relatively mess free. And they are making food!

You will need -

A food processor
Dates (I use 1kg of dates per 300-400g of nuts)
Nuts (pecans are our favourite, cashews work equally well)
Any extra ingredients you want – cocoa powder, chocolate chips, dried fruit etc.
A willing taste tester always helps:

Chop the nuts in your food processor. You don’t want to grind them into dust, just into nice chunky pieces that should look something like this:

Then tip them into a bowl (use a large bowl to save on washing up later, one that you can fit everything into), and put all the dates in the food processor (you might have to do this in batches, depends on how powerful your processor is.
Blend/Pulse the dates until they are really mashed up, they should start sticking together into a ball. Often you will hear a really nasty sound while doing this and it is probably because there is a pit (stone) or two in your bag of dates. Usually best to stop processing and fish it out because it can scratch up your bowl pretty bad. The dates should eventually look something like this:

Next step is to grab handfuls of the dates and knead them into the chopped nuts. It’s a bit trial and error at first but you will quickly figure out the amount of nuts you can incorporate into the dates. I just use my hands and fold/knead lumps in. You don’t want to mix too many nuts in or else it will crumble when you make them into bars. At the same time you don’t want to put too few in or else it will just be a sticky date bar. Mine look something like this when they are finished:

Mmm attractive. Insert gross joke here. Once you have incorproated all the dates into the nuts or vice versa you want to start shaping them into bars. You can really make any size or shape that you want, depending on your needs. I tend to make my bars quite large, as Reuben loves these and would quite happily eat them all day if I let him. That way I can have one in my bag as an emergency meal…

I lay out a piece of clingfilm and roll a log in between my hands, then flatten it onto the clingfilm, and wrap it up:

Then the most important step – squash it really hard with a book:

And that’s it!

I store mine in the fridge, I think they would be fine unrefridgerated but I have no idea of their shelf life… after all they are just dates and nuts. Enjoy!

Cath Kidston mugs making me happyyyyy inside

baby R helping me fix my laptop keyboard (fixed!! more blogging action hopefully *should* be taking place as a direct result of this)

lots of happy hooking time has been taking place and baby R’s blankie is coming along very nicely!! so exciting!

the sun is starting to shine more and It’s lovely having my sister in law staying with us for a few months too xxxxxxx