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Blogging is being squeezed out a little at the moment, along with much else. On the other hand, dudelette (very nearly three weeks old – party!) very clearly follows specific faces and continues to make unbelievably delicate and graceful little baby mudras (Henitsirk’s marvelously apt phrase) whilst her nappy is changed or someone is smiling at her or just because she can.
She’s still very restless at night but recently, the restlessness seems to have shifted to earlier in the day. Last night, persuading her back to sleep after a night feed took only one hour as opposed to two and a half. Who knows what tonight will bring?
We’ve been living off basic organic frozen food (i.e. oven chips, posh frozen chicken nuggets and so on) over the fortnight immediately following on from her birth but over the last few days, we’ve been transiting back to real food. Our organic box arrived yesterday after a week’s gap and it came with a huge bag of fresh kale. We ate half of it steamed with sausages (works as well as cabbage with a good Cumberland banger) that evening and the other half earlier tonight with teriyaki chicken and a mixture of red and brown rice that supermum favours (with good reason).
Teriyaki chicken recipe – 50 or 60 ml of soy sauce (not too dark, the stuff you cook with), 50 or 60 ml of Mirin (Japanese cooking condiment) and a tablespoon of sugar. I heat it up in a milk pan until it starts to thicken then cool it down in a larger pot of cold water so I can use it immediately as a marinade (meanwhile, the rice is cooking).
Mix in stirfry-sized strips of chicken breast (or whatever bit of chicken you prefer) and leave in fridge for fifteen minutes. This gives you just enough time to sort the kale out. Fry or stir fry the chicken without the excess teriyaki sauce, layer on top of the rice, add the kale on top. Try and make sure you get all three in a mouthful.
Meanwhile, dudelet has been starting to feel a littl, well, emotional. He doesn’t act aggressively towards his new little sister but he’s consistently starting to get more disobedient and lippy with the two of us. At times, it feels that every time you ask him to do anything is just providing material for more precocity and prevarication. He’s also very tired – dudelette’s been waking him up at night, he has a terribly blocked up nose and all the fuss seems to be going on anywhere but around him. Tomorrow, I need to take him out to one of his favourite museums for some quality one on one time.
I’ve snapped and shouted at him on several occasions when he’s crossed one of those hard-to-define boundaries and I feel dreadful about it, all the more so when he bends over dudelette to give her a kiss, ask her who her big brother is or tell her that he loves her (this evening, for the first time) and one could forgive him almost everything. Except possibly waking up at 5:10 am, minutes after dudelette has finally gone off to sleep. More about discipline issues on another night.
“Tired and emotional”. That would be all of us, actually.
Filed under: cooking, discipline, family, newborn, siblings | Tagged: chicken, cooking, discipline, family, newborn, siblings, teriyaki sauce
Hang in there! I know how hard it is to be patient when you’re tired, so it must be hard not to snap at dudelet. Sounds to me like you’re doing fine, and a few shouts won’t matter in the long run. It also sounds like dudelet is asking for attention through his misbehavior…so the museum would probably go over quite nicely!
Even though I’m quite full from dinner at the moment — baked chicken with black-eyed peas and broccoli, and chocolate ice cream — your bangers and kale sounds too good. I’ll have to hunt up some mirin one of these days, since I’ve realized I love teriyaki but hate the weird chemicals in the bottled stuff.
I remember those days–my daughters were just 17 months apart in age. But really, it’s better on everyone, I think.
And thanks for the recipe. I have Georgia Collards growing in my garden and will have to try it out.
I know so well how you all must be feeling right now. Hopefully things will settle down soon. When do you return to work?
Merry Christmas to you and your family!
It is so hard — no one has their “balance” yet. It’s a tough phase. I’m wishing you still a Merry Christmas. I had one born on December 14 – and that first Christmas was a blur.