Family Food - Pink Porridge

Picture the scene:

5.54am - "Lorr-rry. Dig-ga. Pa's NeeNaw. NeeNaw NeeNaw NeeNaw. Aw done. MUMMEEEEEE! Baba-na." You open your eyes to check the time on your mobile - it's actually 5.54am! You lie watching the lights on the baby monitor, listening to assorted gibberish until 6am, which is, these days at least, an acceptable hour to arise. Because those 6 minutes in bed will ensure a radiant complexion and positively vibrant mood for the rest of the working day.

6.01am - Walking into The Bairn's room - och, alright. We'll let him off this time, because of his wee face and stuff. Look at him! Beaming at this time. Yeah, there may be a crust of bogeys surrounding the button nose, and he may be emitting the foul stench of morning poo - but he's adorable and will only improve following a good scrub.

6.30am - You're sitting on the sofa with a cuppa, increasingly absorbed in Postman Pat ("No honey, it's Pat's Van - not his NeeNaw... I mean fire engine) while policing The Bairn's ever decreasing distance from the TV screen. He's got his Baba-na and a cup of milk - to stave off his hunger until you can face the morning Weetapocalypse.

7.00am - Breakfast!

So here's an alternative to chipping Weetabix from your walls and recovering Rogue Rice Krispies from the Wee Yin's nostrils. Pink Porridge!

Ingredients

A yoghurt pot and a half full of porridge oats

Large tub of yoghurt - or make your own with Easiyo or similar

Some milk

Dried/fresh fruit

1. The night before, mix together oats and enough yoghurt to form a gloopy mess. Add milk if it seems too thick.
2. Stir in whatever you like - chopped berries/fruit, handful of currants, seeds....
3. Put it in the fridge overnight, covered.
4. Next morning - voila! Yummy sweet flavoured brekkie.
5. Add milk to loosen consistency if required, serve warm or cold.
6. Leave dishes soaking til after work. It's the only way. Honest.

I have not attached a photo. Once you've tried this recipe, you'll see why. There's a definite resemblance to up-chuck.

But YUMMY up-chuck! That's a Busyalibee guarantee! If you like that sort of thing.

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Model Rail Enthusiasm

First of all, i must apologize for being so neglectful of my little blog.

The reasons for this are manifold. (Amazing word.)

1. The main reason is that I very stupidly left my BEAUTIFUL iPad (Did I ever mention I have an iPad? I do ALL my blogging, shopping, corresponding, and generally rudely ignoring The Other Half on it.)
   
2. Yes, there may be 2 PCs in The Bee Hive - but they lurk in uninhabitable areas of Catland, and Shred Corner. Neither area has an ambient temperature above minus 15 degrees Celsius (Americans - this means cold).

Since I've been gone from Blogland, my living room has been transformed thus....

It all began with a bit of toy envy (mine, to be honest) while The Bairn and I were visiting my nephews Thing One (age 3) and Thing Two (nearly 2). A box of wooden pieces, looking like a drunk Glaswegian tramp's precarious Jenga arrangement, was ceremoniously removed from the sideboard and carefully placed on the floor.

"Shall we get the trains out?" says my wee sister, who then proceeds to painstakingly construct a track with bridges, stations, tunnels and even a water tower! Meanwhile, Things One and Two are offered such gentle encouragement as:

"DON'T TOUCH THAT BIT!"

"That doesn't go there!"

"NO, look it just won't work like that. LISTEN! Just because, OK?"

And eventually it was complete. A circuit of undulating loops and curves, covering about 8 square feet of floor space - and brought to life with a variety of colourful trains. Some traditional wooden ones, some metallic modern ones, some battery operated ones - and about 7 different Thomas The Tank Engines. Yes, there's the occasional collision and certainly a few derailments (every time a train attempts a corner), but my God it's satisfying.

All of a sudden I've become crusty septuagenarian pop-mogul Pete Waterman (Did you know he's a model rail enthusiast? Got books out and all sorts. Why do I know this?)

 

So now I spend my evenings on the ole iPad scanning eBay and Gumtree for quality second hand track, especially long bends, tunnels and quality batty operated engines. I spend my days saying

"STOP! Where are you going with my bridge?", and

"Will Mummy fix it? Yes, let Mummy fix it. No! It goes here! Cars can't go on the track for goodness sake!"

CHOO CHOO!

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Knitting

This last couple of weeks I have caught the knitting bug. The "bug" could indeed be referring to some sort of lingering malady, as it seems to have turned me into some sort of a sallow skinned, claw-fingered, lank-haired recluse. It's very more-ish, is knitting. So much so that I have - on at least one occasion - taken my knitting needles and "work" to bed with me; The Other Half burying his head in his pillow ("bright light bright light!) and trying fruitlessly to ignore the click clack click clack clickety click click coming from my lovely self. What can I say? He's a lucky man.

The particular item being crafted was an item known (in 1970s rural Borders country) as a neckwarmer. Something that is just BEGGING to be reintroduced to 2013 city kids! My thinking was as follows:

1. The Bairn's winter coat has failed to take into account the condition tubby-toddler-no-neck. Result - scratchy zip/Velcro rubbing his delicate chins (plural meant) skin.
2. He is too wee for a scarf - he'll only strangle himself one way or another.
3. A scarf is quite long and might take a while.

So I designed this.....  

Hold on! Hold on! Gis a break (as we say in these parts)! Okay, I accept that it may be a little rough around the edges. I concede - a whole lot rough around the edges. And the first finished effort wouldn't even squeeze past his ears. But I TRIED!

The next week my incredible Ma'am (born knitting - ouch, poor Nana! That would bring tears to the eyes.) arrived on my doorstep with a little something she'd Thrown Together. Yes, an actual dog scarf. This photo doesn't do it justice, but there are actual little ears on there too. Ridiculously cute - and know what? - The Bairn didn't strangle himself. Not even a bit. Of course, he's attached to me at all times by safety reins, but still.

Feeling suitably inadequate, I vowed to step up my game and came up with this monstrosity.

An ACTUAL monster hat! I was fairly self-impressed, until I realised

1. It would fit a 10 year old. God, it would house a 10 year old.
2. It's so fluffy, The Bairn's breathing is obstructed when its on his little cranium.
3. Clearly it's only acceptable to wear fluff if you're a girl.

Perhaps I should pursue other hobbies.

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Rainy Days - Art, Toddler Style

So so so cold and rainy and dark and miserable and..... Scotland.

Guess I still live here, so may as well shut up and stop whingeing about it! I do love this place with all my heart (except a ventricle that belongs to Iceland, and perhaps a wee section of aorta for Malaysia) but being stuck inside with a hyperactive toddler is enough to have me hyperventilating sometimes.

At nursery, The Bairn appears to be a prolific artist, turfing out multicoloured abstract pieces on garish sugar paper regularly. I thought to myself - "'Mon The Bairn! Let's get creative here - I'm sure one of your Grannies has space on the fridge door for a poster paint masterpiece!"

I also thought to myself - "Eeeugh. Paint=mess. New travertine (ie pale and impractical) effect flooring may not thank me for this moment of inspiration."

This is the genius idea I came up with.... Put paper in a ziplock freezer bag, squidge paint in, and let your impressionist imp get busy squashing that paint over the paper.

So now I have new confidence in toddler art, we have also expanded into messy painting! Turns out it's a bit boring painting through a plastic bag. And my boy has a taste for painting! Literally, a taste for painting. Especially blue - it seems to be exceedingly tasty.

We made Uncle Ali a birthday card. (White crayon message - The Bairn's handwriting's fair coming on, no? Finger painted over with child friendly water based paint.)

And our favourite creation yet, we made a beautiful butterfly for one of the Grannies who recently moved house. I folded the paper, cut out a butterfly, then my artistic little monkey carefully applied painstakingly selected coloured paint to the entire thing. I then folded again (simultaneously creating a stunning butterfly shaped coloured halo onto the mango wood dining table) to give this SIMPLY SPECTACULAR symmetrical pattern.

Could rainy days be more fun?

No! And that is a fact.

 

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