About Me

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I live in Kent with my husband, toddler Tilly (henceforth known as Monkey) and another baby due in November. We have two cats, Duncan and Lady Macbeth, and four chickens who kindly lay us eggs daily. We live in the picturesque seaside town of Broadstairs. I enjoy reading, knitting and cooking. I'm trying to be a bit 'greener' (not sure how successfully), and to be a gentle parent. Extended breastfeeding and co-sleeping don't freak me out, we use cloth nappies and try to follow some of the ideals of Attachment Parenting. If that sounds as if I know what I'm doing, I don't! I am also a psychotherapist with an interest in Focusing-oriented therapy, and I have a small private practice in the area.

Tuesday 2 December 2008

Pies and Paranoia

It's nearly ten o'clock and that familiar shall-I-go-to-bed-or-write-my-blog battle ensues! Monkey was awake at 6.08am (!) this morning, so I'm feeling pretty tired. It's been a busy day: we had a long wait for grocery delivery this morning, and then a very soggy walk into town to go to the post office. The baby enjoyed some scrambled egg for lunch, sucked off toast soldiers, and then she had a nice long nap while I got on with some baking. I was excited to be using my new rolling pin and silicone pastry mat from Lakeland! 


This is my first solo pastry-making attempt as an adult, so I was pretty happy with my mince pies and sausage rolls. The mince pie pastry seems a little hard, so I'll have to ask my Mum why that might be? We're accumulating a decent amount of food for the party, and my anxiety is growing with it (as is the guest list). I need to go and look at the church hall and work out some of the logistics. I also need to find a little dress for Tilly, as the one we had planned for her to wear is waaaaaaay too big and hangs off her shoulders! 

In Other News, Monkey's sleep has drastically improved, to the point where she has slept through the night (once, last Thursday) and since then has been going to bed at 7pm and not waking until 2-3am. That's almost 8 hours! The only thing we have done differently is to swaddle her in a light jersey blanket, I'm not sure if that's significant or not. I'm prepared for this to be short-term respite because we've got Teething to come, but I can't help but feel a little smug that she is doing this without Controlled Crying or any other tricksy techniques. It has certainly reinforced my belief that I can trust her to move through developmental phases by herself without intervention or coercion from us. There hasn't been any developments with my NCT classmates, but I'm not meeting with them until Friday. I am, however, feeling a bit paranoid that they don't like me anymore!! Which is probably ridiculous, but is based on my hunch that my CC email would have been discussed at a 'cocktail night' that happened while I was away last week. That's probably just me thinking I'm far more important than I actually am, so I'll just have to wait and see. 

4 comments:

arwen_tiw said...

With the pastry it might be slightly overworked - it helps if you have very cold hands when rubbing the butter in and handling the dough. That's all I can think of anyway lol! :)

Sounds like you had a fun day (and yay for sleep). Just keep on being yourself, you can't be anyone else. I'm sure your friends will accept you as you are. (hug)

willow81 said...

Yay indeed for sleep! Thanks for the pastry tip Sarah, I'll try that next time. Hope you're keeping yourself & baba nice and snuggly in this cold weather. xx

Emma said...

Ooo, I like the silicone pastry mat. I'm off to the Lakeland website to have a look...

willow81 said...

It's brilliant but quite pricey- £17 I think. I LOVE Lakeland, lol!