Socks, Truffles and Beetroot Lips

Godmother Sophie knitted both myself and Tabitha some beautiful socks for our birthdays - truly, these photos do not do them justice, they have a beautiful lacey pattern up the ankles on mine, and on Tabitha's as well as on her feet.  Sophie is so talented!  Tabby and I have been doing a special "crazy sock dance" together whenever we both have them on, jitterbugging all over the rug.

One of Tabitha's greatest joys in life is being allowed to scrape out the ice cream maker bowl after I've made a batch.  It's really incredible how clean she can get it.  Just cream, milk, egg yolks, vanilla bean and a bit of sugar, so I am happy to let her enjoy this treat.

Recently hosted an evening dessert night for local mummas from our ABA (Australian Breastfeeding Association) group.  There were about a dozen women, plus a few wee babes in arms.  It was really a lovely night!  I made a large flourless chocolate cake (recipe here, although I do it in a larger springform these days), a pain au chocolat bread and butter pudding (recipe below) and a steamed golden syrup sponge pudding (recipe here).  Oh, and vanilla ice cream (recipe here).

For the pain au chocolat pudding, simply slice up 4 stale large pain au chocolat croissants (about 1cm thick), place in a buttered 1.5 litre shallow dish. 

In a medium saucepan, heat together 500ml thickened cream with 500ml full cream milk until nearly boiling.  

Remove from heat, then pour into a bowl containing 1 egg, 4 egg yolks and 3 tablespoons of caster sugar, whisking the whole time.  

Add half a teaspoon of vanilla extract, then pour over the pain au chocolat slices, leaving to sit and soak for about ten minutes.

Bake at 160 degrees for about 45 minutes, or until the pudding is softly set.

In other food adventures, The Daddy recently brought home a truffle.  He was terribly excited, but I felt such pressure to cook something fancy with it!  I am not a fancy sort of cook, so I reached out to some of my clever friends (including Miss Kitty-Cat) and ended up using the truffle for the following:

- Two roasted chickens with butter and thinly sliced truffle under the skin;
- Toasted sandwiches with pane toscano bread, Gruyere cheese, truffle roast chicken and plenty of truffle slices (which the children both loved!);
- Simple risotto with chicken stock (infused with truffle slices) and shaved truffle over the top
- Scrambled eggs with truffle-infused eggs, and fresh truffle over the top;
- The final scraps of truffle were whizzed up with some nice organic unsalted butter in the food processor and frozen in a log, to be sliced and melted over asparagus, poached eggs etc. later on.  I might try making a hollandaise sauce with the truffle butter.

So there you go - if you find yourself in possession of a 70g truffle, keep calm and proceed as above!

My darling little Tabitha is becoming camera shy - so I am getting plenty of gorgeous shots of her silky hair from the back.

Zach, however, remains cheerful and keen for photos - even when he's covered in food.  Perhaps especially when he's covered in food.

Chubby hands covered in roasted beetroot:

Beetroot makes his lips so pretty and pink!

Zachary was off his solids over the last few days - with teeth numbers 7 and 8 making their way through, his mouth has been too sore for chewing, so he has been filling himself up with lots of nice milk.  The Baby Led Solids approach of 'food is for fun until they are one' is most reassuring at times like this.  I know that he is getting everything he needs from breastmilk (he's 95th percentile for weight, and 4cm taller than 98th percentile for height, so he's obviously thriving), so if he wants to stick to milk for a week, that's just fine.  This will also be helpful on our Europe trip (four days until we leave!) - if we are out and about, he will be happy with plenty of milk.

State of the Baby Address

Since one of the main purposes of the blog is for me to record Tabitha's milestones, I thought that I might do a State of the Baby address, so to speak.  While she still IS the baby - soon she will be the Big Sister.  In between 2-6 weeks, in fact!

These observations are probably not of much interest to anyone else, but I know that I will forget so many of these little things, so I must record them.  I've scattered in a few quick iPhone snaps, too.

(Note - I thought I'd posted this but realised I hadn't, so the ages and milestones are for early October.  Hey, a lot changes in a few weeks at this age!)

Tabitha is nearly 28 months, or 2 years, 4 months old.  She weighs around 12.5kg, and I'm not sure how tall she is - quite tall!  People tend to think she is older than she is, perhaps because of her height, and she has a decent amount of (beautifully soft, corn-silky and delicious smelling)hair.

She can count to 12, after which she continues with a string of random numbers ("1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. 10, 11, 12, 50, 17, 2...").

She has always been very good at her colours, knowing all the basics for a long time now, and these days she happily names even the more obscure colours like aqua, cream and silver.

Tabitha is now - touch wood - basically toilet trained.  I will post more about this later, but she has been wearing undies during all waking hours for nearly 3 weeks now, with only a rare accident.  She still wears a nappy or training pants for naps and overnight, but generally wakes up dry, or nearly dry.  I had no intentions of toilet training until Summer, or maybe even until she was closer to 3, but she asked to do her wees in the toilet and wear undies, so we went with it, and it was almost seamless.  I had been dreading toilet training, so I am incredibly grateful for this!

(31st Oct update - she's been in undies for well over a month now, including naps.  She still has the odd accident - if her naps stretch past a couple of hours, and also sort of 'half-wets' if she is too busy playing, particularly with a large group of kids, and doesn't realise the wee is coming until it's nearly too late.  She is completely unfussed by these ocassional accidents, as am I, which I am grateful for!)

Weaned from breastmilk a few days after she turned two (again, thankfully, a smooth and happy transition for both of us), she is still a great eater.  She certainly has her favourite foods (cheese, milk, yoghurt with mixed seeds and nuts, bananas, weetbix, frozen peas and corn, frozen blueberries, jaffles, chicken and rice - which could be anything from curry, satay, roast chicken, cacciatore, paprika chicken etc - and also any sort of fish, smoked salmon, teriyaki salmon, sushi, grilled fish etc, broccoli) and she has developed a slight sweet tooth, though she prefers homemade things like homemade ice cream, cookies and cake.  Funny monkey is a bit spoiled with the homemade cookies - she expressed surprise and mild suspicion recently because her cookie was 'cold'.  She is clearly used to freshly baked chocolate chip cookies!

Here is an afternoon snack - good old milk and hot choc chip cookies.  Being a toddler is generally a pretty sweet deal!

Her main sought-after treats are 'squeezy fruits', i.e. those organic fruit puree packs with the nozzle that lots of people use as 'first foods'.  She likes the blueberry/apple/banana one, and I save these for supermarket trips, to keep her happy in the trolley. 

At the moment, I'm working on her table manners, using forks properly, using knives to push her food onto the fork, less fingers.  I've never gone in for 'baby cutlery' with its bright colours and rubber ends, but I do really like the miniature sets of proper cutlery that she uses - Robert Welch makes some lovely ones, we have a couple of these sets.  I like the fact that they are properly proportioned, and fit nicely in her hands.  Also I've been focusing on her chewing and swallowing before talking or adding more food.  Sitting on her bottom and not wriggling around too much.  We're doing it very gently, as I have no desire to introduce stress or power struggles into mealtimes - a bit of leading by example, a bit of suggestion and reminder, and lots of acknowledgement and praise. 

Tabitha has actually become quite a pleasant meal companion - she pauses during her meal to smile at everyone at the table and ask, brightly, "How are your dinners everyone?!  My dinner is delicious!".  I realised a while ago that she often got cranky and bored during meals because she wasn't part of the fast-paced adult conversations.  So we make an effort to slow down our conversation pace, and include her in the chat - "how was your day Tabitha?  What did you do this morning?  Who did you see?  What vegetables did we buy at the market?" etc, and it seems to make a difference - she is happier to sit still and eat nicely for much longer.

Tabby likes her accessories - her two pairs of sunglasses, often worn indoors (which she likes to hide behind when she is feeling 'a bit shy'),  handbags and calico shopping bags, hair clips are sometimes happily worn but generally she prefers headbands or 'big pony tail, like Mummy!' or 'Pinktails'.  She sometimes resists any hair accessory, meaning her hair is completely in her face, leading my parents to constantly worry about her developing some sort of sight defect (I reckon she'll be okay!). 

Some 'pinktails' while enjoying a babycino and marshmallow:

More pinktails, this time as Dr Tabitha, working on her dolly patients.  She loves her medical kit, complete with 'stefascope', as she enjoys checking the baby in my belly, just like she watches the midwives do (in fact, she often gets out their doppler, squirts the gel on it, turns it on, and even finds the heartbeat of the baby all on her own!).  She also loves using the velcro cuff to check my 'blood pressures'.

Her favourite colour is silver, particularly for shoes, clothes and accessories, and she is very opinionated about which shoes she wears.  A pair of silver Mary Janes, which she calls 'dancing shoes', are the clear favourite, despite the fact they are really too small.  White and silver sandals come next in preference, then a pair of white sandals with metalic pink and green floral bits (Spanish, too beautiful, my favourite), then come any sort of other Mary Janes or sneakers.  Oh, and 'Pink Boots' which are her gumboots, and 'Fuzzy Boots' which are her ugg boots, are also liked.  She loves dresses - just over the past month, it has become an absolute battle to get her into jeans, and I suddenly understand why 3-6 year old girls everywhere seem to wear a dress with leggings and cardigan even in coolish weather.  It's because their poor parents can't manage to talk them into jeans or other sensible clothes!  So we have joined the dress-and-leggings set, and The Daddy even puts a dress over her PJs most mornings, at her request.

Here is Tabby in her Pink Boots, helping out in the garden (building phase):

And in Mummy's shoes, clomping around the house.  Just look at that hair - so soft and fluffy!  Reminds me of a dandelion:

Here are a few cute quotes and habits:

Tabitha likes to slip an extra 'L' into words containing an L sound, or sometimes just moves the place of the L.  So, we have pliget, slinget, glosling, slalad, flamilies, slilly and Slally (for piglet, singlet, gosling, salad, families, silly and Sally).

Speaking of Slilly - when she is very cross or frustrated (for example, I have suggested PJs or am sitting on the 'wrong chair', ahhh bless two year olds!), she cries out something along the lines of "noooo Mumma, you are being very slilly, go away!  You go sit over there!".  It's hard not to laugh at the most gorgeous, sweet little package of rage and frustration, but I do try and keep a straight face...

Each morning, Tabby brings me a plate of toast (to help counter the still-present morning sickness at 8 months pregnant).  She carries it very carefully, hands it to me, then perches on the side of the bed, holds her fingers together, cocks her head to the side, smiles very sweetly and says, "little bite?".  She then tries to gobble up my whole piece of toast - I manage to get about half of it in between 'little bites'!  Sometimes she brings me some museli and milk or weet bix instead, in which case she instructs me very seriously, "be very careful with your weet bix, mumma!  Careful of spilling."

She likes telling me stories, or reading me stories from a book.  She will say, "Do you want me to read you a story?  You say, 'yes please!'".  She then starts the story - "Once a time, there lived a..."

She has picked up some words and phrases from others, of course - I think the 'slilly' comes from The Daddy, she also says 'Awwwwwesome!' in a sort of exaggerated 'cool' voice, which I think comes from my little sister, and 'That's weird!' which comes from my mother, Moosie.

"I too scary!" for scared, e.g. yesterday, "Ohh there's a monster in the garden!  I'm too scary, take it away!"

"You can't check him!  No checking!  He's hiding" with her hands protectively over my belly, yesterday when the midwife wanted to have a quick feel of the baby.  She is incredibly attached to, and protective of, her baby brother already.  She loves kissing him, telling him a little story, hugging the bump.

"You got a big tummy like Grandpa Pig does?" said with a sweet smile last week, while we sat on the couch watching her favourite, Peppa Pig (yep, there is a bit of television going on most days, with late pregnancy exhaustion!)  I actually enjoy Peppa Pig enough to lie on the couch and have a cuddle and watch a few episodes, so it's a real blessing in the late afternoon sometimes.  I covet Grandpa and Granny Pigs' veggie garden.

The other day she had a scratch on her tummy and asked me to kiss it better.  When I did, she looked down, and exclaimed, "Oh no!  Kisses not working!  It still there!"

One of her favourite books is a simple alphabet and first words book - large, with lots and lots of pictures.  The other evening she picked up Fox in Socks and said, "ohhhh, fok in socks, this is a slilly book," with a sigh.  She then picked up her apple book, "ahh this is a good book!  You like the apple book mumma?!"

When asked why her mother's belly is so big, she will reply, "it's got a whole brother in there!"

We have a 'no cats on the bench or table' policy (hah!  yeah right!).  Tabitha is, along with most toddlers, an absolute stickler for rules and fairness.  She heavily polices this rule - at least once a day, we hear, "Oh no!!!  Pudding (or Possum) on the bench!  Cats are not allowed on the bench!"

"It's bee-ful!" is often exclaimed (clothing, mountains, cakes...), and "a-wahr you?" called out.  On our recent holiday, she discovered cornflakes, which she calls snowflakes.  Wise strategy, Tabitha, since the cuteness of this seemed to convince my parents (who took her to breakfast most mornings so The Daddy and I could sleep in a bit) to let her have cornflakes with her breakfast most mornings.  Another holiday breakfast favourite was "Bir-sha moose-lee" in a little glass with a spoon.

On holidays eating her bircher muesli - one glass down, another ready to go:

With my little sister - they have matching dresses!  Now that Q is 11, she is mostly too big to fit the children's ranges, so sadly, the days of matching dresses are short-lived:

Oh, back in September I wrote down what she ate in a fairly typical day, for my memory:

• Weetbix with milk and 'topping' which is what she calls the nut-seed mixture we sprinkle on all her cereal and yoghurt.
• Avocado on wholegrain toast
• Some nuts and a date
• Glass of milk
• Baked beans, corn and cheese jaffle on wholegrain bread
• A mandarin
• A bowl of natural yoghurt with 'topping'
• A homemade carrot and walnut muffin
• Smoked salmon omelet with broccoli

Oh goodness, another one!

Hello.  It's been a few months or so since I checked in - but I do have a good excuse, I promise!  I'm now 29 weeks pregnant, and for the first 22 weeks or so I was abysmally sick.  Now I'm doing much better - although still vomiting most days - and starting to get a bit excited about the impending arrival of Baby #2.

A BOY BABY!

Tabitha is, as you can imagine, incredibly excited about her new brother.  In fact, she talks about him every day (and will even tell anyone who cares to listen all about how "mummy is going to push him outta her bagina!")  Sometimes, when I stroke my own baby belly, she calls out "no, it's MY brother!" and comes to cuddle the bump protectively.  I think she's going to be an excellent big sister - perhaps a little *too* enthusiastic to begin with, but I'm sure she'll get the hang of things quickly.  

Tabitha will be just a couple of weeks shy of 2.5 years when Baby Brother is due to arrive - although Tabby came a full two weeks after her estimated due date, so I'm not holding my breath for a punctual arrival this time either!  We were vaguely planning a gap of around 3 years between the wee ones, however we managed to make a baby on the very first attempt (a pleasant surprise after 8 months of trying for T!)  I'm pleased with the 2.5 year gap, though.  I think there are so many 'pros' and 'cons' for all different age gaps, so you take what you're given with grace and make the best of it!

What else is new in our lives since I last blogged?  A whole lot!  We've moved house, to a much bigger home that we finished building in April.  We've gone from a 2-bedroom flat with a small backyard to a 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom, 2-living area house (still with a very small backyard!).  It's wonderful having the extra space, and the new house has much more natural light, with 2 walls of north-facing glass bifold doors opening onto a small decking.  This natural light and sunshine has been an absolute saviour through my pregnancy sickness, keeping my spirits elevated and keeping Tabitha happy playing at home.

We've also acquired three new family members - beautiful Pekin Bantam chooks called Lacey, Dolly and Sweetpea - who keep us entertained all day long with their antics and quirks.  I'll write a whole post about them soon.  They've just started laying this week, and I have collected 5 perfect, tiny bantam eggs over the past four days, so at least two of the girls must be laying.

Tabitha has weaned.  Such a big change, such a tangible sign of my tiny baby's development into a big girl.  The weaning was, thankfully, an incredibly simple and respectful event.  I had found breastfeeding to be really painful since falling pregnant, however my milk supply had actually increased with the pregnancy, which is unusual, and Tabitha was loving all the extra milk.  As we approached her 2nd birthday, which coincided with the 18th week of my pregnancy (nearly the half-way mark), I began to talk to her about weaning, just gently discussing the idea that one day she wouldn't have milk from mummy, just from a cup.  She seemed interested in the idea, but I wasn't sure how much she was actually understanding.  

Then, the day after her 2nd birthday, I decided that the best and most respectful approach for us was to chat to her quite frankly and honestly.  I explained that feeding was sometimes a bit sore for mummy, and that she could keep having milk if she wanted to, but it would also be great if she wanted to have her milk in a cup from now on.  She thought about it for a minute, smiled, repeated to me, "Mummy's milkies are sore!  So I drink my milk in a cup now!" and she never asked for a breastfeed again!  She still talks about "when I used to have milkies from mumma" and sometimes pats them and says, "nice milkies!  I love you!" which is hilarious and cute, but she is perfectly happy with the arrangement now.  She tells me that she "drunk up all of mummy's milkies!  I finished them, now they empty!" but she knows that when the baby comes, I will make more milk for him.  Overall, I couldn't be happier with how the weaning went - she was cool with it, I was happy to have a break before baby #2, and we made it to our goal of 2 years.

So what will I blog about over the coming weeks?  New baby gear, my top picks for slings/cradles/clothes etc., things I've found useful during this pregnancy, the chooks, a bit about my plans for our new garden (still a 'blank canvas' to put it nicely), and of course some cooking photos and recipes.  Despite being sick, I've still been cooking, and I'm about to hire a chest freezer and start to do some serious large-batch cooking to stash away for when the baby arrives!

Here is Tabitha these days - she's grown a bit, no?  She's pictured here guzzling a blueberry smoothie and eating a bowl of blueberries, so excuse the purple face!

 

Anyway.  What's been up with you?!

Reflections on the First Year

Tomorrow, Tabitha turns one.  This time last year, I was in labour - at this time, I'd been in labour for nearly 40 hours...  7 hours later, my little girl finally made her entrance!  It was long and pretty intense, but still a brilliant experience - it is incredibly empowering to make it through 45 hours of labour.  Even at its worst, I recall giving 'pain scale' readings of around 8, maybe one 9.  Never 10.  It was never truly *unbearable* - and as soon as it was over (within minutes!) I was talking about doing it all over again.  I truly look forward to the next birth, although I would be lying if I didn't admit I'm hoping for a labour of less than 24 hours next time.

I know I've said it before - but one day, I will get around to writing a post about the birth.  I've written up my birth story already, for my midwives, but it is literally pages long, and probably too detailed for a blog!

Anyway, here are just a few of the things which have surprised me about this first year:

• I'm not as tired as I feared I would be.  This is strange, because I am actually getting less sleep than I thought I would be, by one year old.  I had hoped that Tabitha would be sleeping through the night by one, but she still wakes 3-hourly (sometimes more, sometimes a little less) overnight to feed.  The thing is, however, is that now I have just accepted this, and stopped fretting about it, I feel pretty good!  I try and go to bed early, I sleep in a little some mornings (The Daddy gets Tabitha up, changes her and gives her breakfast while I nap or just lie in bed, until around 8 or so).  I rest during the day.  The vague tiredness is always there, but it is not debilitating.

• My days are fairly mundane, yet I am finding incredible fulfillment in the gentle rhythm of our days, and in the small excitements I share with Tabby.  Most days are the same:  wake up, go for a walk outside (to get a coffee or a smoothie).  Come home, play on the floor.  She naps from around 10:30 - 12pm.  We then have some lunch, and go out, spending a few hours doing errands, visiting friends, going shopping.  Home by 3:30pm for her next nap, which normally goes until 4:30 or 5pm.  More playing, then dinner, quiet play, then bedtime at 7 or 7:30pm.  It's not terribly thrilling, but I find an almost Zen-like joy in the quiet, unhurried repetition of the same routine each day.

• The housework is not overwhelming.  The washing is not piling up.  I am managing to cook nutritious meals.  I only have one child - I cannot imagine the differnce having two or more makes - but I was terrified, when I was pregnant, that I would not be able to cope.  I thought that the days would be an endless battle against disorder and chaos!  It is just not like that.  During the morning nap, I do washing, ironing, tidy the house, put away dishes, get myself showered and dressed.  Then I have time to sit and read for a bit.  During the afternoon nap, I start on dinner prep, tidy the house again, maybe do some more washing.  Again, I generally have a little time to sit back.  Overall, with my one little girl, I have a lot more 'me time' than I had predicted.

• Tabitha is such a joy, with far more personality and humour than I knew was possible in such a young person.  I always wondered how parents managed to read the same books, play the same games, laugh at the same tricks over and over again.  I now know that it is because your own child is so endlessly fascinating, so incredibly hilarious, so heart-achingly beautiful that you can watch them sleep for hours and never get bored.

I don't know why, but before we had a baby, and while I was pregnant, I worked myself up into a bit of a state - I knew that I wanted to be a mother (more than anything) and that I wanted to be a stay-at-home mother, but I feared my life would become an endless stretch of exhaustion, washing, dishes, repetitive games and maybe even some boredom.  Nothing could be further from the reality!  Granted, my baby doesn't have any special needs, but things are much, much easier than I thought they would be.  

I was warned so often, when pregnant, by articles, books, experts - "life will not be a Huggies commercial!  You will not spend the days tickling your happy giggling baby, with neat piles of clean washing, painted nails and a delicious cake in the oven!".  Well, that doesn't describe every day.  But there are days like that - lots of them!  There are a few crappy days, when I spend all day gritting my teeth, when Tabitha and / or me are ill, or when the house is a mess and I'm too tired to care.  But overall, the fantastic days by far outweigh the challenging days.

The birth?  Even at 45 hours, not as dreadful as I feared it might be.  The early days?  Not as exhausting as I predicted (thanks in part to a freezerful of nutritious meals and some great support from The Daddy, my parents and close friends).  General day-to-day mothering?  Far more joyful, hilarious and soul-enriching than I could have hoped.  The only major thing which was (much) harder than I thought it would be was breastfeeding, in the initial weeks and months (see my breastfeeding story HERE for more information).

And you know what?  Even though there is a lot more washing, it is such cute washing that it hardly seems like hard work.  Check out yesterday's ironing - it's like playing doll dress-ups!

Art, Jewels and Barbecue...

This is a long post - and even so, just a fraction of the fun we've been having in Manhattan!


The famed Bouchon Bakery is strolling distance from our apartment - you can (and should) buy delicious sweets such as rhubarb macarons, incredibly rich, gold-leaf adorned chocolate eclairs, and upmarket versions of such classics as Oreo cookies and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups.  We tried several of the goodies on offer, and all were exceptional.  You can also buy foie gras dog biscuits!


The Bouchon Bakery is in the Time Warner building, which is also home to Per Se.  Sadly, we could not dine at Per Se - it's not at all baby-friendly, and we are not comfortable leaving Tabitha with an unknown babysitter.

On Thursday afternoon, we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  The Met is a spectacular building on 5th Avenue, set back into Central Park.  In the afternoon we had allocated, we could not possibly have hoped to cover even a fraction of the artworks, so we chose to focus on European Paintings, Musical Instruments, Arms and Armour, Egyptian Art and European Sculpture.  I let The Daddy choose our priorities, since I have been to the Met a few times before.


I adore this Van Gough - White Roses:

Look at the oil paints - the textures on their own are mesmerising:

Tabitha seemed to enjoy the ornate frames more than the actual artworks!

I adore Degas' sculptures - La Petite Danseuse de Quatorze Ans is a favourite of mine - in fact, one of my favourite artworks in general.  The sculpture at the Met is one of twenty seven copies - recastings - of the original.  I have photos with this one, taken on two prior visits, and I also have a photograph of myself, aged 8, with another Petite Danseuse at the Musee d'Orsay in Paris.  If you are interested, it is a fascinating piece to learn about - revolutionary and controversial in many ways.  This is one place to start reading.

Degas' charcoals are also incredibly beautiful.

I love this painting of Conseulo Vanderbilt with her son:

I had to feed Tabitha while we were in the Met - it is rather nice to sit and feed with a room full of beautiful art to gaze at!


Breastfeeding in the Met, I was in excellent company - here are just a fraction of the many paintings depicting breastfeeding (mostly Mary, but also others):

I adore a certain shade of blue, and this painting features it in abundance - the dresses of the women, not the sky:

After the Met, we wandered around the pretty streets of the Upper East Side.  Some brilliant dog-watching!  I am a massive French Bulldog fan, and this girl is easily the nicest Frenchie I have ever seen in real life.  Her owner was happy for me to snap some photos.  Her legs were incredibly long and graceful:

For dinner, we caught the subway up to Harlem again, to Dinosaur Barbecue, generally acknowledged as the best barbecue in New York.  I would concur wholeheartedly - we both agreed that it was life-alteringly good.  It makes me very, very sad to think that we will not be able to eat Dinosaur Barbecue once we leave New York.


I had a full rack of ribs, with macaroni cheese and bbq beans (plus cornbread, of course!):

The Daddy had a mountain of pulled pork, with curried succotash and a mind-blowingly excellent dish of pureed sweet potato with spiced pecan topping.  He would not stop eating long enough to take a good photo!

The decor was classic Upstate New York Roadhouse:

The following day, we took Tabitha to visit FAO Schwartz.  If she were just a couple of years older, I'm sure the visit would have been hellish ("pleeeease can I have this?!  And this?  And this?") but she really enjoyed herself - lots of cute toys to touch, and other babies to smile at.  She was fond of this oversized puppy toy:

My best friend Amy is a massive Nerds fan.  These nearly-2-kg boxes would be right up her alley.  Disappointingly, however, they are not filled with loose Nerds, but rather with many small packets.  I do not like sour lollies such as Nerds or Fizzoes.  They make my brain hurt!  When I was younger, I used to rinse the outer layers (of Nerds, Fizzoes and the like) off under water, and just crunch on the sweet middle part.

FAO has many, many Pez dispensers.  It was overwhelming!

Also at FAO is a 'make your own Muppet' area.  This was supremely cool -  like 'Build A Bear' but one hundred times more awesome.  There was a big tub labelled 'oversized Muppet noses'!

Some of the doll houses on display were so beautiful - I would happily live in any of them, blown up to real-person size:

How is this Barbie Foosball Table?!  It costs $24,999 plus tax:

There were some gorgeous and glamorous Barbies on display - here are a few of my favourites:

Like the oversized Nerds, FAO is home to other enormous sweet items.  To give you an idea of scale, in the photograph below, the jawbreaker lollies are nearly 1kg each.  The Twizzlers are more than two feet long.  The syrup was taller than Tabitha:

We decided to buy Tabitha a hand-puppet at FAO.  I have wanted to get her a hand-puppet for a while, so this was a good opportunity to buy her a small keepsake.  We lined up all the hand-puppets (over a dozen, including peacocks, dragons, ferrets, rats, puppies, elephants etc), and wiggled them around at her, one at a time.  Without question, the two she loved most of all were a rat and the cat.  Ultimately, she fell in love with the cat - it is sort of an ugly cat, but she squealed and clutched at it with such determined excitement that she appeared to be in pain!!  She really loves her new kitty hand-puppet, cuddling it against her face and body.  Look at the funny expression on her face - joy or pain?!

We then wandered down to the flagship Tiffany & Co. store on 5th Avenue.  I have had the pleasure of shopping at this store a few times before, and it remains one of my favourite places in New York.  I am an enormous fan of the novel, and film, Breakfast at Tiffany's, but beyond that, I simply love being in the beautiful, open spaces, filled with stunning, sparkly jewellery.  The whole place feels calm and slow, as though time moves at a different speed.  Actually, the Sterling Silver jewellery floor in an exception to this - it is generally chaos!  But the other floors - in particular, the baby and homewares floor, and the diamonds floor, are incredibly serene.  We had to go up to level 6, to pick up some items from the personal shopping department, and the views from the quiet lounge area up there, down over 5th Avenue, were just lovely.  Again, a great place to feed Tabitha - a room with a view!


Down on the beautiful diamonds floor, the staff fell in love with Tabitha - for around twenty minutes, a group of half a dozen staff (including the large male manager of the diamond floor) passed around Tabitha, giving her lots of little blue suede pouches to play with, a Tiffany colouring-in card and some special crayons.  She had a ball crawling throughout the massive room, with so much clear, soft-carpeted space.


The staff went to fetch something from 'the vault' for us (wouldn't you LOVE to peek inside the vault?!), and brought us some Champagne and petit fours while we waited - aren't the little cakes just adorable?

They were filled with tiny layers of sponge, cream and jam.  They were truly delicious!

The Daddy bought me a beautiful Schlumberger ring, much to my surprise - and delight!  I have loved the ring for a long time.  I couldn't stop grinning - my cheeks became sore, just like my wedding day.  In fact, our wedding rings came from the 5th Avenue Tiffany store - my mother and sister came to NY just before our wedding, so they picked them up for us.  They were significantly less expensive in the US, compared to Australia, and it is also nice to have them from the flagship store.

Here is Tabitha having a ball crawling all over the diamond floor:

And with her new cat hand-puppet:

One of the Tiffany staffers did not want to let her go!  Tabitha loved playing with her necklace:

We bought this adorable little jewellery box for Tabitha.  It was hand-painted, and features a decorative gold rim, with a gold letter 'T' and a sweet Tortoise:

In contrast to our glamorous afternoon surrounded by jewels, we came home and had more barbecue delivered.  I love the fact that, in New York, you can have pretty much any sort of cuisine delivered to your apartment.  This time, we tried Dallas BBQ.  It was excellent, but not quite as good as Dinosaur, which is the Gold Standard.  We had ribs, pulled pork, baked potatoes with sour cream, buttery rice and cornbread.  There was plenty of extra BBQ sauce.  It was an enormous meal - and cost less than $40 delivered!

We have lots of things planned for the weekend, and then on Tuesday we are moving to our next apartment, in the West Village.  Exciting!