Baby Clothes - the early days

I thought I'd outline my personal experiences with useful - and useless - baby paraphernalia.  Honestly, there is SO much that I couldn't hope to cover it all, certainly not in one post, so I will start with clothing in the first few months

WHAT CLOTHING?

In the early weeks, the baby mostly sleeps, feeds, needs changing and sometimes vomits (or frequently vomits, if you are extra-lucky!).  As such, clothing ought to be chosen to best facilitate these processes. 

For nights, open-bottom nightgowns are golden - changing is a breeze, and you don't have to worry about baby getting cold, because you can put socks on them and then they are generally all swaddled and wrapped up like a parcel of fish and chips!  Fiddling with press-studs on suits overnight is just a giant pain - baby wakes up as you fuss and fiddle, and at 4am it's easier to just pull up a nightgown.  Yes, you can put a boy in a nightgown!

For daytime, the ordinary 'onesies' or all-in-one suits are very practical.  You can add a singlet for added warmth if required (Tabitha was born in the middle of winter), and you don't need to fuss with socks because they generally have built-in feet.  The BEST brand I came across was Marquise.  Not too expensive, these onesies were just so, so soft.  The more we washed them, the nicer and softer they felt.  They come in simple, sweet prints (plain white, pastel polka dots etc) and feel lovely against soft baby skin.  We also had some suits from Purebaby, Bonds, Bebe by Minihaha, Petit Bateau, Gaia and others, and while I would actually recommend ALL these brands (they were all good for different reasons), the Marquise jumpsuits just can't be beaten in my opinion!

You can buy the Marquise suits at most department stores and baby boutiques.  For other cute suits (particularly as baby gets a little older and you want to dress her up), this is a great website - www.babi.com.au is a online retailer dedicated ONLY to all-in-one suits.  Those 'excess stock' stores like TSL are also good places to stock up on Bonds and Purebaby - I still buy all of Tabitha's pajamas there.

HOW MANY?

How many outfits do you need?  Well, this is one of the few areas I would recommend Quantity over Quality!  You don't need the most expensive, fancy items, but you do need enough of them.  I found that Tabitha needed her outfit changed at least FIVE times every day in the early weeks - vomit, milk, nappy business etc.  Because I was swamped enough with coping with a new baby, I didn't want the added pressure of frantically laundering her clothes.  So we had around 15 outfits in regular use.  It seems like a lot (I'm positive you could get by with less) but we loved having a big rotation.  Around 3 open-bottom nighties, 8 Marquise jumpsuits, and 5 other jumpsuits.  In addition, we had a few 'nice' outfits, which really only got worn a few times for photos.

SIZES

How about sizes?  Well, I wasn't expecting a tiny baby (I was absolutely massive, and we have a history of decent sized babies in the family) so, on the advice of my mother, I only had a handful of 0000 size outfits.  Maybe eight.  She told me that the baby would really be fine in 000 size from the start - they would just be a little big, and I could roll up the sleeves.  She was right.  I am still glad that we had some 0000 sizes though, because for photos, it was nice to have some things that fitted really well.

I should point out - I put all Tabitha's cotton suits in the dryer.  She was born in mid June, so it was just a reality that we used the dryer a whole lot.  This means that all of her suits shrunk to roughly half a size smaller - so the 000 were actually somewhere between 000 and 0000.

Tabby wore the 0000 for a couple of weeks, then the 000 for a couple of months.  She was in the 00 for a few more months, and now, at 8 months of age, is in 0 and even 1 clothing.  She is very long, so she wears size 12 - 18 month pants and leggings.

NICE CLOTHES

Once Tabitha was a little older (6 weeks and beyond, I'd say), she started to actually wear her 'nice' outfits.  We had some lovely things from Bebe, Purebaby, Petit Bateau and Absorba.  Sweet little jumpsuits with matching bibs and hats.  We had so many nice things (that I had bought, received as gifts, and also from my mother, who seemed to arrive with a beautiful new outfit every time she visited - i.e. daily!), so rather than let them go to waste before Tabby grew out of them, I put her in her 'good' clothes all the time.  I'm so glad I did - babies grow so quickly, and if I saved outfits for 'best', they would never have been worn!

ACCESSORIES

Hats, bibs, socks, mittens, shoes, booties, blankets, jackets, cardigans...  What is useful?

Debbie Bliss Cashmerino 8 ply and the same in a 5 ply 'baby weight' for a lighter weight beanie.

We used loads and loads of bibs.  Newborns seem to always have a little milk dripping around their faces, and changing a bib is simpler than a full outfit change.  Tabitha was a very dribbly baby right up until her first teeth came through, around 5.5 months.  So she pretty much always wore a bib for the first 6 months of her life.  You can find incredibly sweet bibs - I bought every nice one I came across, because I hated ugly bibs ruining her nice outfits!  I found a lot of nice ones by THIS label, and there are also lots of gorgeous ones in little baby boutiques and on Etsy.

Once the baby is older and feeding itself (which it will do from around 6 months if you do Baby-Led Weaning, which I cannot recommend enough), I suggest you use the technique of 'double bibbing' - cover the baby up in a long-sleeved bib (Silly Billyz are the only brand I've found that make these small enough for a 6 month baby - just roll the sleeves up a little), then pop a 'pelican bib' over the top to catch larger bits of food (these are the moulded plastic bibs that turn up at the bottom).

Socks are a must - the easiest way to keep little feet warm (I didn't bother with booties or tiny shoes - so fiddly, too easy to slip off, and they seemed far less comfortable on tiny new feet than simple socks).  You may have heard parents moaning about how hard it is to find socks that actually Stay On - it's true, 99 per cent of socks out there seem to slip straight off!  Luckily, the socks I stocked up on while pregnant turned out to be absolutely brilliant - they are soft, stretchy, and NEVER fall off!  The socks I used and recommend are from Bebe - here they are, though I bought them at David Jones.  I am actually really grumpy that they don't make them in a size larger than 6 months, since I haven't been able to find a single pair of socks that stay on, now that she's grown out of the Bebe ones.

We never bothered with scratch mittens.  I have seen babies wearing them, and even know a woman who wraps her baby's hands in tiny tube socks!  If you find your baby is gouging at their face, by all means try some, but we never found the need for them.

We had a couple of knitted jackets and coats - I picked out a few patterns that I liked from the knitting shop, along with some lovely wool (some of that Cashmerino DK), and my father's elder sister, a masterfully skillful knitter, whipped up some lovely little woolen jackets.  Truth be told, she didn't wear them all that much - new babies are generally so well wrapped up that they don't really need a jacket.  It's not really until they are a little more mobile that I think jackets and coats are useful - certainly from around four months or so, if the weather will be cool, a woolly jacket is worthwhile.  But I guess my point is, don't bother with buying or making them in tiny sizes.

Blankets - oh yes!  Blankets, bunny rugs, muslin wraps, waffle wraps...  These are all incredibly useful.  Here is what I would recommend - again, remembering that Tabitha was born in the colder months:

• A couple of 'waffle blankets'.  These are similar in weight to a traditional flannel bunny rug, but I think they are superior for wrapping, as they have a slight stretch to them, which allows them to wrap closely and firmly to the baby, and not come untucked too easily.  You want a decent size - a metre square or so is good.  Waffle blankets are also (thanks to their raised square pattern) warmer than most similar weight baby blankets, without being too bulky.  A good quality waffle blanket is more expensive than a bunny rug, but they wash and wear really well and are much more durable.  We had three in regular rotation - two white and one pale pink.

• A few traditional flannelette bunny rugs.  Actually, we had more than a few!  In my pregnancy madness, I obsessively bought these.  It seems like every time I saw them for sale, I bought another one.  I think we had around 15.  No, I'm not joking...  Honestly, though, they were (and still are) darn useful.  I didn't use them to wrap Tabitha up all that much (I preferred the slight stretch of the waffle blankets, and most bunny rugs are too small to use for swaddling past the very early weeks) - but I did find them SO useful for just having around - throwing over her as another layer when asleep, putting under her on the carpet for tummy time, laying under her in case of vomit while I was feeding etc.  In truth, you can use cloth square nappies for most of this stuff, but having super-large versions was useful.  That said, you might find 3 or 4 useful - you probably don't need 15!

• Speaking of cloth square nappies...  A stack of flanellette flat nappies is always handy, for mopping up spills, catching errant breastmilk or wee, laying down under baby on the change table etc.  You can also get a packet of muslin square nappies (I got a pack of pink and white ones from Mothercare that were cheap and great quality) - I find I used them more, as they are softer.  I still use them all the time (on the change mat, catching breaskmilk leaks in the middle of the night while feeding).  I suggest about 5 - 10 of each sort.

• In terms of actual 'blankets', I cannot tell you how brilliant I found a large, square, plain old knitted blanket!  I used a pattern from my local wool shop, and knitted a couple of them in different colours.  It is the simplest pattern - cast on three stitches in 8 ply wool on a pair of 4.5 circular needles (80cm circulars).  Knit 3, then continue in plain knit, increasing on the third stitch of every row.  When you've used 5 balls of wool, start decreasing on the third stitch of every row, until you have 3 stitches left on the needles.  Cast off, sew in your ends.  This blanket ends up being around 80cm square, and is beautifully stretchy because it is sort of knitted on the 'bias'.  Actually - stay tuned, I'll do a proper post about it soon, with some photos.  It is the most wonderful blanket to have for a baby - warm, soft, stretchy and simple.  Any time we left the house in the cold, Tabitha had one of these tucked around her, over the top of her swaddling.

MY LIST

So - if I had my time again, what would my shopping list look like for the first 4 or so months?

• Around eight size 0000 jumpsuits and nighties, including one or two 'nice' ones for photos in the early days;
• Around 15 size 000 jumpsuits, with a couple of nighties, and a few 'nice' outfits with matching bib/hat;
• 5 size 000 size singlets;
• 3 beanie hats - one stretchy cotton, one light wool, and one chunkier woolen one;
• 10 bibs - cute ones, since they are on all the time, in all the photos.  Also, plain white bibs stain much quicker;
• Around 6 pairs of socks;
• One or two knitted jackets / cardigans in 000;
• A dozen muslin and/or flannel flat nappies for spills etc.;
• A few flannel bunny rugs;
• Two or three waffle blankets;
• One or two lovely knitted blankets;
• A few lightweight muslin wraps (like a bunny rug but made of sheer muslin, these are useful for wrapping and swaddling a baby in warmer weather or if you are somewhere heated indoors.

I'm sure I don't need to point out that everything needs to be washed before use - many clothing items and blankets have a chemical layer from manufacturing and processing, and who know what floors and surfaces these precious little jumpsuits have touched on their way to the shop?!  I set aside a couple of days and washed, dried and ironed every single item, from socks to bedlinen to dresses and jumpsuits.  It was actually fun to do - yes, ironing dozens of tiny singlets does seem like fun when you're pregnant, nesting and possibly a little crazy...

So.  That's a fair bit of information!  Soon I will post on the assorted 'stuff' babies need / don't need in the early months - furniture, nappies, prams and carriers, car seats, toys etc.

Maternity Clothes

Becoming pregnant can be sartorially daunting - maternity clothes tend to be unflattering, overpriced, and made of nasty fabrics.  My entire maternity wardrobe consisted of:

• A very flattering white shirtdress that tied at the back (I still wear this, it is good for breastfeeding, and people are always surprised when I reveal it is 'maternity wear').
  
• An identical shirtdress in a navy pinstripe.
  
• A 100 per cent silk long-line top in a beautiful blue and white swirly print, which tied at the back to add some shape and definition (wore this with leggings, jeans, and a tight black pencil skirt).  Here is a photo in the top - although it is not the top at its best, worn with jeans, rubber thongs and messy hair at the beach:
  
  
  

• A really brilliant Isabella Oliver wrap top.  I bought this in black AND purple, and wore them both to death - with jeans, and the black one worn with a fitted black skirt and heels was an excellent substitute for a Little Black Dress.  I wore the black one with lots of colourful Hermes, Pucci and Missoni scarves, and always felt well put-together.  These tops were also brilliant in the first couple of months post-partum - they wrap to fit the body, so will fit perfectly no matter what state your midsection is in, and they are just so easy to breastfeed in.  Here I am in the black wrap top, with a non-maternity stretchy tight skirt, at my godfather's 50th birthday:

• Maternity jeans - I bought two pairs (one straight leg, one skinny), both by Maternal America.  These fitted so brilliantly, and were dead comfy.  So many people commented, "wow I can't believe you're still in jeans!!" not realising that they were maternity jeans.  Little comments like this are lovely to hear when you've gained 20kg!
  
• A loose, oversized t-shirt style jersey dress in blue and white stripes.  It wasn't the most flattering piece in the wardrobe, but was so comfortable and fitted well from week 8 to the very end.  I wore it with leggings.
  
• Speaking of which - I bought three pairs of good quality maternity leggings.  Great decision, I don't think you can truly understand how bloody uncomfortable most clothes are until you are actually pregnant!
  
• I bought a lovely blue slinky jersey dress from Isabella Oliver for my baby shower.  It made me feel pretty and toned and curvy and was worth every cent - I also wore it to a couple of weddings at the end of the pregnancy.  Here I am with a friend at my baby shower.  Sorry, you can only see the top of the dress, but trust me that it is lovely.  I am 38 weeks pregnant here:

• I also bought a fairly unattractive red print dress.  I don't know why - I was getting desperate for clothes I could wear to meetings (my clients were surely getting sick of seeing me in the same two shirtdresses!), and it seemed okay in the store.  In reality, it made me feel fat and my arms look like giant sausages.  I didn't wear it much!

I also picked up a couple of non-maternity pieces:  some denim shorts, a nautical jersey t-shirt, a pretty crepe kaftan, a Ted Baker empire-line dress that I managed to squeeze into for the first few months.  These items were useful, but I cannot overemphasise how important comfort becomes towards the end, and if nothing else, maternity clothing tends to be designed for comfort.

I didn't discover Isabella Oliver until more than half way through the pregnancy, which is a dreadful shame -  I probably would have bought almost all of my maternity wardrobe from them if I had come across it earlier.  If you know any pregnant women, please direct them to the their website!

Because I am tallish, clothes that fitted fairly close to the body were generally most flattering during pregnancy - anything vaguely voluminous made me look like a circus tent.  More petite girls seem to get away with loose shift dresses and trapeze dresses over leggings.

I also bought lots of nice maternity underwear - mostly from Cake and Hot Milk.  This is useful in avoiding feeling like a frumpy beached whale.

One of my most beloved maternity buys was, in fact, a non-maternity nightgown from Country Road.  Over summer, it was all I wore around the house, and felt perfectly comfortable no matter how enormous I became.  Here it is - I'm around 34 weeks here.  You can see our decking, half-built, in the background.  We had renovations (decking and wardrobes) going on almost until D Day.  I do not recommend this.  Doesn't it look like I have a full sized beach ball in there?!  Tabitha was a regular sized baby, around 3.5kg.  Which means I put on roughly 16.5kg of non-baby weight!

Sigh.  Looking through these photos, I am looking forward to being pregnant again.  Despite feeling mighty uncomfortable for most of the time, and dreadfully ill for the first few months, it was still, overall, a wonderful time.  I was in complete awe over just what the female body is capable of.

Pinky McKay

Do you know about Pinky McKay?  She is the author of some of my favourite parenting books - if you know someone who is expecting, or has a newborn, a Pinky book is such a beautiful, loving gift.  HERE is a list of Pinky's top tips for helping babies to sleep, well worth a gander.

Tabitha and I went along to the launch of Pinky's latest book, Parenting by Heart.  Pinky spoke for a bit about how important it is for mothers to always listen to their own instincts, and to their babies.  I read three of Pinky's books while I was pregnant, and I felt so prepared for the baby, knowing that as long as I always made decisions out of love, I would never make the 'wrong' parenting decision.

100 Ways to Calm the Crying is a brilliant book - particularly when pregnant, it is such a reassuring read.  It is highly empowering to feel that, no matter what, you will be able to soothe and calm your newborn.  Loads of the tips and techniques from this book are part of our everyday routine, and were particularly useful in the early weeks (newborns do tend to have spells in the evening of Just Crying, no matter what - my midwife constantly reassured me that this was perfectly normal, and at least by utalising some of Pinky's techniques, I felt vaguely useful!)

Sleeping Like a Baby is another winner.  This book helped us learn to 'read' Tabitha's cues, and learn to respond to her.   HERE is an excerpt from this book.

Parenting by Heart, the latest of her books, is a re-release of a previous version.  It has been updated and extended, and is now pretty much a 'how to' manual for the first year of a baby's life.  Parenting by Heart, along with a subscription to the Australian Breastfeeding Association, are my baby shower presents of choice!

I cannot recommend Pinky's books highly enough - everyone I know who has read any of her work raves about her.

Here is a photo of Tabitha and I with Pinky McKay.  'Scuse the cheesy smile:

Miss Kitty-Cat does a Giveaway...

My gorgeous, talented, amusing and fashionable friend, Miss Kitty-Cat, is doing a fabulous giveaway over at her blog Miss Kitty-Cat Goes To Town.  Do drop over and have a look - but no more people asking for the scarf please!

While you are there, look at her top ten clothing staples post, it is most useful.

First Rule of Baby

Do you know the First Rule of Baby?

It is:  A baby will ONLY sleep for a glorious, extra-long, refreshing nap when its mother is DESPERATE to leave the house on time for an appointment.  The chance of this long sleep occurring increases exponentially directly related to the 'me time' nature of the appointment - e.g. a long sleep is far more likely to occur when mumma is planning to catch up with a friend or have a manicure.

A baby will NEVER sleep for more than the usual minimum when its mumma is exhausted and just wants to curl up with a book and a cup of tea.  As soon as the baby hears the kettle boil or a book page turn, it will wake immediately.

The Second Rule of Baby is:

No matter how agonisingly clingy and grizzly the baby has been during the day (involving going to the toilet while holding baby, making and eating lunch with baby under one arm, and sitting on the floor while poor baby gouges mumma's eyes just to keep it happy) - as SOON as Dada walks in the door, baby is a bundle of radiant sunshine!  Laughing, clapping, batting eyelashes, and perfectly content to sit by herself and play with blocks on the floor.

The Third Rule of Baby is:

No matter what baby does (biting mumma's cheek, pulling hair for hours, refusing to nap, vomiting all over mumma for no apparent reason), the mumma always, always, always COMPLETELY adores baby.  Only a lovesick mumma can smile adoringly at rabid baby while it tries to climb up her hair.  Thankfully, this Third Rule of Baby overrides all the other Rules.

Awwww look at those pudgy arms!  I want to nibble them!

Behold the delight of baby Tabitha learning about the feeling of grass between her toes - kept her giggling with joy for a good ten minutes...

Today we had a busy day!  Nap from 8:30am - 10am, then off to swimming lessons ("you put your right arm in, you put your right arm in, you put your right arm in and you splash it all around..."), then chiropractor (for Tabitha AND Mumma), then off to Chadstone to meet up with some gorgeous mums and babies.  Tabitha loves other babies, but tends to kill them with kindness - she crawls up to them, then ON to them, then grabs great big handfulls of clothes/hair/face to squeeze and cuddle.  So I have to keep a hand at the ready at all times!

One of the other babies got a good handful of Tabitha's hair, which has never happened before, and boy did she cry!  "SQUEEEEEAAAAAAAAWAAWAAAWAAA" she called, until I scooped her up for cuddles.  Ahhh, babies...

Then we came home for her last nap, read a Jemima Puddleduck book, then off to bed.

Here are two cute photos of Tabitha eating lunch from yesterday.  You will note that I "double bib" her.  This is a good tip for Baby-Led Weaning - the long sleeve bib stops her arms getting covered in grease/sauce/mush, while the plastic 'pelican bib' catches any solid bits that fall straight down, for easy retrieval.  The long-sleeve bibs go in the washing machine with the cloth nappies, and the pelican bibs go in the dishwasher.  We have around five of each.

The best long-sleeve bibs I have found for Baby-Led Weaning are the Silly Billyz brand - because they come in a 'Small' size, which is nearly tiny enough for a 6 - 10 month old baby (with the sleeves rolled up once).  Because babies fed on purees don't start really feeding themselves until around a year of age, most 'sleeve bibs' are just massive.  The Silly Billyz bibs are available online, and I've also purchased them from Parenthood in Malvern (which is a fabulous baby store).

As I was taking her photo, she bit her finger by mistake.  Ouch!  It is so sad seeing her cry, but it is also oh-so-cute...  poor little baby:

Because she eats such little amounts for lunch and dinner, I buy or cook a large serving or batch, then individually wrap up each serving (each serve is enough for Tabitha, plus a little for me to nibble on too - this is important, because it is best to sit and eat with the baby, so that they learn to eat by mimicking.  They also, of course, enjoy the company).

I keep a whole stash of these little portions in the freezer.  All sorts of meals, for plenty of variety.  Below, you can see:  organic beef schnitzel pieces; lovely spinach and ricotta filled pasta from Yarra Valley Dairy (to serve with fresh basil pesto, a favourite); a veggieburger (75 per cent vegetables with whole wheat flour); and two homemade date scones.  Often she eats what we have for dinner, and if I am out for lunch, I order something for her off the menu.  But having a really decent freezer stash of healthy portioned meals comes in handy - otherwise it's easy to end up feeding her toast all day!

Here is her beef schnitzel lunch - those pieces are each about the size of my palm.  One gets cut into a few strips for Tabitha, and the other goes in a sandwich for my own lunch:

 

The Daddy often doesn't get home until well after 7pm, even 8pm, so on some nights I eat dinner with Tabitha, and on other nights I eat dinner with him.

Photos from the weekend.

I mentioned that one of my closest friends came over on the weekend and took some photos.  She is doing a part-time photography course - her mother is an artist, and I think some of her artistic eye has rubbed off on Ruby.

We will certainly be having a couple of these ones framed for the living room.  I think they are very cute, but I know I am biased...

Here are a couple of Tabitha hanging out in her cot.  By the way, something terribly cute happened this morning - after she woke up from her morning nap, I could hear her awake in her cot, but she sounded perfectly happy.  About 15 or so minutes later, she was still chatting to herself, so I thought I had better go check on her - she was sitting up in her cot, practicing her newest skill, clapping!  She had been sitting there clapping and smiling to herself for 15 minutes.  Awww.

How funny is her hair?!  It is like that naturally - she has a double crown at the back, so her hair grows into a little mohawk.  I call it her 'cocky crest':

Tabitha has loved to be hung upside down ever since we first tried it at Gymbaroo when she was a few months old.  She grins and squeals with laughter - and tries to bite my nose!

Tabby is making a funny face - "oh mumma stop it with these endless kisses!"

Here is The Daddy taking her outside through her nursery doors:

 I have no idea what sort of lens this is but it's a fun photo - The Daddy, Tabitha, myself, and Ruby's lovely legs and impressive biker boots:

More cot cuteness:

Another funny face - grrrrrrrrrr!

Here is a nice photo of The Daddy and Tabitha in the backyard:

 Tabitha playing with her tongue:

Trying to snatch the camera!

Drool.  This is gross, I think, unless it's your own baby.  Then it is Super Cute:

What is this face?!

Peering down at everyone - she looks like a funny little baby space creature.  I like it!

And one of my favourite photos of her and I so far:

Thanks Ruby for taking some really, really beautiful photos!  You can check out Ruby's Tumblr photo blog here - there are some photos of Tabitha a couple of pages in.

What do green tomato pickles and chinkiang vinegar have in common?

I'm sure you know of David Thompson.  He's the legendary author of Thai Food, that stunning pink fabric-bound encyclopedic Thai cookbook, as well as a frequent guest on Poh's Kitchen, an exceptional Thai chef, Head Chef of the first ever Michelin-starred Thai restaurant in London (Nahm) and a famously dry wit.

If David Thompson says something about Thai cooking, recipes or ingredients, I pay attention.  When I heard him chatting about oyster sauce once, my ears really pricked up - every time I use oyster sauce from the supermarket (that nasty congealed pale goop) it tastes of nothing, which is not surprising when you check out the ingredients; water, thickeners, preservatives, vegetable gums, and a little oyster extract.

David Thompson says the absolute best brand of oyster sauce (and fish sauce) is Megachef, a Thai company.  Containing 45 per cent pure oysters, Megachef sauce is so thick that when you turn the bottle upside down (even for a looooong time), nothing comes out!  You need to use a knife.  The flavour is just beautiful - perfect on some stir-fried greens.

The Megachef fish sauce (nuoc mam in Vietnamese, nam pla in Thai) is also excellent - mellow yet rich and flavourful.  The sauces are both surprisingly reasonably priced (the regular sized bottle of fish sauce was $3.30 and the massive bottle of oyster sauce was $5.55).

I often do an embarrassingly inauthentic 'Asian' stir-fried bok choi dish as a side with dinner - it is really nice poured over rice, with plenty of the sauce, with a small amount of grilled fish or chicken.

All I do is stir-fry some sliced bok choi (white thick pieces first, green leafy pieces at the end) in a little hot oil.  As soon as the white parts begin to soften slightly, I pour in:  a good glug of mirin, the same of soy sauce, a dash of fish sauce, a glug of oyster sauce, a good dash of chinkiang black vinegar, a drizzle of sesame oil, and a decent glug of good Thai sweet chili sauce.  I then reduce this over heat until it is thick and delicious, adding the green parts for a minute to soften, then pouring over rice.

I just mentioned, above, one of my all-time favourite ingredients:  chinkiang rice vinegar.  It is a black, intense, almost smoky vinegar, made from glutenous rice.  I use it instead of soy sauce for dipping when I have yum cha or dumplings at home.  Just thinking about it makes my mouth water!  I first discovered chinkiang at David's, one of my favourite Chinese restaurants.  I always order Mock Crab, an unusual and delicious dish made by gently cooking a rich, fluffy yet creamy egg-white omlette, with pieces of scallop and white fish tossed throughout.  It is served with chinkiang to pour over it.  It is probably one of my most favourite restaurant dishes.

Below, you can see what chinkiang vinegar looks like - you can get it at any Asian grocery.  Next to this, you can see a jar of Beerenberg Green Tomato Pickle.  Can you guess what these two items have in common??

Well, they are both sour...  There's a clue...

They were the two items that I completely craved during my pregnancy!  Barely a day would go past without eating one or the other - and I confess to sometimes pouring a little bowl of chinkiang vinegar and just dipping my fingers in to lick them.  I promise, at the time it didn't seem strange at all!

The Nursery

Tabitha had a very basic nursery - she did not, in fact, sleep in her 'nursery' even once for the first seven months, now she flitters between her nursery and our bed.

These photos were taken when I was first setting it up.  It looks much the same now, however there are more 'grown-up' clothes in the wardrobe, and there is a very large and gorgeous (if a little creepy) white rabbit lamp - this one.

We painted her room pale pink - we trooped down to the paint store, stocked up on swatches, bought little test pots and painted numerous patches of pink all over the walls.  Ultimately, we settled on Nursery Pink (half strength).  Isn't that terribly anticlimactic?  But it was truly the nicest pink - not too salmon, not too sickly.  We kept the ceiling and wooden trims white (White Watsonia), and to avoid the whole room looking like a bag of marshmallows, I chose very dark Walnut wood furniture, and accent accessories in shades of grey.

Here is Tabitha's cot - the Boori Paddington, in Walnut.  I loved some of the more modern ones, such as the Stokke, but I felt that a more classic style worked for our home.  I also think the Boori will fit a much longer toddler than the Stokke - and we are tall-ish people.

Here is Tabitha's mobile - sorry, the lighting is really low!  There are a number of heavy canvas butterflies, in pink, grey floral ballerina print, and 1950s newsprint:

We got a large bookshelf / room divider from Ikea - this is brilliant in a nursery because it holds so much, and so many different types of things - there are books, tubs at the bottom (with puzzles, toys, breastpump and equipment, bibs and hats, and nappies), plus shelves for displaying objects, and there is a small pink case on one of the shelves with her first-aid kit, and a nice big blue Japanese bowl with all of her little rolled-up socks.  There is also a small stereo on one of the shelves, with some great baby music such as Music for Dreaming.  Below, there are close-ups of two of the shelves - one with a pretty little Tiffany 'bunny bank' which my dad brought her back from New York, with two rattles, and one shelf full of little toys:

The change-table is also Boori, walnut to match the cot.  I decided to get a style which is basically a regular chest of drawers, with a change-mat on top.  Most change-tables are quite open underneath, which I feel limits their usefulness - once the baby is moving around a bit (Tabby was well and truly rolling by 4 months), change-tables are pretty useless, and it's easier to change them on a bed or the ground.  Whereas a chest of drawers will remain necessary for years to come.

Actually, we never once used this change-table for changing a nappy.  That's right, never.  Because she slept in our room, we just changed her on our bed!  We kept - and still keep - all of her nappy equipment in a shelf by the bed.  So I sure am glad we didn't shell out for a dedicated change-table...

Everyone kept telling me how important it was to have a good feeding chair.  I hauled my enormous pregnant self around countless furniture stores, climbing in and out of chairs.  Ultimately, the most comfortable, roomy (for a wriggling older baby) and easy to clean chair was from Ikea - the Ektorp.  It truly is an exceptionally comfy chair - in the final weeks of the pregnancy, I would sit in it and never want to get out!

Also on the chair, below, you will see my Milkbar breastfeeding pillow.  This was a total blessing during the early couple of months - I didn't feed without it.  Just the right height, firmness, and removable cover for frequent washing (Tabby was quite the spewer in those early weeks!)

While the Milkbar got a real workout, the chair - like the changetable - got absolutely NO use until recently.  Because Tabitha was either in our bed, or in her little Moses basket next to the bed, overnight I always fed her sitting up in bed.  During the day, I preferred to feed her in the living room on the sofa, rather than tucked away in the nursery.  Lately, I have started to use it - the perfect size for cuddling up with Tabitha and reading stories, and when she sleeps in the nursery, I feed her overnight sitting in the chair.  It is very comfortable - in fact, last night, I went to feed her at around 1:30am, and fell asleep holding her curled up in the chair for nearly an hour!  When I woke up, she was still latched on and gently sucking in her sleep, too cute...

Because we got a plain white chair, I bought a throw rug and some attractive pink, silver and beige cushions.  Below, you can see that the cats certainly like the chair:

We got the wardrobes redone in both bedrooms - we cut it very fine, with the final touches finished just a week before Tabitha was due (though she didn't arrive for a further three weeks).  All of the wardrobes in the nursery are split horizontally, so that I can hang little baby things on the top and bottom.  Below you can see all of her tiny newborn nightgowns, onesies and coats, from 0000 size on the left, to 0 size on the right.  She wore the 0000 sizes for about 3-4 weeks, then the 000 size until she was about 4 months old, the 00 size until around 6 months old, and now she is 0 and 1 sizes.

Even now, I find sitting in Tabitha's nursery to be incredibly calming and serene.  The colours are muted, there is plenty of filtered daylight, and the floor-to-ceiling glass French doors look out to the garden.  It is my favourite room of the house to just sit and read in!  I have seen some really gorgeous nurseries filled with bright colours, but I personally think that muted tones are conducive to relaxing and sleeping.

Here are the doors - the glass panel off to the side overlooks the garden.  You can see baby Possum peering out to the decking:

Tabitha Update

Exciting news from the baby T front:

- I gave Tabby some fried egg this morning, and she ate it (gutsed it, really) with no red rash or reaction this time!  The egg was completely cooked, I will try again with some soft-cooked egg again this week.

- Tabitha can do all sorts of grown-up things now that she is a Big Girl of more than 7 1/2 months!  She can sit up and clap her hands, bang two blocks together, she can also pull herself up to stand against the sofa/walls/doorframes/human legs.  Once up, she can get down again (often even without bonking her noggin!), and she can slooooowly creep along, getting about a metre by shuffling along holding onto the sofa/wall etc.

- When I leave the room, she can generally crawl and come find me.  This is a grand improvement - it used to be that if I left the room for just a second (to get a glass of water, say) she would burst into tears and sit crying until I returned to scoop her up.

My favourite new development?  She loves to crawl across the room and then, panting and grunting with excitement and exertion, clamber into my lap and stand up so that she can wrap her little arms tightly around my neck, and burrow her face deeply into my hair/neck/jumper.  She will stay like that for minutes, just breathing in her 'mummy smell'.  Makes my day every time!

Here is a photo of my baby on the day she was born.  Note - my little sister added the stuffed mouse just for the photo while she slept.  It's not the done thing to leave a stuffed toy in with a sleeping baby, generally!

Around 8 hours after Tabitha was born, The Daddy and I were completely exhausted (my active labour was nearly 45 hours long!), so my mother sent us off to bed for a nap and she sat with Tabitha in the living room (new babies pretty much just sleep for the first day or so) - this is when the above photo was taken.