Babyfy Blog

– I’m making dinner. The salad is ready and I’m busy with the potatoes. The Dandelion enters the kitchen, pushes a chair, climbs on it, and standing on the chair starts munching on the salad. THE SALAD. He ate the salad out of free will. No coaxing, no cajoling. He wanted the salad so bad he actually climbed on a chair to get to it. In my world, my chocolate-is-my-only-food Ulysses-centered world, we call it a miracle.

– Ulysses is finally 100% potty trained, after relinquishing the night diaper. A week and a half with no night...

I went to see my gorgeous new nephew the other day. He was only a few days old but the new mum and dad seemed to be coping well and were really quite relaxed.
I had to hold myself back though to avoid bombarding them with advice – when you are a first-time parent everyone from the mother-in-law to the checkout lady at the supermarke provides their two-penneth about what you are doing wrong/ what you are doing right/ what you shouldn’t be doing, and it can be both overwhelming and irritating.
That said, I just couldn’t help but suggest a couple of tips for those bleary newborn days and then decided to gather a few of my favourites up and share them on here….you might find them utterly useless but here goe...

Well TLM and I did a very grown-up thing yesterday – we walked up to the High Road without a pushchair – he is only just two and it’s maybe two-thirds of a mile each way – and sat at a pavement cafe supping a mango smoothie together and watching the world go by.
Several times recently I’ve looked at him and thought the clichéd thought ‘where’s my baby gone?’ – he just seems so grown-up – quite the little boy. In fact sometimes he really does seem to have such an old head on his toddler sized shoulders – he is wonderfully tidy (if he changes the CD on the stereo he always puts the old one back in its case!) and mostly remarkably sensible.
But then little things remind me he IS indeed still onl...

I’m a world-class procrastinator. I never do anything now that I could possibly do later, and when later comes, I usually still don’t do it because, hey, there’s always tomorrow.

I started counting how many times this cursed tendency of mine has gotten me into knee-deep trouble, but it was too complicated, so I decided to do it some other time. The surprising thing is that you would expect I would, I don’t know, learn my lesson, but no. No lessons learned whatsoever.

There is one place, and one place only, where my procrasti...

A woman’s breasts are a subject of great mystery and beauty. They are also a primal source of nourishment for new life. We are encouraged (mainly by the opposite sex) to show off our beauty and yet I just read about some poor woman in Houston who was breastfeeding her child in a restaurant (she had covered the baby with a blanket) and was asked to leave. It seems, we are encouraged to celebrate our femininity but not publicly supported for one of our essential roles as mothers. It makes people uncomfortable and so there we are feeling conflicted. (The painting is called Pregnant Girl by Lucia...

So I was spending the entire week two weeks ago being horribly miserably sick *insert over-inflated self pity here*, and then the next week, which was actually last week, planning my big comeback post after not writing a whole week and guess what happened? Nothing. Nothing happened. No post and no shoes. (That’s a common saying in my family, its origins lost in the mists of time). And you know why? Because I SUCK.

If you, patient reader, were a vegetable, say a radish, and I was the gardner in charge of taking care of you, you would have probably died. ThatR...

I walked a huge amount during my pregnancy and now postpartum I have to force myself to get out the house before a day of mayhem begins. But every time I do, I immediately feel the benefits. Sometimes I walk with my daughter in the stroller but I also enjoy just being on my own. I come back feeling lovely and calm.

It’s amazing to me that with all this positive energy, I still find the hardest challenge is just pushing myself out the front door. There always seems to be an excuse or something to do, so I am inviting all you ladies who are procrastinators like me, to get off the couch or leav...

The whole subject of dairy during and after pregnancy really focuses on your calcium intake as your baby grows and develops strong bones and teeth. Calcium is also essential to regulate blood pressure, your heartbeat, water balance in the cells and muscle contractions. If you are not getting enough calcium, your baby will deplete your own reserves which in later life may be a cause for serious health repurcussions. So what’s a women to do if she can’t eat milk and yogurt? Or like my friend, who cannot eat dairy while breastfeeding her lactose intolerant baby who currently does not respond well to formula? Or what about a women who is pregnant with twins? How much calcium does she need? (The image is of Kelp - a very high so...

I can’t believe my ‘baby’ is two already. It feels like he has been with us forever yet it also feels like the blink of an eye and that only yesterday he was a newborn with a cry like a mewing kitten rather than the full blown screaming banshee that he can, on occasions, be now.

Of course, his second birthday also means we have been parents for two years. Our lives have changed beyond recognition. Yes we miss the Sunday lie-ins, the lounging around with the newspapers, the hours of free time that you don’t appreciate you had until after you have children.
But both small and large things make up for this in infinitely more than equal measure. The smile he gives us when we go in to wake him up first thing...

The worst moment of my life to this point was sitting in a neon-lit emergency room corridor and hearing through the closed door of the examination room three weeks old Dandelion screaming with pain while undergoing a spinal tap procedure.

If you didn’t click on the above link, you might be under the impression I’m an overreacting drama queen. Not everybody likes fictitious heavy metal, but really, how bad could it be? Bad. As bad as having an ER intern take a long needle and insert it into your newborn’s spinal canal to sample his cerebrospinal fluid in order to test for meningit...