21 Dec 2013 The art of nose picking

Well, who would have thought?!

Getting your toddler to stop picking his nose seems near impossible.
Especially because he often seems so proud of his 'findings' ;-)

I remember doing the same when I was little and the reactions of my parents, freaking out.

Just thought I'd Google it, wondering if there was any real harm in it, before copying my own mom, yelling at my boy to PLEASE STOP!

And surprise, surprise, this is what I found:  "using fingers to pick and ingesting nasal mucus gives a natural boost to the immune system" according to this article on Wikipedia. Boogers are healthy... huh???

WTF? Are you with me?
So according to scientists to eat your snot bogeys is like preparing your immune system and to build up your natural defenses. Who would have thought...

It seems that the foreign pathogens that get stuck in the mucus in your nose, get crippled by the cocktail of antiseptic enzymes it contains. And eating those weakened bacteria and microorganisms can actually make your immunity stronger. It's acting like an 'all natural' vaccine, motivating your system to produce antibodies to everyday environmental contaminants.

We all know that being too clean has got an opposite effect on (young) people's health, leaving the body with not enough practice of fighting off those everyday contaminants, creating super resistant bugs and auto immune reactions like allergies, asthma, eczema and even heart issues later in life. This is also known as the hygiene hypothesis.

More information on nose picking and health related issues: Eating boogers may be good for you

17 Dec 2013 Yummy non-bake cheese cake!

Here's another incredibly yummy recipe, based on my mom's ancient family recipe, but with local (NZ) ingredients.

The original calls for quark (kwark in Dutch) which isn't readily available here in New Zealand.

What I use instead is Greek Yoghurt, quite different from quark, but the resulting cheese cake is just as delicious! (Extra info on Quark vs Greek Yoghurt)

Our favourite flavour is (canned) peaches, but except for fresh kiwi fruit or pineapple, just about any fruit will do.

Ingredients:

• 8oz (250gr) of crumbed biscuits
• 3oz (80gr) of melted butter
• 1 tablespoon of cinnamon
• 1 can of peaches
• 2 cups (500ml) of Greek Yoghurt
• 1 cup (250ml) of whipping cream - cold
• gelatin (+/- 0.4oz or 12gr)
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
• 2 oz (60gr) of white caster sugar

I usually wing the amount of sugar, gelatin, cinnamon and vanilla as it largely depends on taste, how sweet you like your deserts to be. I'm okay with a fruity but not overly sweet sort of cake. If you've got a serious sweet tooth, you can add more sugar and vanilla - more vanilla means more gelatin too. (Check your vanilla for alcohol!)

Melt butter in a large glass bowl over a pot of hot water, or in the microwave. Meanwhile crumb your biscuits. (I use a large zip lock bag and a rolling pin) Add 1 tablespoon of caster sugar, 1 tablespoon of cinnamon, a bit of vanilla essence and the crumbed biscuits to the melted butter and stir well.
Press the mixture into a paper-lined spring form with the round side of a spoon and put in the fridge for half an hour or so.

Drain the peaches over a glass bowl and heat the juice over a pot of hot water. Add a teaspoon of sugar and have the gelatin ready.

Slice the peaches into small chunks and set aside.

Whip cream with remaining sugar and vanilla essence added till stiff peaks form. Fold in Greek Yoghurt and peaches.

Dissolve gelatin in hot juice and add this to the cream and yoghurt mix.

Get your cookie base from the fridge and add the peachy cheese cake batter.
Leave in the fridge for an hour or 3, till set.

ENJOY!!!!

For a change I put them in individual silicon molds... YUM!

15 Dec 2013 - What no one told me...

It's all about pregnancy and motherhood this time.
There are a few things that really shocked me, surprised me and changed me throughout my pregnancy and early motherhood and many of those things I wish I would have known before they happened! Not that it would have stopped me having children ever, but I think I could have prepared myself a bit better, knowing what was to come.

Your body will NEVER be the same! Sure some women are truly lucky - they 'bounce back' into shape without even trying. Those cases are rare, very rare! Don't let anyone tell you otherwise! It takes 9 months to grow a baby, it takes 9 months to get over it, at LEAST.

#1 Pregnancy Breasts! Often one of the first signs of pregnancy for many women: Painful, heavy breasts. I remember having to hold on to my boobs when I was in a bit of a rush, or driving along a bumpy road... OUCH!

Your breasts could gain 3 to 4 sizes during pregnancy alone, then your breastfeeding journey might start and some women gain another 2 cup sizes in the first weeks after giving birth, because of engorgement. Those boobies have got a whole new meaning and job now of feeding a hungry baby. Even if you don't breastfeed your baby, your boobs will end up a lot softer than before and often differently shaped as well. Not always bad (what's bad anyway), sometimes smaller, sometimes bigger, sometimes saggier... And every pregnancy can be different again, leaving them different than before. Have a look at these if you're worried about your breasts - don't we all think our boobs don't look 'normal'?? http://www.007b.com/breast_gallery.php You will find a huge range of normal breasts here. There's another gallery with 'after pregnancy' and 'altered' breasts as well. So... they're normal, right?

#2 You want your body back! This is a cliche, but oh so true! For at least 4 months you have felt this squirming, kicking, poking, nudging alien sensation in your tummy, quite painful at times too! Then you have to birth the little wonder you've been waiting for for so long, leaving you with many sore spots down below and a flabby wobbly belly... You might start your breastfeeding journey, going through all the pain and hassle to feed your baby (NO, it is NOT easy, but so worth the effort!) At times you just want to be left alone, no touching, PLEASE!! Between your baby and your partner, you might feel overwhelmed having to share your body...

#3 Varicose Veins! These are often a 'side effect' of pregnancy. Hormones soften the tissues in your body, also causing the walls of your blood vessels to get weaker. The extra amount of blood your body produces during pregnancy puts extra pressure on your system, which often shows as blue bulging (often itchy and/or painful!) lines in your legs, but also likely to appear in your vulva and even as hemorrhoids (piles) in and/or around your anus... oh the joys! Good thing is: they might get a lot better and less visible after pregnancy, but are likely to return and get worse again with a next pregnancy.

#4 Hair Loss! Another wonderful result of pregnancy. During your second trimester of pregnancy you might notice how nice and thick and healty your hair looks. Hormones again! The higher levels of Progesterone are thought to cause hair on your head (but also the rest of your body!) to keep on growing during pregnancy, instead of losing your usual 80 to 100 hairs daily. Once your baby is born, the dropped hormone levels cause all the 'missed' hairs to fall out at once... lovely! Reason why a lot of new moms end up drastically changing their hairdo into something easy and less obvious. Though the hairloss can be severe, it will pass, leaving a lovely halo of newly grown hairs all over the place.

#5 Discharge! And LOTS of it... Have you ever wondered why your mother was always wearing panty liners? Well, you're about to find out why. Many women will experience plenty of extra vaginal discharge throughout the second half of their pregnancy, due to the increased blood flow to the uterus and vaginal walls. It shouldn't be too smelly and it should be a white-ish color, or there might be something wrong. Infections are also really common, especially after a prescription of antibiotics.

Once baby is born, there's the maternity pads. Yes, they are that big for a reason! At first you might even have to change it after an hour, because it's full of blood and clots... What my hospital nurse did, was putting one to the left, one to the right and one pad on top of those two in the middle of my panties to be able to go for several hours without having to change. This heavy bleeding could last for several weeks, a colored discharge that follows could last for several months until the wound of the placenta inside your uterus has healed completely.

#6 After Pains! Oh my, even thinking of those makes me cringe now! Going through childbirth wouldn't be a piece of cake and would hurt really bad. Not that preparing for the pain is possible in any case, but at least it is to be expected. Then the baby is out and there's this SEVERE cramping in your already sore tummy! It's like an intense contraction all over again! And in fact they are still contractions, only this time to empty the uterus from remaining tissue, blood clots and to try to make it shrink back from generous watermelon size to it's original size of an orange. These afterpains can last for over a week and will hurt less and less, but will hurt nonetheless. Breastfeeding releases hormones that aid the contracting of the uterus as well, so it will return to it's original size sooner.

#7 Toilet Habits! So you're pretty regular? Pregnancy messes with your insides, it's these blimmin hormones again! Making your intestines all sluggish and ineffective, causing problems like constipation in many pregnant women. Lots of water and fiber can help keep you going. Then there's the farting.... Something you can't help really, but oh so embarassing!

Like you've got nothing else to do, your growing uterus puts enough pressure on your bladder, making you need to go every half hour or so. Even at night. Once baby gets big enough to use your bladder as a trampoline, there might even be the odd accident... remember the panty liners? Ahhh.....

#8 Hot and Sweaty! No matter what time of year you are due, you will be HOT! Yes, you'll be looking fantastic too :) This internal heater makes sure your hands and feet are less cold and all the extra blood being pumped around your system means that room temperature will now feel way too hot for you! Sweating, especially at night(!) is something new in the later stages of pregnancy, but won't end there. After you gave birth you might wake up drenched for several more months, especially when your baby wakes up hungry in the middle of the night.

Talking about middle of the night, during pregnancy there's:

#9 Dreams! Oh those vivid dreams of giving birth to the most unthinkable creatures, babies of the other gender, multiples, aliens, animals, babies with multiple limbs or limbs missing... YUP all NORMAL!!! Luckily they're only dreams, however real they might seem to be, heart-racingly real at times!

#10 Cloud Myth! Sure to some lucky moms the whole pregnancy and birth thing is over like in a dream (not one of the above!) But most moms will find many things to complain or feel anxious about. Being pregnant and giving birth is like a roller coaster ride! And these preggo hormones don't help! It all seems so overwhelming at times and too hard to get your head around... Well, all of that's normal, totally normal! And yes, the horrormones are to blame... again! I've never been on the pink cloud, blue cloud, cloud 9, that thing doesn't actually exist and was just made up to make new mommas feel extra bad about their new-momma lives! Don't believe it, it's a trick! Talk about what you feel, how you feel and how you thought it would be, how different things are now. And most importantly: ASK FOR HELP. Seriously! If there is once in your life you want to ask for help, it's now!

#11 Perfect Birth! Yup, sort of a myth too. In some cases you might get it exactly as you wanted, or pictured it, but in most cases you won't care about the extra attendants in the birthing room, the couple of stitches you get once holding your prescious newborn, the fact that you pooped while pushing. As long as all ends up fine, the small stuff will have been erased from memory, whether you're high on pain meds, or high on your own hormones. And YES, pain memories do fade, luckily!

#12 Bump in the Way! By the end of your pregnancy your bump will be in the way in all sorts of ways. You can't bend over to tie your laces. You can't see where to put the razor for a tidy up down there. Your bump will get stuck between doors, cupboards, sliding doors, passing between cars. You end up changing your top all the time, for the bump keeps leaning in puddles on the bench, and in full plates on the table. You'll invest in a tray to put your laptop on, once you get sick of pressing the wrong keys and having a bump trying to kick the laptop off your lap. Your spat out toothpaste will land on your bump. It takes a six point turn to actually roll over in bed. Your long, stretchy tops are starting to show part of your bump. Strangers will want to touch YOUR bump (Hate that!!)

So far my 5ct worth. I've probably forgotten a whole lot, might add some later :)

Some extra info:
All guilty pregnancy hormones lined up

Stages of Labor

8 Dec 2013 All time favourite: Banana Loaf

Where better to save my all time favourite Banana Loaf recipe than here :D

This recipe leaves you with a heavy, but soft and moist loaf and you can add all sorts of your favourite flavours and nuts/fruit to it too.

The best thing about a banana loaf is that our local supermarket often has bags of bananas for reduced prices once they start going brown – and those are THE BEST! For $1.70 you have plenty of bananas for this delicious loaf, just my kind of thing!

Ingredients:

• 2 cups of plain flour (260 gr)
• 1/2 cup of brown caster sugar (5 tablespoons is sweet enough for me)
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 1 teaspoon of baking soda
• 1 tablespoon of cinnamon (optional)
• 2.5 to 3 cups of mashed overripe bananas (600 to 700 ml)
• 3 tablespoons of lemon juice (optional)
• 1/2 cup of butter, softened (100 gr)
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence (optional)
• 1 cup of crushed nuts (optional – walnut and almond are my favourites)

Pre-heat oven 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) and lightly grease a medium Loaf tin.

Mix flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a large bowl.

Meanwhile soften butter in the microwave, add sugar and mix till it’s light and creamy, then add the eggs 1 at the time and add vanilla.

In a 3rd bowl mix mashed bananas and lemon juice, then stir it through the butter/sugar/egg mixture and add nuts while stirring.

Add the wet mixture to the flour mixture and stir just to moisten, then pour it in your loaf pan.

Bake for around an hour ~ 65 minutes. If a skewer inserted comes out clean, it’s done.

Let cool enough to take it from the tin and enjoy!

Today I tried spreading a hand full of nuts over the top… Can’t wait to try this!

7 December 2013 Broke again

Lovely time of the year to be broke...

Here in NZ most people get paid weekly. Bills get paid weekly. Rent gets paid weekly.

My partner has just started working for a new company and they pay Monthly. Or so they say.

Since August payments have come in at very irregular dates, which means that instead of 4 we've had to go 5 and even 6 weeks between payments. Not easy if you consider the monthly amount only just covers 5 weeks of living expenses.

And then December comes along!

And November payment still hasn't come in...

What to do now?

Fridge is empty, 4 days till the next rent payment is due, 2 big (insurance) bills waiting to be paid, phone bill is still waiting AND it's still empty under the tree...

Not sure what's worse?

Sure I have some savings I could borrow from, but taking money from the savings account means I won't get interest this month. A whole $25 down the drain because my partner's new employer refuses to set up an automatic transfer!!

Does that seem fair to you?

We've asked him politely (He's in Holland), we've begged him, and he keeps promising he'll put payment through 'shortly'.

Whatever that means, for we're still waiting...

I wish for the New Year for the money worries to go away!

Sure we'll survive and we won't starve, but saying YES to a new job shouldn't come with money worries if you ask me! To be able to count on the money to come in at regular moments is kind of a necessity, especially for a family of 4!

Let's wait and see what happens tomorrow...

Mañana sera otro día!

6 December 2013 Too hot to sleep

It's 3:29 AM and Saturday morning.

I didn't just come home after a late night out.

I am up, writing my blog.

The house is quiet, as it should be.

I'm pretty sure not many will say this, but tonight it's just been too hot to sleep.

The first sticky warm night of Summer.

I went to bed around 10:30 a regular sort of bed time for me but I haven't managed more than 15 minute naps at the time, either someone's snoring waking me up, or my itchy throat, or my busy mind... So I kept on tossing and turning and overheating.

Time to take action!

I went outside to sniff the night, it's cloudy, no stars, no moon. Not cold, but the first mozzy found me in record time, so I went back inside. It's still warm inside, we had the doors and windows open all day, as it's been a muggy sort of day.

One of those days that you keep staring at the dark clouds on the horizon, begging them to come closer and bring relief. No such luck, all we got was blue skies and light cloud, not even enough for a proper drop of rain.

Thunder and lightning was forecast, but as usual, don't go by the weather forecast planning your day as they don't seem to get it right ever...

I actually feel sorry for them, the weather forecast people. They try their best, but never get it right. So the long range forecast always looks the same: A cloud with a few drops underneath and a few sunrays over the top. I could do that!

Today I was looking a the weather page, in the next 2-hourly block there'll be 2.2 mm's of rain. By the time we get halfway that block, the millimeters have moved to the next 2-hourly block, and so on. I don't know who got the rain, but we sure didn't! We could have used some, it's been a while!

A refreshing rain.... Maybe would have resulted in a blissful sleep...

Maybe.

But what's been on my mind all day as well are the poor people that died today - my today.
It started with an email from Holland about a friend and colleague dying of pancreatic cancer... He wasn't even 45 years old yet! Twice his age and a lot less unexpected was the death of Nelson Mandela. The world has lost a great leader. Then just before bedtime I found out 2 men from my partner's hometown here in NZ have died in a crash today, their truck drove off a bank and one of them had been thrown out of the cabin. A sad day for many...

Makes you realise how everything is just so temporary, transitive. What's here today, could be gone tomorrow. We are such tiny creatures on this massive planet and in the scheme of things we don't even count. Unless we're Nelson Mandela and we stand out head and shoulders above the rest. But not me, maybe not you either. We are just nobody's. We'll be forgotton tomorrow. We will forget tomorrow.

Things will look brighter when the morning comes. No point in dreading the future, as we can't change things, better be engulfed by what's coming. Seize the day. Carpe Diem


Note to self: DON'T FORGET TO CTRL-C or you might loose your work, like you did yesterday...

3 Dec 2013 Trying for a baby while breastfeeding

** TMI alert!! Guys might have to look elsewhere ;-) **

Ok so much for chronological order..

This is on my mind right now, so here goes!

After having my first son I didn’t want to wait for very long to start trying for #2 (biological clock is going tick-tock) but I wasn’t keen on weaning my boy either. Often people will tell you that breastfeeding works as a contraceptive. Well, that’s a myth!

So I started keeping track of my cycle. I didn’t get my periods yet, but I had started ovulating around 7 months or so. How do I know that?

Well, often I feel a slight burning sensation in my ovary – alternating sides usually. The very first time I experienced any ovulation pain at all, was when I had been in hospital with thrombosis in my head (a whole other lengthy story!) and was taken off the contraceptive pill. I was recommended having a copper-T inserted as hormonal contraceptive was off-limits for me. Getting the coil wasn’t fun, but after the initial cramping and spotting, it suited me just fine. Periods got heavier and longer, but all in all that was something I could live with.

It took around 7 weeks for my own cycle to kick in and then I experienced such a cramping pain, I couldn’t sit, stand or lie down and none of my painkillers brought relief. I ended up getting an echo/scan at my gynecologist where they determined I was experiencing ‘afterpains’ as my ovary had just released an egg and the gap that was left behind had filled with liquid, causing stress on surrounding tissue – or so they told me. I was prescribed painkillers and something for cramps and I was recommended taking a relaxing bath.

Luckily that was the first and only time my ovulation pain was that bad, ever since I have been able to feel a slight cramping/burning when I am about to or have just released an ovum. Very handy I must say!

One of the other signs of ovulation is the amount and consitency of your discharge. Throughout the cycle it goes through stages of milky white, lumpy, completely absent, to the egg white-like stretchy substance to look out for. In the days before ovulation it will get more and more clear and stretchy, to the point where you might notice long threads on your toilet tissue and if you were to take it between your fingers, you would be able to take thumb and fingers as far apart as you could, without breaking the stretchy, slimy thread. Yuck but useful!! That’s when your egg is about to start its journey and when you should come in action between the sheets – or anywhere else for that matter :)

The last, but not so obvious sign of ovulation that I have used in the past, is to feel for the shape and tissue tightness of your cervix. It’s not all that easy and isn’t always forward and low enough to be able to reach. When I had the IUD, the copper coil, I was told to check the threads coming out of my cervix regularly. So for me this was something I had felt for before and I had also noticed the changes before. During your cycle your cervix changes shape and goes from soft to harder and back to soft again.

What it feels like for me:
in the week before ovulation the cervix becomes softer (more like your lips or ear lobes) and opens up slightly. During ovulation the tip of the cervix is lower and more forward, so it’s easier to reach when squatting in the shower for instance. The tip feels really soft and you can feel that it’s open during ovulation.
The week after ovulation the cervix moves up again and a bit backwards, so it’ll be harder to reach. It also closes up again and feels harder, a bit like the tip of your nose.

A combination of the above signs can tell you where you are in your monthly cycle.
To work it out for your own body you could try combining these with taking your base temperatures first thing in the morning, or using ovulation tests, but I have no experience with either of those, as I never needed more than my own body signs to get pregnant. We conceived the first the 2nd month after I had the Copper-T removed and boy #2 was a hit on the 2nd round as well. I kept nursing till I was 33 weeks pregnant and my boy weaned himself.
There is just under 22 months between my babies.

I know for sure I have been ovulating since my youngest was 4 months old.
Next year we will start trying for our #3 as I still hope for a girl :D Better keep track of timing, so chances of a girl are better – but that’s another story yet again!

3 December 2013 – Oil pulling adventure

My youngest boy has just turned 6 months old and is still breastfeeding many times a day. He’s a great sleeper so I’m a lucky mom. I’m struggling to loose the remaining kilos after my last pregnancy, as for some reason my body seems to try to hang on to the extra flab badly. Ok, I realise I’m not actually very active at the moment, but with a 2.5 year old by your side, going for a brisk walk just isn’t that easy!


We got an early Christmas present for the boys: a giant trampoline. This mom thought that jumping would be the way to go! Tried that a few times, but all that’s changed is that I now have 2 badly striped boobs :( And here I was, not a single line on my boobs or belly after carrying 2 chunky babies for over 41 weeks each… 4 months into breast feeding my second child, still not a single line… Jumped on the trampoline for half an hour or so and both boobs covered in striae!!! Sorry tramp, you won’t be seeing me for the next foreseeable future :(

Now to get back to the oil story!

How do you loose weight when exercise gives you stretch marks, you’re not allowed to diet (when breastfeeding) and you’re not even eating that great an amount? Well, you try google!

I came across Detox recommendations a few times, but next to a diet, it’s not allowed to detox while breastfeeding, as a lot of harmful toxins could end up in the breasmilk when your body starts ‘cleaning’ itself from the inside out.

And THEN I read about oil pulling! It’s where the first thing you do after getting up, is taking a spoonfull of oil and you spend the next 15 to 20 minutes swishing it around your mouth, particularly around and in between of your teeth. Oil will pick up bacteria and toxins and even tiny food particles that are stuck IN the tiny pores in the enamel of your teeth. The trick is to actually leave the oil swirling around for that long, so the oil gets the time to enter those tiny pores and do its job of cleaning and brightening.

So what kind of oil do you use? Recommended are sunflower oil or sesame oil, but after reading up on it, cold pressed coconut oil will be on my shopping list. Any kind of cooking oil would work, but some oil just tastes too strong to keep in your mouth for that long.

Just make sure you spit it out when the time’s up, I actually got a glass with oil before and one with oil after and YUK it had gone al milky and off-colour. But my teeth were brighter and felt cleaner than ever!

Next to a brighter smile, oil pulling ‘could’ cause fresher breath, less head aches/muscle pains/joint pains, better sleep and a whole range of other benefits that may or may not have been proven. AND it is deemed SAFE for pregnant and breastfeeding women!!

Except for my cleaner teeth I can’t say it’s got any benefits for me yet, but time will tell and hopefully the scales will too!

Where to start... Welcome

My name is Brenda, mom of 2 boys and partner of 1. We live in a rental home in the very south of the South Island of New Zealand.

Most of all, I want to write for myself, for my boys. About us, about the things we’re going through and about all the cool stuff I find online that changes my life and way of living.

My writing could be blunt, don’t take it personally and please don’t be offended, that’s just my Dutch side showing!

I am totally new here. Needless to say I am still figuring this out. What do I do next?

How do I change the layout? Anyone?
:)