Henry is five months old now, which is impossible to believe. He is becoming so much more animated and interactive. He smiles at us and laughs all the time, he even plays little games — usually involving ripping up the Sunday Papers. He is also much more happy to play on his tummy which I’m delighted about as for a while there every time we tried to do the prescribed “tummy time” he would just lie there, face down crying into the carpet. I would rescue him immediately and then become consumed with worry that I was creating bad habits and that my child would never be able to lie on his stomach and would ultimately grow up to have some kind of anti-social behavior disorder, natch.
I’m noticing that I can become caught up in the parental-anxiety vortex very easily and Tom routinely has to talk me down about minor things like; is his hair growing fast enough and does his head seem unusually large. I’m told by other parents of my acquaintance that this pervading anxiety will be my constant companion for the next 18 years and beyond so I had better come to terms with it. One of my big fears is that we are over-feeding him, which is a bit ridiculous as he is not even one of those fabulously roly-poly babies but actually a bit wizened and lean. Still though every time I hear more about obesity epidemics on the radio or TV I whip the bottle or boob away from the poor child. I suppose this is because I was a bit of a chunk when I was young and I’d hate Henry to be unhealthy because of my over-indulging him.
On the subject of chunk my preggers chunk is still lingering. I’m finding it harder to lose than before I had Henry. Pre-baby if I ever felt my clothes getting tight I could just eat carefully for a week and I’d be back to normal. This side of the baby bump things are definitely more difficult and I’m desperately clawing my way back to a good BMI. These little breakfast muffins are delicious and belie their healthy ingredients.
Berry and banana muffins
Makes 16 small-size muffins
- 400g porridge oats
- 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 2 bananas
- 500g low fat Greek-style yoghurt
- 4 tablespoons milk
- 150g frozen berries (previously boiled for 1 minute)
Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Blend the oats in the food processor until fine. Place the oats in a large bowl and stir in the bicarbonate of soda, salt and lemon zest. Mash the bananas and combine with the yoghurt. Add this to the ground oats and stir together thoroughly. Add the milk to loosen the mixture slightly and then fold in the frozen berries. Line a muffin tin with squares of baking paper folded into muffin cases. Fill the cases with the mixture and bake in the oven for 30 minutes then place the muffins in their cases directly onto the oven rack and bake for 10 more minutes. Then cool and serve with jam and butter.
