Xmas in England

We made it through 2 weeks in England in the freezing cold and snow, without too much drama. I did get the odd ‘poor thing’ comment when everyone was wolfing down cake and Eleftheria was chomping on some apple. Why do people think that the baby is missing out on something because I am not forcing disgusting sweet sugar laden cakes down her throat just because that is what everyone else is eating. She was none the wiser and she didn’t seem to care either. I know there will come a time when she will understand that what she is eating is different from everyone else, and I haven’t decided what I will do when that moment arises.

Eleftheria's 1st Birthday

I can’t believe that a year has passed so quickly, my daughter has gone from being a helpless tiny baby to a tiny little walking, talking, clever little person. We kept her birthday party small and enjoyed it with our close family, she loved having her parents and grandparents give her all their attention all day. As a birthday treat I made some cookies for Eleftheria and I, they were delicious and we both enjoyed them. The recipe I used was adapted from http://rawdorable.blogspot.com/ by Shannon marie a great website with tons of recipes and ideas. The recipe itself was called Chewy Trawfoils, I doubled the ingredients from the original recipe and used extra dates instead of agave syrup.

Ingredients
1 cup cashews
½ cup coconut flakes, ground into a powder
½ cup sesame seeds, ground into a powder
½ cup flaxseed, ground
10 medjool dates
1 tsp. Vanilla powder
dash of sea salt
10 tbsp water.

I ground the cashews, coconut flakes, sesame seeds and flaxseeds into a fine powder using a coffee grinder. I then chucked everything into a food processor adding the water bit by bit and processed it until I had a smooth sticky mixture.
I placed the dough onto a teflex sheet on a flat surface covered it with another teflex sheet and using a rolling pin rolled it out into a flat sheet about half a centimetre thick. Using cookie cutters I then cut out various shapes. Carefully removing the left over bits of dough around the shapes, and not disturbing the cookies on the original teflex sheet, I put the tray in the dehydrator and repeated the rolling of the dough and cookie cutting step until I had no dough left.
I dehydrated the cookies for about 12 hours until they were solid but still chewy, flipping over halfway through and removing the teflex.



The results were chewy little mild tahini flavoured not so sweet cookies. A definite recipe for keeping. The cookies store well in an air tight container, mine lasted about 4 days before we had eaten them all.

Progress update

I haven’t kept it a secret that I am still breastfeeding but because the feeds are less frequent it isn’t so obvious, however those that know me well and know I am still breastfeeding are making comment like: its about time you thought about stopping’ etc. Honestly if you want to know every ones view about something have a baby and they will soon be quick to judge.
In 3 weeks Eleftheria will be turning 1 year old. The months have passed by so quickly. I have been getting pressure from some people to stop breastfeeding, I am not ready yet and I don’t think Eleftheria is either. Most people think I have waited too long already but I can’t think of any reason to stop.
I let Eleftheria dictate when I breastfeed her, and her own natural progression has lead us to 2-3 times a day. At lunch time and in the evening before she goes to bed and once during the night.
We are off to England again for the holidays, in one sense I can’t wait to see my family and friends again and for them to see my little angel and how much she has grown and how clever she is, but on the other hand I know that I will be scrutinized again for my choices.

Eleftheria’s new tricks
She is now walking, and that means mummy is now chasing her everywhere.
When I point to my lips and ask for a kiss I get big wet kisses.
She waves, blows kisses and covers her eyes to play beek a boo.
The odd word is sneaking in like Dada, Hello, Yiayia (greek for grandma) and Ta (thank you).
She can also put the shapes into the right holes on one of her toys.
Her favourite game is emptying the cupboards, be it Tupperware, pots and pans, food or clothes it has to come out and put on the floor for inspection.

Summer in Britain

I spent a month in England over the summer and was attacked by more traditional parents every day for the way I am choosing the raise my daughter. I had aunties offering the baby bread and telling me I was cruel for not feeding her the normal rubbish other babies are fed. My mother also made regular comments about me not feeding the baby enough. It was quite exhausting at times and it would have been sooo easy to just give in and follow the sheep in their child rearing ways, but I stood my ground. While we were there I still breastfed and stuck to 1 fresh fruit puree in the middle of the morning. Because of where we were I was able to give her fruits such as papaya and mango which I cannot get back home, Eleftheria loved it.

When we got home she was 8 months old and we decided to increase the food intake to 2 meals a day. I tried to give her some blended vegetables with a little flax oil but Eleftheria would take one mouthful and then purse her lips closed. So I then went back to fruit. Again I have been under attack by more traditional parents telling me that I have given my child a sweet tooth and I really have to start introducing vegetables into her diet otherwise her teeth will rot. I have learnt to take these comments with a pinch of sea salt, some of the advice I take on board and the rest I discard, otherwise I get confused and worry too much about it.

1 step forward 2 steps back

The baby is now 6.5 months old and I have started to wean her because she has a real interest in whatever I am eating. I am still breastfeeding on tap. I started by letting her have a lick of whatever I was eating, i.e. apple or cucumber, then I let her play with chunks of the same foods, while I carefully watched her; she has 2 teeth now so she often bites out chunks and so I have to be extra vigilant. Her first real food was mashed avocado with breast milk in the afternoon and she seemed to enjoy it. We have been doing this for a week and now we are adding some fruit in the morning too. Now that I have started giving her fruit she no longer wants the avocado, I still haven’t figured out why, perhaps she isn’t hungry enough at that time so I haven’t been forcing it. I figured that avocado doesn’t really have that much taste compared to sweet fruit.
Fruits are the natural food for kids to eat. If they were in nature, they would gravitate towards fruit and live on it! Fruits have an enormous variety of vitamins and minerals. They provide carbohydrates and protein. Some even provide fat (coconuts, durian, and avocado). Feed you children a wide variety of in-season fresh organic fruits.
Raising Raw-Vegan Children eBook by Storm and Jinjee Talifero
The Garden Diet.
I have been asking around for advice and ideas about baby’s first raw food ideas. Everyone seems to be leaning towards baby led weaning, and I actually started to feel terrible for thinking that at 6.5 months it was time to start weaning.
But I had my reasons for wanting to wean at this time, firstly I felt Eleftheria was ready to take the next step, she had teeth, was trying to grab food out my hands and watched us with interest and curiosity whenever we ate anything. And a huge factor was our religion; Eleftheria was only 5 months old when we baptized her, what I didn’t know at the time was that soon after the baptism the child should receive holy communion on 3 consecutive Sunday’s. I had a real challenge convincing the priest and my motherinlaw to wait as long as we did, I really didn’t want the first food item to go into her mouth to be bread and wine hence why I decided to start weaning this soon.