Malaysia Cafe - Cardiff

Earlier on this week I was invited to sample the delights at Malaysia Cafe, a Malay street food restaurant here on Woodville Road in Cathays, Cardiff.  The decor was really cute, they'd put out Malaysian flags down the table and some menus of the food we'd be sampling.

I can seriously recommend the 'Kopi' - black roasted coffee with condensed milk

The lovely Dhruv Baker, winner of Masterchef 2010, who was cooking for us

After having time to check out the menu, Dhruv came out to chat to us about Malasian cuisine and the food we'll be eating, and how it's very authentic and true to typical Malay food.

The first food to come out was the Coconut & Chilli Salad, this was surprisingly nice, I'm not normally a fan of beansprouts but with the flavours of the coconut and chilli, it helped to balance out the 'damp' taste/smell that they have.

After that, it was time for the 2nd starter sample, the Inchi Kabin (Malaysian fried chicken), I'm afraid I didn't taste this since I'm vegetarian, but I'm told it was lovely :)

The final starter to come out was the Squid Satay.  Being the lucky vegetarian I am, they also brought out some Paneer (pic below).  The satay was lovely, it wasn't overly sweet or runny, the nuts had been chopped up beautifully so they weren't too small or too rough.

The paneer version of the Squid Satay, it was delightful!

Squid Satay -Marinated squid with a peanut sauce

Next up the first of the mains - this was a Tofu Laksa (everyone else (meat eaters) had chicken & prawn laksa), this was definitely my favourite meal of the night.  It was in a creamy coconut and chilli sauce - it certainly packed a punch.  Instead of combining it with noodles, it was mixed with spiral cut vegetables to add some bulk to it but keeping it lighter than noodles.  The flavours were immense, I'd have been happy to have had a Ramen-sized bowl of this and nothing else :)

These are the Vegetable Murtabak, a leavened bread stuffed with vegetables and spices - this was very tasty too and complimented the Laksa really well.

I am sorry, this was the Tofo Rendang (the veggie version of the beef dish the others had), it looked so delicious I just jumped right in before photographing it - so this is it, mostly eaten!  It had quite the kick, but nothing I couldn't handle.  Most of the food had a spicy chilli kick, taking the spice level to about medium I'd say, maybe slightly milder.

Dessert - Buah Melaka - Malaysian rice balls with melted palm sugar inside.  These were lovely, not too sweet.  They reminded me of mochi, the Japanese dessert, they had a similar springy texture, but the addition of being covered in coconut was lovely, and the palm sugar inside wasn't too much, they were a lovely treat to finish the night on.

The inside of a Buah Melaka.

There was also Pisang Goreng, which is Malaysian banana fritters, but I'm allergic to bananas, so I didn't sample them.

It was a lovely evening and my first time ever trying Malaysian food.  It's a safe bet to say I'll be returning and bringing the hubby with me - it's a well priced restaurant with main courses costing around £8.50.  The restaurant had a laid back street-food-style vibe with a hint of canteen and overall great value for money.

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*Meal was complimentary, opinions and views are my own

Sleep woes

Fast asleep until you put him in his
moses basket, then wide awake!

This past week has been the hardest one yet, not just in terms of sleep, but emotionally too.

Squidge has somehow got into a horrible routine, he'll wake up about 9pm/10pm for a feed (after this feed used to be when we'd go to bed) and then be wide awake until 2-3am. As I'm writing this we're having a record breaking bad night, its 3:30am and he's still awake.

I'm fairly confident I'm going to be up all night, see he's hungry but every time the bottle is in his mouth, he throws his head back forth, left a d right while kicking his legs hard, throwing the teet of his mouth. The milk isn't too warm, its room the!perature, but because he's only had 50ml, hell be awake on and off as he's grazing as he won't take a proper feed. Why don't I get such issues in the day?

This week, I've managed to get by every day on 3ish hours sleep, but its gotten to the point that I'm making loads of silly mistakes. Like the other night when hubby was out, I loaded the dishwasher, pulled out the drawer under the sink to get a dishwasher tab, and instead of doing that, I picked up the black sacks, unravled one and tore it off, and went to place it in the dishwasher... And when in the supermarket the other day I nearly left my debit card in the card reader...

The hubby isn't much better, he's getting a tiny bit more sleep than me each night, maybe an hour at most, and he has to work each day (not that raising a baby and writing 2 blogs isn't!). He had a silly moment the other night too, he was doing the food shop while Squidge and I were at home, and while he had a trolley full of food and was stopped browsing, he caught himself rocking the trolley full of food back and forth, lol.

Sleep deprivation is very tough, I find myself crying with the stress of it all, its hard to think rationally on 3hrs sleep. I'm findind it hard to get time to express too, and as a result my milk supplies have nearly disappeared - it takes me a good 2+ days to get enough milk for one feed for him now. I don't want it to stop, but finding time when he's not awake and grizzly is hard.

Any tips for dealing with this would be most welcome :)

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The First Hippo on the Moon & Giveaway

A few weeks ago on a Friday night, the hubby and I were watching Graham Norton, and as a guest on there they had David Walliams and he was talking about his new childrens book launch, The First Hippo on the Moon.  At this point I had no idea he wrote childrens books, but he's actually quite a prolific author, and has even had some of his books illustrated by none other than Quentin Blake (think Roald Dahl).

The book is a hardback with a colourful dust jacket over the top (the book is silver underneath) and in my opinion, perfectly lends itself to a bedtime story.  The illustrations are fantastic too, all by Tony Ross (esteemed illustrator), they're colourful and imaginative.

The Story

The book is about two hippopotamus, Sheila who lives in the jungle, and the rich Hercules Waldorf-Franklin III, both share the same dream of being the first hippopotamus on the moon.  It's an enchanting story where silliness, friendship and teamwork ultimately win, and the jungle hippo has the last laugh, and bottom burp :)

I don't want to say too much about it as it's a joy to read and I'll save that for you to read to your children, or them to read and enjoy themselves.  I can't wait until Squidge is old enough for me to read this to him at bedtime, I know he'll love it :)

Some of his other titles you might want to look at are The Slightly Annoying Elephant, Awful Auntie and Gangsta Granny - love the titles of these :)  

Now, the lovely publishers have given me a copy to give away to one lucky person too, so just enter using the Rafflecopter widget below, good luck!!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Shnuggle baby bath

Back towards the end of my pregnancy, this lovely baby bath landed on my door step.  At that point, I'd never bathed a baby before so had no idea if it'd be any good or not.  After having Squidge, when I was still in the hospital, a nurse came around and showed me how to bathe him, in a normal bath, so I was a little nervous the first time I bathed him in this as it's quite different in shape to a standard bath.

Well, I needn't have worried, it wasn't exactly rocket science!  The Shnuggle bath is made up of a special foam called expanded polypropylene which is great at holding the heat from the water.  It's also a really light material - they say the bath is the same weight as a loaf of bread, but as it has a larger surface area, I think it feels lighter.

The bath is designed so that the baby is in a more upright position, and the bath has a bump in the bottom of it for them to sit against, to help the upright position.  It's also scooped at the front so it's easier to get your arms/hands in and out to bathe your baby.

Those of you with sharp eyes will see that little Squidge doesn't like having a bath :P  We have this face, the crying eyes looking right at me every time with a look of 'Why are you doing this to me mummy?', there's no reason for it too - the water is tested with a thermometer as 'warm', he just hates being in water, strange baby!

Things I love about it:

It's light, so easy to pick up with your one free hand when you're holding your baby
It's small, so I can tuck it away in a nook easily
It's great at holding the temperature of the water

Here's where I'd list the things I don't love about it, but in all honesty I don't have any dislikes, perhaps the price, it's not a cheap baby bath, it's £30, however they do have a section of clearance baths for £20 which makes it more reasonable.  The one I opted for is the mint green one as it fits with the colour and theme of his bedroom :)

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Baby boy bunting & giveaway

It's no secret that I'm a great fan of bunting.  I permanently have bunting up in my lounge and conservatory because I think it looks so happy and I love the traditional British vibes it gives.

It's no surprise that Squidge's nursery was likely to have bunting in it too, in fact, there are plans for him to have seasonal bunting (his Nanna is knitting some for him).

This set of bunting is from 'Room to Grow', a website that specialises in products and decor for childrens rooms and baby's nurseries.

This particular set is 200cm long (so, 2 metres) in the colours blue, red and green - including gingham, polka dot and striped and costs £15 which is pretty reasonable.

I love how it looks in his room, it definitely makes it more happy and I can't wait to decorate it with even more bunting, can you ever really have too much?

The lovely people over at Room to Grow have given me a second set of bunting (exactly the same as the one pictured) for me to give away to one lucky winner.  This giveaway is open to the UK only I'm afraid, you have to follow my blog on Bloglovin' and follow Room to Grow on Twitter - complete entries on the Raffletcopter widget below.  Good luck!  The giveaway will run for 2 weeks.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Little butterfly nappy cream

I'm probably not alone in being one of most mummies who reach for Sudocrem or something similar when their baby's bottom is getting a little red, or to prevent the redness.  Until I'd tried the Little Butterfly nappy cream I hadn't considered going rogue and trying something new.  I'm sure I'm not alone in feeling like my baby is precious and only wanting to put the best, and what's right on their skin.

There's several things that made me happy to try this on little Squidge, the fact it's got the BUAV leaping bunny which signifies it's cruelty free and not tested on animals.  It doesn't contain any parabens, paraffin, mineral oil, SLS, silicone, DEA, TEA, PEGs and no artificial fragrances.

Also, 100% of the ingredients are from natural origins, and 99.7% of the plant ingredients are organic.  With that in mind, I felt confident that this was good enough for my baby, it passed the over-protective mother test :)

It's a different consistency to the likes of Sudocrem, it's softer, it's still firm and set but it has a slightly more whipped consistency to other brands.

In the weeks we've been using this on his bottom, it's ticked all the boxes for me:

• Hasn't reacted with his skin
• Reduced redness by the following nappy change
• Helped to prevent redness
• Absorbed well into his skin, leaving no built up residue
• Left his skin feeling very soft

The only negative is the price tag, it's £25* which is quite a lot for your average parent on a stretched budget.  However, would it make a lovely gift for a new mummy? Yes! It came in a lovely bag tied with a ribbon and presented really well.  The fact that it's a natural product with a good rate of organic ingredients and not tested on animals is reflected in the price - quality products like that never come cheap.

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Snapfish calendars - perfect for xmas

This year we're trying to spend as little money as possible at Christmas, I mean, doesn't everyone every year anyway?  But this year is different, I'll be on statutory maternity pay and every penny really will count, so we're having to be very thrifty and creative.

Something I'd been thinking about getting done for the grandparents are calendars with photo's of Squidge from the newborn photoshoot we had done, they are professional pics after all!

I put these calendars together on Snapfish - I was actually talking to my mother-in-law who's used them before to create photobooks (something else I'd like to do for Squidge, and my art).  It was easy to do, I simply went to 'create kitchen calendar' and picked one with a white background, then I uploaded 13 images (one for each month and one for the cover), wrote a title on the front and bazinga, I was done!  The print quality is really good, the images look sharp and colourful.

They're 5 x 11.5 inches and cost £9.99 each.  While I was there, I picked up a little something for the hubby too - an acrylic keyring (£2.99) with his favourite picture of him and Squidge which happens to be Squidge's first photo, it's super adorable and as soon as I gave it to him, he put it straight on his keys :)

I also picked up 2 acrylic fridge magnets (£2.99 each) from the same set of newborn photos we had done, I ordered one of his foot and one of his little squished up face :)  The

The products turned up in about 3-4 days, so pretty quick, and each of the calendars came with their own envelope too.  I love these as gifts, especially when there's a baby occupying the photos!

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6 week update

So I've been a mummy for 6 weeks now, it's been 99% awesome, really it's 100% awesome, but seeing him cry his eyes out with colic breaks my heart, that's where the 1% has gone.

Colic

Just over a week ago Squidge developed colic - I'd always thought he suffered a bit with it, you could see he was uncomfortable with wind and would grizzle before fluffing or pooping, but a week ago it stepped up into a whole other level.  I blogged about it here (I won't repeat myself) :)

Cluster feeding

He's also been cluster feeding for the past couple/few days.  Where he used to feed every 3 hours, it's now about every 1.5 hrs, even in the night, which is really hard work.  We're giving him 120ml of comfort formula each time and some times he's looking for more after, other times he leaves 40ml or so.  He's cluster feeding as he's going through a growth spurt, something we've noticed as he's started growing out of his newborn sleepsuits & vests and is now mostly in 0-3 months (they're still a bit big, but they fit better than the newborn size).  According to the Wonder Weeks app, he's in the middle of a development leap too - ticks all the boxes of the signs of that too.

Breastfeeding

We've taken a step backwards with breastfeeding, in the last week every time I've tried I've failed, he just screams and gets frustrated.  I'm still expressing, but my supply has started disappearing again, this is mainly because of his cluster feeing, I'm not getting the time to express during the day, and over the last week the hubby has been busy every evening with his uni work so I've struggled to express then too - meaning I've been averaging twice a day.  I'm trying to express at least 4-5 times a day but I'm just not getting the time.

Meeting Grandad

This last week my Dad, Squidge's Grandad, flew over from Ireland to meet him and spend the weekend with us :)  This was really special for me as he's the only parent I have left after losing my mum a few years ago, so seeing him with Squidge was very special.  It's just a shame that he doesn't live closer, it would be lovely for him to be a bigger part of his life.  But to make up for it, his Nanny and Gramps (hubby's parents) are only 10 mins away, it's lovely to know that he'll grow up with them being a big part of his life :)

Moses basket

He's filling up his moses basket these days too, if Ewan the Sheep is in his basket with him, it touches his head, so we've moved Ewan out to give Squidge more room.  I think it'll only be another 2-4 weeks before we have to make room for his cot in our bedroom and move him out of his moses basket.  It's both wonderful and sad at the same time, it's lovely to see him grow and develop, but part of me wants to keep him all tiny and 'as-he-is' at the same time.

Mummy

As for me, I'm 90% better now.  I'm still a bit sore where I had my stitches, well, it did get better and now it's sore again.  I'll be having my 6 week GP checkup soon, so I'll mention it then.  I've also been getting nerve pain up my spine from the epidural, I'll mention that too.  I have my repeat GTT (Glucose Tolerance Test) this week to check and see if I'm still diabetic or if it's gone as we hope it has, so fingers crossed for that!  I've nearly reached the end of my daily injections of Clexane too (anti-DVT), only 2 days to go!  Other than that I'm doing well :)

I wouldn't change being a mummy for anything in the world, I love it.  And I've grown to really love the days when Daddy is at work and it's just me and Squidge, these made me so nervous to begin with, but it's a nice opportunity for some mummy/baby bonding time.

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Coping with colic

For about a week now we've been dealing with colic.  It all started last Sunday, we had a lovely day out at Pettigrew tea rooms and Madame Fromage and headed home about 4pm.  In the car he started crying a bit and after getting home, there was no consoling him - we had screaming tears until 1am, the only time he wasn't crying was when he was eating, or when he was sleeping, which wasn't much as the colic would wake up him after a few minutes.

It was heartbreaking to see, to know there's pretty much nothing we could do to make him feel better, and that he was so uncomfortable it made him scream and cry.  The next day I took to the internet to see what we could do to help him.  

After reading up lots and speaking to lots of people on Facebook and Twitter, we decided to make some changes.  Here's what we did:

Dr Browns colic bottles

We had been using the Tommee Tippee bottles, but the health visitor had recommended getting the proper colic ones with a straw in the middle as I'd been saying for a little while I thought he was a little colicy.  We bought a pack of 4 Dr Browns bottles, we opted for them over the Tommee Tippee ones as everywhere I'd read about colic, they didn't mention the TT ones, only the Dr Browns ones.

Infacol

Different people recommend different things, like Colief or Infacol etc.  Well back when I was pregnant I bought some Infacol - at the time I didn't know what it was for, but I'd seen loads of people talk about it, so I picked it up during an Asda baby event.  It has an ingredient in it called Simeticone, it doesn't work straight away, but takes about a week to build up in your baby's system, so if your baby has colic and you're thinking of using Infacol, I'd start it straight away as it'll take a while to work.  But bear in mind, about 1 in 5 babies develop colic, and Infacol won't work on all of them, so if this doesn't work on your baby, perhaps try Colief.  You give them one dropper of it before each feed.

Feeding upright

If you feed your baby with them laid back in your arms or if you're breastfeeding, they tend to take in more air, so try feeding him in a more upright position if possible, this should help him take in less air and be more comfortable.

Squidge on Day 1 of having colic (isn't that the cutest crying face!)

New food

Ideally this is something you should discuss with your health visitor, midwife or Dr before switching, but seeing as it's on the shelf, you don't 'need' to have their say-so to buy it.  Our health visitor recommended the Cow & Gate Comfort formula, he was already on their newborn formula (with expressed breast milk) so it was a simple switch.  The formula is different as it has reduced lactose and partially digested whey protein.  We've found that he throws up a lot less on this, almost never.  He loves it!  Using this with the Dr Browns helps too as their bottles seem to have a slower flow than the TT ones, giving him more time to digest.

Baby massage

Another thing that was recommended to us was tummy massage.  The way it was described, was to imagine with two fingers, drawing a box around his belly button, but without drawing the bottom part, just keep doing that.  Pretty much each time we do this, he passes a lot of wind which helps him calm down.  Also, if you lay your baby down your legs so their head is furthest away from you, grab their legs and cycle them like they're peddling a bike, this helps to work wind around their system too, and looks super cute :)

Squidge chilling out on day 2 of our colic remedies

Burping

I know most mums and dads will do this as a matter of course, but it's important to remember to burp your baby.  I usually give him a break half way through a feed which is when I burp him, then at the end of the feed I'll burp him again.

Position

You might find that your baby is most comfortable lying on his tummy, I've found that the best way to calm him down is to lay him on my chest on his tummy - it's also a good position for burping him and giving him a cuddle at the same time, plus it doubles up as some tummy time for him too :)

I don't know what it is that's helped, I think it's been a combination of all of it as when there's one of the elements we miss out, he cries a lot more.  But, so far, and it's early days yet, he seems to have improved.  If your baby has colic, I'd recommend implementing as many of these as you can.  Things like the tummy massage and cycling legs are easy to do and have pretty quick results

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