Baking Irish Soda Bread with Harry

What do you do with a toddler when it's lashing rain and stormy outside? Bake up a storm!

I have been craving Irish soda bread from home recently and I still have to wait a while before I get back so I decided why not bake some with Harry today and share with you all a simple version of Irish Soda bread!

Here are the ingredients we used and the quantities of each are listed below the picture.

3 cups of whole grain whole wheat flower

1/3 cup of sugar

1 teaspoon of baking powder

1 teaspoon of baking soda

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/4 cup of melted kerrygold butter

1 egg slightly beaten

2 cups of buttermilk

Steps:

1. First mix all the dry ingredients into one big bowl.

2. Crack the egg into a separate bowl, beat it slightly and then add the milk to that while the butter is melting in the microwave for 40 seconds.

3. Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well with wooden spoon. Ask a little one to help with this part! It's super fun for them!

4. Place mix into a bread tin and place into a preheated over at 330 degrees fahrenheit and bake for 60-75 mins until crispy and slightly brown on top!

5. Enjoy with some jam and a cup of Irish Tea!

Harry loved making it and also loved eating it! He has been eating it lightly toasted in the mornings with his hard boiled egg! 

Flavour of the Month

I thought I'd share with you some of Harry's current favourite picks or top toys. These are the toys that we literally have to take everywhere with us now to ensure that he stays in 'happy little camper' mode. Some of these he plays with at Stephanie's place, who as you know from previous blog posts, is literally the fairy godmother/dream babysitter that we couldn't live without. We nickname her 'Harry's American Gran'. It was Stephanie who introduced me to some of them too as she loves toys and researches for the best ones. Some of them she comes across at Salvation Army for a bargain! Here are Harry's top 5. Click on Links to find more info about product. If you are reading from Ireland, I'm pretty sure Argos stocks a lot of these toys too or similar. 

1. Remote Control Car with a single button remote.

If you see Harry these days going around the house, he either has this car or the remote. It is like an extension onto his body at this point. We literally have to prize it out of his hands at bedtime. First thing he goes for in the morning. He is such a boy!

B. Rally Ripster Remote Control Toy Car with B. Wheeee-Mote Single Button Driving and No-Stuck Wall Spinning. For Big Laughs, Little Hands, and Children 1 to 4 Years of Age. by B. Toys

B. Toys

2. Rockestra

Since Harry loves music, this gets him rockin!

B. Rockestra

B. Toys

3. Code-a Pillar

We may have a little coding geek on our hands! Which is a good thing because in the school system in the USA, kids learn coding at kindergarten! He doesn't entirely understand the function or reasoning behind it yet but can certainly make it move in all directions!

Fisher-Price Think & Learn Code-a-pillar

Fisher Price

4. Round about Wooden Puzzle from Land of Nod.

He loves putting the little cylinders into the holes on the wooden board. He doesn't quite have the patience for the loops yet so i mostly take them away to avoid frustration and just let him practice placing the cylinders into their place. He loves it and focuses for a long time, mouth wide open and tongue out. He also practices this activity with my lipsticks. He is recently obsessed with going to my lipstick tub and opening and closing all of my lipsticks. I have also prepared some of my empty glass cream jars of different sizes to practice opening and closing. He really enjoys this and it's great for his concentration and coordination. Keeps him quiet for so long too! 

5. Wooden Food Cutting Set from Land of Nod

Harry loves to feel like a grown-up and like he's helping in the kitchen so he enjoys pretending to chop the veggies and fruit. Sometimes if it gets too tough, he just tears them apart with his hands. Great practice either way for his gross and fine motor skills! 

Before I end this blog post, I have to mention how much fun Harry had at a party over the weekend. He spent the whole time playing in a little toy kitchen! I couldn't believe how much joy he got out of it. It was hilarious watching him behave so adult-like in a world built for little people his size. I hadn't realised how much he had absorbed by watching us at home in the kitchen. He was opening and closing the microwave and cupboards, twisting the strove knobs and placing pots and pans carefully on top of each other. It was amazing! I think we will have to add a toy kitchen onto Harry's Wishlist for his Birthday or Xmas Pressie this year!

These are the kitchens I'm currently in love with. I know you would want to win the lotto to buy one of them but hopefully I will find one similar on Craigslist second hand. If anyone comes across a decent one, please let me know! Both kitchens I link below are neutral in colour as I don't like pink and blues personally. 

Ikea Option 1

Land of Nod Option 

 Hope you all enjoyed the post and gained something from it. All of the above toys are available at most kids toy shops around the world in some version or another to match all different budgets. Ikea is a great option too for many cool kids toys! We just don't live near one and don't have a car so online with amazon, craigslist, local kids or consignment/second-hand stores are the most convenient for us!  I'll leave you all with a Maria Montessori quote that is so true! After Harry concentrates on a task or activity for a certain length of time, he is calm, peaceful and happy! 

“The first essential for the child’s development is concentration. The child who concentrates is immensely happy ”

— Maria Montessori

Alison xoxo 

Finding the perfect Sippy Cup

Harry is finally off formula! Thank God! It's so frickin expensive and seems to bloat him. I tried the whole breastfeeding thing for 6 weeks and had to give up for certain health reasons (mental health mostly!!) Sitting on the sofa in my pjs feeding Harry every hour and a half wasn't for me and wasn't conducive to being the best mum that I could be for Harry or the best wife that I could be for Jonny. As I was sinking into the sofa, I was also sinking into a depression...will elaborate more on that another time!   

So how did I transition Harry from formula to cow milk? Simple. It took about 4 days. The day he turned one, I simply cut his formula intake in half and instead of a  4oz formula bottle, I just gave him 2oz and topped the rest with milk. I know it's not recommended as it can have some kind of chemical reaction with the formula but it worked for Harry and he got the taste of the cow milk while enjoying the benefits of his formula. After one day of that I did mostly cow milk and water with a sprinkle of formula powder for flavour. After day 3, I just cut out the formula completely.

Right now we are weaning him off milk at night time and replacing it with just water. He has his last 4oz milk bottle at about 7pm, half an hour after his teatime meal. Then bedtime is 8pm. We brush his teeth using just water for now and he still uses a bottle to be comforted before sleeping but that is now water as it is better for his teeth! Milk is full of sugar!

Harry usually has between 16oz and 20oz in 4oz of milk a day in the form of 4oz bottles and the rest of the time he drinks water. Mostly he was drinking water from a different bottle but now the challenge is on for changing over to a Sippy cup!  He loves to drink out of glasses or plastic, glass-like, real cups with no lid so we use his winnie the pooh cups during meal times but when we are out and about, we need a sippy cup. We have tried the following ones 

Munchkin Miracle 360 Trainer Cup, Green/Blue, 7 Ounce, 2 Count

Munchkin

Nuby 1-Pack Designer Series No-Spill Clik-It Grip n' Sip Soft Flex Spout Cup, 9 Ounce - Colors May Vary

NûbyTM

So we went through the above two kinds of sippy cups or beakers as we call them in Ireland but had no luck! Finally Stephanie, Harry's 'American gran' and babysitter kindly bought him the one below and it his is favourite one! He loves it and he takes in so much more water now. Finally! So if you are going through the same dilemmas, I hope this helps! Don't give up, just keep trying. Now we just have to get him onto drinking milk from it but we are not rushing him. He will do it in his own good time!

Hope you are all having a good week! 

Alison xoxo

Nuby 2-Pack No-Spill Super Spout Grip N' Sip Cup, Red and Blue

Nuby