Wednesday with Erika.

Posted on 2012/09/20 12:35:54 (September 2012).

[Wednesday 19th September 2012]
Had another delivery from Ocado in the morning, and made leek and potato soup for lunch.

Another routine visit from the midwife in the afternoon. Although the nights had been getting easier, Chie was still struggling to get even four hours sleep each night, and so I think we were a little angsty during this midwife visit. The NHS (and the NCT) give out a lot of propaganda on the apparent benefits of breastfeeding but don't do a particularly good job of highlighting the many downsides - the anxiety about whether your baby is actually getting enough milk, the complexities of latching properly, the whole business of foremilk and hindmilk (apparently foremilk is very starchy and can ferment in baby's stomach, causing stomach upsets - honestly, which idiot designed this system?) plus the fact that the entire burden for feeding was on Chie, and I couldn't really help out with that part of baby care.

Chie has been getting a bit of the baby blues the last few days - it's to be expected but is still upsetting to see. I'm sure the lack of sleep isn't helping so today I started getting militant about her having naps in the daytime whenever possible. I think this probably helped a bit.

For dinner I was determined again to make something exciting and a bit cheffy. We started with a globe artichoke with vinaigrette - I love this way of eating an artichoke, pulling off the leaves, dipping in the vinaigrette, and scooping off the little bit of flesh at the end of each leaf. To follow that the main course was parpadelle with girolles - I was extremely careful with the preparation of the girolles to make sure to clean them without them actually getting wet, as soggy wild mushrooms tend to just disintegrate when you cook them. I then fried them in a little olive oil at a very high temperature - again to sort of seal them without letting them turn to mush. The end result was really good, although I suspect mainly because the pasta we used (from Soli) was really good quality.

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