The bouncy bumpy road

The last few days the boy has expressed a desire to do some art but usually as he's supposed to be going to bed. So today I preempted it and offered him some painting time. He had such a great time. Up until recently painting would have been over and done with in about 5 minutes and the effort of getting everything out and then cleaning it up again afterwards meant it often didn't seem worth it. The only reason he stopped today was because he was out of paper (7 sheets). And although there was some hand painting today it was as much about putting the imprint on paper as painting the hand which is a definite change.

Thankfully at the moment her ladyship is happy to be amused by the goings on from the comfort of her throne.

I've had a rough few days. Sleep has been minimal and both children have started the day at 4.50am - even if I get Matthew up and go back to bed again it's still too much too early. Feeding often in the night I can cope with but actual waking and especially having to get out of bed does not make for a happy mama.

I've been having a few issues with anger management. In a perfect world I would see my triggers before I explode but lack of sleep does not make for clarity of thought. This blog post is so spot on about anger. Thankfully Matthew's workload is due to ease and we might get some family time and things may be a little easier over the next few weeks. We might even get a holiday...

I find the act of creation great for stress management - sewing is my first choice but baking and cooking come a close second. It's telling that I've not had chance to even make bread in the last few weeks. Today though was a bouncy bumpy road day - it's like rocky road but different.

I'm eating a lot of cakes at the moment to help cope with the tiredness (are you spotting a theme here?) and whilst I'm not averse to buying them I much prefer them to be home made both for the act of making them and so I know what's in them. This is my attempt at kidding myself that I'm being heathy...

Bouncy Bumpy Road*

(all amounts are rough and subject to what I have in the cupboard)

300g dark chocolate

125g (half a packet) of unsalted butter (I'd be interested to see what it's like with coconut butter instead)

3 tbsp agave syrup (or golden syrup)

around 200g of mixed seeds (today was about 50g linseed, 75g pumpkin seeds & 75g sunflower seeds - you could use some rich tea biscuits as in rocky road or if you make your own almond mylk the almond mush would be great)

200g-300g of mixed dried fruit (cranberries, raisins, blueberries & cherries today from a premixed packet), flaked almonds, chopped nuts, desiccated coconut etc - it depends what you've used as to how much it absorbs the chocolate mix and I tend to find more of the dried ingredients is better

method

put the chocolate, butter & syrup in a pan and melt

put the seeds in a food processor & blitz

add all the dry ingredients to the pan once everything's melted and glossy

mix well and the put into a foil lined tin, press down and refrigerate

And then a week after the event we're seeing the tick saga in play. Today I was the patient and I had to go off to hospital to have 'lots' of ticks taken out of my ear. The insert from the water jug was the instrument used as both tongue depressor and tick remover.

*the bouncy bumpy road comes from a song