Little Chef.

For a little while now Roman has been asking/begging me to bake 'Peppa Pig' (cakes) with him. Every time we go shopping he'll try to put a cake mix into the basket so today I finally decided enough was enough and we should get our bake on.

Well it was fun this time when most of the time in the past it's been a stress fest - usually he'd want to eat everything edible on sight. This meant trying to keep utensils covered in cake batter away from his mouth as he was mixing up the batter and because me and Bryan have huge germaphobia this is a must - plus it's not good to teach your child these horrible habits never mind my germ aversion. 

This time, however, he's shown me yet again how much he's grown over these past few months, weeks even. He's maturing, his hand to eye co-ordination is improving, his grip is fantastic and following instructions? He is wonderful at that. I'll ask him to take something to the bin and immediately he's on the case, I'll show him how to mix something up and he'll do it exactly the way I showed him...and he's frequently in our fridge retrieving and then putting back whatever we need to make cakes, breakfast, lunch and so on. Tonight I asked him to get the, 'icing stuff, with the red lid' and he knew exactly what I was talking about - I'm guessing because I mentioned red in my instructions - but sometimes I feel like I'm living with a 5 year old instead of this 2 year old who stands before me, mixing up cakes and soaking in everything that goes on around him.

I'm so full of thanks for him, for every day we have, for the little things and for the things he learns. 

'Monster eating rice cake!'

Roman has a new snack pot that I thought we'd try out today on the go and as soon as it was in his hands he was in love with it. I filled it with apricots, which he wolfed down very happily and while we were out I filled it with rice cakes. He was a bit strange with the rice cakes so I pretended the monster was eating them. 

"Monster eating rice cake," Roman told me, stuffing one of the rice cakes between the monsters 'teeth.' I think he's quite smitten with this little snack pot ;).

Family and Food.

Two of my favourite things: family and food. And it would seem Roman is following suit in that line of favouritism, too ;). I headed out west today to enjoy some family time and some food time at the 13th Note; a very special cafe that has a very tender place in my heart not least because their sticky toffee pudding is something I might sell an organ for but because I can go there with my (vegan) side of the family and not worry about ingredients and cross contaminants. 

I managed to capture a few photos before the food arrived but in all honesty I was too wrapped up in how amazing everything was to sit there taking photos...and Roman was far too hyper to be contained in the high chair they brought out for him. He kept going between the high chair, back to Aunty 'Fo-na' to settle beside me - especially when the sticky toffee pudding arrived! I was happy to share with my merry little boy and he was glad of the ice cream being spooned into his mouth ;).

After we'd spent about an hour and a half at the 13th Note we spent about three hours in Hamley's toy store. Roman loved everything in his sight, but especially the massive giraffe they had at the front of the shop. He was also pretty pleased to spot one of his Christmas gifts in-store (he recently found the cupboard where all the gifts were kept, sans wrapping paper and they have since been moved and wrapped) and kept running up to it shouting; 'CHRISTMAS! THAT'S ROMAN'S CHRISTMAS!'. 

I was very, very happy that my aunt was returning back with us on the train because it was packed and people were rude as hell - I was nearly knocked down and my buggy thrown sideways on the walk to the train. At least in London no one would dare speak about the cramped conditions...and you know, tubes are designed for cramming situations and people are used to being in close quarters when travelling but oh my goodness it was the ride from hell for the first 15 minutes of that journey home. I will never, ever, ever be travelling at that time again! Overall: a good day and the result was that Roman went straight to bed without a peep ;).

A Little of What We Fancy.

I headed out of the door very late today - so late that the shops were long closed on the high street - and wrapped Roman up in a hand knitted hoody, jacket and for extra warmth I threw a blanket on top of his knees and tucked him in. Oh it was crisp, but it was cold - autumn is here and it won't be long until winter nips our hands and feet.

When we were shopping I spotted some vegan cakes in the supermarket and snapped them up. "Vegan cake! Vegan cake! Vegan cake!" Roman chanted on the walk home, tucking into a (synthetic) cream cake all the while. My reasoning is that a little of what we fancy won't harm us...and it makes me laugh that people can accuse me of 'depriving' Roman because we don't feed him McDonalds, Burger King meals or Kinder chocolate products. If only they saw these moments of indulgence and just how much there is for little vegan boys to be treated with.

Eating Out with a Toddler.

Today my mum took me and Roman for lunch to a local cafe that offers vegan options - you can't really say no to that, can you? We'd been a few weeks previous with my aunt and had been shocked at the great options they had; plus the fact that they were so understanding and 'got' the vegan thing. A plate of olives, hummus, bread and salad arrived and Roman had settled himself very nicely in front of it; ready to eat when it had been intended for me and him to share two dishes between us...well I could think again if that was happening ;). My dish was generous and lets just say that several hours after consuming it I was still fit to burst so I wasn't too unhappy about Roman having a big person's serving all to himself.

He happily chomped through the bread and helped himself to some 'trees' (salad) before he started on the olives. Well he stuck one in his mouth, started to chew and suddenly he began spitting it back out saying, "ew! BOGGING!" as he did so. I would have been embarrassed if the cafe had been busier but as it wasn't I found myself laughing at his reaction. 

If you don't know already 'bogging' is a Scottish word for something horrible. We've also got; hoaching, tinking and 'yeuch' (it's 'yuck' but it's all in the way you say it, usually with your best Scottish accent.) 

So despite the olive incident, all went well. Roman is easy to please plus he'll do what I tell him to for the most part when we're out. If he wants to jump up and down - plus run from corner to corner - around the place then he'll quickly retreat when I tell him that's not how he should be behaving when we're in public. It helps that the place we chose was child friendly and had plenty of toys to hand to keep him entertained between being unleashed from the buggy and our food arriving, toys help. I'd also packed a few light snacks for before eating our lunch so he wasn't in a food grump. It all helps. However I don't think Roman will ever get a taste for olives, he's tried them several times before and each time he'll spit them back out again and that's fine it means more for me ;).

Trifle for Breakfast.

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I think we were up before anyone in our street, or so it seemed. I decided that trifle was an easy enough breakfast to have - it was just a case of lifting out last night's leftovers and scraping them into two bowls for two hungry tummies (mine and Roman's.)

With every spoonful that made it to his mouth it was met with a very vocal 'mmm!' along with trips back and forth to point at my bowl and make the same exclamations - over and over.

We also had an amusing exchange over the definition of trifle that went a little something like this:

Roman:  "CEE-RAL*! MMMM!" 

Me: "That's right, it's trifle."

Roman: "Cee-ral, ti-ful!"

*if you didn't already guess 'cee-ral' is cereal ;).