Mama makes: a knitted Lego Batman and matching Batman cake

You thinking I'm joking right?  Yes, I actually knitted a Batman Lego action figure, then topped off the whole birthday experience by making a Batman cake to go with it.  I consider this cake and knitted action figure to be the crowning achievements of my motherhood experience so far.

Read on for instructions on how to make the knitted batman.

Batman Lego Action Hero

Supplies:
One 50g ball of black 8-ply wool
One A4 sheet each of black, white and yellow felt
Stuffing, or three additional pieces of felt (felt makes quite good stuffing)
Two 4mm knitting needles, as well as a similar sized pair of circular needles
A needle and black and white thread
Glue, Scissors

Step 1: Get inspired.  Decide that you will make your precious almost-4-year-old the best soft toy EVER, even if you've always slightly despised soft toys and resented how much space they take up in his bed.  Head to your local craft store (in my case, this was Spotlight).  Wander the aisles there, slightly bewildered by the multiple project ideas coming into your head.  Get your supplies, as well as supplies for a bunch of other craft/knitting projects you don't have the time or skills for.

Step 2:  Search the internet for a knitting pattern for a knitted lego batman, because surely someone's made of these before, right?  Wrong.  You will only find a knitted lego batman willy warmer, and countless examples of knitted batman soft toys (not lego-shaped) by people who are just plain showing off their knitting skills.  Decide that you will "freestyle it".

Step 3:  Look at some pictures of Lego Batman on the internet, and then begin to knit, freestyle (a.k.a "making it up as you go along"):

Head and body (two sides done as one piece)

Knit a shape like this:

Or if you really need instructions, try these (I take no responsibility for how the body of your superhero turns out!):


The body is knit in stocking stitch, and the head in garter stitch.
Cast on 20 sts, knit 1 row
Inc 1 purlwise, purl to end, inc 1 at end of row
Knit one row
Inc 1 purlwise, purl to end, inc 1 at end of row (24 sts)
Continue to knit/purl alternate rows, and about every 3-4 rows decrease by a stitch at either end of the row, until you have a body-shaped piece and 16 sts on your needles.
Now it's time to knit the head.  COff 4 sts, then knit 8, then COff another 4 sts.  Knit those 8 until you have a long bit in the middle that when folded over is a square head shape.
Then knit the backside of the body by reversing the instructions above/freestyling it.

Arms and legs

These were knitted on circular needles using the "magic loop" technique.  Here's some instructions:



For the arms, cast on 8 stitches, and knit till the arms are approximately the length of the body.  For the legs, cast on 12 stitches, and knit till the legs are that stubby little leg length that you see on the Lego Batman (about 1.5 inches if you're really wondering).

Step 4: Now to put it all together.  Sew the head together around the sides, and stuff before sewing across the bottom where it joins the body.  Then sew the body's sides together, and stuff before sewing across the bottom.  Sew one end of the arms and legs closed, stuff, then sew the other end closed.  Join the arms and legs to the body in approximately the right places.

Step 5: Use the remaining felt to do the face (white felt under a piece of black felt), the batman sign (black felt on yellow), the belt (a strip of yellow felt with the buckle and embellishment sewn on), and the cape (just cut out a cape shape and braid some wool to hold it on).  You also need to carefully stitch the frowny lips.

Step 6: You're done!  Lovingly wrap it and give it to your little superhero for his 4th birthday.  Admit to feeling just a little proud when Batman manages to bump the other soft toys to the soft toy hammock and take his place as Milkbaby's sole sleeping companion.

Knitted Lego Batman just hanging out

And the cake?  I couldn't provide instructions to enable you to replicate the saved-from-almost-disaster icing job.  Seriously, just 15 minutes before salvaging this into the most awesome icing job ever, I was hanging my head in frustration over the cake, mumbling "I'm such a bad mother...this icing looks terrible."   

"Don't worry," said Captain Boringvoice, "it's post-modern to show the construction of the cake."  "But this isn't how it's supposed to look!" I wailed.  

Realising there wasn't time for melodrama, I gave myself a stern talking to ("for God's sake pull yourself together and think of something creative you can do with this cake").  Not a bad result really - just shows what an impending birthday party and a good pep talk can do.

Batman: so strong he'll rip the icing right off your cake.

What we're reading: An Introduction to the Criminal Law

There are some books that, despite being remembered with fond glow of childhood, don't quite retain that same magic upon rereading as an adult - even when reread with an enthusiastic two-year-old.

Perhaps it's the politically correct mother in me, but when the Avocado Baby came straight home from the hospital and started eating solids, I was all "hey! what about the milk?" I'm sure Milkbaby was thinking the same.

Lately I had a similar experience after coming across The Elephant and The Bad Baby at the library.  It's about a baby who doesn't say please.  Picking up this book was strangely well-timed, as we also have someone in our household who can say any other word he cares to repeat, but he will not say please.  Even if his life depended on it, I am sure he'd just stubbornly hold his mouth shut, smiling innocently and waiting to be given whatever he's requested.

Back to my critique of The Elephant and the Bad Baby.  For a start, babies aren't bad. Just lacking in knowledge of the rules and a few social graces. And in this case, mislead by a large elephant.  And I couldn't help noticing that not only is this baby labelled "bad" from the outset, he's a flaming ginger - the only one in the book.

Quick summary - *spoiler warning* - An elephant meets a baby.  The elephant asks baby if he'd like a ride.  Baby says yes.  Elephant asks baby if he'd like an ice-cream.  Baby says yes.  Angry shopkeeper chases.  Elephant asks baby if he'd like a biscuit.  Baby says yes.  Angry shopkeeper chases.  And so it goes.  Until the elephant comes to the realisation that that baby has NEVER ONCE said please.  But in the end it doesn't really matter because the baby's mummy cooks pancakes for everyone.

After a few reads (ie, at least fifty repeats), I realised it was basically an introduction to the principles of the criminal law, though thankfully (largely due to the baby's mummy's mad cooking skills) law enforcement officers do not have to get involved.

Theft, simpliciter - As you should have gathered from the short description above, this book is a rollicking tale of shoplifting, the elephant leading the bad baby astray and stealing ice-creams, pies, biscuits and all manner of tasty treats, supposedly on the baby's behalf.

Yoink.

The getaway - "and the elephant and the bad baby went rumpeta, rumpeta, rumpeta, all down the road, with the ice cream man and the pork butcher and the baker all running after".  Need I say more?

Defences to crimes - Is it entrapment? - What say the elephant is an undercover cop?  In criminal law, entrapment is conduct by a law enforcement agent inducing a person to commit an offence that the person would otherwise have been unlikely to commit.  However, there is no entrapment where a person is ready and willing to break the law and the government agents merely provide what appears to be a favourable opportunity for the person to commit the crime.  So, if the elephant is an undercover cop, did he induce the baby to commit a crime he wouldn't have ordinarily committed, or just provide an opportunity to commit the crime?  It's a fine line.  We know this baby's already bad, so perhaps the elephant was just the vehicle for the crime spree the baby had been planning for months.

The law of parties - It's more likely that these two are in cahootz.  The law says that if you aid, abet, incite, counsel, procure or somehow otherwise convince an elephant to go on a stealing spree (even if you do little more than ride on his back and eat the treats), you're in the gun for just as much time as the elephant.


Matters of justification or excuse - No person shall be convicted of an offence by reason of any act done or omitted by him when under the age of 10 years.  Explains why this story is delightfully consequence free: the Crimes Act doesn't apply to animals, nor to children under 10.  Even bad ones.


Alternative dispute resolution - If all else fails, invite everyone home for cups of tea and pancakes. The baby's mummy will cook.

A not-so-sleepy New Years

Well, unlike last New Year's eve (when I barely made it to midnight), this New Year's we did the unthinkable... we left Milkbaby with his doting grandparents, and drove over 3 hours across the countryside to have a few quiet beers with some friends.  His first night alone without either of us.  And for us, there was no coming back in the event of some unforeseen disaster ("he won't sleep!").

We tried to warn them: "he probably won't sleep that well".  And, well, they'd seen his atrocious eating habits over the previous week.  But the doting grandparents insisted that we should leave Milkbaby with them and take their convertible on a jaunt across the South Island.  "A second honeymoon" said Grandad.  I smiled gratefully, thinking about the potential for 8 hours uninterrupted sleep.

But that's the irony... all that potential was wasted.  We were going to be drinking, watching fireworks, socialising, and then sleeping in a tent on the front lawn, with the waves crashing on the beach 30 metres away.  So I was about as likely to get 8 squares as I was if I'd stayed with Milkbaby.  But hey, what you haven't had in 18 months you don't miss.

And Milkbaby?  He ate well and slept well (of course), and hardly noticed we were gone.

Co-sleeping - NOT!

Co-sleeping, rather like breastfeeding, is another one of those controversial, damned if you do, damned if you don't-type topics.  There are a number of perspectives:

• The government "lowest common denominator" advice says no co-sleeping. Fullstop.
• Attachment parenting advocates say it's a great idea.
• Some experts say it's ok as long as you're not fat, drunk or on drugs, or a heavy sleeper, you only cover yourself with a sheet and your mattress is firm (ie, no roll-together!)
• Dr Sears says "yes, no, sometimes?". 

I've got a tendency to follow the rules.  With a fair degree of rigidity.  My Myers-Briggs profile says so.  So in the time Before Child, I thought there would be no question about where Milkbaby would sleep.  In his cot of course!  I know you're all smiling smugly at my naivety.  The very night he was born, he woke up after only an hour or two and a nurse came into my room and popped him into bed with me.  You can imagine my consternation at this blatant breach of government and probably hospital policy.  But I couldn't sleep anyway so it didn't really matter.

Once home I quickly discovered that Milkbaby slept much better when I was nearby.  And when I say "nearby", I mean right next to him, and he would say ideally with a nipple stuck in his little gob.  Nearly 18 months on, he's still the same.  I don't hesitate to bring him into our bed if I think it means we might all get some sleep.  And it usually does result in a couple of people getting some quality sleep - namely the DH and Milkbaby.

But me?  I'm the sucker stuck on the last 10cms of bed, with my arm stuck in a weird position and without a sheet, let alone a duvet, to cover me.  If I do get some sleep, it's certainly not quality, and I'm almost guaranteed to wake up with a krick in my neck or a dead arm.

So instead of running ad campaigns that are designed to fill you with fear - like this one from Milwaukee...


The government should just run a few public service ads which warn people of the most likely outcomes of co-sleeping (pah! what a misnomer).  Like this...

The pukester

Milkbaby's a puker.  And when I say "puke", I'm not talking about your usual baby posseting.

Posset (the Old English kind) 

"Posset" - isn't that such a lovely polite Victorian word?  You can use it next time your co-worker turns up to work with baby vomit on his shoulder ("is that posset on your shoulder?").  Or to tell your friend that your baby's spilled on her new carpet ("sorry it's just a bit of posset").  It doesn't sound as horrid as "vomit".  Actually "posset" is Old English for "a spiced drink of hot sweetened milk curdled with wine or ale" (mmm).  But I use it here to describe the small amount of curdled milk that's often regurgitated onto your shoulder after a feed.

Milkbaby was definitely not a posseter.  He didn't even start this puking thing until he was around 6 months old.  But since then he's made it his special talent, to be practised at least once a week, sometimes every day.  And when I say puke, I mean stomach-emptying, projectile barfing.  I often wonder if it's payback for all the vomiting I did throughout my childhood - on pretty much any car, plane, bus or boat trip longer than 30 minutes.

It's been a bit of a household mystery.  The start of the puking coincided with the introduction of solids (and unless you're new to this blog you'll know that Milkbaby is all "meh, solids, schmolids - just give me some milk please").  The puking also coincided with the arrival of teeth.  So our list of possible causes have been:

• food allergy (I even kept a Puke Diary for a while - but no clues)
• teething
• constipation (the Plunket nurse suggested this)
• motion-sickness
• a series of bugs (this was the doctor's suggestion - then she suggested I keep Milkbaby isolated from other children for 6 weeks...)
• wind
• overactive gag reflex
• all of the above??

Last night's puke, and the inspiration for this blog, caused Mama a few tears.  After a weekend of eating very little, Milkbaby finally had a semi-decent dinner, scrambled eggs and some avocado.  I dared to think that I might get a decent night's sleep - or at least a stretch of longer than 3 hours.  He then proceeded to jam his fingers under the bathroom door, and in the midst of the screaming, vomited said dinner.  My hopes of a decent sleep went down the gurgler, literally.  I wept with frustration as Milkbaby, now happy, threw bath toys out of the bath.

These I'm-so-upset-I-need-to-puke pukes don't really worry me.  They're unusual, but sometimes crying's a violent habit.  It's the I've-been-sleeping-for-2-hours-puke for no apparent reason that's a bit baffling.  We're no closer to working out the cause.  And I have my suspicions that the puking is linked to Milkbaby's lack of interest in solids.  But in the meantime we've got a great list of puke spots - all christened by Milkbaby:

• down my chest
• the floor of Noel Leeming
• the floor of his room and every other room in the house
• the bathroom sink (bullseye!) or the bathroom floor
• the grandparents' houses
• into a sick bag on a plane (another bullseye!)
• the back of the rental car in Australia
• the back of the complimentary car while the VW was in the shop
• the garden bar of the Southern Cross pub (we'll remind him of this when he's a teenager)
• in his crib
• in his carseat
• outside the fish & chip shop (in the gutter)
• outside Queen Sally's Diamond Deli (in the gutter)
• in our bed (I've never seen the DH move so fast)
• in a friend's car and carseat (sorry about that!)

I'm sure I've forgotten to list a few places.  Perhaps I should start carrying one of these around:

Feeding time at the Carnival

When he's not garrotting himself with the bib, or hurling things over the side of the chair, it struck me last week that getting food into Milkbaby's mouth is like getting a ping-pong ball into the mouth of a Carnival Clown.  Pretty much impossible.  And messy.

Photo by Pixelfish74

It's the same with vomiting.  This is a regular occurrence in our house.  So regular I'm considering buying shares in The Rug Doctor.  Holding an about-to-vomit baby is like holding one of those clowns.  The head swivels back and forth, and you pivot wildly around the sink, hoping not to catch a chest-full of sick.  Also pretty much impossible to get right.  

And the prize for getting your aim spot on?  Another soft toy?  A giant one?  Pretty pleeeaase?????

Square carrots: adventures in solids

As his nickname might suggest, Milkbaby's a tits man.  He continues to show very little interest in food.  Mealtimes for him range from being a boring distraction to a form of unusual torture.   During which time he practises smushing the finger food I've given him, dropping things from his high chair, blowing water and food raspberries, and garroting himself with his bib (he hates bibs with a passion, and I don't really blame him).

Thinking, somewhat simplistically, that better eating = better sleeping, I called the Well Child nurse in desperation.

"He's not really eating that well." I said, fighting back tears.

"I'd better come for a visit, and watch you feed him.  Then we can make sure his mouth is working."

"Right.  Okay."

"Do you have baked beans?  We can give him some baked beans for lunch."

"Ahm, no, I haven't given him baked beans yet.  I thought they were a bit sugary and salty."

"Well maybe scrambled eggs then.  What kind of baby food are you giving him?  Does it have carrots in it?"

"Um, err, (fumbling with a jar and searching for the "correct" answer), well I mostly give him homemade stuff and yes I do sometimes give him steamed carrots."

"Okay, good.  It's just there's a brand of baby food that has square carrots.  Babies don't like square carrots."

"Umm, right. No I don't think I've been giving him square carrots."

At this point I was thinking "SQUARE CARROTS?!  I think the problem is bigger than [insert inappropriate swearwords here] square carrots!!"

www.squarecarrots.com

And so she visited.  And we watched Milkbaby:

• smush finger food
• drop things from his high chair
• blow water and food raspberries
• garrotte himself with his bib.

Then she said "have you heard of baby lead weaning?"

Given all the finger food at Milkbaby's fingertips, I just about said "yes I have, have you?"  Instead, I just said "uh huh" (extreme fatigue was setting in by this point).

Finally she said "well his mouth is working fine, and he seems to know what to do - you might just try giving him three meals in the afternoon.  Lunch, afternoon tea and dinner."

I smiled and nodded.  It's the best response in these types of situations.

Who said moo?

I've become an expert at animal noises.  Ask me what sound a goose makes and I'll let out a honk before you've thought of the right sound yourself.

My proficiency in this area stems from repeated readings of Milkbaby's current favourite book Who Said Moo?.  In it, Red Rooster roams the farm, interviewing each animal to see who responded to his cock-a-doodle-doo ("someone said moo, was it you?")

The Noisy Book has also helped me perfect a number of animal and household sounds (I love the silence of "the snail does nothing but move its elegant feelers").  

So on my way down the garden path yesterday, I heard a distressed "buuzzzz", and went to investigate.  It didn't take me long to find the source - a large bluebottle fly, being eaten by a very large praying mantis.  

It went like this: 

BZZZZZZZZZZZ Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, bzzzz, bzzzzz, bzzz bzzz bz bz bz...

The humble rusk

Ah, the humble rusk... useful for:

• quieting a fussy baby on a car ride
• picking up cat fluff from the carpet (and then tasting and ingesting said cat fluff)
• target practice when strapped in a highchair or carseat
• infuriating the washerwoman with the concrete-like bits stuck to clothing
• investigating and sticking into all parts of the face, including eyes, ears and hair

Last week, in the process of handing one to the back seat driver, I also found myself gesticulating with a rusk to a driver who failed to use their indicator.

Today I tried my hand at making some, using a recipe roughly based on a recipe on Wholesome Baby Foods.  Here's my recipe.

Milkbaby's Rusks
1/2 c white flour
1/2 c wholemeal flour
1/2 c plain brown rice flakes
1/2 c pear and banana flavoured rice cereal
1 T olive oil
1/3 c iced water

Preheat oven to 180C.  Mix all the dry ingredients, throw in the olive oil, then SLOWLY add the water, a little at a time, until you've got something that resembles dough in the bowl.  Get your fingers in there and let your imagination run wild creating all sorts of fun shapes for your little one.  I went crazy and made a whole family of seaslugs.

Lay them all out on a greased tray and bake for around 10-15 minutes until they look like sunbaked cat turds.

Luckily Milkbaby hasn't seen cat turds.  He thinks these are the best thing since breastmilk served in a sippy cup.

My milkbaby

At five months, the plunket nurse told me I should start the baby on solids, or I'd end up with a "milk baby".  I nodded and smiled, thinking "what the hell is a milk baby?"

I had a vision of a milk-flavoured jellybaby, a strange cross between a milk bottle lolly and a jellybaby:

+ = MILKBABY

Surely not.  Enter google.  According to Dr Hull.com a "milk baby" is "a toddler (usually a big chubby one) who is allowed to drink an inordinate amount of whole cow milk (32-40 or more ounces per day) to the exclusion of other foods."  Apparently allowing your toddler to drink massive quantities of cows milk can cause iron deficiency.


Okay... I'm picking that the plunket nurse didn't know that this was the technical definition of "milk baby" - or perhaps she did and it's her private way of calling her clients cows.  Noooo, surely not.  Or should that be mooo, surely not.


I didn't reeallly want a milk baby, but then, I also didn't want to rush the inevitable routines that solids would bring.  Boobs are just so much easier - there's no preparation, cooking, pureeing, freezing or defrosting (unless you're a bit kooky and do strange things with your boobs), and they're slightly less messy (though in my case only slightly - but we won't go into that little problem here).  Being a lawyer I am also inclined to follow edicts from reputable sources like the World Health Organisation, so I put off introducing solids until said milkbaby was six months old - last week.

Then we were faced with the choice of baby led weaning (in simple terms, baby feeds himself) or mummy led weaning (aka purees and mush).  We've chosen a bit of a combination - baby gets some food to eat himself, while I clumsily aim a mush-filled spoon in the direction of his mouth, and hope he swallows a mouthful or two.  While I wouldn't use the expression "like a duck to water" to describe our food-eating exploits thus far, I can say we're getting there... slowly.  On days when it looks like the bib has ingested more than the baby, I can't help but wonder what my milkbaby will turn out like.

That most controversial of topics.... ahem, breastfeeding

It seems that there's not a week that goes by when breastfeeding is not in the news.  This week a study in Britain has "cast doubt on the safety of the exclusive breastfeeding of babies until they are six months old", and Facebook earned the wrath of breastfeeders worldwide when it removed, then reinstated, then removed again, then reinstated again, breastfeeding support page The Leaky Boob.  (You can listen to a very good interview with The Leaky Boob founder and others here).


These two stories reminded me to post a few reflections on that most controversial of topics - breastfeeding.  In my experience, most people, both male and female, will have an opinion on breastfeeding - whether you should, where you should, how you should, for how long, schedule or demand, in public or private... the list goes on.

I've had my share of well-meaning opinions directed at me.  I find it fascinating that something so natural can provoke such depth of feeling - and make so many people uncomfortable.  In fact it makes my father-in-law so uncomfortable he has to leave the room if there's any suggestion that I might be about to breastfeed.  Thankfully, my boobs have never had the same effect on any of the men I've breastfed next to on plane flights (and somehow I do always seem to be seated next to middle-aged men) - none of whom have batted an eyelid (or even given a sideways glance) at said boobs.  Nary an uncomfortable wriggle.

Then there's the clear difference between generations - the most common differences arising around:

• when and how to wean (according to my Nana, sooner is better - "they've had a good start")
• schedule vs demand feeding (again according to Nana, the baby should be taught to take what it needs at one feed, in three hourly intervals)

I have learnt to smile and nod at the opinion-givers, while mentally crossing them off my list of people not to breastfeed in front of (father-in-law: never; nana: not after baby is a year old; friend X: not after baby is walking).  Breastfeeding's not for everyone, but like Brazil's breastfeeding ad - those in Facebook's halls of power should take a long look at it before deciding it's obscene.

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