Poor little James had a mild cold last week – not unusual for a kid who attends day care. Unfortunately over the weekend we watched helplessly as it descend into quite a serious cold. By Sunday evening he was off his food and miserable. He went to bed after having almost no dinner but, at exactly two minutes past midnight*, his coughing became so bad that he threw up. Distraught, tired, sick and freaked out, all he wanted was to be cuddled by Mum. So we quickly changed him, cleaned him up and then Daddy dealt with the mess while Mama soothed and rocked.
Half an hour later we had fresh sheets, new blankets, clean jammies and a cleaned up baby. Naturally just as we were drifting back to sleep poor little James did it all over again. Smelling sour and sick he commenced screaming for me, wanting nothing more than to be closely held to Mama, in spite of the thick coating of sick.
These are the glamour moments of parenting no one is putting a picture of on Twitter. This is why celebrities have nannies and cleaners. You may see Miranda Kerr breastfeeding in heels but I doubt you’ll ever see her wide-eyed and stunned, a hysterical child burying itself and it’s sick into her hair and dressing gown**.
But when your babies are sick and you’re their only comfort, what can you do but hold them? Well, you can also pass them to Daddy in the shower while you go and change your own clothes.
At one in the morning, as Daddy tried to clean him up under the shower, little James lost it, screaming “Mama” over and over at a hysterical, ear-piercing pitch. He was so loud and frantic that I was convinced the neighbours would call the police and report a particularly nasty incident of child torture. It seriously sounded like we were applying a branding iron instead of a warm shower with a carefully set temperature. Thank goodness our neighbour on that side is a 92-year-old lady with hearing issues or some sort of elite special crimes unit would have been breaking our door down.
All cleaned up with fresh sheets and blankets, but still traumatised, I made the executive decision to keep James with me, reasoning that the warmth and the elevation of his head thanks to Mama’s arm under his head would help ease the coughing. It worked like a charm. Poor baby James turned into my body, snuggled as closely in as he could and sighed, eyes blinking sleepily while I stroked his face. Eventually he was warm enough and calm enough for me to tip him back into his own bed where he snuggled down, sighed and slept.
Today not only was the little man still obviously ill, but he’d managed to pass it on to his Daddy. I bleed inside when my family are sick and, instead of just dosing them up with drugs I like to provide comforting, nourishing food to help them fight off their lurgies.
Nothing fights a cold like soothing pumpkin soup, accompanied by some damper – the whole shebang fortified with lashings of garlic, black pepper, onion and rosemary to help the healing.
Everyone has a favourite way of making pumpkin soup. Here’s mine;
Pumpkin Soup
Butternut pumpkin (squash for our American friends)
Brown onion
Olive oil
Stock powder
Fresh garlic
For every kilo of pumpkin (approximately), dice a brown onion and fry lightly until cooked in the olive oil. When cooked, add two cloves of fresh garlic (minced or crushed) and stir for a minute until the garlic is fragrant and cooked. Throw in the chopped up pumpkin (cubes measuring about a centimetre square), give it a quick stir and then add made-up stock until the level of water is just a centimetre or two over the pumpkin.
Simmer until the pumpkin starts to fall apart and then remove from the heat. Leave for at least half an hour to cool. Then blend it with a bar mix or your food processor. Reheat and serve hot (with a dollop of cream cheese or sour cream and a liberal sprinkle of black pepper).
Damper
3 cups self raising flour
1 teaspoon salt
125g butter
125ml milk
125ml water
Rosemary leaves
Black pepper
Caster sugar
Brown onion
Preheat the oven to 220°C.
Cut about 25-30g from your butter and melt in a saucepan over low to medium heat. Finely dice the brown onion and cook slowly. When it becomes translucent, sprinkle with caster sugar (about a teaspoon) and continue to cook until caramelised (turning brown) then remove from heat.
In a big bowl sift the flour. Add the salt, a liberal sprinkling of black pepper and a considerable quantity of rosemary leaves (fresh or dried, but make sure there’s lots and that it’s finely chopped). Mix slowly, adding the onion a bit at a time, until combined.
Pour the milk and water into a heatproof jug with the butter. Pop it in the microwave and heat until it’s hot and the butter’s melted. Make a well in the flour and pour in the milk/water/butter mix. Stir through until combined. You may have to finish it off with your hands but the dough shouldn’t be sticky.
While it’s still warm, shape the dough into balls and press them close together on a sheet of baking paper on a tray. Bake the pull-apart loaf until it’s browning on the outside. Serve hot with your pumpkin soup.
* So technically Mother’s Day was over and there was no excuse for kicking Charles out of bed to deal with him.
** I do have to say that the mere fact that there are breast feeding photos of Ms Kerr on the Internet and that she’s the one who posted them shocked me. So who knows? Maybe she’ll keep on keeping it real and we will see a photo like this.
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