Home Alone

I am alone in the house with the Baby.  Given that she’s only three weeks’ old, this shouldn’t be such a big deal – but it is, because this is the first time we have actually been properly alone together.

I know.  Shocking.  What’s even more shocking is just how delightful it is.  (No doubt largely because the sun is shining into the kitchen, where I’m sitting, and blacked out by black-out blinds into her bedroom, where she is sleeping.) However, I’m gagging for her to wake up so I can feed her and have an uninterrupted cuddle, and not have to hold her up like a puppet and put on a baby voice while “she” tells the Girl what a great big sister she is, and please can she stop trying to smother me with teddies etc.

Some of you (you know who you are...) have been demanding more visuals of her.  Alright so – here you go (with apologies for her lack of photogenicness.  And her ridiculous cheeks.):

“If you make me wear pink, and lie beside a fruit bowl, I shall simply DIE.   Or sleep." 

“You may wake me when you've stopped this ridiculous gender stereo-typing."

“Ah, that's better.  Tho' don’t get too excited, I’m just farting.”

As you can imagine, I am milking every ounce of newborn sympathy I can get.  However, I do have to ‘fess up: I’m AWASH with help at the moment.  My mum was here for the Baby’s first two weeks, acting as maternity nurse, house-keeper, and nanny all in one.  It was bliss.  She left last Friday (admittedly, a shadow of her former self), and a “real” (ie, one I have to pay) maternity nurse (baby nurse, for American Readers) arrived an hour later.  (I impressed myself by not falling apart during that hour.)  My sister and her boyfriend arrived two days later, to be, respectively, nanny and manny to the Boy and the Girl.  So you’d think that 3 additional adults in the house would be able to contain the chaos somewhat.   In fact I started to feel human, and, well, well again.

And then on Tuesday night, I made the rookie mistake of checking on the kids before I went to bed.  Boy?  Check.  Girl?  Che... Hmm, she’s a teeny bit warm.  One quick ear thermometer later – 105 degrees.  Is that even possible?  I’ve always assumed that we spontaneously combust at 104 degrees.  So I sat her up, she looked at me – that awful look, which I recognised just one second too late  – before projectile vomiting all over me.  And her bedroom.  The Man was – of course – away, so I tucked her up in bed beside me and fed her Calpol.  She puked it up.  She – we - flopped about for a few hours; at one point she was either hallucinating, or just babbling, but who sees butterflies in a winter bedroom at 2am? - then asked for apple juice.  Might cool her down, I thought, so fed her 100ml.  5 minutes later she cried out for Yellow Bowl, and as I reached over her to grab it, she puked 1000ml – at least - of acid-bile all over me.  And her.  And the pillows, duvet, sheets, and stuffed animals.  So we had a bath.  (Might as well get those stomach muscles working again, I thought, as I lugged 35lbs of dead weight up a flight of stairs.  Alas the stomach muscles appear to be DEAD.)   At 3am, when I started to feel weepy, I dumped her back in her own bed with Yellow Bowl instructions, and managed to get nearly 3 full hours’ sleep before the Boy decided to have a shout (“MY WILLY IS SORE...”).

Naturally, yesterday was the one day when sister and de-facto-brother in law had plans for the day, so notwithstanding surfeit of help, I have had – albeit only once - a small taster of what life will be like in a few days once I’ve been abandoned by everyone.  It ain’t pretty, and I’m beginning to panic slightly*. 

But for now all is calm.**  The older children are out tormenting the fish at the aquarium, the younger one is asleep in her bed, the sun is shining, Obama remains in the White House, and I have a nice bottle of Pinot Noir to drink in a few hours’ time.   And this to eat.  (See? I promised you a new recipe.  But yes, it’s another shit photo. In fact two! Sorry.)

Tomato Tarte Tatin

Back in the good old pre-children Olden Days, when we were childless and moneyed (one being indirectly proportional to the other) the Man and I would go to Paris quite often – at least twice a year - notwithstanding the horrors of Parisian Taxi-drivers, Parisian hotels, and Parisian dog-poo-laws (there are none).  Every single time I would drag him to a dinky cafe in the Marais, and order several litres of Vin and many rounds of Tomato Tarte Tatin.  Then we’d shoe-horn ourselves back into our hotel room, and sleep for 27 hours at a stretch.  Paris is now a distant memory – did I really once have a life which involved doing roller-blading by the Seine at midnight, not to mention sleeping until 3pm? – but if I dim the lights and load up on the vin, we can dream. At least until the baby-monitor springs to life...

You need:  (for 4, very generously, or 6 with a side of something)

• 2 Large Onions, finely sliced (this version includes carmelised onions.  Leave out if you wish, and skip the first cooking step)
• Olive oil
• Salt
• About 6 large ripe tomatoes, cut in half horizontally
• Two tablespoons of sugar (any type)
• 100ml water
• 1 tablespoon sherry / white wine / cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons butter
• Half a block (about 400g) of ready made puff pastry / one large sheet of ready-rolled
• A small lump of strong cheese – parmesan, sharp cheddar, or, preferably, gruyere

Preheat the oven to 200c / gas 6 / 375f

If including onions, heat up the olive oil in a deepish pan, then add the onions over a high heat for a few minutes, before reducing the heat to low and covering the pan.  Add a pinch of salt, leave to sautee, slowly, over the low heat for about 15 – 20 mins, stirring occasionally.

If using ready-rolled pastry, unroll a piece big enough to fit over an oven-proof frying-pan, leaving at least an inch overhanging.  If you have to roll the stuff yourself (LIFE IS TOO SHORT...) do it now, again to fit that pan, with at least an inch to spare.

To make the caremilised glaze on the tart, put the sugar and the water in the oven-proof frying pan over a high heat.  Leave to boil, then lower heat slightly, and keep an eye on it.  Once about half the water has evaporated, it will start to turn brown quickly.  As soon as it starts to change colour, take it off the heat, and add the butter and vinegar stirring quickly.

Arrange the tomatoes either cut or rounded side down – depending on how you like your tarte tatins to look. Cover with the onions, if using, then grate or shave the cheese over the whole thing.  Fit the pastry loosely over it, tucking it in the sides snugly.  Pierce the pastry with a fork in a couple of places to let air escape, then bung the whole thing in the oven.

Sit back with a glass of cheap red wine and reminisce about The Good Old Days for half an hour.  Remove the bubbling pan from the oven, leave to sit for a few minutes, then run a knife around the inside of the dish to loosen the pastry. 

Minding your poor delicate hands, invert a large plate over the pan, then turn the whole thing upside down.  Play Tomato-Tatin Jigsaw with the pieces that refuse to budge. Grate some more cheese on top, if you want to ruin any subsequent photos, then eat, and reminisce some more. 

*On the back of this panic I have started browsing AuPairWord.net.  If anyone has any au pair recruitment suggestions – mainly:  What on earth do you ask when interviewing an au  pair?  Apart from “Do you beat children?” - please pass on.  (The Man has already recommended that we should “go with the ones who wear bikinis in their photos.  The Swedish ones.” )

** Ps – I have, as always, jinxed myself.  The above was written yesterday.  Since then I had an hour’s sleep, then 3 hours, then another hour.  This morning I have spent TWO HOURS - when I could have been in bed - on the phone to BT, trying to get to the bottom of how my entire month’s broadband usage could possibly have been used up in 4 days. TWO HOURS.  In the middle of this the Baby started to howl, and then grunt, and then shit... all over everything. The bed, her clothes, my hand.  She even got some on her face and head, which she tried to lick.  Meanwhile, I was crying on the phone to the poor harassed man in a call centre in India, begging him just to TELL ME WHO IS HACKING INTO MY ACCOUNT, and the Girl was destroying the house because I wouldn’t give her an orange ("BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE ANY...").  It’s calm again, but only because the maternity nurse has come back from her day off – a nicety (and possible legal right) which will not be happening again...