10 years

It seems hard to believe that I have been vegan for 10 years. It really only seems like a short time ago that people were surprised when I told them I had become vegan and many clearly thought it was a fad. But here I am 10 years on with a soon to be 6 year old son (his birthday is Friday and he is very excited) who has been vegan his entire live and a husband who has been vegan for several years We are all fit and healthy Wuffy especially so. People are still amazed that we are raising him as a vegan but what else would we do? I can’t imagine feeding him things that we do not consider to be food, that mkes no sense at all.

So I will continue to ignore the comments or looks that people give me and rejoice in our healthy animal free lifestyle:)

 

Star of the week

First swimmer of the week, now star of the week. When Daddy picked Wuffy up from school last night he found a certificate in his bag which said that Wuffy was star of the week for week ended 9th October for “asking interesting questions” He eventually wheedled out of him that he had been presented it in assembly

Not surprised about the reason as Wuffy is a boy of questions, so many questions it makes your head hurt but we always try to answer them. His latest discussions with his Daddy have been about the Punic Wars, he is totally obsessed with Romans at the moment and watches Roman DVD’s (meant for adults) all the time

 

Swimmer of the week

At his swimming lesson tonight Wuffy was swimmer of the week. He was so pleased with himself

 

Life gets busy again

By the third week of September my life always gets hectic again. It’s what happens when you work at a University unfortunately. I do have a few birthday photos to upload even though they are from about 3 weeks ago, and I am going to post some holiday photos as well, sometime!

Here is one birthday photo

and a cake shot (I was 2 hahaha)

 

MSc

I received my MSc result today. My dissertation was marked at 80% and I am now the proud owner of an MSc in Nutrition and Food Management awarded with distinction

 

Night out and meals

We went out on Saturday night, it’s been a year since we last had a Wuffysitter and we thought it was about time we did.  We saw Roger Davies in concert and he was very good, we really enjoyed it.

We pretty much stuck to the meal plan last week, two changes, one becasue I was being lazy and one because we didn’t have time for a normal meal on Saturday night.  Overall I would say we did well, for us!!

This week we are having

curry

risotto (we have this every week as we all love it and I don’t cook it )

spinach pasta

sausage casserole with veg

sandwich with hummous and veggies

jacket spud (because we didn’t eat them last week)

That’s only 6 but it is my birthday on Friday and I haven’t decided what we are having then

two posts in one day, see miracles do happen!

 

School

They seem to be pumping up the pace at school. We have been told that Wuffy needs to have his reading book in his bag every day and that reading books get changed every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.  That means we need to make sure he reads it to one of us every night of the week.  He also brought home a two page maths homework on Friday, we did it all but it took about 50 minutes which I think is a lot for a 5 year old. I feel a bit like I am back in school!!

This morning I had to take him to school at 8.30 as he has been selected to have extra support.  The leaflet we got said “extra support” and “acceleration programme” which seemd a little odd to me so I rang the school to ask why he had been selected and what they are planning on doing in these sessions.  The teacher rang me back and seemed astounded that someone had rung to ask about it, I got the impression that it’s not what parents normally do (I am very happy to not be a normal parent ).  In any case she said that Wuffy is a bright boy but needs his confidence boosting and that is the aim af the sessions. When I dropped him this morning he was the first to arrive so it will be interesting to find out what he did.

 

Meal Planning

We are supposed to meal plan every week, but when things get bad workwise (and they have a lot this past year) it tends to fall by the wayside. Now the MSc is finally over I am going to try to be much better at meal planning and baking. I thought that if I posted here it might encourage me to stick to it. So for this week we are planning

 
What’s in the fridge pasta with chorizo
Brown rice with stir fry veg and beans
Veggie mince with mashed spuds and veg
Sandwichs with a big dish of raw veggies and houmous
Risotto
Jacket spud with beans and salad
Pizza

These are in no particular order we will eat what we fancy each night, we only plan specific nights if we are very time restricted. I am going to try to take some photos and then post an update.

I have just taken a chocolate cake out of the oven and later we will melt chocolate to cover the top. At the same time we will make some chocolate digestives.

I love cooking and baking so I am really hoping that I have a bit more time to devote to it

 

School

Wuffy says he likes his new teacher and class. We had been trying to prepare him for the chnage that he would face jumping to year 2 and I think we over did it. In reception class it’s all about play with short carpet sessions for the focussed learning. Whereas the year 2 class involves sitting at a designated table and I suspect more direct teaching, we had warned him about this several times because we knew it would be a big change. After his first day he said it wasn’t too bad he didn’t have to sit at the table all day (as he thought he might) but that they were able to get up and play .  On Thursday he came home and said he had to read to his teacher and she was impressed with him!! He brought his reading book home on Friday so clearly they are geting straight into reading.  also on Friday he had a sticker on his top which said “Bon effort” he had had his first ever French lesson.  He said he really liked his new class

 

All done

Well the dissertation was handed in almost two weeks ago. I thought I would feel relief when I handed it in but actually I just felt exhausted. Since then we have been camping for a week so I am even more exhausted.

Wuffy went back to school today. We are slightly worried about how he will get on as he is one of the children they have put into a year two class rather than a year one class. We were told that he would be bored in year one and needs to be challenged. I think he was a little worried about being with so many older children but there are about 7 year ones in the class so he isn’t alone.

I will post some holiday pictures when I get a chance. The MSc means I now have a years worth of tidying and cleaning to catch up on in the house!!