Stopping swimming & Monkey’s First Fairground Ride

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Saturday was one of those days where things just didn’t quite work out the way we wanted them to. Lots happened but also lots of things went wrong. We had an early morning scooter session then Monkey and Daddy went for a walk to splash in puddles, only to discover that one of Monkey’s wellies had a hole in – cue one soggy foot and unhappy Monkey! Then I went off for a hair cut and Daddy and Monkey went to their swimming class. I haven’t really blogged about it before but Daddy and Monkey have been going to swimming lessons… and they haven’t been going that well.

Monkey is apparently very upset for most of the class and though he always says he has enjoyed it when he comes home, the look on Daddy’s face and Monkey’s red and puffy eyes tell a different story. After an 8 week term of unhappy Saturdays (Daddy finds it very tiring and frustrating and is in a pretty miserable mood for the rest of the day) we have decided not to carry on the lessons for now. Hubby wants to try and take Monkey swimming just the two of them with less structure, and then try the classes again maybe next year. Continue reading →

Subconscious Stereotyping

Posted by Caroline Elliott

With baby’s arrival only a couple of weeks away, we are in preparation mode and are trying to get the nursery finished. The last thing to do is put up the wall stickers. There will be another post to showcase these gorgeous stickers in situ once they are up, but I blogged about them when we chose them here. They are gorgeous and so pretty. I love the swirling branches and the cute creatures but… I suddenly realised something… they are very different from the stickers we put up in Monkey’s room when he was tiny.

Monkey’s wall stickers

He has Hungry Caterpillar stickers, which we bought for no other reason than the reason we chose these latest stickers… because we like them. But, as part of the set, his stickers could be seen as more educational. Along with the characters from the book there are the days of the week, and also a big display of numbers. It’s part of the story, 1 apple, 2 pears, etc. etc. but it made me wonder, have we subconsciously chosen such different stickers for their rooms because of their gender?

Have we given Monkey stickers with numbers in because he is a boy? Have we given more simple, pretty stickers to baby because she is (we think) a girl? Or am I overthinking things and over-worrying? Quite possibly!

Continue reading →

Our little reader – 28 mths

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Storytime at 3 mths old

We have read books to Monkey since he was tiny. Both hubs and I love reading books to him and it has been a major part of the bedtime routine since he was just a few months old. As a result, Monkey loves books. He is constantly bombarding us with books saying “go read, go read, go read” until we comply with his demands!

Now that his speech is rapidly developing he likes saying words and pointing out the names of things in books. He’s also ‘reading’ or rather he has memorised some of his favourite books and joins in with reading them. One of his favourite books (at the moment) is one that Daddy doesn’t even like, “The Tiger who Came to Tea”. Monkey loves it. He goes through fits and starts with lots of his books, insisting on the same one for days at a time, and then moving onto another.

Continue reading →

Monkey’s Musings at 28 mths

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Regular readers will know that Monkey was a late talker, and there was a time when I worried about his speech development. Then he started talking and let’s just say that I certainly don’t worry anymore – he is a real chatterbox these days and we love it!

So I thought I would share with you some of our favourite words and phrases that he has come out with lately. Questions seem to be the order of the day lately, he is so inquisitive!

“What you doin there?”

This has to be one of our favourites, and he says it all the time. He has been sayong it for a while but it very much came out as one word so we didn;t really realise what he was saying at first. A very garbled “whauodoiere” was how it started. Eventually we realised what he was saying and his pronunciation is getting clearer by the day. He walks into a room, “Hi Mummy/Daddy, what you doin there?” He has been sat next to us on the sofa watching TV and will suddenly ask “what you doin there Mummy?” We walk into his bedroom after nap time “what you doin there?” It’s hilarious and another situation where we have realised we must ask him that question quite a lot – as he can only have picked it up from us!

“What’s dat noise?”

Another pretty constant question, generally accompanied with a hand up to his ear. Sometimes it is easy to answer, it’s an aeroplane, it’s a lawnmower, it’s the TV etc, other times it is a bit harder. In the bathy one evening, one of the millions of toys he had in the bath was making a slight noise and the question was repeated endlessly. I heard Daddy try to respond a few times but onviously Monkey wasn’t convinced by his answer so kept asking, and asking, and asking and eventually there was a very loud “I don’t know! It’s just one of your toys!” coming from Daddy as the repetitive question started to drive him completely potty.

My favourite instance was one morning when Daddy woke up early, around 6.30am, I was snoozing happily so Daddy crept out the room trying not to disturb me or Monkey. But it seemed Monkey was already awake and heard Daddy open our door, as immediately there was a shout of “What dat noise? Daddy? Daddy?” from behind Monkey’s door! Lol! Poor Daddy not a minute’s peace!

“What dat?”

Sometimes accompanying “what’s dat noise?” sometimes just about everything and anything. He has to know what everything is! At least we aren’t at the why stage yet, “What’s dat” is usually easier to answer… though not always!!

He really is at the stage where he repeats nearly everything we say and likes to narrate his little life. When we were out playing with bubbles the other day I was chuckling away to myself as he ran after them shouting: “can’t get” “too high” “come back.” It was just so cute!

He can also be quite demanding and he knows what he wants. Generally revolving around food but I was quite impressed when he woke up from his nap one day last week and said “Hi Mummy, cup a tea?” We are working on please and thank you, though please currently sounds more like “twease” and thank you is more of an “apfu” somehow. We are getting there though!

Then there are the more random outbursts. One of the most common outbursts is

“PatJessTedBen!” usually shouted as an exclamation. Sometimes when he is angry or upset, or disappointed it’s “Oh no! Oh dear me! PatJessTedBen!” We know he loves Postman Pat but quite why this has become his exclamation of choice I have no idea. It actually started off just as Pat, then PatJess, then PatJessTed, and now has been PatJessTedBen for a while. We keep wondering whether another character will be added. Ajay perhaps? or Charlie?

I could probably go on forever, but these are some of our current favourites. I love being able to have sort of conversatiosn with him and his little personality really shines through with all his chattiness.

What little phrases do you love to hear from your little one?

Why I love being a SAHM

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Being a SAHM isn’t always easy, but I do love it, for many reasons. One of the things I don’t love about being a SAHM though is the judgement that sometimes surrounds it. There has been a few things recently (including someone insinuating that I am a sponger because I don’t work) that has made me want to write this post about why being a SAHM works for me and my family.

Before I go any further, a little disclaimer, this is purely personal and all about me and my family. I do not believe all mums should be SAHMs and I am not judging anyone for the choices they have made or the way they think best to raise and support their families. Different strokes for different folks is what I believe but it can be difficult to talk about the positives of being a SAHM without being seen as judgemental or critical of working mums. That is not how this post is intended, it is purely about me and my family.

There were various things that affected my decision to be a SAHM. I wrote about it at the time here, when I first started this blog, but put simply, this is why I am a SAHM.

The financial side

I know I am very fortunate that we can afford to live on my husband’s salary alone. He has worked really hard to get where he is and works darn hard every day for a business he has built and believes in. Sometimes his head is so full of work it is hard to get him to step back and enjoy family time with us, but I know his work is a huge part of who he is and allows us to live the life that we do. We are by no means ‘well-off,’ we are fairly comfortable but we life on fairly strict budgets and are very careful with our money.

After Monkey was born we were undecided about whether or not I would go back to work part time as of course more money would make things more comfortable. Unfortunately when looking at childcare costs, they would pretty much have negated any earnings I brought in. I never earned a huge salary and particularly if I was part time I would not have earned enough to make it really worthwhile.

I know for many families there are grandparents willing to help but that isn’t the case with us. Monkey’s grandparents are all wonderful and supportive and he has a fantastic relationship with them. But none of them wished to be a permanent carer for him, week in, week out, and we didn’t really want that either. They have lives of their own and have done their years of child-raising, now they want to be the fun grandparents. I am not criticising anyone who does have grandparents who help out with childcare as again different things work for different people. It just wasn’t an option for us or our parents.

This comes back to how lucky we are that we can live on hubby’s salary and I don’t need to work. If we were not able to manage financially without my added income then of course we would have figured something out. I would have found a job working evenings, weekends or early mornings if necessary to fit around hubby’s work and cover costs. I have worked as a waitress and a cleaner before and would not be too proud to do so again if financially we needed it. If I had been the higher earner we would again have figured it out. But we don’t have to, thankfully, as I would hate to be passing my husband like ships in the night!

I know for some Mums, not working or earning money from an outside source leads them to feeling they aren’t contributing. I guess all I can say is that for me, while I know I am not contributing financially, I am contributing. By raising Monkey and looking after him myself full time, it means we don’t have to pay someone else to do it for us. So it comes full circle. I could be earning money but then it would be going out straight away to cover childcare costs, and what would be the point?

Well, I am sure some women would say that the point is that they love what they do, That they need the intellectual stimulation. That they would rather be at work than at home looking after children all day. I can understand that and again don’t judge any woman for making that decision. And I won’t lie, there are times that being a SAHM can feel monotonous, and it can be exhausting, and lonely. But, I do find the rewards of being a SAHM more than make up for it, for me. Plus there are ways to get that stimulation, to break the monotony, without having to go to work. Blogging for one! 🙂 Or doing any hobby that interests and challenges you.

So what are the rewards of which I speak, well this is where I get really happy. This is where I get to the positives that make me smile and puff up my chest with pride.

Why I love being a SAHM

I know my child better than anyone else. I know how to get him to try something new (even when he is adamantly shouting no). I know his current favourites. Be it phrases, activities, colours. I am the one with him nearly all day everyday and I know how all of his little individual quirks and eccentricities. I was the one who was with him when he said his first word, when he walked for the first time, the first time he counted to ten. No-one else has told me about these developments, I have seen them for myself.

I get to teach him. And take pride when he learns things as a result of the activities we do. I taught him (gradually in a fun, playing is learning way) how to count to ten. We are now working on letters. I am also teaching him about the world, more and more every day. I am teaching him manners, how to treat other people, and how not to.

I’m not saying you don’t get to do these things when you are a working parent but it has to be a bit different when someone else is caring for your child for a significant amount of time. There has to be a level of trust there that they are teaching the same beliefs as you would. That your child doesn’t get away with things with their carer that they wouldn’t with you. For a control freak like me that would be a concern and I like knowing that Monkey is learning what we think is right (we may not get it right all of the time but we are finding our way and it is our way, noone elses).

We have fun and try new things together. One of the ways to break the monotony is by experimenting with new things. doing new things together. This blog is a great motivator for that too as I like to be able to experiment with crafts and activities and talk about them here. Plus there are so many other fab blogs with tonnes of ideas for things to do together! We bake, paint and draw. We build, read and talk. We go on walks and explore the world. I see the world through his eyes.

Even at the moment, at 8 months pregnant and pretty exhausted, I love being with him. I need more help with him at the moment but I miss him when he’s not here, and I love when he comes back. He tests my patience and exasperates me. Some days he drives me potty because he is 2 and can be really irrational and over complicate things. But he is wonderful and funny too. He is kind and loving, methodical and imaginative. He gives the best cuddles and has the most infectious laugh.

I love that I am lucky enough to be the one who sees him at his best, and at his worst. In a couple of years time he will be going off to school and as he gets older he will move slowly but surely further away from his Mummy. He will grow up. I love that I am lucky enough to be able to spend this time with him now. I cherish it.

Just as wanting to go to out to work doesn’t make you any less of a mother, wanting to stay home and raise my children doesn’t make me any less of a person. Any less intelligent or interesting. In a world where so much emphasis is placed on what you ‘do’ and how hard you work, it can be difficult to feel proud of being a SAHM. I sometimes feel that I have to justify to some people why I feel being a SAHM is the best thing for my family and I at the moment. I know I don’t have to, and I very rarely bother. If someone wants to pass judgement then go ahead… but deep down it does bother me. I can’t help it, it just does.

I don’t know whether I will be a SAHM forever, I imagine I will want to work maybe part time when the children are at school, but for now, I love being a SAHM.

Sing, Monkey, Sing! 28 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Monkey, like most little ones, has always loved music. A while ago I wrote a post about how he used to sing songs in his head, before he could actually sing the words, it was so cute!

Since his speech development has come on so rapidly lately, we have been waiting to see when this would lead to singing, and he has not disappointed.

Before he could speak, Wind the Bobbin was one of his favourite songs to dance along with, so it came as no surprise when he started singing it, after a fashion. This short video was taken at his Uncle Simon’s house, months ago actually, I just never got round to posting it!

A but rudimentary but very much wind, wind, pull, pull, clap clap clap. He did eventually sing he rest of the song too, but it has to be said, this is no longer a favourite of his to sing!

He loves a microphone toy now and was playing with one in the back of the car a few weeks ago when suddenly hubs and I heard him crooning away into it. Up until now he has just spoken into it, and not used actual words either, mainly a ga ga, which was was his favourite pre-words phrase. I missed the best bit of his singing (you never have a camera on them all the time) but this was still cute.

I think he was singing something about going to the seaside? Bless him hehe.

Just a cute little step to record for posterity 🙂

The freedom to climb… and fall?

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Monkey climbing at 15 mths old

Monkey loves climbing. As an early walker he was always desperate to climb from quite a young age, and to be honest, this isn’t something we have discouraged. For a long time it has been one of his favourite things to do at the park and he is so good at it. Going to tumbletots has helped with this too as there is a lot of climbing involved and it has also been a great way of teaching him the safe way to climb up but most importantly the safe way to climb down again.

Little ones don’t have much concept of height or fear and I am sure this causes many a parent to have heart in their mouth moments and leap to the rescue of said little one who decides to step off the top of a climbing frame! Monkey has done that to us so many times, though thankfully now he is learning the safe ways of getting up, and back down again!

I recently read a post on Happiness is here all about using the term “Be Careful” with your kids. It was a really interesting read so I highly recommend it, and I have been thinking a lot about it ever since. How much do you and should you allow your child/ren the freedom to explore? Does saying “be careful” negatively affect your child and the way they play, making them more likely to stumble than if they were let be and able to trust their instincts? I’m not sure.

We use the term “be careful” all the time, but usually with an explanation. For example yesterday during a mad half hour while Monkey was spinning round the living room like a little loony and I had to step in to stop him bashing his head on the corner of a table he was told “be careful you have to look where your going or you will hurt yourself!” When he gets exctited half way climbing up something and wants to take his hands off to give himself a round of applause he is told “be caeful, you have to hold on or you will fall off!”

He also gets a lot of positive encouragement and guidance too. I’m a big believer in trying to be use positive reinforcement rather than negatives as I think it just works better all around (even adults respond better to positives and constructive criticism rather than purely negative feedback). So he gets lots of well done, that’s right put your hand their, yep and push up, well done, clever boy, etc. etc. But I do also warn him to be careful. After reading the post I wondered if I say it more for myself, because of my own worries, rather than for his safety. And I wondered if saying it actually made it more likely that he would fall.

As with many things parenting I don’t think it’s as simple as that. Hubby took Monkey out for a walk Sunday morning and Monkey was absolutely loving climbing up a huge climbing frame. Hubs said he started off really close and was right there to catch him if he slipped but actually realised he didn’t need him there so took a step back. And that was when Monkey lost his footing and fell between the rungs of the ladder. He unfortunately scraped his forehead a little on the way down and Hubs was riddled with guilt that he hadn’t been there to catch him or to stop the fall.

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But if the parent is always there to stop the fall and save the day, then will the child ever learn to be careful? Plus I don’t actually think you can be there to stop every hurt. Monkey fell off his blimming dining room chair and split his face open! As much as we don’t want to see our kids hurt, and it is our responsibility to look after them and keep them safe, we also have to try and teach them to be careful too. It’s part of life after all, sometimes you fall, but you just have to dust yourself down and pick yourself up again. After his fall on Sunday, Monkey had a bit of a daddy cuddle, and then was back climbing again, grinning as much as ever. No worse off for the little fall or scrape, though Hubs was beating himself up about it for the rest of the day!

I guess it’s about balance, which I guess is true of most things parenting. I know some people will think we are bonkers to let Monkey climb so high, so young and think we maybe aren’t careful enough. Whereas I also know some people will think we are too overprotective sometimes. I don’t really worry what other people think of us but I just say that to illustrate we all parent in our own way. So for me, I will carry on giving Monkey the freedom to climb and explore, but I will also keep saying “be careful” because I think it helps him learn his boundaries as well as making me feel better!

What do you think? How much do you say ‘be careful’?

Playing with friends – 27 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Monkey made a really lovely big step last week, and one I am really proud of. All babies and toddlers start off playing pretty independently from other children, sort of sid by side, without interacting with them. Monkey has always been particularly wary of other kids, especially after a knock earlier this year. He has been getting a lot better and there have been signs of improvement over the past few months. For example he stopped launching himself off the side of a climbing frame whenever he saw another child nearby!

Pretty much every week we meet up dor a play date with my friend S and her little girl E, who is almost exactly a year older than Monkey. They get on pretty well for the most part though do bicker and snatch toys from each other at times. E though has been very excited by the development of Monkey’s speech over the past few months, often exclaiming “he can nearly talk as good as I can!!”

There has just been little more signs of interaction between them over the last few weeks and then last week they really actually played together. They were lying on the edge of the ‘baby’ zone in the soft play and after watching E roll of a few times (making Monkey chuckle a lot) they then started counting together and trying to roll off at the same time. Sometimes they managed it, other times they were way out of sync, but they were taking it in turns counting down and really trying to do it together.

They looked so cute playing together S and I really had a moment! E is a really sociable little girl and loves playing with other kiddies whereas Monkey has always been much more reserved. We spend so much time together and S was as proud of Monkey as I was. It may seem small but actually a huge step for him and one fo the many signs recently about how much he is growing up and getting more independent from me. Just so lovely 🙂

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Car seats for tall babies and children

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Monkey is not quite 2 1/2 yet, but at over 3ft he is seriously tall for his age and his current car seat has been feeling really small for him. Trying to look for the best car seat for your child can be so difficult as they all vary and are based on age and weight. Please note this post contains some amazon affiliate links, for further information please click here.

Car Seat groups:

Group	Child’s weight	approx. age of child
0	birth up to 10kg/22lb	birth up to 6-9 months
0+	birth up to 13kg/29lb	birth up to 12-15 months
0+ & 1	birth up to 18kg/40lb	birth to up to about 4 years
1	9-18kg/20-40lb	about 9 months to 4 years
1 & 2	9-25kg/20-55lb	about 9 months to 6 years
2	15-25kg/33-55lb	about 4 to 6 years
1, 2, 3	9-36kg/20-79lb	about 9 months to 12 years
2 & 3	15-36kg/33-79lb	about 4-12 years

Looks confusing doesn’t it? When Monkey was a newborn we started off with a Maxi Cosi Cabriofix car seat (Group 0+), with Easyfix base, for ease of getting it in and out of the car mainly. We loved it, it was such a handy car seat and we hoped it would last quite a while Unfortunately though because Monkey was on the 98th percentile of the growth chart he outgrew this seat pretty early. To move onto the next group of car seat they need to be around 9kg, which is estimated at being at about 9 months of age. Our tall baby was already 9 1/2 kg by 5 1/2 months and just far too long to be comfortable in this seat much longer.

Because of his size, as soon as he was able to sit by himself (around 5 1/2 – 6 mths) we moved on to a group 1 car seat. We chose the Maxi Cosi Axiss because we liked the handy swivel of the seat. My car (an 08 Honda Civic) has really wide back doors, which means that in tight parking spaces it is impossible to open them very far. Having a seat the swivelled when you put the little one in made life so much easier for us. We have loved this seat and it has grown really well with Monkey… until now. (In the below pictures he is in the Axiss at 8mths old and 21 mths old )

For a group 2 seat, they usually say the child should be around age 4, or over 15kg. A group 2 seat is also what is known as a booster seat. With a group 2 seat there is no harness and instead the child is strapped in with the car’s 3 point seatbelt, whilst sat on a seat. They vary in terms of support but it can vary from a very simple, basic little booster seat (the kind I remember sitting on as a kid) to something more resembling a car seat.

As I said at the beginning of the post, Monkey is not quite 2 1/2, but he is just growing too big for his group 1 seat. The highest level for the straps is actually below his shoulders, which means they come up and over his shoulders before going down over his chest and he just wasn’t comfortable in it any more. Plus his head was higher than the headrest, making it ever so slightly pointless. He has also just reached the 15kg mark.

But a group 2 seat, with just a normal seatbelt? Felt a bit scary to me. My friend has just moved her 3 1/2 year old onto a car seat with the normal 3 point seat belt and has mentioned how she can now pull the seat belt and wriggle around more. At a year younger than her I didn’t feel Monkey was ready for this at all. He certainly isn’t ready to just sit on a booster seat as I think he would slide off it!

I didn’t know what to do, but luckily there are seats which bridge the different groups. We popped to our local Kiddicare on Saturday morning and the young lad we spoke to there was just so so helpful. We talked about the different options and the fact that although 2 1/2 feels far too young to be in a bigger seat, that it really is weight, and in our case height, that is the most important thing for meeting the safety requirements.

In his big Boy Car Seat, the Kiddicare I seat

We tried out one of the Kiddicare Opus SP Group 1/2/3 car seats which definitely bridge the gap from a group 1 to a group 2 seat. It can be used as a group 2 car seat, using the cars 3 point seat belt restraint, but it also has a 3 point harness which you can remove as the child grows. The key factor for us was that this harness has more height levels, at and it’s highest level it is comfortably above Monkey’s shoulders, which is where it should be rather than part way down his back! It was also incredibly good value and a lot less than we had thought we would probably spend on a car seat, at just £39.99. There aren’t many seats on the market (that I have found anyway) that bridge the different group boundaries and the sales assistant showed us one other more expensive brand, though we couldn’t see anything about it that made it seem worth the extra money. There didn’t seem to be any extra padding or safety features etc.

We were really happy with this and about ready to buy when the sales assistant recommended we have a demonstration in the car. We weren’t fussed but said yes and thank goodness we did as sadly the seat didn’t fit in my car! The angle just wasn’t right and there was a big gap between the back of the seat and the car. Thankfully they had the same design seat with a few variations for just £10 more. The Kiddicare I seat (sadly I can’t find this available on their website but it was in stock in the Peterborough store). It has moveable arm-rests (not a big selling point) but also wedges on the bottom of the seat which you can lift to change the angle of the seat. With these lifted the seat fit perfectly into my car, phew!

Monkey loves his new big boy car seat and we are relieved to know he is safe and comfortable in a bigger seat. Do you have tall children? How did you get on choosing car seats? Did they fit into the ‘average’ age bracket?

An emotional week

Posted by Caroline Elliott

This week the word I am going for is emotional. It has been full of emotions, both happy and … less happy this week.

Starting with the happiest, we were at a wedding last Friday which was just beautiful. You can read more here but it really was wonderful and they had so many personal little touches to their day that it was a bit emotional. During the ceremony I teared up right at the start as instead of walking down the aisle to meet him at the alter, the groom left the alter and came and got her. He took her hand and they kissed before walking up the aisle together. I just thought it was a beautiful moment and makes me tear up even thinking about it. I hated walking up the aisle at our wedding, with everyone staring at me so I wish we had thought to do this at ours!

Hubby and I were also full of pride when we came home as Monkey handled our absence amazingly well. Our little man really is growing up right in front of our eyes.

Unfortunately then the week turned a little gloomy. I was really tired and in quite a lot of pain with my pelvis after standing a lot at the wedding and spending about 6 hours in the car there and back. Tiredness and soreness sadly makes me a tad on the mardy side so there was a grumpy couple of days at the beginning of the week! Poor hubs!

By Wednesday I was feeling a lot better and a day catching up with friends while the kids all played made me feel back to my normal happy self. Then that night, disaster struck. I have no idea how it happened, I was in the kitchen getting the last bits for dinner, hubby and Monkey were sat at the table. then I heard some very odd scuffly noises and saw hubby leaping in a panic and then scooping Monkey off the floor. Somehow, Monkey had managed to fall off his chair.

This is the boy that loves climbing and scampers up climbing frames and is running about all day without coming to any harm. He sits on his chair in the dining room, the chair he sits on at least twice a day, and manages to fall off. It may not sound that bad yet, but he must have landed right on his face as he is a mess the poor lamb. Hubby scooped him up for a cuddle and then we realised there was blood everywhere, it was pouring out of his little mouth and even after we managed to slow the bleeding we really struggled to console him.

Honestly we haven’t seen him so unhappy for so long since the days of colic as a baby. Of course he cries sometimes, and has cried a lot during illnesses but we always manage to soothe him with a combination of cuddles, singing, stories, tv but on Wednesday none of these worked and we were really worried. It was clear he was in a lot of pain and was really stressed out by the fall.

I then had a bit of inspiration and we gave him an ice lolly, in the hope that the ice would help his wounds, make him a bit numb, take the taste of blood out of his mouth and hopefully take his mind off of it.Thankfully that and a bit of Postman Pat on the TV worked and soon enough he was back to his usual happy self again. Phew!

His poor little face though is so swollen and sore looking. He seems to have bounced back from his ordeal but hubby and I are taking a lot longer to recover from the stress of it all. I’ve honestly been an emotional wreck and couldn’t stop crying the next morning. I’m partially blaming my preggo hormones but seeing his swollen little face just broke my heart and I have just been worrying non stop. Rationally I know it is fine and he will heal but it just looks so awful and painful. It really is horrendous seeing him hurt and that’s only a bash on the face. I can’t imagine what a wreck I would be if anything serious happened to him, heaven forbid!!

I’ve also been well and truly on over-protective mama mode, not like me at all, but I am terrified that he will bash his lip and re-open the wounds so have been insisting on a lot of calm indoor play at home to avoid any more dramas while it heals. Not easy with a hyper toddler who loves to run around like a little loony!!

I also know it’s daft. He’s a toddler. He’s clumsy and sometimes he is going to hurt himself. I am not one for wrapping kids on cotton wool as I know it is part of the rough and tumble of childhood. I also know that you can’t protect them every second of every day, it’s just not realistic. Who would have ever thought he would do so much damage falling off a chair that he climbs up on and gets down from by himself multiple times every day? I just don’t want him to have another knock that reopens it or makes it worse!

It has definitely been an emotional week in our house, how has your week been?

Becoming a Stay at Home Mum

Can I really do this?

Parenting

Stopping swimming & Monkey’s First Fairground Ride

Subconscious Stereotyping

Our little reader – 28 mths

Monkey’s Musings at 28 mths

Why I love being a SAHM

The financial side

Why I love being a SAHM

Sing, Monkey, Sing! 28 months

The freedom to climb… and fall?

Playing with friends – 27 months

Car seats for tall babies and children

Car Seat groups:

An emotional week