Ducks, Steam Trains and Boats!

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Last weekend, after a quick trip to buy some fence paint we decided to stop off to feed the ducks. Somehow I’d manage to overbuy on bread and we had some going to waste so decided the ducks should have it. Rather than go to our local country park, which we visit pretty frequently, we decided to pop to another spot. It’s not far away but we haven’t been in all of Monkey’s life so far! It’s a bit quieter than our local park, has no play areas etc, but is has some other lovely things to see.

So we fed the ducks and the geese, and one beautiful swan! Monkey loved feeding the ducks but did get a bit nervous of the geese. The ones in the lake weren’t too bad but the ones on the ground are probably bigger than he is so I can’t blame him for being scared of them! I got bitten by a goose as a kid so I’m not a huge fan of them, though obviously I don’t want Monkey to know about that!

We soon used up all of out bread, and we had literally just finished it all when a mummy duck appeared with her ducklings! 🙁 We were so disappointed that we hadn’t saved any for them, but hey we didn’t know they were there. They were so cute though!

We are really lucky in that we live near the Nene Valley Railway which runs steam trains, and this spot has one of their stations. We had finished feeding the ducks when we caught a ‘choo choo’ in the distance, a train was on the way! We jogged over as quickly as we could to see the train up close, and Monkey loved it!

By the end he was shouting “choo” “choo” which was very cute! At some point this summer I think we’ll take a train ride with Monkey, it just goes up and down and into the city centre so wouldn’t be too long a journey, but so lovely to go on an old fashioned steam train!

After the train disappeared from view, we crossed the track and over to the river, where there is a huge lock. The noise at the lock is tremendous and Monkey loved it, ad kept shouting at the water lol!

We were in luck as there happened to be a boat going through the lock when we got there! We missed the beginning bit but daddy was trying to explain to Monkey about how it works, not sure how much he understood though!

It’s a really picturesque spot and above the lock the river is so tranquil and peaceful. I can’t believe we haven’t been there in so long! As a kid I used to cycle there all the time and it links up along the river to our local country park. I’m sure we’ll go there a lot more as Monkey gets older.

On the way back we had a quick game of pooh sticks through the lock, which was quite amusing as the sticks kept getting lost in the torrent!

Then, as we were walking back, the train came back on it’s return journey!

We waved goodbye to the train then it was time to head home for some lunch.

It was a lovely morning and reminded us that you don’t have to go too far for a lovely day out. In fact I have come up with a new acronym for days like this. A DOOOD – A Day Out On Our Doorstep! 🙂

Have you ever had a lovely day out on your doorstep?

Easter Fun 2014 – 23 Months old

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Happy Easter!! Hope you have all had a lovely relaxed weekend so far and eaten lots of chocolate? No? Well there’s still time!

We’ve had lots of Easter fun so far this year!

We’ve made Easter Nests, Easter Cards and been on an Easter Hunt, and Monkey has loved every minute!

Easter Nests

There is obviously different ways of making easter nests but I like to use Shredded Wheat, as then they feel a bit more nest-y.

So we used:
1 pack of Shredded Wheat 16s
400g Belgian Milk Chocolate (we are a little in love with the Waitrose own brand Belgian Milk Chocolate at the mo – seriously, you should try it, yummy!!) We actually used a little less than this as I had scoffed some beforehand, but it would’ve been better if we had the whole bars!
Mini Eggs

Basically you bash up the Shredded Wheat, Monkey helped with this, until it is really fine. I actually find using the end of a big rolling pin is the best bashing method! Lots of fun!!

Melt chocolate, we do it over the hob in a bowl over simmering water, but I hear microwaving is very easy too!

Mix, then scoop into cake cases, and add eggs.

Very simple, tasty chocolatey fun! 🙂

Easter Cards

After the success of Granny’s birthday card a couple of weeks ago, i thought we’d use a similar method for Easter cards and involve monkey with some finger painting! The first time we tried unfortunately Monkey just mixed up the paint and we ended up with some murky brown splodges, he had fun, but not very attractive or easter themed!

We tried again at the weekend with some different colours and had much more success! Once the masterpieces had dried I cut them into egg shapes and stuck them onto some cards. Monkey finished them off with some lovely colouring! Easy peasy Easter cards!

Easter Hunt

Because we would like to avoid too much of a sugar rush, we got some other bits in addition to eggs, to make this an Easter Hunt, rather than an Easter ‘Egg’ Hunt. I dotted the chicks and bunnies, signs and eggs around the front garden (the back garden still being mainly mud at the moment, with less places to hide them!) for Monkey to find. With the weather forecast for Easter Sunday a bit miserable we did the hunt on Saturday afternoon, in case it got rained off on Sunday!.

Monkey loved it, I mean it lasted about 5 minutes but he had lots of fun with all his bunnies and chicks, and putting them in his little basket. He obv loved eating the choccy eggs too!

I used to love Easter as a kid, Easter egg hunts, chocolate, but as an adult I didn’t really celebrate it much. Now we have a little man it is bringing the fun back again and I am loving all the Easter fun this year!

Have you had much fun over Easter?

First night in a Big Boy Bed! – 23 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

We did it! We have made the move from cot to bed and so far all has gone pretty smoothly!

We talked about making the transition a few months ago, and felt perhaps that neither Monkey, nor Daddy and I were quite ready for it. Then I fell pregnant and the problems with my pelvis started to flare up. With a new baby going to be needing the cot at some point we wanted to make the transition far enough in advance that Monkey wouldn’t feel pushed out of his cot. But then with my pelvis problems meaning that I shouldn’t lift him very often, if at all, we know we really should make the transition even earlier.

A while ago we bought his bed in the sale and he had really liked it in the shop. Keen to involve him in the process we took him shopping to buy some bedding, even though I had an idea of what to get him. A lot of the soft furnishings in his room are already matching, with a lovely cloud pattern which he adores, so I hoped that buying the same range of bedding would attract him to it.

We weren’t sure whether to ease the transition by having both cot and bed in the room for a while, or to go cold turkey and take the cot out straight away. In the hopes that it would make it easier, we did the former. He liked his bed immediately and cuddled up with his bedsheet – though he hated the duvet and pillow and wanted nothing to do with them! We will worry about those at a later stage I think! Too much all at once.

But even though he liked his bed and lay down on it, as soon as it was nap or night time, he would get off the bed and try and get in the cot. A week of this and we realised that he would never sleep in his bed while his cot was in the room. Which makes sense really, but we were nervous of his reaction to us taking his cot away so we waited until the Easter weekend, when we had a good stretch of hubby being off work, in case we had a few sleepless nights!

Good Friday was the day. After his nap, hubby dismantled the cot and put it away, moving his bed to the position his cot was in, and hanging the little cot pockets that used to be on his cot, onto the end of his bed. I know this seems to be a weird position, but has always slept with his head by the door, and well, why not if it makes him happy?

Anyway, we had talked about how best to go about it should things not go smoothly and he not stay in bed. I always liked watching Supernanny on TV and while I don’t agree 100% with everything she says, I do like her common sense approach to things, so we have Jo Frost’s book on Confident Toddler Care and looked to see what her advice was. We ended up using her stay in bed technique.

Basically you follow your normal routine, and put them in bed. When they get out of bed, you say ‘bedtime darling’ and put them back. The next time it is simply a firm ‘bedtime’ as you put them back. After that you put them back in bed with no contact whatsoever. No talking, no eye contact, no form of communication. And so on until they eventually give up.

We felt this was definitely worth a try, so hubby took him for bath and bed as normal. Monkey was really excited about his bed being in the place of his cot as soon as he got upstairs, and didn’t even want his bath! Very unusual but we wanted to use his excitement if we could. Hubby did at all as planned and followed the technique to the letter, and you know what, it worked amazingly!

Monkey got out of bed 5 times, then resigned himself to it and stayed put, and stayed put all night long! He can be seriously stubborn sometimes so this really did surprise us! He even slept in a little late in the morning, bonus! We were concerned nap times may suffer, but nope the next day he went straight down for his nap and slept really well!! Hooray!!! The same happened that night.

In hindsight, we probably “should”/could have done it cold turkey, but in the end this worked so well I think because of the preparation and I think the technique really helped too. Either way all is well that ends well and our little boy is growing up! Bless him!

So, while this was a very special event, it will now be a very ordinary moment, a real sign he is not our little baby any more!

Enjoying getting out and about again! 22 months old

Posted by Caroline Elliott

With the combination of sunnier weather, and my new pelvis support, Monkey and I have been out and about loads over the last week.

We’ve played in the sand in our neighbour’s garden…

and popped to the park near our friend’s house.

Monkey and my friend’s little girl always play really nicely together, even though she’s just over a year older. Although this week she got cross with him trying to play with her favourite train, then he got a bit nervous of her! Bless ’em! Sure it’ll be fine again next time!

Then Thursday our plans with friends were cancelled last minute due to poorliness 🙁 so we popped to a local country park, which I knew had built a new play area that opened for the easter holidays. What I didn’t realise was that the whole play area was basically a big sand pit!

Monkey had fun, then fell on his knees in a big water play are (thankfully we had spare trousers in the bag!).

The only problem was that with it being the Easter Holidays it was pretty chaotic in there! We were playing on the slide and there were some bigger kids fooling around on there too which made me a little wary. It was quite a wide slide and they were going down in groups and sideways and tumbling all over the place irrelevant of the tiny tots also wanting to go on the slide. I was keeping a close eye as Monkey desperately wanted to go down the slide. He went down a couple of times then got bashed from behind before he had a chance to get off the bottom of the slide (Monkey was fine). I had a calm word with the boy (who I guess was around 7 or 8?) to just be a bit careful around the little one and then less than 30s later the same boy completely knocked monkey over, face first onto the wooden steps.

Cue lots of bawling from Monkey and I have to admit I got a bit cross with the boy in question. I know he didn’t mean it but it seemed so careless. There were cries of “It was so and so’s fault” and I think I said something like “I don’t care whose fault it was, you all need to be less selfish and more careful around the little ones.” He ran off to his grandparents but with Monkey screaming his head off I don’t think they objected to my calm telling off! Hate having to do it but couldn’t pretend it was ok, the play area was for all ages and they just need to be at least aware of what they are doing around little ones and considerate to others. Maybe I expect too much of them?

Anyway after that Monkey was a bit more wary of the play area so we went for a run around with his ball! He is great at kicking it now and is a good dribbler (in more ways than one as he still needs dribble bibs, eye roll!) .

Then we played peepo around some trees.

Before going to watch some kites flying, which he found fascinating, and see the little miniature railway.

Then it was time to go home!

It’s been lovely getting out and about a bit more! What have you been up to with your little ones outdoors lately?

Monkey’s Mini Milestones at 22 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I feel that Monkey is learning so much all of the time lately, that I need somewhere to record these little milestones (the lovely ones … and the less lovely ones). So I have created Monkey’s Mini Milestones – so every now and again there will be posts like this! Mainly a way of charting Monkey’s development, and his likes and dislikes!

Words

Monkey is being very chatty lately, most of it is still undecipherable but he is really trying to talk to us! Some of the words we do understand are:

Yum yum
Go
Two
Shoes
Oh dear – after yum yum this is his favourite phrase, very cute as sometimes it sounds more like oh doo or oh doh but when it is accompanied by his hands to his mouth it is very lovely!

Skills

Last week, while enjoying the sun with my neighbour he managed to make his first bubbles! He doesn’t really understand blowing yet but he after a little experimentation he learnt to dip a ring in a bowl and wave it around to create bubbles! Simple thing I know but I was a proud mama watching him figure out how to do it!

He loves giving high fives and now sticks his thumbs up (previously he held up 1 finger instead). He tries to count on his fingers, at a birthday party during the games, daddy was telling him so and so had ‘won’ and Monkey kept holding his finger up, as if to say ‘one?’ He loves numbers and likes pretending to count. He basically points at things in a row making lovely noises like ah, noo, mah, buh etc, so cute! He loves clocks and things too and is just fascinated by clocks and numbers.

Whenever we are out and about and he hears an aeroplane, his hand goes over his hear to indicate he has heard it, and then he HAS to find where it is in the sky. He very often spots them way before I do, even when they are tiny and far away! Clever monkey!

He is such a good climber, and has been for a while but we are proud that he now finally understanding how to climb backwards down something, rather than essentially leaping off hoping to be caught!

Music

He still loves Wind the Bobbin, of course, but he has a couple of other new favourites too:

Row Row the boat – he can be seen standing by himself rocking backwards and forwards, which is v cute, and at every opportunity he commandeers Mummy to do it together! He’s getting very good at the Lion roar too hehe

The Wheels on the Bus is another favourite – he has always loved buses and now whenever we see one his arms go round and round until I sing it to him hehe

Books

Monkey loves books, always has done and we have loads, and it is funny seeing some go in and out of favour! His favourites at the moment are:

Zaza’s Baby Brother – we’ve had this for ages and he was never interested before, but at the moment he is obsessed with it – I wonder how much he understands about me being pregnant, it does seem like quite a coincidence though!

Pig in the Air – This was one of daddy’s books as a child and Monkey adores it! He giggles his head off at the clumsy piggy falling over while trying to fly, says ‘go’ when he takes off, and ‘Oh dooo’ when he crashes into a tree he he. It is funny, I confess to being a bad mummy though and trying to hide it after reading it about 5 times in a row – I love how much he loves books, I do, but it’s exhausting re-reading them over and over!

Food

He’s been increasingly fussy again lately so we have been reevaluating snacks etc to see if we can get back on track a bit. He’s so stubborn though and knows where all the snacks are in the cupboards and of course wants them all the time instead of his meals. Joy! We need to look at what we are doing too and try and get back to following the rules that helped us before!

Playtime

Cars, train, helicopters, BUSES, basically anything transport related is a big fave at the moment, particularly his Postman Pat cars!

He loves dens at the moment, particularly with my Granny Square Blanket as the roof (which I love!). He is so good at building with Duplo now and he also made a fantastic tower with his blocks the other day, clever little builder!

Colours

Monkey has two very definite favourite colours at the moment – red and yellow! He is getting good at matching colours in general but red and yellow are definitley the faves. When we are playing with multicoloured things he always finds the red and yellow ones and holds them up for us to label. Even in a craft shop last week he suddenly produced a red pen and a yellow pen from a display behind us! Seriously obsessed – not sure but maybe it comes from his love of Postman Pat?

Less nice things

He has taken to picking things at the moment – picking his nose, picking the wax out of his ears, picking at his bathy crayons, picking, picking picking! Yuck!

He is extremely stubborn. This isn’t a particularly new thing but he is insanely stubborn at times and gets himself so worked up when we say no to things but he does not give in. For example if we say he will get pudding if he eats one more bite, there is no way he will take that bite. None. Absolutely zero. So he doesn’t get pudding but it makes for some miserable stand-offs!

So that is some of the things I can think of that sum up Monkey’s development right now! I love seeing him grow into his own person with his own mind – even though he drives me crazy sometimes! How do you keep track of your mini milestones?

Monkey is a Daddy’s Boy.

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I know it’s Mother’s day so it may seem ever so slightly odd to be writing about the lovely relationship Monkey has with his Daddy, but as his Mummy I love seeing how close they are. At various points in Monkey’s little life we have struggled with separation anxiety and with him being with me all day every day there has been times where I know Daddy has felt pushed out. I guess it’s inevitable at times that the primary caregiver who is with them, all of the time, is the one they want to be with. But this can be exhausting for said primary caregiver and disappointing to the other parent who loves them no less but who feels a little sidelined. The good news is that they grow up and the separation anxiety usually goes away. Things could not be more different in our house now, as Monkey is very much a Daddy’s boy! When Daddy comes in, even if we have been having a difficult, mardy toddler day, Monkey is all smiles and sunshine and showing off for his daddy. His current insistence is sitting on daddy’s lap for dinner which makes it ever so slightly difficult for daddy to eat. He thought it was cute at first, 50 or so times later it’s a bit annoying! If he hurts himself, or is tired, it always used to be mummy cuddles that he ran for, and of course when it’s just us he does, but if Daddy and I are both there, it’s the Daddy cuddles he loves the most.

Daddy cuddles

You may think I’d be jealous, but I’m not. I love it. Partly because at the end of the day and I am shattered (even good days are tiring with a toddler let’s be honest) I love that Daddy gets all the attention and to take the reins. I know Daddy is tired too but he puts in so much effort every day, and has done for a long time to make sure his and Monkey’s relationship has got to this point and I know he loves it. I am dead proud of them both. I am also very glad that I am not the one that gets clambered over, even for a little while. This was Monkey and Daddy’s playtime a few evenings ago. Lots of standing on his daddy’s chest, sitting on his knees and then flying on his legs. Basically just enjoying spending time with each other. So lovely to see. So yes, I know it’s Mother’s day and I “should” be celebrating me and my relationship with Monkey, but this Mummy is just proud of her hubby and little boy and loves the bond that they share. I know how lucky we are for Monkey to have such a good Daddy who wants this kind of relationship with his little boy. Is your little one a mummy or daddy’s boy/girl?

Water Bead play – 22 months old

Posted by Caroline Elliott

This week I am linking an old post about a failed messy play attempt from about a year ago.

A few weeks ago I saw some other posts about playtime with water beads – but up until then I had never heard of them before! Designed for keeping plants watered they come in little pouches and are tiny until you soak them in water, when they gradually expand. The ones I bought said 4 hours so I did them overnight.

It is funny stuff, looks a bit like frogspawn, though is a bit bigger!

I chose the blue as I had visions of Monkey playing with it along with cloud dough, so it would be a bit like sea and sand. I got the Tuff Spot out and we had a go. As I expected Monkey was a little wary and unsure of how they felt at first.

He seemed to be having fun, but I was quite surprised at how easily they got smushed or broken up by his little feet and fingers, I hadn’t read about that on anyone else’s post! It’s part of the fun though I guess, Monkey like smushing them up more than anything, though he wasn’t that keen on them getting stuck to his feet!

He had a bit of a play, but unfortunately he got bored really fast.

And after about 10 minutes he was desperately trying to get out of the tuff spot, so I had to strip him off, clean his hands and feet and let him go. I was gutted, all the effort and all that mess for about 10 minutes, took me longer to clean up afterwards 🙁

I will try again with it as I have read lots of posts about kids enjoying it, and it’s not like he hated it… but it’s always a bit disheartening when you plan a new playtime or messy play activity and it just doesn’t go the way you hoped it would!

Have you had many play ideas like this, which haven’t worked out the way you’ve hoped?

Creative Play – Nature Hunt & Painting – 21 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I saw this idea on A Whole Nine Months and thought that as her little boy is younger than Monkey, and obviously enjoyed it, that we should give it a go…. But, have to be honest, I kept putting it off! I just wasn’t sure how it would go, whether he’d be interested in the nature hunt side, and how much mess we’d make with the painting… But that’s the point of the Creative Challenge, pushing myself to step outside of my comfort zone, and be more creative, with playtime in this case!

So one day we headed out on a little nature hunt and to start with it was mainly me doing the hunting part, while Monkey spent a good few minutes hugging a tree??

Though he did get quite interested in a feather.

But then he got a bit obsessed with a stick, ok, branch and tried for ages to bring it with him.

He was honestly doing this for AGES, I have loads of photos and a couple of videos of it. He’s such a determined little Monkey but eventually I persuaded him it was a bit too big to carry and we did a bit more nature hunting.

Then it was home and time to get the paints out! We also noticed that one of the daffodils in the front garden had been trampled at some point so we picked that up to explore with too.

And, basically, he had a whale of a time, exploring the leaves and twigs in the paint..

and generally just getting really messy 🙂

So all in all, lots and lots of fun and definitely worth a try – and with the two elements this took up quite a large chunk of the day – which is always excellent in my view! 🙂

Have you been on a nature hunt?

Toddler Sunrise Painting – 21 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I first saw this idea from Lucy at Baked Potato Mummy. Her little Potato isn’t much older than Monkey and I am always inspired by (and a little in awe of) the arts and crafts they get up to. The idea is that you fold a piece of card in half and your little one paints it oranges and reds for the sky. Then on a separate piece of folded card, they paint the bluey sea. Then when it is all dry you match the pieces together and have a lovely sunset picture!

It looks like such a simple way to have an actual picture at the end so I thought it was perfect for this week’s Creative Challenge.

I’d bought some new paints recently so I splodged some onto some paper plates as I figured that was the easiest way of doing it. For the sea part of the picture I chose purple, blue and green. For the sky I went for orange and yellow. (They didn’t have any red in stock the day I went to buy the paint).

A while ago, at the start of the Creative Challenge I had bought some sponge-brushes which I thought would be good for this so out they came. Monkey got stuck in – we started with the orangy/yellow sky.

Then, when he had had enough, we had a clean and then did the sea.

Monkey had loads of fun and we ended up with this masterpiece!

Hurrah, a successful creative challenge!! 🙂 We’re getting better at containing the mess when it comes to painting. I have discovered that the key is preparation, having a bowl of soapy water, cloth and tea towels on standby – along with a large amount of baby wipes to quickly clean up any splashes!

Do you like being creative with your kids? Or are you good at being creative cooking on a budget? Join in with the Creative Challenge and link up with me

A mini photographer #wotsofunee

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Monkey and I went on a play-date to a friend’s house the other day. We are very good friends and even though her little girl (E) is almost exactly a year older than Monkey they generally get on pretty well together and play nicely with each other, even if Monkey is pottering about by himself a bit.

At one point, E was playing with a shapes app on my phone, monkey was playing with some toys and my friend and I were having a chat. A few minutes went by and we suddenly realised E had figured out how to get to the camera on my phone and take pictures. Her mum has an iphone and I have a windows phone, so completely different operating systems. Clever girl! So she took a few snaps and even managed to take a few selfies with the front facing camera.

She took some pics of Monkey and then, I thought she was taking pics of me but it turned out she was taking pics of her ken doll. So I lifted him up for her to take a few snaps. Pretending he was was smiling and saying cheese.

She took a few snaps and then said “that’s great Ken, now let’s take you clothes off and take some more pictures”. Her mum and I roared with laughter at the shock of the request then I said “err no, no we don’t take pictures of people with their clothes off” and managed to distract her by bringing barbie into the frame for some photos. I made them kiss each other, which E was NOT amused by.

So I tried to make them hold hands, semi-successfully…

Then I slipped and it looked like Ken was holding Barbie’s bottom!

E’s mum and I had a good chuckle about this, and then E cottoned on to what we were saying and started requesting that they touch their bottoms in the photos!

Haha , silliness but who knows, E may be the next Annie Liebowitz!

Becoming a Stay at Home Mum

Can I really do this?

19-24 months

Ducks, Steam Trains and Boats!

Easter Fun 2014 – 23 Months old

First night in a Big Boy Bed! – 23 months

Enjoying getting out and about again! 22 months old

Monkey’s Mini Milestones at 22 months

Monkey is a Daddy’s Boy.

Water Bead play – 22 months old

Creative Play – Nature Hunt & Painting – 21 months

Toddler Sunrise Painting – 21 months

A mini photographer #wotsofunee