At the weekend we popped round to my Mum and Step-dads for a cuppa, and Monkey loves all of his grandparents so much!
I took loads of snaps on the day (as I always do) but love this one of him sat on his Grandpop’s lap, whizzing his car around the dining table with my mum looking on and laughing. They all look so happy so I love it 🙂
After seeing some wonderfully creative things mummies do with their little ones who are Monkey’s age or thereabouts, I sometimes feel I don’t give him enough of an opportunity to explore his creative side. I think I’m still a bit stuck in the ‘oh but he’s too young for that’ frame of mind, when I shouldn’t be.
We’ve been drawing with crayons, chalks and bathy crayons for ages – mainly because they are so easy to tidy up. But things like paint and glue give me the shivers at the thought of all the mess. But I need to get past this because if I can, then we should have a lot of fun together and it will of course help him learn and develop.
So I have decided to explore new things with him, and to do this I need to be a bit more creative with our activities. So I am challenging myself to be more creative with him as part of my new Creative Challenge series.
I am also going to link this up with the lovely ‘Mini Creations‘ Link Up hosted by Grace and Lucas at Kid GL loves. I have been reading and getting ideas from this link up for a while but not posted anything, because, well, scribbles are only so interesting. Then the very clever Jocelyn at The Reading Residence came up with the idea of doing her little ones’ mini creations on a Monthly basis and I immediately realised what a genius idea this was (thank you Jocelyn!).
So here it is, Month 1 in this new Creative Challenge series, and this month, Monkey has been doing a lot painting.
Painting with a brush, and his fingers.
It sometimes gives me heart palpitations when I look at his black paint covered hands…especially when he starts to move said hands towards the white woodwork! aaaah 🙂
But he loves it and we have some amazing art to show for it:
Want to be more creative with your little one? Is it time to get over your fears of messy play? Why not join the Creative Challenge? Grab my badge and on Wednesday 26th February I will be hosting a new linky to see how you have got on!
What makes me happy? My little boy, growing up, makes me so happy and so proud.
We seem (fingers crossed, touch wood) to have turned a corner with food. He’s not eating pasta yet but he is being a bit more adventurous and is eating sweet potato and baked beans again, which he had been refusing. He also ate some yummy soup for the first time on Thursday. This makes me happy. He loves feeding himself with a spoon too, which makes both he and I happy! 🙂
He’s also been really brave and been trying new things. It may sound daft but for as long as I can remember he has hated being in a ball pool, but on Friday, he wanted to go in the ball pool and loved it! Made me so proud and happy.
In the same vein, he has never been a child to go in a ride-on car, or sit on/in anything you move with your feet, he always kicks his legs massively if you tried to put him in/on one, he just hates it. Not sure if he felt too confined or what. But this week, for the first time in a long time, he sat inside a car for ages and tried to figure out how to make it go. That made me really happy.
Being a parent is the hardest thing I’ve ever done but watching him grow up is the most rewarding thing I’ve ever experienced. People always say that, but I didn’t feel it when he was younger, now though I am truly starting to appreciate how rewarding being a mummy can be.
What else makes me happy? Toddler giggles! It is just the best sound in the world to me!
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Family Photo Friday time again and this week we have one of Monkey’s Uncles. Never realised before now how funny that sounds!
Monkey loves his uncles very much and this is my little bro 🙂 Playing with some play-doh and the letter & number cutters my older brother and sister-in-law bought him for Christmas
Apologies for the poor quality was playing with my camera on my phone.
It’s the simple things isn’t it… We always fixate on little ones learning the big things, walking, talking etc. But there is so many little things they learn too.
This week, Monkey has discovered his coat pockets, which is just the cutest thing.
He’s also discovered that he can control his blinking, and he can squint his eyes, which he thinks his hilarious. As evidenced at breakfast this morning.
Don’t you just love seeing the world through a toddler’s eyes? Where even the smallest things, that we take for granted, are just amazing to them!