A Family Day

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Sunday was just a lovely day. We had Hubby’s parents and brothers and sister in law round for a roast dinner. Nothing grand, just a nice roast dinner and get together for a good natter, as all too often time goes by without seeing people, or without all of us getting together. I love family occasions and we love cooking and preparing for it (though not so much the grand house clean that is needed in advance!).

Monkey loves spending time with all his family too, so he had lots of fun with his Aunt and Uncle.

And his Aunt and Granny

And his Granddad.

He’s a bit obsessed with books at the moment, which we do not have a problem with, and it was nice for someone else to be able to read the same stories to him over, and over again, rather than just us hehe 🙂

We had a yummy yummy roast, though Monkey decided to be a fidget pants and played musical chairs, taking it in turns to sit on everyone’s lap rather than on his chair! Daft apeth!

I decided that I wanted to try and get a shot of all of us together, as it’s something we hardly ever do. The last time was a year and a half ago! So we set the self timer up and crowded round to get a photo. Keeping Monkey still and getting everyone to have their eyes open at the same time was a bit of a challenge!!

This was the best shot we got, though Granddad’s eyes are closed. I changed the settings so we wouldn’t get a monkey blur – but then didn’t like the lighting! I’ve had a bit of a play to brighten it up, it’s not perfect, but at least we are all smiling, or in Monkey’s case, still!

Anyway, it’s a nice record of a lovely family day 🙂

Family Photo Friday @ Thursday's Child, Friday's Thoughts

The BEST Word of the Week- Monkey’s First Word!

Posted by Caroline Elliott

We have an actual word from our little Monkey! He has said Go once before, a while ago, but it was never repeated. Then this week he started saying it again. To start with we weren’t sure. Is he just saying ‘ga’? But then he was pushing a car and he definitely said ‘go.’ We quite often say ‘ready, steady, go’ when playing with cars, so this made sense.

Then, in one of his Spot books there is a bit where you say ‘let go’ and he repeated ‘go’ back when Daddy said it to him. Then if daddy asked, can Leo say ‘go’ ? He said ‘go.’

I know this may sound daft as it’s such a small word but we are so excited! It’s been a long road to get here, I’ve talked about it many times and wondered if it was somehow my fault that he has been a late talker. We’ve been seeing progress over the last couple of months so I was worrying a lot less – but it is a huge relief to have that first word!

It is also quite an apt word as it really has been all ‘go’ this week! My car had it’s MOT and service, and now needs new tyres, boo :(. It’s also car insurance renewal for both our cars. Thankfully we have a savings account for car related things!

Monkey had a doctors appointment this week too. He’s walked with is feet pointed out since he started walking at 10 mths and we’ve been waiting to see if there has been any improvement, but there hasn’t, so we have finally taken him to the doctors. Monkey was very good and his shyness has improved so much as he let the doctor move his legs about and we had no fuss at all! The Dr said it is probably nothing and he will probably be fine but has recommended we get him checked at the hospital just to be sure his hips are ok. So I am pretty nervous about that but best to be sure!

We’ve also found out this week that our tenants for my flat (where I lived before I met hubby) have given notice to leave at the end of March. So now we need to see what condition it’s in and try and sell it (again). We are hoping that the market has picked up a bit so we can sell it now, and still get out the money I originally put in. It would just be a real weight off our minds if it sold, but there’s work to be done before we can get it to that point.

This week hasn’t all been bad, we had a lovely Pancake Day meal with hubby’s family and Monkey likes pancakes – but only with golden syrup and whipped cream on hehe! We have also been busy doing lots of work and organising for our Operation Garden Renovation, which included finally ripping down the shed and arbor, and having a big bonfire in the garden! More to come on that next week!!

But, yes, Monkey is right, this week has definitely been all ‘go!’

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!

Playing with Cloud Dough – 21 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

We first found out about Cloud Dough in the summer and Monkey had great fun playing with it outside. You can read about it here. It was fab and I have thought about making it again but I am not always fond of REALLY messy play indoors, I do it, but I have to work myself up to it and prepare myself for the clean up operation!

As I have created the Creative Challenge Linky I felt I really should challenge myself to have some indoor fun with cloud dough.

Ingredients

What is Cloud Dough? It is Flour mixed with Baby Oil. It’s something like 8 parts flour to 1 part baby oil but I have to say I don’t really measure it. What’s the point in it? Well it turns to the consistency of sand, though has a much silkier texture. Otherwise you can play with it like wet sand, build things with it or just have a good old play.

I got a Tuff Spot ages ago with grand plans about this kind of messy play, but so far I have been too chicken to play with anything other than Play Doh in it. I just don’t trust monkey to keep things INSIDE the tuff spot. But as I said, this is as much about challenging myself as it is Monkey having fun and learning so we went for it.

And, do you know what? It was great! He has a whale of a time, as you can see! And yes, a bit of cloud dough managed to escape the confines of the Tuff Spot but it all got hoovered up

It started off quite sedately.. and he was moving some toys around in the cloud dough.

Then it got messier…

and messier…

then he had a little dance to “wind the bobbin up” in his head (a definite sign he is enjoying himself a lot).

He had a good stomp around..

and well he was covered from head to toe, but he absolutely adored it, which was great.

And it wasn’t too much of a nightmare to clean up, just pulled his clothes off and wiped his hands and feet and that was it. The cloud dough is in a tub to play with on another day, the tuff spot had a wipe and the floor a hoover and it was not too bad.

Phew! Successful Messy Play!

A quick word to the wise, if you do end up playing with it outside, like we did in the summer, make sure you sweep as much up as you can. Because our garden is a tip we left a pile of cloud dough in the corner of the patio, big mistake! It is a now a bit gunky pile of yukky stuff! It goes pretty disgusting when it has been rained on!

Listening to Music in the car

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Monkey loves music. has done since he was tiny. You can see him singing to music in his head sometimes as he dances along to ‘wind the bobbin up’ or ‘twinkle twinkle’ doing all the hand movements!

He has quite particular tastes though and is happy to let me know when he doesn’t like the music that is on in the car or something – generally by lots of whining. Heaven forbid if we have the radio on and I don’t realise that a song has finished and there’s talking on instead, he gets very stroppy!

But what I love his the way he reacts to a song he likes coming on the radio. They are very rarely songs he has heard before, and they do vary, but he likes music with a strong beat, particularly a good rock song. As a lover of rock music it makes me dead happy and proud, when a heavy guitar rift comes on the radio and I hear my little boy behind me clapping and shouting ‘yeeeeeaaaaahhh’ haha. So daft but I love it, so that’s my ordinary moment this week!

Not the best pic I’m afraid, hubby was driving on this day and monkey was moving a lot, but, you get the idea 🙂

Through the eyes of a child #ThePrompt

Posted by Caroline Elliott

It is Friday so I am linking up with the lovely Sara at MumTurnedMom for The Prompt.

This week’s prompt is the following quote:

Seek the wisdom of the ages but look at the world through the eyes of a child. Ron Wild

When you look at the world through the eyes of a child, everything is new, everything is a learning experience.

You see the fascination on their faces when they first notice dust particles floating in the air. When he was younger, Monkey used to try and chase the sunbeams around the living room floor (it was so cute). He sees wonder in things that are just normal to me. He loves buses, and sticks, and tin cans. He likes knocking on trees. He can spend ages flipping light switches (if you let him!). He wants to have us read the same story to him over and over and over.

Every time he has some cream cheese he has to dip his fingers in, rub it around his hands and then smear it on the table, like he’s never felt anything like it before (even though he only had cream cheese sarnies 2 days ago!).

For our little ones there is so much to learn and so much excitement in their learning. Monkey is at a stage now where he wants to know the name of everything. We can spend ages with him holding up two items to me while I repeatedly name them one by one, Bottle, Lid, bottle, lid.. or Red crayon, green crayon, red crayon… you get the idea.

Sometimes, when he sees something new, for example he saw a picture of himself on my open laptop the other day, his little brow furrows then the eyebrows raise. You can see the thought process of “what is that?” “Woah that’s me!” then begins the point and the ‘ga!’ as he wants me to explain it to him.

We still don’t have words yet, I know it’s within the range of ‘normal’ but I am very impatient for words to come. We are getting nearer, there are a lot more noises approximating words, but for the moment our communication very much relies on watching him, watching what he is seeing through his eyes, so I know what he sees, what he wants to know the name for.

And what I see, when I watch his eyes, is wonder. He is fascinated by everything and wants to know how everything works. He wants to help me peel the vegetables. He wants to run down that hill to know what it feels like. He wants to be tickled because he likes to giggle. He wants to pick up the stones because he likes to watch them fall from his fingers. He likes to play with his numbers and help me put them in order. He likes to close doors, and try to open them. He wants to put lids on bottles, and take them off again.

He looks at the world with wonder, and I look with him.

Monkey’s Tin Can Tower – 21 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Monkey loves building towers, with blocks, duplo, bean bags, anything.

At the moment he loves making a tin can tower in the kitchen. I try and persuade him to build them on the floor, which he does to start with, but he invariably starts lifting the tins onto the worktop 1 by 1, then climbing his stepstool and building it on the worktop. It tends to make me a bit terrified that he is going to knock them over onto himself and get hurt, but so far so good (fingers crossed, touch wood).

Anyway he built this tower yesterday and as you can see, he was dead proud of himself 🙂

Running down hills

Posted by Caroline Elliott

A couple of days ago, Monkey and I were enjoying a nice little walk home from his grandparents’ house. The sky was blue, the sun was out, we walked past some lovely spring flowers and it was just lovely.

Near to our house there is a big bridge – the blue bridge – and we spend a lot of time on the bridge looking at cars and buses. There is a little grassy area next to the bridge which Monkey loves – mainly because in the autumn we spent a LOT of time there playing around kicking up leaves. He likes it there, we play peepo around the trees, and he knocks on the tree trunk (not sure why but he enjoys it).

What I hadn’t ever really noticed before that day was the fact that this grassy area provides a great sloping hill down from the bridge. (It leads down to a road but it is only a Bus lane so not dangerous). I’d obviously seen it but not thought about it. Monkey though for some reason (after the obligatory knocking on tree trunks) made a beeline for the top of the hill, pulling me along with. Then, to his delight, we ran all the way down the hill together. He likes running down the smallest of slopes but this is the tallest and steepest ‘hill’ that I think he has ever run down, and well, he loved it!