Monkey loves helping to cook at the moment. He loves putting his pinny and on and it is generally Daddy who he helps in the kitchen while I am looking after Little Miss. They have done all sorts, Monkey is learning to peel and chop vegetables and he is fascinated by “fire” (the hob) though he knows to stay well back from it, and the oven. He just wants to “have a look see!”
Yup we have been doing more Christmas Toddler Crafts! This time involving pinecones and a load of glitter! Monkey loves a good nature walk, collecting all the bits and bobs and bringing them home ( I am regularly having to clear out a load of leaves and twigs from the conservatory!).
A while ago we collected some lovely pinecones with the idea of doing something fun with them around Christmas. Another lovely simple toddler craft… but with the potential of getting a little messy!
One of Monkey’s favourite things at the moment is playing hide and seek. He wants to do it all the time, every day, multiple times! there have been times I thought he was saying “Hi Mummy” but what he was actually doing was instructing me to “Hi” (hide) lol. If I tell him I am leaving the room for a minute I usually hear “hi” on my way out and see him scamper off somewhere to hide. Then when I come back in a little head pops up and shouts boo!
Our little Monkey is in many ways a typical toddler. He tantrums, he shouts and has meltdowns. He is not a big fan of sharing and thinks everything is “my toy”. He is fussy about food, and well everything. “Don’t like that” & “Don’t want to” are frequent phrases in our house. Along with, of course “No!” even for things I know he wants (eye roll).
But, he also has the sweetest little nature and is so caring. I’ve made no secret of the fact that we have been struggling over the past few weeks. With Little Miss’s colic and reflux we have been really struggling with lack of sleep and just exhaustion. (This has actually, fingers crossed, touch wood, improved a lot this week, phew!) Unfortunately this hasn’t led to the best parenting of Monkey at times. I hold my hands up and admit that I have been a lot snappier with him and have raised my voice a lot more than I would like. Continue reading
Our Christmas crafting has begun! Monkey is hugely excited about Christmas this year, he loves seeing all the decorations in the shops and was running round one shopping centre shouting “Merry Christmas” to anyone and everyone!
I wanted to harness this excitement so we have been making some lovely Snowman Christmas Decorations.
Monkey has always loved his arts and craft activities, and now he is that little bit older, his abilities and what he can achieve (with some help) have come on leaps and bounds. There are so many activities I want to try with him and so many things I want to make with him, but with a newborn who has colic, reflux and a possible allergy, my hands are sadly tied a bit more than I would like them to be and I am struggling to balance both of their needs. Thankfully Daddy loves doing things with Monkey and this weekend he stepped in to have a go at some Monkey & Daddy crafting :).
Friends and family have been very generous since Little Miss’s arrival and she has been given some very lovely presents. One of which was this cute little fairy princess Peppa Pig toy. Monkey helped me open the parcel and he took quite a shine to it himself and particularly liked her crown and magic wand, so I decided maybe we could make a crown and magic wand for Monkey to wear!
This year is flying by and it is really not long til Christmas now, eek! Have you started buying presents yet? I have been quite organised and bought a lot of presents already. In January we started putting a bit of money away every month to budget for it, and it has been lovely this year to have a pot ready to use. No paying it off in January, woohoo!
Anyway I digress, Monkey is really excited about Christmas this year. He is loving all of the decorations in the shops and I know we are going to have so much fun with him! So I am really excited to see his excitement on Christmas day and while I am sure he will be happy with pretty much anything he gets, I think we have come up with some lovely idea for him. So if you are stuck for ideas of what to get a toddler in your life, here are some of the things on Monkey’s Christmas List this year! 🙂
I mentioned in last week’s mini milestones post that Monkey had drawn a smily face for the first time and was really enjoying drawing at the moment.
This has continued and after painting smily faces on leaves he took this a step further. Continue reading
Friday morning, to give me a bit of a break, Daddy took Little Miss to the office with him for a couple of hours in between feeds. At that time of day she is happiest snoozing in the baby carrier so Daddy has become quite the baby wearer! It felt a little weird for her to be away from me for so long but what was really lovely was that I got to have some good quality time one on one with Monkey. Daddy has spent most of his paternity leave focussing on Monkey and they have got even closer lately and while Monkey has seemed ok with me being with the baby most of the time, I have wanted to get back to doing some nice things with him.
Continue reading
