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 🙂

Creative Challenge Linky #1

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Hello and welcome to The Creative Challenge!!

This is a new weekly linky for you to link up any posts (new or old) about you challenging yourself to be more creative.

Please click here if you would like to find out more, but the basic premise is that you challenge yourself to be more creative. You could be trying to be more creative with playtime ideas or messy play, or with a new hobby for yourself. Push yourself to try something a bit more creative, then come back and let me know how you’ve got on. Even if things haven’t gone quite as well as you hoped!!! We can’t all do everything right all of the time, but the important thing is to try something new and push ourselves. That’s what this is all about!

My creative challenge so far hasn’t been very successful at all!

You may have read about the disastrous attempt at cutting and sticking that was the Failed Valentine’s craft attempt, which basically resulted in this:

Like I say, it didn’t go too well.

Not to be put off though I tried again, this time with glue sticks rather than gloopy glue. Once again though Monkey was obsessed with the lid , and trying to pick the glue out of the stick, but he was not so interested in doing any sticking. (We used foam shapes and googly eyes this time.)

A couple of times I thought he was getting interested in the sticking, but no, if anything he preferred picking off the bits that I had stuck down!! Once again it did not go the way I hoped.

So we resorted back to good old fashioned stickers, which he loves sticking down. Not sure why he likes those rather than sticking with glue but hey ho!

He was quite happy so it wasn’t an all out fail I suppose, even if it didn’t go the way I hoped it would! The whole point though is that I challenged myself to be more creative – and I did even if it’s with an activity he’s not really ready for yet!!

Right, now it’s your turn to link up your posts, and tell me all about your Creative Challenge!

<div align="center"><a href="https://becomingastayathomemum.com/category/playtime-blogs/creative-challenge/" title="Creative Challenge"><img src="http://i30.photobucket.com/albums/c325/cazzabella2304/CCbadgesmall_zps32623a4b.jpg" alt="Creative Challenge" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Here’s how this works.

Write a new post (or an old one if it fits the theme) all about your Creative Challenge.
Grab the Creative Challenge badge (by copying the code above) and pop it at the bottom of your post (in the ‘text’ version).
Link your post by clicking on the ‘Add your link’ button and filling in the form.
Linkys only work when we take the time to read each others posts and leave comments so please let’s support each other and read and comment on as many posts as you are able to.

The linky opens at 6.30am on Wednesday and will close at 11.00pm on Sunday so there is plenty of time to join in.

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!

And I loved taking photos of him! So he did it again…

…and again…

… and again! Many times over!

Oh the simple pleasures of running down hills! 🙂

Mud Mud Marvellous Mud - Outdoor Play Party

(Mummy Daddy Me)

Our little builder – 20 mths

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Just a short one but I am feeling like a proud mama and wanted to share this. Monkey has loved Duplo for ages and has been steadily getting better at putting them together. They still frustrate him at times but he loves it (and we almost constantly have duplo spread across the living room).

He builds towers with daddy and his uncles but this was the first time that he built a little structure. He put the blocks onto the board and started to build his tower without ANY input from any adults.

I know it’s not that exciting or impressive but when we saw it we were so proud of him. I just love watching him grow and develop and it’s times like this that make me so happy that I am lucky enough to be a SAHM. Because I get to marvel at every teeny tiny development and know that I played a part in his learning and growth.

If you’ve not read my blog before PLEASE don’t take this to be meant as detrimental towards working mummies because it’s not, I firmly believe that every mummy has to make the choice that’s right for them and their families and am not judging the way anyone else chooses to raise their child/ren. But for me, entirely personally, and I know how lucky I am, this is what being a SAHM is all about.

Small steps like this make me feel so PROUD, mainly of him, for it’s his achievement. But a little bit proud of me too, for creating and nurturing this little wonder.

The Stick Collector

Posted by Caroline Elliott

We were out and about on Saturday. We popped to a local garden centre where we are members so get offer on lunches etc. After lunch we started to walk home but our bossy little Monkey kept disagreeing with us about which way to go. As we weren’t in a particular hurry we let him be in charge for a little while so we headed in the direction of our local country park, Ferry Meadows, which we go to a lot because it’s close and there’s lot to do.

Anyway we were walking along (thankfully the rain had passed for a bit) and we suddenly realised that Monkey was carrying a lot of sticks. Now he loves sticks, it’s not rare for him to get quite attached to sticks. They are regular companions on walks, they are a great motivational tool if he doesn’t want to walk any further (wow, come look at this stick!) and I constantly seem to find bits of stick at home, in our shoes, down the back of the sofa, etc.

What was unusual though was the quantity of sticks. So we watched for a bit and realised he was collecting them. Every time he passed a stick he picked it up! With the crazy weather of late (especially the mental winds on Friday night) I’m sure you can imagine there was a loooot of sticks about! It was so cute to see him problem solving with each new one, finding a way to keep hold of them all while picking another one up. Daddy and I thought it was brilliant 🙂

The funniest bit was when all of a sudden he sort of looked at the sticks as if to say to himself “What AM I doing?” and then dropped them on the floor and continued his walk. So funny.

A little while later he started collecting again, and the same cycle continued. He then tried to pick up a huuuge stick, then found one that was about his size and was content to use just that one for a while.

Daddy thinks he looks like Moses in this pic! he he

We went all the way to Ferry Meadows but then the winds were getting up, the clouds were starting to look a bit foreboding, it was nearly naptime and Monkey had done a poo. Despite all of this Monkey still didn’t want to go home so we had to strap in the buggy (with a lot of protesting) and thankfully a couple of little sticks kept him entertained most of the way home 🙂 Just in time as the heavens opened within a few minutes of getting home! Monkey was obviously very tired after all that problem solving and stick collecting as he slept for 3 hours and we had to wake him up! 🙂

Free (ish) indoor fun – 20 mths

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Hasn’t this year just been RIDICULOUSLY wet so far? Honestly! Our little part of the country is by no means the worst hit, if anything we’ve got off fairly lightly, but there has still been far too many rainy days for my liking! I make no secret of the fact that I have to get out of the house every day for the sake of my sanity. Even the prospect of an entire day at home with just Monkey and I is enough to put me in a grump. So rainy days are not good for me, far too much time spent indoors. We’ve still got out and about a lot in between all the rain but there has also been a lot of time spent playing indoors.

All this time spent indoors has led to a lot of clutching at straws for things to do, without spending a fortune on toys. He has got a lot of toys of course but there’s only so much variety and he is always looking for something new to do. So here is a little list of some of the things that have been keeping Monkey occupied without spending any money!

Since we started getting Monkey involved in cooking and baking (to help with the fussy eating) he loves it in there and wants to be stood on his little step stool at the worktop ALL the time. So we spend a lot of time in the kitchen these days, which is where many of these activities take place. This is also great as it may give you ways of keeping your little one occupied if like Monkey they tend to harass you while you’re cooking dinner!

Filling and pouring. We do this with lentils, rice, flour, pasta, anything really. We have a little funnel, an empty vanilla extract bottle, an empty spice jar as well as bigger bowls and cups etc. It goes everywhere but he loves it and it’s easily tidied up with a dustbuster! 🙂 He puts things in bottles, he tips them out, he moves them from one thing to another, just a great way to learn how things work really. He plays with some chopped vegetables and potato peeling etc. too.

Spaghetti is great for them to explore – Monkey loves posting it through a Colander (great for fine motor controls) and snapping it and sorting it and putting it in the bottle or jar. We’ve also played with cooked spaghetti which is fun.

Stacking and sorting. We got some cheap ikea cups and bowls ages ago which stack really nicely and Monkey loves organising things! Tins are a great way of keeping him occupied at the moment, he loves making a tower of tins! It concerns me when the towers get tall that the heavy tins will fall on him, but so far so good.

Banging – cake tins, saucepans, bowls, spoons, so simple but so much fun. Monkey was loving this the other day and I got some of his musical instrument toys involved too and we had a fantastic impromptu music session in the kitchen. Lots of fun!

Oh and spoons make a great noise when they are dropped on the floor! 🙂

The kitchen isn’t the only place with fun to be had though, who doesn’t love a den?

Cardboard boxes are great too, we’ve had one for so long now that it’s lost all shape and doesn’t stand up unless you hold it, but Monkey still loves crawling through it as a tunnel and drawing on it.

I really hope this weather improves soon but in the meantime why not check out some of the other indoor play ideas we have had fun with in the past.

Playtime with household objects (ages 6 mths +)

Parcel tape play

Playing with velcro hair rollers and straws

Becoming a Stay at Home Mum

Can I really do this?

Playtime

A mini photographer #wotsofunee

Playing with Cloud Dough – 21 months

Listening to Music in the car

Through the eyes of a child #ThePrompt

Monkey’s Tin Can Tower – 21 months

Creative Challenge Linky #1

Right, now it’s your turn to link up your posts, and tell me all about your Creative Challenge!

Here’s how this works.

Running down hills

Our little builder – 20 mths

The Stick Collector

Free (ish) indoor fun – 20 mths