Playing with Cloud Dough – 16 months old

Posted by Caroline Elliott

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been searching for playtime inspiration, largely on Pinterest, lately. So this is the first post of ideas inspired by things I have found on Pinterest – Cloud Dough!

Now I have never heard of this before but it is genius and fills a hole in our playtime perfectly. With the change of the weather and the rain recently Monkey’s sand table was getting really gross, so it got washed out last weekend and we haven’t bought any replacement sand for it, but you can see he misses it. Whenever we go out in the back garden to run around and chalk he goes to where the table was and looks lost for a few seconds before moving onto something else.

So anyway, I came across this stuff called Cloud Dough. Simply you mix 8 parts flour with 1 part baby oil, until it is like the consistency of breadcrumbs. What you are left with is flour that is quite silky and resembles wet sand, in that you can press it together and it stays a bit firm.

When Granny came around the other day I decided to give it a go with him. I had thought it may be ok to use indoors but I am soooo glad we decided to use it in the garden! Thankfully the weather has been a lot warmer the last few days too so he is really enjoying it.

As you can see in the pictures, he loves it!! Yes our garden is a mess and flour now seems to be infiltrating every part of our lives but he is loving it. Having said that if we still had the sand pit I am sure he wouldn’t need this. Makes a change though. Oh and he is very much in a transporting faze, which means he picks things up and then drops them somewhere else! I think when he is a bit older it may work more indoors as he may not be so intent on carrying it around with him!

We’ve also had fun burying toy dolphins etc. so he can find them, and all the usual things sand is great for 🙂

Parcel Tape play and a slightly longer attention span! Age 16 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I had to share this random half an hour of playtime we had yesterday!,I had to tape up a parcel to send back and Monkey was intrigued by the parcel tape. He used to be scared by tape, of any kind, he hated the noise of it, so I was a bit surprised by his interest!

Anyway as you can see in the pics, he loved it. Pulling it out to hear the noise, swinging the tape round, scrunching it into balls, and yep stuffing my shoes with tape! Comfy! Cheap and fun way to spend half an hour!

In general Monkey’s attention span has definitely grown and he can play with things for a lot longer which is great! We still try and get out of the house as much as possible but playtime in the house is a lot more fun these days as it lasts longer! Chalk is possibly still his favourite thing and as long as the weather is ok we let him loose in the garden with it. He also loves colouring with crayons, although colouring is limited to the conservatory at the moment to try and avoid crayon marks throughout the house! Let’s see how long that lasts eh? hehe

Monkey is also massively into playing with cars these days too, which we love! Hence buying the toy garage with a big ramp on ebay. He is dead cute pushing cars around the floor and down the ramp it’s brilliant.

His coordination is also so much improved and he is doing really well with his stacking rings and the various puzzles he has. He understands so much more of what we say now too, even though he still says no words himself.

I have been scouring the internet, mainly on Pinterest to be honest, looking for other mummy’s great ideas for playtime. I have a few and will hopefully be sharing them soon if I organise myself enough! 🙂

Containing the mess – finger painting in the bath – 15 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

We recently moved Monkey out of his highchair and onto a booster seat at the dining table for mealtimes. He is loving sitting at the table and meal times have been a bit better so it was definitely time to make the move. One of the problems with this though is when it comes to messy, creative, activities. While he was sat in his highchair, the mess was basically contained to him and his tray. At the table it gets spread all over the place. Plus he used to sit so comfortably in his high chair but now is such a fidget bum (one of the reasons we made the change to booster seat) and once he’s eaten, he wants to get down. He’s not really happy sitting anywhere for any length of time really!

So what to do? I don’t want to stop doing all the creative, messy things, but my heart flutters when I think what those little hands can do with a load of finger paints in our lovely house! So I have been trying to work out what best to do. Obviously there is outside. We play with his chalk outside, which he loves, and he is learning that it doesn’t get any further into the house than the conservatory. We also play with sand and water etc. outside. But finger paints add a whole other layer of mess don’t they? If I get a bit of sand or water on me while cleaning him, then no big deal, but I don’t really want to get covered in paint. Also, where do I clean him? The outside tap is on the front of the house so it would mean running round the front with him, but let’s face it, that water is pretty darn cold! Do I try and carry him in the house, hands under his arms, dangling him in front of me trying to avoid paint getting on everything?

It is these things that have led to the finger paints staying firmly shut away for a while! Then after getting a comment from Gill last week (I hope you’re reading Gill :)) I had an idea! The bathroom! If I set him up in the bath with the paints then he can make as much mess as he likes and then I can just hose it (and him) down afterwards with the shower! Definitely worth a go,

Note: I do this with homemade paints where the colour is food colouring and so washes off things easily. I can’t recommend doing it with bought paints unless you want to do a tiny patch test somewhere first to see if it comes off!

I set aside some time at home one day to give this a go. Unfortunately though, because the finger paints hadn’t been used in a while they had gone mouldy in the cupboard (yuk). So whilst Monkey ate his snack I quickly whipped up some more. The recipe is here, sooo easy.

Anyway, I have to say it really was a success, as you can see in the photos! He only lasted in there about 15-20 minutes, but that’s about as long as he does anything for, so not too bad. I know it’s a lot of effort to go to, both before and after, but it was definitely a lot of fun. He also hated being cleaned afterwards, but then he never likes to be cleaned so nothing new there.

Most importantly though, it came off the bathroom tiles with no problem. There are some ever so slight colour stains on the grout but nothing that concerns me or hubby too much. I’m sure it would probably come off if I bleached it anyway but you can’t even see it unless you really look. I used a load of old towels for the rest of the bathroom and had to wipe my hands on those a bit but basically the mess was contained! Woohoo! Here is our little artist having fun with his paints in the bath! He ended up a bit blue afterwards but again it’s only food colouring so I’m not too fussed 🙂

Learning to climb and an obsession with chalk! 15 months old

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Before the summer holidays I had been regularly taking Monkey to a Tumbletots class. While he loved running around and the singing and dancing and some of the equipment, a lot of the equipment was too advanced for him really. He could not get the idea of climbing on rungs! He’s been able to climb the stairs at home for a while, but mainly on his knees, and if we tried to help him walk the stairs he would a really funny straight leg high kick type climb up the stairs!

Over the summer we have been spending a lot more time at play parks, so I have been encouraging him to climb. Not in a pushy parent type of way (at least I hope not) but I have been guiding his feet onto steps and supporting him from behind to make sure he doesn’t fall while he got the hang of proper climbing! The result has been fantastic. He is now doing so well and shot up a climbing frame with huge steps the other day! I was then a nervous wreck as I was terrified he would fall off one of the open sides but he did well and is also getting much better at coming down the slide, which he loves!

Aside from climbing, Monkey has a new love. Chalk. He is a bit obsessed with it! When we were on holiday there was a little chalk board on the play area and he loved it and his scribbling really improve – to be actual scribbles rather than just hitting the board like he did initially. On a recent trip to Ikea we bought him a chalk board and some chalks, which we have put in the conservatory, which has become kind of a play area for him where he can be a bit messy as it’s only old stuff we have in there.

Even though it is old stuff though we are very much trying to keep the chalk marks on the blackboard, and not on the sofa, rug, table, floor, door, etc. etc. The difficulty with this is that whenever we are in there I am saying ‘No’ all the time as he tests his boundaries. When the weather is ok I let him in the garden with the chalk and he has a bit more of a free rein because, let’s face it, chalk washes off! I don’t know if this confuses the matter for him though? Anyway the one rule is that he is not allowed it into the house so at the conservatory door, if he wants to play in the lounge then he must give mummy the chalk.

Well, we have had some serious tantrums over the relinquishing of the chalk! He gets so so unhappy and is then looking for it everywhere while crying. No matter how much I try to reason with him and say he can have it in the conservatory but can’t take it with him everywhere he goes, he just doesn’t listen and wails and throws himself on the floor. Most of the time I can distract him with something, though there are times when that takes a lot of effort as he is distracted for a few seconds and then starts thinking about the chalk again! Seriously he is a bit obsessed with the stuff!

So it becomes a battle of willpower and I am not going to give in to him as a) that teaches him that if he pushes hard enough he will get his own way, and b) I really don’t want chalk marks throughout the house! Hopefully the obsessed phase will end soon and he will play with it without getting massively attached to it. I really hope so anyway!

In other news he has discovered a new perspective on the world, by bending over and looking at the view upside down from between his knees, it must be fascinating as he keeps doing it. Oh and he also loves the blackberry crumble I made using blackberries from Granny’s garden! As you can see in this picture!

Haircut at the hairdressers, a film festival and granny square blanket update

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I have mentioned before that we have been cutting Monkey’s hair ourselves so far. I don’t think we’ve done too bad a job of it, but he has got a very thick and heavy mop, bless him, and in the hot weather we have had recently it must have been hot. When I was having my fringe cut a few weeks ago my hairdresser mentioned his hair to me (having seen some pictures on facebook) and said they would only charge a few pound to cut it, so I thought maybe it was time to get it done properly, and maybe to have it thinned out a but. Of course though I was still concerned about whether he would sit still, scream his head off, pull off the gown and generally come out looking worse than when we went in because of his wriggling. We’ve cut his hair twice at home but it is looking as long as ever at the moment!

Pre-haircut

On Saturday morning we went to the hairdressers, fully prepared with the portable DVD player and postman pat (about the only thing that will keep him sitting still – ever) and some yummy flapjack for him to nosh on. He sat on daddy’s knee and actually he did quite well. The gown didn’t last more than a few seconds (as anticipated!) but other than that he was a very good boy. He wasn’t keen on his fringe and the sides being cut and got upset a few times. It was also quite amusing to see that if she was cutting around the left side of his face he would lean further and further to the right! He gave her a few sharp looks too, as if to say ‘Who are you and what do you think you’re doing?’ We left the salon all covered in his hair but with a lovely grownup haircut.

His new haircut

We then went for a picnic at a film festival at a local country house, Burghley. The Disney film Tangled was on and it was a lovely day. Monkey had lots of fun playing with his nanny and grandpops and being very lovely in general 🙂 I would like to say that stickers are one of the best inventions for entertaining a toddler. He will sit for a good 10 mins (which is an eternity in toddler time) sometimes, pulling stickers off and sticking them on himself and pulling them off, etc. etc. repeat. Genius way to occupy him nicely and quietly 🙂 It helps that I managed to buy a book of 2000 stickers for 99p at a local discount shop last week!

It was a very busy day for me, as one of my friends bought me a theatre ticket to see Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in London, for my birthday. So after the film festival and once Monkey was home for his nap, I hopped on the train to London to meet my friend and go to the theatre. It all got a bit hectic as we got caught in a post football crush and had to run most of the way to the theatre (including up the steps at Covent Garden, ouch) and they only just let us in as we were 10 mins late. Was a really good show though and nice to see my friend, but I got home from London at about 12:30am and was shattered! Good to do some me things sometimes though, rather than just mummy things.

Oh yes and a little update on the blanket I mentioned previously. I haven’t mentioned my crochet for a while, mainly because there hasn’t been much interesting to say! But I have been busily beavering away, crocheting as many squares as possible. I reached 100 a couple of weeks ago, which felt really good! Now I am at 135 squares, so just 33 left to go before I reach the target of 168 – which would make for a blanket of 14×14 squares. Here is a picture of the 135 laid out (on the horrible old conservatory rug). They will probably not end up in that order but something as random as that is the idea. Hopefully it will be only a couple more weeks of making squares, then I need to decide how to put them all together (sew or crochet?) and then put a border round the end. It is definitely keeping me occupied in the evenings! Will let you know when I have finished the squares, as then I will have a decision or two to make!

A chaotic house full of toddlers, babies and mummies!

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Being the summer holidays a lot of our baby classes are closed for a while, so my other mummy friends and I have been seeing a lot of each other. When the weather is good we go to a local park where there is a paddling pool, when it is wet we try some indoor play places and we have been taking it in turns to host everyone at our houses. This week was my turn.

There are 4 mummies (including me), three almost 2 1/2 year olds, Monkey who is 14 months, a 7 month old and a 4 month old. As you can imagine it gets a bit loud and chaotic. It started off ok, as the older ones play with each other a bit, but bless Monkey, he was a bit bewildered by all the people and noise. It must be hard for him, one minute he’s playing with mummy and then the next minutes there are bigger kids playing with his toys, and mummy is chatting to other people and cooing over babies. It definitely overwhelmed him a bit, we meet up a lot out and about but I guess it is different when it is his house, and his toys.

It also doesn’t help that unfortunately one of the older little boys has been going through a slightly, er, feisty (?) stage and Monkey is very nervous of him at the moment. He’s a lovely little boy but at the last time we met up he had quite a shout at Monkey when he wanted to play with the toy he had, and hit it out of his hands. For little Monkey I imagine that was quite scary. Of course my friend stepped in and she has had a good chat with her little boy and his behaviour is definitely improving. It’s hard for her too as nobody wants their child to behave like that, it’s just a phase and yet another challenge for us mummies to deal with!

Anyway he was a lot better at our house but I think Monkey was still pretty wary of him from the previous time, which just didn’t help his general mood. Monkey is definitely in a bit of a mummy’s boy phase at the moment too so he was quite upset initially and around lunchtime. Thankfully though, after lunch he cheered up and was playing nicely out in the paddling pool and sand pit which I had set up in the shade. We then all trooped upstairs for the kiddies to play with some more toys up there and so I could show off our newly decorated bedroom to my friends. There was a really cute moment where one of the 2 year olds was curled up in a chair with a spot book, another sat on the floor, and the third playing on a piano floor toy while Monkey was playing with a puzzle. (At this point the 4 month old was nicely dozing and the 7 month old having a cuddle with his mummy – who has very strong arm muscles! :))

I had made some apple puree ice lollies (basically just frozen some pureed apples in ice lolly moulds) which went down a storm! Monkey wasn’t 100% keen and another of the toddlers didn’t seem to like the texture, but the other toddlers loved it. It was also a real winner with the 7 month old who is teething and just getting going with weaning, He loved it and scoffed the whole thing! Brilliant and I’m glad it worked as you never know with this kind of thing whether kids wouldn’t like them as they are obviously not as sweet as normal ice lollies.

We set the older toddlers up with some ice painting outside, and they really enjoyed it, it certainly kept them quiet for a while…. but then we realised that one of them had found an old paintbrush and used it to spread the red food colouring paint through the conservatory, onto the wooden door frames into the dining room and on the dining room walls. Oops! His mummy was mortified bless her, but I wasn’t too worried as we haven’t decorated the conservatory and the doorframe needs painting anyway. I’ll admit I blanched a little at the dining room wall, although it would just need painting over, but thankfully it all come off with just baby wipes so all is well that ends well, and the lesson is not to leave them alone with the ice paints hehe!

Watching all the little ones interact with each other was really lovely as they are all such different characters. Monkey wants to prod the babies, and is just a bit wary and in awe of the older toddlers. The toddlers are now starting to really play with each other. The two girls really liked monkey’s backpack, which has a parent handle attached to it, like reins. They were taking it in turns to put it on and walk each other around the garden, and were pretending they were dogs. So cute! Then the older little boy was playing with the 7 month old so gently and then gave him a cuddle and said “I’m really proud of you” just so cute! Even the lovely little 4 month old was in on the action as the older girls were trying to rock her to sleep in her seat and making her giggle.

So yes, it was chaos, my house is full of crumbs and wet muddy sandy footprints but it’s nothing that can’t be cleaned, and it was just a lovely day. All us mummies got to catch up too and we are going to try and have a weekly evening swim and are hoping to find a cheap deal for a spa day together to get some down time. In the meantime though I am very grateful I have such lovely friends with lovely kiddies and I am looking forward to watching them all grow up together!

Homemade finger paints take 2 – age 14 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

So I tried making homemade finger paints about 5 months ago (wow) when monkey was 9 months old and I wasn’t hugely successful. I’m not sure where I went wrong but the paint was a bit too solid and in all honesty, Monkey wasn’t really ready for it anyway. I decided to wait until he was a bit older and give it another go. After the way he was looking at his hands and putting his hands on the sheet during Ice Cube Painting I decided that perhaps the time was now!

I found another recipe on a different blog, here. According to her page, it could have been too gloopy last time because there was too much cornflour in it. Anyway here is the recipe I tried this time, converted into English. (By the way found a great conversion page for translating from cups to metric, here :))

3 tbsp. Sugar
1/2 tsp. Salt
1/2 cup Cornflour (65g)
2 cups water (480ml)

Put all the ingredients into a saucepan, warm until it thickens. Cool and pour into containers (I used empty baby food jars that I have been saving for ages till I was ready to try this again). Add food colouring. I used mainly gel food colouring this time to get stronger colours so we’ll see how much it stains hands and clothing etc!

The mixture seemed a bit better this time although when I opened the jars a day or two later it had solidified and I had to give it a good star to mush it into more paint like consistency. I used an old wooden chopstick for this rather than a spoon in the tiny jars.

I tried him with just three colours at first, and just on his highchair tray, rather than with paper, to see how he got on. He really enjoyed it! Smooshing the colours all around, making patterns by hitting the tray and he was really interested in the paint on his hands. It did stain his hands purple for a few hours but after some playtime in sand water outside it was gone. It also came off the highchair, and even our nice wooden table when a little bit got on to there, so I was very pleased about that!

The next time I gave him some paper too so he could do handprints but honestly I don’t think he was bothered whether there was paper there or not! He still had fun though so great activity at this age, even if it does make a fair bit of mess! 🙂

The realities of playtime with a tiny toddler

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I wrote this post in the summer, when Monkey was 14 months old, but it seems apt for the theme of ‘Play’ for this week’s The Theme Game:

Right it is time to be honest here, keeping a little one entertained for longer than a few minutes at a time is practically impossible. I was going to say 5 minutes but hubby felt (and I agreed) that 5 mins was too ambitious, so a few minutes is more realistic. If you have read much of my blog you will know that I am trying out a lot of different play ideas with my monkey. He is constantly on the go and looking for things to do so I try really hard to find knew ways for him to learn through play.

I spend a lot of time (in short bursts between looking after monkey and trying to keep the house clean-ish) perusing the internet, via pinterest, other blogs and baby sites to get ideas. I read books and was even given a set of cards with things to do. Many of the ideas are common sense, such as ‘go outside’. Honestly I spend so much time outside as there is free entertainment out there in the form of oh, daisies, stones, mud … anything on the ground….. But these places do come up with some gems that I like to try out but really you have no idea if your little one will be ready for it developmentally, or will get bored uber quickly, or like it, until their attention is taken by something else.

Because, in reality, to fill a day of playing at home, you have to try out so many different things. In the space of an hour yesterday, we did some finger painting, played with play-doh, danced around to some music, played with the clothes pegs (basically spreading them around the room while I tried in vain to get him to “put them back” which I know he understands but complies with intermittently) played with his new kitchen, used mummy as a climbing frame, went in the garden (even though it was starting to rain, I was getting desperate) and played in the very wet sand pit, dug in the dirt, played in the sand and water a bit more, then as he was now filthy and it was nearly nap time, had a bit of a play sorting bottles out in the bath while I washed off the debris from playtime.

Whilst all this is happening I’m also trying to clean up the mess made my some of these activities, scrubbing a potential stain from the finger paints on our lovely dining table (I hadn’t realised he’d got paint on the bottom of his drink bottle until after it had sat on the table for a few mins – thankfully it came off though), trying to pick up all the teeny bits of play-doh off the floor as he likes too tear it up and spread it around the room (we confine this activity to the conservatory thankfully so it doesn’t get walked through the house), pull play-doh out of my hair and pick up the clothes pegs (until he sees they are back in the basket and decides to up-end it again -this was the point that we went outside). I’m sure this is all sounding very very familiar to the other mummies out there!

An hour or so of this I am ok with, but when faced with an entire day at home is it any wonder I go wibbly at the knees? It is fun, don’t get me wrong, but oh, so, tiring. Hence, this morning when my friend text me at 7:30am (I know if I get a text at this time of the morning that it will be another mummy) and suggested we go to the park for the day, I jumped at the chance! I had been sat contemplating my options for the day ahead and was relieved to be able to go and entertain him outside on the play area, in the sand pit and in the paddling pool there. Of course I also take stickers, a ball and other toys for when he is bored of those activities! 🙂 Plus it is nice to have a good natter with my friend and talk about our ups and downs, much more fun than taking the monkey on my own. He is making lots of word-like sounds at the moment but as yet he is not much of a conversationalist.

My point, ah yes, I don’t really have one, other than to any other mummy who puts in the effort of making homemade paints, play-doh etc, only to have the little one play for a couple of mins at a time, you are not alone! I have found lots of places to find the ideas of things to do, but very few people realistically saying, that this may entertain them for a max of 5 minutes. Who knows, maybe it is just my Monkey, maybe he is going to grow up to have ADHD or something? Though I have read that a short attention span is normal so I hope not. Either way though I will continue to try things out as I know that eventually he will play longer by himself and be occupied by something for a slightly longer period. Bring on that day is all I can say 🙂

Summer activity – Ice Cube Painting age 14 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Some time ago when browsing Pinterest for things to do with the Monkey (thanks Jocelyn for suggesting it, there are so many ideas on there) I cam across a picture of people Ice cube painting. Now when I said that to hubby he thought I meant painting onto ice cubes, which, lets face it, would be a bit ridiculous and pointless. Nope, ice cube painting is painting with ice cubes. The blog I read talked about mixing some paint with water and freezing it. I thought that food colouring would work just as well, and be safe for monkey, and have been waiting to have a go.

Now it is the summer holidays and none of our baby classes are running for a couple of months we do have a bit more spare time to feel so I set about making up some coloured ice. I used a mixture of gel and liquid food colouring as I wasn’t sure how they would turn out. I used a bit too much of the pink gel one to start with (see the really dark coloured ones!) and learnt as I went along, anyway, I think they turned out ok in the end.

Before being frozen

Ice cube paints, ready to go

I have seen recently pictures where people have frozen them with lollipop sticks in so you can have a handle, and I can see how that would work, but I didn’t have any, and I also am not sure if Monkey would then think it was an Ice lolly!

As it was so hot today and we were at a bit of a loose end this morning I decided this would be the perfect time to give it a go. I just got a few ice cubes out in case he hated it, as he does take a few tries at some things, and decided to use an old sheet to paint on, as I guess paper would go soggy pretty quickly!

Monkey actually took to it pretty quickly. He finds ice lollies quite amusing and I think he had the same kind of feeling with the ice cubes. One of them turned his hands a bit blue which he found really interesting, and he then pressed his hands onto the sheet (makes me think it’s time to try finger paints again).

He played with it a bit and then wandered off to do something else, and then came back again. Let’s face it, at this age, attention spans of more than a few minutes at a time is good going and he did definitely enjoy it so we shall be doing it again I am sure.

A very lovely family holiday

Posted by Caroline Elliott

The Theme for The Theme Game this week is Holiday. I planned on writing a new post but didn’t get much further than writing “I really need a holiday.” So as a one line post would be a bit dull, here is a look back to our holiday last year and the post I wrote on our return, with some pictures of sunny days to get us through the dreary end of February 🙂

So we are back from our week in the sun and we really had an amazingly lovely time as a family. The hotel we stayed at was great and very family oriented, so there was lots of shade around the pool area, a fantastic kiddy play area and lovely little kids pool. Before we left I wrote a post about the planning and preparations for our holiday, and I have to admit even I thought I was taking the planning and prep a bit far. I spent so much time thinking about every eventuality and it felt like I was taking everything bar the kitchen sink! But honestly in hindsight I wouldn’t do it differently. I really think all my planning helped us to have a really relaxed week.

The view from our balcony

The journey out – the worst bit of the week

If anything, this was the most stressful part of the holiday. As our flight was very early on Tuesday morning we booked a hotel at the airport for the Monday night. So on Monday afternoon, at Monkey’s naptime we headed out. We thought this would be perfect timing as he would sleep on the way to the hotel. We left the house and immediately an engine warning light pops up on my car. We pull over a couple of mins down the road, and by this time Monkey has already zonked in the back bless him! Get the car book out and it says to turn the engine on and off a few times and it should go away unless there is a serious problem. Do this and nope still there. By now we are panicking slightly as we have only just bought hubby’s car and so not done any real drives in it, and haven’t bought any kind of breakdown cover for it, we only have this for my car. One last try and the light goes out, thank goodness for that, we are on our way! Unfortunately monkey didn’t sleep the whole way as we hoped but with the help of a music cd in the car he managed without too much screaming.

After a slightly stressful and exhausting trip from the holiday parking to the hotel, via a bus and a longer than expected walk up a hill, across a couple of busy roads and then down a very steep slope, (with a buggy, two suitcases, a hand luggage case on wheels and 2 other big bags) we got to the hotel and was all fine. After only a little bit of protesting Monkey slept fine over night and the trip to the airport in the morning wasn’t too bad either (at least we knew what the walk to the bus stop had in store for us by now!) Monkey was good as gold at the airport, we had breakfast and checked in and we were fine until boarding. We got on the plane and got out some bits to keep monkey entertained – the stickers worked a treat!

The problem was that there was a slight mix up with someone’s ticket and two people with the same surname ended up being allocated the same seats and for some reason involving checking the amount of luggage on board the plane, we had to sit in the plane, on the tarmac for an hour before taking off. We used up our best entertainment material during this time so when we eventually took off, Monkey was thoroughly bored of being sat and restrained on mummy’s lap! Once we were up in the air we resorted to the trusty portable DVD player and monkey very much enjoyed watching Postman Pat, until it was nearly time to land and he unexpectedly dozed off in my lap for landing. Not what we thought would happen but it did work well and helped us for the rest of the journey. After a bit of a wait we got the bus to the resort and started to get used to our surroundings.

Because of his impromptu nap in the morning, and the new surroundings, Monkey didn’t sleep in the afternoon at all and this led to a slightly stressful afternoon with an unhappy monkey and rather fraught parents! Not the best start to our holiday but we tried to make the best of it. Tea time was particularly difficult, not helped by a really grumpy woman at the next table who kept staring, shaking her head, tutting and generally judging us throughout the meal! Not what I needed and I was pretty unhappy after that. We got ourselves some wine and nibbles and decided to let monkey have a slightly early night and settle ourselves down for a night on the balcony. We were lucky to get a lovely view over the bar and pool area so even though we were on the balcony the whole time, we felt like we were still part of the atmosphere.

The rest of the week – fun times and friendly people

There was obviously ups and downs throughout the week, as there is at home, but for the most part we had a really lovely time. Most of the people we came into contact with were really lovely and very friendly. We got very friendly with a few other families who all had little ones ranging from 10-12 months which was really lovely. Nice to have people to empathise with the difficult bits and enjoy the good bits of the first family holiday, all from a similar perspective. Monkey loved the play area and he really enjoyed the pool which we were quite surprised about. Considering how clingy he has been when we have been swimming at home, he was brilliant in the pool there. It may be something to do with the depth as he could stand in it, or potentially seeing other kids enjoying it, but whatever it was he loved it. From day one he was itching to get in there and even though it was pretty freezing (before the sun had a chance to heat it up) he was loving being in there, walking around, being whizzed around by daddy, kicking his little legs, and being splashed up and down. It was brilliant fun for all of us.

Our first trip to the beach was less successful, mainly because monkey had a cold. We thought he wasn’t quite himself, but it’s always difficult to know whether to abandon plans or give it a go. We decided to give it a go, and he was fairly happy initially, but he doesn’t really like the sun in his eyes (not that we can get him to wear a hat or sunglasses for more than 30s, which would help!) and then gradually he just got really unhappy. He eventually fell asleep in his buggy, in the morning, which he Never does. He still kept his afternoon nap too which is very unusual if he has had a brief snooze in the morning, so he obviously needed it! Our next trip to the beach was much more successful, even though this was to the beach nearest hotel which is a 10 min walk down a load of steps and steep hills. Carrying him back up the steps and hills was exhausting but it was worth it as we had a lovely morning at the beach and he really enjoyed making sandcastles and paddling in the sea 🙂

After a couple of days eating and sleeping settled down as well, mealtimes were still a bit iffy at times, but that’s just how mealtimes are for us at the moment I think, as I have posted before! Bath time and bedtime were lovely though and he settled really easily so hubby and I could enjoy some downtime on the balcony with cocktails/sangria/wine. Just lovely really. We also took it in turns to be upstairs with him during naptimes in the afternoons so we could each enjoy the pool and hubby even had a massage by the pool one afternoon! Very nice to leave behind all the jobs and chores for a week and really have a good relax 🙂

The journey home – not the best end

Our lovely week drew to an end – far too quickly – and we packed up and headed home. All not too bad really, although Monkey fell over at the airport and got a massive cut on his lip, poor thing, just landed badly but shook him up a bit. Then there was some weird problem with air traffic control in the UK which meant our flight wasn’t allowed to leave and was delayed by over an hour. Not great when it is around naptime and Monkey is getting cranky. Then we got on the plane and ended up sat on the tarmac for ages again, honestly never known anything like it! Monkey fell asleep as we took off though and slept most of the way home. Unfortunately all of these delays meant we hit the M1 at rush hour (fun) and then there was an accident on the A1 and we sat in a queue of traffic for an hour and a half until it was cleared. Aaaargh! I just want to get home!! Again though, thank goodness for the DVD player and postman pat, definitely helped, although it was now way past monkey’s bedtime by the time we got home. So not the best ending to what was a fantastic week, but certainly didn’t ruin it, and we have lots of lovely memories of Monkey’s first holiday 🙂

Becoming a Stay at Home Mum

Can I really do this?

Playtime

Playing with Cloud Dough – 16 months old

Parcel Tape play and a slightly longer attention span! Age 16 months

Containing the mess – finger painting in the bath – 15 months

Learning to climb and an obsession with chalk! 15 months old

Haircut at the hairdressers, a film festival and granny square blanket update

A chaotic house full of toddlers, babies and mummies!

Homemade finger paints take 2 – age 14 months

The realities of playtime with a tiny toddler

Summer activity – Ice Cube Painting age 14 months

A very lovely family holiday