Siblings, December 2015

Posted by Caroline Elliott

My little cuties really grow and change so much each day, let alone each month, and their relationship grows with them. In many ways they are the same as last month, they are still very possessive of me and fight for mummy cuddles. As evidenced by Monkey’s most frequently uttered phrase at the moment “But I want you all the time!” and though she isn’t really verbal yet we get the idea that with her whines LM is essentially saying the same thing haha.

They fight for toys and wind each other up in the way that only siblings can, but they are also so so loving with each other and have a lot of fun together. They chase each other round playing hide and seek and laughing away at each other and it is music to my ears, especially compared to the whining, shouting and screaming that sometimes accompanies their playtime. Here is a little video of them having fun before bathtime this evening, just a little glimpse into their random world.

They get up to a lot of mischief together too. LM loves a good box of tissues… and one day monkey couldn’t resist joining in the fun. Cheeky pair honestly but I have to admit we did let this unfold for a bit… they were just having so much fun together!

One of their favourite places to play together is on Monkey’s bed, randomly enough. LM loves climbing up and sitting on his bed and they are so cute when they sit together or snuggle up… or play about like loons. Monkey quite enjoys bouncing on the bed and she generally finds this hilarious too.

They have so much fun though occasionally it ends in tears. Monkey was bouncing yesterday and singing about Monkey’s bouncing on the bed. Next second we hear a thunk, LM is on the floor crying and Monkey is pointing at her singing “one fell off and bumped his head… Mummy called the Dr and the Dr said, no more Monkeys bouncing on the bed!” Ah the joys eh ? Thankfully she didn’t actually hurt herself too badly!

Cuties though 🙂

The Stick Collectors

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Monkey has always had a thing for sticks, I think a lot of kids do don’t they? When he was I think 20mths old I wrote a post about his little obsession after one particular walk where he was collecting hundreds of the things. It was just so funny watching him that we named him the stick collector. Why am I telling you this? Well it seems a love of sticks runs in the family, as on a recent little walk LM reminded me so so much of her big brother as she started collecting sticks too.

I actually really loved watching her pick and choose which ones she wanted and it is also wonderful to see her learning and working out how to hold them all, how to open her fingers to take one more without dropping all of the others. The concentration on her face is adorable.

Monkey was not to be outdone though and showed his little sister that he is still the master stick collector, insisting I take pictures of him collecting them too.

She found their stick collections hilarious.

Monkey then decided they should have a little sort of sword fight with their sticks, and man did she find that funny! I was obviously constantly warning him to be gentle, and keeping a close watch in case he got close to poking her eye out but with them both enjoying themselves so much I couldn’t bear to spoil their fun.

Love this pair and love her chuckling 🙂

Christmas Crafts with a pre-schooler

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Tuesday mornings is Mummy & Monkey time while LM is out with my parents at rhyme time, and it is often a time when the messy play or crafts come out as it means she can’t interfere or eat things she shouldn’t! It is also lovely one on one time with my Monkey. Last week we started our Christmas crafting and had a really lovely time.

I never know what crafts to aim for, I see some gorgeous things on pinterest etc. but I know a lot of the work involved would be done by me, so I tend to stick to simple things I know he can achieve and that he enjoys. So we spend a lot of time just finger painting or car painting haha! I decided on quite a simple actiity to start with that I knew he would enjoy. Making a Christmas tree picture. I cut out the triangles but I asked Monkey to snip at the bottom to be the branches and leaves. I thought this would be a good way to practice his scissor skills and I was dead impressed with the little snips he made. They were very deliberate and neat.

Then it was a case of gluing and sticking see pretty bits on, something Monkey loves and does really well. We also stuck some cotton wool on for snow.

Monkey then asked to get the metallic pens out and I confess to thinking this would ruin the picture but he actually did well. I drew some tinsel and he drew some sparkly baubles and stars bless him. This didn’t take long so Monkey and I then had a quick look on pinterest together and he said he wanted a go at some pictures we saw of cotton bud painting, so that was our next activity. I drew somestar shapes and then because he wanted to do it together we dotted and filled them in together. Again I was impressed that he stayed in the lines for the most part. Love seeing his development and he is growing up so much all the time these days!

He then said he would like to do the same type of picture of a snowman and Christmas tree. So I drew the shapes for these (though I loved Monkey’s addition of a hat for the snowman!!) He did well at this though got a bit fixated on the black paint and wanted everything to be black. After a bit of encouragement (and yes a little involvement from me, but not much) we finished the picture then when he wanted to do another picture I let his imagination run a bit more and then even more with the next one!

Bit of of a devolution but who cares he was having lots of fun! I loved the arms he did on snowman no.2 and apparently the bottom one is also a snowman and the dots are his arms :).

Little Miss at 13 mths

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I am a bit late in writing this monthly update for our gorgeous girl as she was 13 mths over a week ago! She is growing up so fast and though she is full on I really love this age. Watching her learn and seeing her really develop into a person with her own personality is just wonderful.

And our Little Miss’s personality can be defined in one word – cheeky! She loves to laugh and is such a cheeky and inquisitive little thing. She adores running and being chased, laughing her little head off. Great fun unless you are in a shopping centre with her brother causing havoc in one direction and her running off in another – aaargh! She also adores playing peepo with her brother, often hiding behind the sofa so he can find her while she chuckles away merrily to herself. In fact she is turning into such a chuckler and it is amazing to hear her laughter fill the house.

She is so inquisitive too, far more than her brother ever was and she gets into everything in a way he just never bothered with. With Monkey you would tell him know and he would listen. With her she gives you this cheeky look and sometimes even shakes her head, then does it again! Minx! She is terrible for taking Monkey’s things and yes you may say she is a baby and she doesn’t know, but oh, she knows. She gets his Doggy Bear (his special comforter) and she is so proud that she waves it around for me to see… and will even go and wave it in his face before running away giggling. Cheeky Minx, seriously!

She stands on things and is obsessed with touching radiators which she knows she is not allowed to do. She is seriously quick off the mark and if one of the door gates hasn’t shut properly then she is off – making a dash to get up the stairs, or into the kitchen to climb the stepstool and see what she can find, or in the hopes of playing in the sink. So I have to be seriously vigilant to keep her safe. She hates being shut out of anywhere I am, standing and rattling the bars and screaming her head off so I often relent and have to do jobs with her accompanying me. Standing washing up with her at the sink with me, or trying to get washing in/out of the washing machine with her ‘help.’

She absolutely adores her brother too and he is guaranteed to make her happy (other than when he snatches his toys back from her, or takes hers!!) and she absolutely loves havng bath time with him, splashing away to their hearts content and absolutely drenching the bathroom!! I absolutely adore seeing their relationship grow and hearing them laugh together and enjoy each other’s company. It’s just magical as I am sure you can imagine.

Not the greatest photo in the world but you get the idea I’m sure

She is learning all of the time, getting really good at using the stacking rings and has even done some drawing on little magnadoodles which I was impressed with. She is obsessed with posting things and putting lids on and off of things – obviously leading to immense frustrations for her at times – and boy do we have the start of tantrums! She can be such a little diva at times and even Monkey is repeating what we say by calling her a drama queen. He also has the way we shout no to her down too… sigh mini parent, he is good at alerting me to some of her cheekiness though! Anyway, she also is starting to love her dolly and buggy which is just adorable. She gets really frustrated by the buggies though and by not being able to put baby’s hat back on after she has taken it off.

She is fascinated/obsessed by clothes, shoes and accessories, we have taken to calling her diddle diddle dumpling sometimes as she will often present us with a shoe and insist we put it on – then walks around with one shoe on for ages! She often wants her hat and coat on too… and any other random item of clothing she lays her hands on. She likes to use some of the bigger stacking rings as bangles too, little cutie 🙂

Her communication is coming on leaps and bounds too, partly with the tantrums and moaning – as she is very loud, but also with little hints at language, and lots of pointing and shaking her head. She is getting very ~~fussy~~ particular about certain things and is getting very good at letting us know what she wants. Bedtime stories makes me laugh as if she is not interested in the book I have chosen she will shake her head and point at one she would like. Usually the same ones – “Where’s Spot,” “That’s not my snowman/dinosaur” or “Baby’s Day.” She adores books actually and often brings them to us to read her.

In addition to pointing and shaking her head she has the start of a few words too – “tickle tickle” being my favourite, along with “uh oh” and there are lots of ohs and ooohs with varying volumes and tones depending how excited she is by something haha. For example whe we came across the shoe aisle in H&M this morning “oooooh! Ooh ooh ooh!” haha which descended into screams as I dragged her away.

She also is saying something resembling “there you go” when she gives you something, which is seriously adorable. It is not that defind, more of a “daredudo” but still so so cute and lovely to see her start to share already.

She is such a snuggly little lady, far more so than her brother ever was at this age, especially with me. She loves to ie with her head in my lap for a good snuggle or sometimes just snuggle herself up on the sofa or in the beanbag. Monkey has gotten a lot more snuggly as he has gotten older so we do now have some lovely times all snuggled up together!

So on the whole, she is just a whole bundle of cheeky adorableness. Yes it can be challenging at times but I want to bottle her up at this age as she melts my heart every day she really does. I love this age, so much fun 🙂

My word of the week is cheeky.

Monkey Says at 3 1/2

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Our little boy is growing up so much all the time and his language skills are growing with him. Pretty incredible when I think he was a little delayed and had no speech at age 2! He now gives everything a good go and even copied “echocardiogram” from Get Well Soon on Cbeebies the other day! He also comes out with some real gems at times too. Some that make me cringe and others that make me laugh out loud. So here are some of the Monkey’s top sayings recently.

“That’s my favourite.” Everything is his favourite. From people to food to things. The Dr is his favourite. His dinner is his favourite. Even his poo has been his favourite (I’m not kidding sadly). It’s actually very endearing when he says “I love Daddy, he’s my favourite” and when he calls LM “my favourite sister.” He also has a couple of children at playgroup who are his favourite too and it is so lovely to hear he is building relationships with other children.

Another endearing one is when he strokes his Daddy’s arm and says “You’ll be OK.” Generally absolutely nothing had happened and Daddy is perfectly happy…. but it is very cute nonetheless!

Less cute is when he copies us and shouts at LM to stop or yells at her that she is naughty. Nothing makes you think about the words coming out of your mouth more than hearing those words come out of a 3yr old’s mouth! That also includes him copying “oh for god’s sake” (we are trying to turn this into for goodness sake) and worst of all copying Daddy when he described a relative as “big fat …” I was less than impressed with that one and thank goodness he hasn’t said it to the person!!

He really likes making up random words at the moment too. Some are quite amusing, “binky banky” for example, some strangely accurate as when he described a car park as danky when yes, actually it was a bit dank. You can probably get there is a theme here and yes he did go through a stage of proclaiming everything was “winky wanky” which I was less than enamoured with! Thankfully we have persuaded him that is a bit of a silly thing to say!!

His imagination is wonderful now, and when he is playing cars or doing car painting he is very often using one to chase another, saying “I’m coming to get you” followed by the other car saying “aaaaaaaaahhh” hehe. You may have seen recently that he loves dressing up as a super hero and he really is so cute – running around saying he is “coming to the rescue!” and once he has rescued something (for example he did a great job of rescuing a welly the other day haha) it is “mission accomrished” with two thumbs up, so a bit of a superhero/postman pat SDS combination!

Mission Accomrished!

He is really inquisitive about the world around him, asking “where do trees come from?” and “what are planes made of?” He wants to know everything and he loves spotting things, the moon being the most recurrent especially at this time of year. We can be in the car and he will suddenly be yelling “look Daddy look it’s the moon!!” and of course we have to reply (as with whenever he tells us anything) or he will just keep repeating it tirelessly until he gets the answer he is looking for! He also thinks every conversation is aimed at him and answers any question he hears, not just those directed at him. So I can be talking to LM or Daddy or someone else and he will answer. He adores Show Me Show Me on the tv (one of my fave progs for the kids) and always answers when Chris and Pui ask questions. The other day he ran over and said “Chris asked me if I like shopping and I told him I did” and was so proud of himself.

A cut? Or Jam???

We love the way he tries to find the language to describe something. For example he had a bit of a sore throat on the weekend and when he had some of Daddy’s warm tea he proclaimed “That was lovely! That made my throat feel not all gone” so cute. Other examples are “I’m getting all filled (full)” “that’s a bit splatty” (paint). During a snuggle on the sofa he decided I have “a lovely cosy bottom” and once when I was getting dressed “that’s a lovely nippley boobie.” Errr, ok, thanks Monkey haha.

After falling tooth-first onto my forhead at the weekend giving me a lovely cut, lump and bruise, Monkey looked at me and said “you’re all cut. It looks a bit like Jam.” Well yes, I suppose it does, a bit!

Now for the funnies. We were watching Toy Story 2 the other day and when the man came to mend Woody’s arm, Monkey decided the needle and thread was a hooker. “Look he’s get a hooker. He loves hookers. I love hookers too, they’re my favourite!” I really wasn’t that sure what to say to that to be honest hehe. Then at lunch one day he randomly piped up “Mummy and Daddy do you like licking each other?” errrrrrr not sure what to say or where that came from.

my cheeky Monkey 🙂

Finally, this morning he was on the receiving end of a few stern words from Daddy about the fact that he had done a wee in his pants (he seems to have regressed a little lately which is annoying with more incidents than usual) and he was being really good and listening, and then he suddenly announced “But cats don’t like bananas.” I have to admit I laughed out loud in the next room, I mean where did that come from? Funny Monkey!

Tap Time – Water Play at 12 mths

Posted by Caroline Elliott

A couple of weeks ago we were at a friend’s house when LM climb herself up their step stool and started splashing at the sink. My friend was happy for her to do so with us keeping a close eye and said she did ‘tap time’ play with her little girl. For so long LM has been content to potter and while we do little activities it made me realise she was ready for more. So this week we have been having a lot of wet fun at our kitchen sink.

And it has been so so lovely to see her having so much fun exploring the water, pouring and splashing. She gets water absolutely everywhere but she has so much fun doing it.

Don’t get me wrong seeing her up the steps tool terrifies me slightly and unfortunately she has fidgeted and sidestepped off a couple of times. I felt awful but she wasn’t hurt as I was there to catch her and she was just desperate to get back up to the sink again. She now loves this and wants to do it all the time. The low point being when she slipped mid climb up and though I tried to catch her shecut her lip… but after a few years bless her she was right back up those steps determined to get to the sink and splash!

And who am I to resist when it makes her so happy?

Simple playtime ideas really are the best sometimes and it is lovely watching her concentrate and knowing she is learning while she is enjoing herself so much.

Glittery Firework Picture

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I have really been struggling to do any arts and crafts with Monkey lately. Now LM is on the move she wants to be involved with everything we are doing and I struggle to come up with activities that both a 1 yr old and a 3 1/2 yr old can enjoy (if you have any, please share them!). She only naps once a day now too and I am generally shattered by that point so not much crafting happens then. We do do things occasionally but I rarely blog about them now and I try not to feel too guilty as Monkey is doing plenty at preschool (he now does 1 full day plus 2 mornings a week) but have really been wanting to do something new and fun with him. Tuesday mornings my parents take LM to a rhyme time group and that has become Mummy & Monkey time so today we have been making a glittery firework picture.

Monkey has never seen real fireworks, and has only seen them on cartoons so to start with we watched a youtube clip of a fireworks display and talked about how noisy they are. I also explained about bonfires briefly so we decided to make a picture of a big fire with fireworks around. Monkey helped me tear and cut some red, orange and yellow tissue paper which we then glued to the paper to make the bonfire.

Then came the really messy bit. Glitter doesn’t come out in our house too often because it gets everywhere… but you can’t have fireworks without a bit of sparkle now can you? I showed monkey how to glue some lines and shapes on the paper and he chose the colour glitter to use. He loved pouring the glitter on and then tipping it off to reveal the picture underneath, gasping and proclaiming it was “magic!”

I tried to keep the mess to a minimum and tip the remaining glitter back into each container but there’s only so much you can do with glitter really. For the most part Monkey wanted me to do the gluing for some reason, but I actually preferred his shapes as they were more random so I really encouraged him to do the gluing. Because he enjoyed it so much we made a couple of other pictures just with fireworks on and I really loved his firework shapes.

20151103_101528 Monkey loved touching the glitter and wiped it all over his face, saying “look, I’m all lovely and sparkly now!” haha love him.

So there we have it, a very simple fireworks picture. I’ve always loved fireworks and adored making pictures like this when I was a kid so look forward to making many more with Monkey and LM as they grow.

Our Little Toddler – 11 mths

Posted by Caroline Elliott

So a little while ago I wrote that our baby girl had taken her first steps, and she has been wanting to walk more and more since then but she hadn’t quite had the confidence to really go for it – preferring to hold on to Mummy or Daddy. Suddenly though this week that has completely changed.

In one day she went from doing maybe 7 unaided steps at a time to literally walking around the whole house. I text hubs at work as I knew he wouldn’t believe the difference in the space of 1 day! So now she is everywhere. And I mean everywhere. I turn around and there are literally moments of “where is she?” and run off to find her in the showerroom standing banging on the glass, or in the new utility room trying to eat a receipt.

So childproofing has become uber important again as she really does want to explore every inch of the world now that she can, and at this point in time she currently wants to put EVERYTHING in her mouth. So the floor is being swept multiple times a day to prevent her eating any bits of stickers or dirt that has been walked in, stairgates and doorgates are being shut and I need eyes in the back of my head!! Letting her roam around outside is interesting as she loves it but she makes a beeline for stones and dirt and wants to put them straight in her mouth.

We say no but she is so cheeky that she just finds it funny and gives a big grin and carries on doing it anyway, grrr. So I sound like a broken record, no don’t eat that, no not in your mouth, over and over and over again!

I love seeing her toddle about though it just shows how much she is growing up and becoming less and less of a baby now. Her brother is adoring her newfound skill and is so proud of her for “walking all by herself!” For the first time ever they played together in his playhouse, playing peepo through the windows and they both loved it. Monkey enjoyed it so much that he ran up to her and shouted ” can I give you a cuddle?” and then squeezed her so tightly. Melted my heart I can tell you! They are going to be such lovely playmates for each other and I already love seeing them have fun together.

I remember feeling that walking was such a game changer when Monkey started walking properly, and it is a game changer again now but a new phase that I am so looking forward to – though it certainly brings challenges of his own!

Little Miss at 11 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

As I write this in many ways I can’t believe that it has nearly been a year and that our little lady is not far off being 1… but in other ways, I just look at her and is she really not 1 yet? She’s almost a fully fledged toddler now and it is hard to equate her with the teeny baby we brought home 11 months ago.

So anyway, what has she been up to?

Well, since her first steps a couple of weeks ago she has been walking. A lot! She can now get herself up to standing without having to pull up on anything (or anyone) which means she can just randomly start toddling about. She wants to walk constantly but she is not confident to walk unaided for more than about 10 steps as I write this… but that is increasing daily so it may well be more by the time I publish. The rest of the time we are walking loosely holding on to one hand – so it gives her the confidence but helps save her from too many nasty falls.

Because of course the downside of all this walking is the number of face plants she has done and the quantity of bumps and bruises. She can be absolutely fine and sturdy then suddenly she goes and while I like to think I have the reflexes of a cat, sometimes I just can’t quite catch her in time. Cue Mummy guilt as she has a mouthful of dirt and a grazed nose when I only looked up for a second to make sure her big brother was stopping at the road. Of course that was the second she got distracted by something and went face forwards. Silly Mummy.

Her little personality is coming through more and more now. I call her a diva a lot as she certainly likes to make sure we know when she isn’t happy about something, and I swear she is the loudest baby on the planet! But for the most part she is a happy little thing really. She is a bit of a Mummy’s girl at the moment though and can definitely be a little shy of strangers or people she doesn’t see quite so often but that’s just the age really isn’t it? Don’t believe this little lady can be a diva, what do these faces tell you??

Speaking of age, so far so good on the food front. By this age her big brother had suddenly turned fussy but so far she is still pretty good and eats practically everything we put in front of her – especially fruit, she adores all fruit so far, except watermelon bizarrely. It’s funny as in comparing her to her big brother, he will happily eat whenever you offer him food, and would probably eat all day… certain types of food at the very least. Whereas she will eat just about anything but only if she is hungry enough, turning her nose up to everything if she isn’t hungry enough. She also has to feed herself 99% of the time!

She had a bit of a funny stage where she was terrifed of the bath, and I literally mean terrified screaming her head off as soon as it was time to go in. It came from nowhere but honestly she was so unhappy. I tried getting in with her, tried different temps but nothing worked. So I decided to try and remind her water is fun with a play session in the garden which, as you can see, she absolutely adored. She crawled herself in and had a whale of a time.

She was still scared though until one day I was in the bathy with Monkey and she was so desperate to come in with us after standing outside watching us. It still took a few goes but eventually she sat on my lap while we had a bathy the 3 of us (I will spare you any photos of that) and since then she has been enjoying bathy time again, having so much fun splashing and playing. So who knows where it came from but at least she is happy in there again now.

Some of her favourite things (Other than walking). She loves books and being read to – her favourites at the moment include “Rainbow Rob” (a firm family fave) and “Whose nose?” She particularly loves it when I roar to her during this one, really gives her the giggles.

She loves dancing. For some time it has been Daddys go-to method for cheering her up when she is whining or being a diva and they have had so many happy times dancing around the living room to the tune of “I know you, I’ve walked with you once upon a dream…” from sleeping beauty. No idea why Daddy chooses that one everytime but maybe they will have a daddy-daughter dance to it at her wedding or something one day :). She also adores dancing by herself now she is on her feet more and I love her little bottom bouncing up and down. here’s a little clip, which isn’t amazing but you get the idea. It’s even better for us as we have a very similar clip of her big brother doing the exact same dance to that music table!!

She also loves being thrown in the air, and, random child that she is, loves being tipped upside down and sometimes it is a job getting her to stay right side up and she tips her head so far back! Funny but gorgeous child that she is 🙂

Sleepwise she is so good through the night and varies in the day sometimes she will have one nap, sometimes two. I keep thinking she is dropping the second nap then she will have a day when she sleeps for ages in the morning and afternoon. So again I need to take deep breaths and just go with it. Who needs a routine anyway? (me me me!) She sleeps in the oddest positions too. for example, I have no idea how she is comfy enough to sleep like this?

I could probably keep banging on and remembering more little details but will leave it there for now!

Toys from House of Fraser

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I have been fortunate enough in the past to review some gorgeous children’s clothes from House of Fraser. When they got in touch recently and asked if we would like to reveiw something from their wonderful selection of children’s toys, well I couldnt say no could I?

I really enjoyed browsing checking out the huge variety of toys and games they have to offer but couldn’t resist when I came across this awesome remote control Fireman Sam fire engine. I just knew Monkey would love it, and I wasn’t wrong.

As soon as he saw it he was so so excited and couldn’t wait to try it out. Watching the absolute glee on his face as he chased it round and round the room turning the steering wheel was absolutely priceless. As you can tell I struggled to get a non blurry photo as both he and the fire engine were moving so fast at all times but it was so fun to see him so happy!

I have to admit it is probably the noisiest toy we own, and even on its “mute” mode it has the ability to shout “Great Fires of London” at the touch of a button! But it is worth it to see him so happy. He tells everyone he meets about his new fire engine toy and every time he sees it I swear it is like the first time again”oh wow my fire engine!!” So cute.

It really is such a great fun toy, definitely one to bear in mind for Christmas, and just one of so many available from House of Fraser

Becoming a Stay at Home Mum

Can I really do this?

Playtime

Siblings, December 2015

The Stick Collectors

Christmas Crafts with a pre-schooler

Little Miss at 13 mths

Monkey Says at 3 1/2

Tap Time – Water Play at 12 mths

Glittery Firework Picture

Our Little Toddler – 11 mths

Little Miss at 11 months

Toys from House of Fraser