moments that melt your heart

Persuading a stubborn Monkey that he really should wear a hat and mittens…

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As a baba Monkey was fine with wearing hats, but he never liked wearing mittens, so last winter was hard at times as his poor fingers would get so cold! We put mittens on and he would just pull them right off. This year, he doesn’t even like hats, and definitely not mittens! I’m not too surprised as he often needs convincing about ‘new’ items of clothing. At the beginning of the summer he absolutely hated wearing sandals, but he got used to them after wearing them with socks for a while. Then, after a summer of being barefoot or just in sandals, the first time we put socks on again you can see he was thinking “and what, are those things on my feet??!” and he kicked up a fuss. It must be odd for them as their memories just don’t go that far back so even though he has worn them before, it feels like a new thing to him. He eventually got used to socks and shoes .

Monkey happily in a hat age 41/2 months

Monkey happily in a hat age 41/2 months

Monkey happily in a hat, age 9 months

Monkey happily in a hat, age 9 months

When he had to wear long sleeved tops, jumpers and thick coats he wasn’t impressed either, but he has again got used to them though he still gets cross about long sleeves sometimes.

The hat thing is also our fault a little bit, as we have been playing around putting things on our head and laughing, so he thinks that putting things on your head is silly, even when it’s a hat. So we didn’t manage to get him to wear a sun hat all summer, though occasionally sunglasses did stay on for a few minutes at a time!

Anyway it has obviously been getting colder so the hats and mittens have come out. Hats he screams and pulls until they come off (even if they are done up) and hoods are the same. Unlike other things, there just seems to be no getting used to them. And the first time mittens went near his hands he ripped them off as if they burnt him and threw them away in disgust!

But… we are finally getting somewhere now after some careful persuasion! Full credit for the mittens go to daddy, as he spent quite a long time introducing mittens to monkey whilst in the house, playing with them, putting them on himself and then holding them open for Monkey to put them on himself. Monkey is at that age where he wants to make decisions for himself, so I think this has been a big thing in the fight against hats and mittens, he will not wear them because we want him to, it has to be on his terms!! The first day that Monkey willingly put mittens on outside, and kept them on the whole time, I couldn’t believe it! So like I say, full credit to daddy!

He now realises that they keep his hands much warmer and he is happy to have them on a lot of the time, which is great. Hats have been a lot slower progress, even with trying the same methods as the mittens, we have not got anywhere. However, today we have had a Eureka moment!

It is pretty much freezing here today but my neighbour and I still go for our daily morning walks. As we left the house today I deliberately didn;t try to put Monkey’s hat on until we got to my neighbours house and knocked on the door. While we were waiting I had a chat with him and popped his hat on, and it stayed on!! I think those couple of minutes in the cold, followed by the chat were enough for him to realise that the hat would keep his head warm. Yay! It stayed on the whole time we were out, and when we went out later in the day there was no objection to hat or mittens for the entire time we were out!

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So I am a very happy and proud mummy today, and he looks so cute in his hat!! 🙂

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More Autumnal Fun and kicking up leaves – 17-18 months

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The clue is in the title really but Monkey loves kicking up leaves! My regime of making sure I tire him out enough to nap well and sleep well is working and involves a lot of time wandering about outdoors.  Actually I think that was just a blip as his naps are basically back to normal now, yay! Sorry, sidetracked, yes lots of time walking outdoors. When my mum (Nanny) and I first showed him kicking up the leaves he looked at us like we had gone mad, but lately he loves it! As you can see in the pictures 🙂

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Not much else to say about it is there really! So cute though! In fact I am finding this to be such a cute age. I have pretty much thought that at every age but his personality is really developing now and he is such a funny little monkey. He’s playing so much more independently, babbling away constantly (though still no words) and just chuckles and grins all the time!

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Playing with a Pringles tube and much happier mealtimes 16-17 months

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This was another idea I got from Pinterest actually, but again I cannot find the place where I found it initially. So annoying as I don’t want to take credit for other people’s ideas! Oh well though anyway, the idea is that if you take a Pringles tube, (or any other tube of crisps, with a lid) and cut a rectangular slot through the lid so that business cards etc. can be posted though. This helps with fine motor skills apparently! Monkey loves it though anyway, he loves it putting the cards in the slot, and he really loves shaking the tin around afterwards!

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He pretty soon discovered how to take the lid off the tube and that it was much easier to get the cards in… and lots of other things.

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He basically loves this tube, but he also loves posting thing everywhere. He has a tunnel that granddad made for the brio train set, which he loves posting things through, and he spent ages posting crayons down an old wrapping paper tube with his Nanny the other day!

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He also loves to post things under the sofa, behind cushions, under my legs, behind my back, through the bars of the door-gates, through the fire guard… you get the idea! The good thing about the Pringles tube though is that it is handily arm sized so he can get things out again, some of his other posting favourites lead to a lot more frustration, so I try to give him the Pringles tube whenever he is in a posting mood hehe!

In other news we have had a whole week of Monkey eating his dinner! Woohoo!!! I know that these things can change at a drop of the hat  but please, please, pleeeeease let him be growing out of that phase! Even if not though I have enjoyed this week as it has made it so much less stressful that he has eaten his meals. Don’t get me wrong I have had to put in a lot of effort to get this to happen but at least it has paid off, so I am v happy 🙂

The rough with the smooth… and good samaritans

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We had a pretty miserable day yesterday and Monkey was not happy no matter what we seemed to do. We had so much whining (which I am afraid to say really grates my nerves) and it all built up to a huge battle of wills at lunchtime. He has been getting fussier and fussier with food again over the last few weeks, I won’t go into too much detail here I have written about mealtime battles before and am writing a longer blog about dealing with food issues so it is all in one place, rather than boring you all with endless blogs about the same thing!

But anyway, yesterday lunchtime was a screaming, wailing nightmare with him refusing to eat his falafel, which I know he loves. We ended up taking him out just to get out of the house, hoping for a change of scene to help. Eventually, after realising he really wasn’t going to get anything else, he took a tiny bite out of the tupperware pot I had transferred it to, and then scoffed the lot because oh yes I really like this. Grrrr Why we had to have half an hour of screaming before this I do not know.

He was really fussy all afternoon after his nap too, though we were definitely being stricter with his food intake yesterday, and he scoffed all of his dinner (yay) but then by bathtime and bedtime he was a real misery guts again. By the time he was in bed both hubby and I had had enough.

This morning he woke up much happier and actually coped pretty well as I carted him around various shops. Unfortunately I had a disaster as I lost my purse this morning, it was in my coat pocket and all I can think is that when I was putting Monkey in the car to come home it must have fallen out as when I got home I could not find it anywhere. I was devastated at the thought of having to go through all of the hassle of cancelling cards and getting a new driving licence etc. So after his snack we dashed back to the last place I knew I had it and checked with the shops and with the security guard who patrols the car park, nothing, I was gutted.

We came home again as my parents were coming round, opened the front door and ouila! My purse was staring up at me! Some lovely lovely good samaritan found it, saw my address on my driving licence and brought it back for me! I was amazed and just couldn’t believe it! She had put her name and number on a little piece of paper so after I had calmed down from the stress of it I gave her a call and thanked her profusely.

The funny thing is that it was like a turning point in my day. After yesterday, and with the miserable weather and with the purse drama I had been feeling so low. But pretty soon after we go home my parents arrived and from then on we have had the loveliest day! Monkey was on top form and back to his old self again, having so much fun with his Nanny and Grandpops it really warms my heart. He then ate his lunch with no fuss whatsoever (yay!) and went out for a play with his grandparents as it stopped raining for a little while. This meant that I got a load of jobs done in the house which made me feel better. I think there is really something in the whole, tidy house, tidy mind thing.

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Anyway then home for a bit more of a play and then down for his nap. He was lovely all afternoon and we popped over to his other grandparents house for a brief visit to return a collection of things we had at our house (including Granny’s umbrella, which she must have been missing!). He had a lovely lovely play with them and then he came home for tea and he ate so well! He still spat a few things out and was a bit silly (he has recently discovered sticking his tongue out and one of his favourite things today has been blowing raspberries), but on the whole he ate really well and and tried everything.

We had a lovely bathtime and he was so cute reading stories with his daddy both before and after and well I had to write this blog post because honestly I could not feel more different to how I did yesterday. There are always ups and downs in life, and especially I am finding, as a parent, but the stark contrast of today and yesterday really hit me. Be thankful for the good days and just get through the bad days as they won’t all be that hard!

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Loving the long naps and cheeky development!

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Tuesday of last week was a very trying day, but I thought I would share that Tuesday of this week was a looovely day 🙂

To start off we were going to Monkey’s first ever experience of Tumble tots. Now, I love being a stay at home mummy, but I also feel that I need to get out of the house with him most days, if not every day. Otherwise I go a bit stir crazy and also I find that he gets quite bored of the same toys when we are at home all day with no variety. He’s a very inquisitive little monkey and likes people and places and new things.

We spend a lot of our time visiting family and friends and other kiddies but now that he is down to one nap a day we have much more time to fill. This has led me to looking at some mum and baby class type things that we can do to entertain him. Tumble tots immediately sprang to mind. Now he has taken his first steps in the last few weeks but has gone a bit scared with it the last week or so and is very much clinging to mummy to walk again, which is fine he’ll do it in his own time. But the classes at Tumble tots are 6 months-walking and walking to 2 years, so I wasn’t sure which to take him to! The decision was made for me as the nearest location to me aren’t running the younger class at the moment so we went to walking-2. He was the youngest there I would say and couldn’t do a lot of the things but he was really loving it, running around all over the place (dragging mummy with him – he really doesn’t need me just hasn’t got the confidence yet) yelling happily.

I’m always a bit nervous of these places too and the other mummies, wondering whether there is any cliques, are they gonna be judgemental etc, but nope, they all seemed very nice, and the same as me, running around after their slightly more mobile toddlers! There was a few other new mums too and everyone seemed as nervous of each other as I was, but it was all nice and friendly.

Anyway the reason I am telling you about this is that that afternoon, monkey had a lovely long nap. 2 3/4 hours long! It was amazing!! I got so much done!

I baked some lovely oat and raisin biscuits, did some yoga (my latest thing in an attempt to tighten the wobbles) changed our bed, got washing out on the line, hoovered downstairs, perused the internet for a bit, looked at hotels for a girly weekend I am going on in a few months, emailed some friends and on and on and on! It was amazing!!

By the time he woke up it was nearly 4! Most of the afternoon was gone and he was so well rested and happy that we had so much fun! He is such a cheeky monkey though, we sat in the sunshine in the garden for a bit and he kept picking daisies (and trying to eat them, d’oh!) so played a bit of back forth, you know, hand out, can mummy have it, and he was so cute, he’d go to put it in my hand, then snatch it back giggling and shaking his head! So funny, I dunno where he has got that from but such a cheeky monkey.

He’s developed a funny little chuckle this week all of a sudden and now just sits and chuckles to himself sometimes, which is so cute. We were walking along in the buggy the other day and a car drove past, then disappeared behind a huge roundabout and when it came out the other side, monkey had a right chuckle!

Anyway I will stop gushing now! I have also been busy crocheting and made some adorable little booties and a hat for my friend, more info and pictures to follow soon!