Last week we had a very lovely family holiday. We didn’t go anywhere glamorous or exotic but we still had a wonderful time. We stayed in some lovely self-catering accommodation in Corton, a small village in between Lowestoft, Suffolk, and Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. It was a lovely place, and I shall write more about it in a separate post.
Our little Monkey is growing up and now has a lot more imaginative play, and a lot more independant play. This leads to him having a lot fun with mummy largely acting as a bystander.
Some of the things he chooses to play with are particularly amusing. I’ve blogged before about how random household objects can be fascinating for babies/toddlers but I am going to show you two recent play times which demonstrate this perfectly!
Gym Ball
Because of my SPD we have my gym ball down in the lounge a lot of the time at the moment, because it is good to sit on and do pelvic tilts etc. It is also a LOT of fun for Monkey to play on, and hilarious for me to watch.
He can’t get on it himself but he loves carrying it around the room (though it is about as big as he is)..
And then launching himself onto the ball
and laughing his head off when he then flies off it again!
Very funny afternoon spent watching that!
Playing with my scarf
I got a lovely new scarf for my birthday and I had been a naughty mummy and left it in the lounge after I had taken it off. Therefore it was obviously fair game at play time. Monkey loves playing with blankets and hiding under them so it wasn’t a huge surprise when he decided to have a play with the scarf, but it was pretty funny!
He very much enjoyed hiding underneath it..
And then there was lots of giggles looking at himself in my phone while he wrapped it around his head.
He did look very pretty in it bless him!
You’ve gotta love the random things that amuse toddlers and the simple fun they can have with very little in the way of toys or parental involvement!
Do your kids ever turn random objects into fun playthings?
We have had lots of warm weather lately and it has been really lovely to get outdoors and have some fun in the sun. Monkey, and I’m sure most kids, just love being outdoors, running around, exploring and doing all sorts. The great thing is that there are so many ways for them to play outside without having to spend any money.
This is just a few of the things we have been up to outdoors while the sun has been shining!
Playing in his new playhouse! A good old second hand purchase from ebay, and a slightly early birthday present for Monkey which he loves!! Lots of peepo and playing house. Hours of fun in there at the moment, and a nice shade spot if the sun gets too hot 🙂
Playing in sand and water next door with his friend
Popping out for an ice cream on his trike! As Monkey would say, Um Yum!
Playing in our newly renovated back garden – having fun in the sand pit
And, slightly random, but after giving the buggy a good scrub I left a sponge out there and now Monkey lives giving the floor a clean, hehe 🙂
We also got the paddling pool out at the weekend, and I think the water may have been a teeny bit cold for him as it was a bit of a trauma at times, but he did have fun in there too! (Though I think Daddy got more wet than Monkey did!!)
There’s also just been some general running about with a ball now that we are actually allowed to go on the new grass!
And of course, some fun picnics and playtime at the park!
Ages ago I saw that Karen at Let Kids be Kids had a fab idea for making indoor snow using shaving foam and the wonder that is cornflour. We’ve not really used shaving foam yet in our messy play so immediately pinned it and decided to have a go too. I even bought the shaving foam and bits ready, but you know things get busy sometimes, and it just never happened. I also knew it had to be at a time when I was fully committed to Monkey getting really messy, and to dealing with the clean up afterwards! Possible one of the reasons for not attempting it.
One rainy day recently I mentally geared myself up to do it with him…. then we got an invite out with a friend and her little one, and as I like to have company and get out as much as possible, we jumped at the idea. But having geared myself up for the messy play I was slightly disappointed that it wasn’t going to happen.
I have been trying to give Monkey an activity to do every afternoon after his nap at the moment, as we were finding he was sat in front of the TV snacking and then not wanting to eat his dinner, whereas if I keep him occupied he forgets about snacking and can then hold on until teatime/ The problem is that at my current point in this pregnancy I am absolutely shattered in the late afternoon, around 5 pm ish, and sometimes have dizzy spells, so it can be a bit tricky keeping him occupied when I am at my lowest ebb.
But that afternoon I went it for it. We came down after a few stories in his bedroom after his nap, and decided to get stuck in. I decided the kitchen was probably the safest bet for this activity, with the foam element, as at least we were near a sink and various towels etc! I’d also asked daddy to get the baby bath out of the loft as I thought that is a good size as a tub for him to lean in and get stuck in with.
We started off with foam, which Monkey really liked the feel of (I just used a value brand for cheapness).
We then added a load of cornflour. I was a bit vague on quantities so just added more and more gradually, talking about how it felt each time. (Me doing the talking, Monkey isn’t at that stage yet – when I sked him how it felt I got his current favourite answer to everything of “I don’t know!”)
It is a great combination but I think I ended up going too far with the cornflour, as it ended up more like sand with the consistency of cloud dough rather than snow, not that there was a problem with that! He was loving it and at this point it all got tipped out of the bath and onto the tuff spot and covering himself in it! I used a can of shaving foam and nearly a whole box of cornflour, whereas maybe if you stopped at half 0r 3/4 of a box it would be better.
This was also the point daddy came home and joined in the fun. We wanted to show daddy the fun with the shower foam too so we got out another can and sprayed some more foam.
Then we decided to add some liquid food colouring – we tend to use the gel stuff for baking these days so it was really going to waste otherwise.
Then daddy was making Monkey giggle by dropping big lumps of foam from really high up and making it ‘splat!’ in the bowl. Lots of good fun.
So it didn’t exactly go quite to plan, but we really had a lot of fun – especially Monkey, though Daddy was happy he got to join in when he came home too 🙂
Every other Friday afternoon after work, my little bro pops round for a play with his nephew. He’s quite lucky in that he finishes fairly early and only lives round the corner from us so he often pops over from about 4pm. His name is Mark and as a kid, and as he is 4 years younger than me, and 6 years younger than our big bro, he was always known as Little Marky. As he grew up he lost the y off the end of his name, but somehow, since becoming an uncle, the y has reappeared and he is Marky once again – but this time he is Uncle Marky.
Monkey loves his Uncle Marky and loves it when he comes to play. He loves all his family but having Uncle Marky come round so regularly is so lovely for them both. I have to say I love it too as I am usually flagging in the afternoon and love having someone else to play with the little Monkey. He quite often naps till nearly 5 most days so every other Friday I try and put him down a little early, or I get him up early to maximise his playtime!
Here is a few snaps of them at play on his recent visit. Such cuties together!
A selfie of the pair of them on Uncle Marky’s phone!
Happy Easter!! Hope you have all had a lovely relaxed weekend so far and eaten lots of chocolate? No? Well there’s still time!
We’ve had lots of Easter fun so far this year!
We’ve made Easter Nests, Easter Cards and been on an Easter Hunt, and Monkey has loved every minute!
Easter Nests
There is obviously different ways of making easter nests but I like to use Shredded Wheat, as then they feel a bit more nest-y.
So we used:
1 pack of Shredded Wheat 16s
400g Belgian Milk Chocolate (we are a little in love with the Waitrose own brand Belgian Milk Chocolate at the mo – seriously, you should try it, yummy!!) We actually used a little less than this as I had scoffed some beforehand, but it would’ve been better if we had the whole bars!
Mini Eggs
Basically you bash up the Shredded Wheat, Monkey helped with this, until it is really fine. I actually find using the end of a big rolling pin is the best bashing method! Lots of fun!!
Melt chocolate, we do it over the hob in a bowl over simmering water, but I hear microwaving is very easy too!
Mix, then scoop into cake cases, and add eggs.
Very simple, tasty chocolatey fun! 🙂
Easter Cards
After the success of Granny’s birthday card a couple of weeks ago, i thought we’d use a similar method for Easter cards and involve monkey with some finger painting! The first time we tried unfortunately Monkey just mixed up the paint and we ended up with some murky brown splodges, he had fun, but not very attractive or easter themed!
We tried again at the weekend with some different colours and had much more success! Once the masterpieces had dried I cut them into egg shapes and stuck them onto some cards. Monkey finished them off with some lovely colouring! Easy peasy Easter cards!
Easter Hunt
Because we would like to avoid too much of a sugar rush, we got some other bits in addition to eggs, to make this an Easter Hunt, rather than an Easter ‘Egg’ Hunt. I dotted the chicks and bunnies, signs and eggs around the front garden (the back garden still being mainly mud at the moment, with less places to hide them!) for Monkey to find. With the weather forecast for Easter Sunday a bit miserable we did the hunt on Saturday afternoon, in case it got rained off on Sunday!.
Monkey loved it, I mean it lasted about 5 minutes but he had lots of fun with all his bunnies and chicks, and putting them in his little basket. He obv loved eating the choccy eggs too!
I used to love Easter as a kid, Easter egg hunts, chocolate, but as an adult I didn’t really celebrate it much. Now we have a little man it is bringing the fun back again and I am loving all the Easter fun this year!
Have you had much fun over Easter?
With the combination of sunnier weather, and my new pelvis support, Monkey and I have been out and about loads over the last week.
We’ve played in the sand in our neighbour’s garden…
and popped to the park near our friend’s house.
Monkey and my friend’s little girl always play really nicely together, even though she’s just over a year older. Although this week she got cross with him trying to play with her favourite train, then he got a bit nervous of her! Bless ’em! Sure it’ll be fine again next time!
Then Thursday our plans with friends were cancelled last minute due to poorliness 🙁 so we popped to a local country park, which I knew had built a new play area that opened for the easter holidays. What I didn’t realise was that the whole play area was basically a big sand pit!
Monkey had fun, then fell on his knees in a big water play are (thankfully we had spare trousers in the bag!).
The only problem was that with it being the Easter Holidays it was pretty chaotic in there! We were playing on the slide and there were some bigger kids fooling around on there too which made me a little wary. It was quite a wide slide and they were going down in groups and sideways and tumbling all over the place irrelevant of the tiny tots also wanting to go on the slide. I was keeping a close eye as Monkey desperately wanted to go down the slide. He went down a couple of times then got bashed from behind before he had a chance to get off the bottom of the slide (Monkey was fine). I had a calm word with the boy (who I guess was around 7 or 8?) to just be a bit careful around the little one and then less than 30s later the same boy completely knocked monkey over, face first onto the wooden steps.
Cue lots of bawling from Monkey and I have to admit I got a bit cross with the boy in question. I know he didn’t mean it but it seemed so careless. There were cries of “It was so and so’s fault” and I think I said something like “I don’t care whose fault it was, you all need to be less selfish and more careful around the little ones.” He ran off to his grandparents but with Monkey screaming his head off I don’t think they objected to my calm telling off! Hate having to do it but couldn’t pretend it was ok, the play area was for all ages and they just need to be at least aware of what they are doing around little ones and considerate to others. Maybe I expect too much of them?
Anyway after that Monkey was a bit more wary of the play area so we went for a run around with his ball! He is great at kicking it now and is a good dribbler (in more ways than one as he still needs dribble bibs, eye roll!) .
Then we played peepo around some trees.
Before going to watch some kites flying, which he found fascinating, and see the little miniature railway.
Then it was time to go home!
It’s been lovely getting out and about a bit more! What have you been up to with your little ones outdoors lately?
I feel that Monkey is learning so much all of the time lately, that I need somewhere to record these little milestones (the lovely ones … and the less lovely ones). So I have created Monkey’s Mini Milestones – so every now and again there will be posts like this! Mainly a way of charting Monkey’s development, and his likes and dislikes!
Words
Monkey is being very chatty lately, most of it is still undecipherable but he is really trying to talk to us! Some of the words we do understand are:
Yum yum
Go
Two
Shoes
Oh dear – after yum yum this is his favourite phrase, very cute as sometimes it sounds more like oh doo or oh doh but when it is accompanied by his hands to his mouth it is very lovely!
Skills
Last week, while enjoying the sun with my neighbour he managed to make his first bubbles! He doesn’t really understand blowing yet but he after a little experimentation he learnt to dip a ring in a bowl and wave it around to create bubbles! Simple thing I know but I was a proud mama watching him figure out how to do it!
He loves giving high fives and now sticks his thumbs up (previously he held up 1 finger instead). He tries to count on his fingers, at a birthday party during the games, daddy was telling him so and so had ‘won’ and Monkey kept holding his finger up, as if to say ‘one?’ He loves numbers and likes pretending to count. He basically points at things in a row making lovely noises like ah, noo, mah, buh etc, so cute! He loves clocks and things too and is just fascinated by clocks and numbers.
Whenever we are out and about and he hears an aeroplane, his hand goes over his hear to indicate he has heard it, and then he HAS to find where it is in the sky. He very often spots them way before I do, even when they are tiny and far away! Clever monkey!
He is such a good climber, and has been for a while but we are proud that he now finally understanding how to climb backwards down something, rather than essentially leaping off hoping to be caught!
Music
He still loves Wind the Bobbin, of course, but he has a couple of other new favourites too:
Row Row the boat – he can be seen standing by himself rocking backwards and forwards, which is v cute, and at every opportunity he commandeers Mummy to do it together! He’s getting very good at the Lion roar too hehe
The Wheels on the Bus is another favourite – he has always loved buses and now whenever we see one his arms go round and round until I sing it to him hehe
Books
Monkey loves books, always has done and we have loads, and it is funny seeing some go in and out of favour! His favourites at the moment are:
Zaza’s Baby Brother – we’ve had this for ages and he was never interested before, but at the moment he is obsessed with it – I wonder how much he understands about me being pregnant, it does seem like quite a coincidence though!
Pig in the Air – This was one of daddy’s books as a child and Monkey adores it! He giggles his head off at the clumsy piggy falling over while trying to fly, says ‘go’ when he takes off, and ‘Oh dooo’ when he crashes into a tree he he. It is funny, I confess to being a bad mummy though and trying to hide it after reading it about 5 times in a row – I love how much he loves books, I do, but it’s exhausting re-reading them over and over!
Food
He’s been increasingly fussy again lately so we have been reevaluating snacks etc to see if we can get back on track a bit. He’s so stubborn though and knows where all the snacks are in the cupboards and of course wants them all the time instead of his meals. Joy! We need to look at what we are doing too and try and get back to following the rules that helped us before!
Playtime
Cars, train, helicopters, BUSES, basically anything transport related is a big fave at the moment, particularly his Postman Pat cars!
He loves dens at the moment, particularly with my Granny Square Blanket as the roof (which I love!). He is so good at building with Duplo now and he also made a fantastic tower with his blocks the other day, clever little builder!
Colours
Monkey has two very definite favourite colours at the moment – red and yellow! He is getting good at matching colours in general but red and yellow are definitley the faves. When we are playing with multicoloured things he always finds the red and yellow ones and holds them up for us to label. Even in a craft shop last week he suddenly produced a red pen and a yellow pen from a display behind us! Seriously obsessed – not sure but maybe it comes from his love of Postman Pat?
Less nice things
He has taken to picking things at the moment – picking his nose, picking the wax out of his ears, picking at his bathy crayons, picking, picking picking! Yuck!
He is extremely stubborn. This isn’t a particularly new thing but he is insanely stubborn at times and gets himself so worked up when we say no to things but he does not give in. For example if we say he will get pudding if he eats one more bite, there is no way he will take that bite. None. Absolutely zero. So he doesn’t get pudding but it makes for some miserable stand-offs!
So that is some of the things I can think of that sum up Monkey’s development right now! I love seeing him grow into his own person with his own mind – even though he drives me crazy sometimes! How do you keep track of your mini milestones?
We had another busy weekend in the garden last weekend, finishing off the clearance side of Operation Garden Renovation. More to come on that later in the week but what we were left with was a garden full of mud, glorious mud.
Monkey has been in his element out there, just having a whale of a time with the simplest of pleasures, playing in the mud. I’ll keep it short and sweet as the pictures say it all!
Bearing in mind this was on Sunday, the day after the scary no-breathing incident, he clearly suffered no after-effects! Lovely to see him having so much fun after such an ordeal too!
I saw this idea on A Whole Nine Months and thought that as her little boy is younger than Monkey, and obviously enjoyed it, that we should give it a go…. But, have to be honest, I kept putting it off! I just wasn’t sure how it would go, whether he’d be interested in the nature hunt side, and how much mess we’d make with the painting… But that’s the point of the Creative Challenge, pushing myself to step outside of my comfort zone, and be more creative, with playtime in this case!
So one day we headed out on a little nature hunt and to start with it was mainly me doing the hunting part, while Monkey spent a good few minutes hugging a tree??
Though he did get quite interested in a feather.
But then he got a bit obsessed with a stick, ok, branch and tried for ages to bring it with him.
He was honestly doing this for AGES, I have loads of photos and a couple of videos of it. He’s such a determined little Monkey but eventually I persuaded him it was a bit too big to carry and we did a bit more nature hunting.
Then it was home and time to get the paints out! We also noticed that one of the daffodils in the front garden had been trampled at some point so we picked that up to explore with too.
And, basically, he had a whale of a time, exploring the leaves and twigs in the paint..
and generally just getting really messy 🙂
So all in all, lots and lots of fun and definitely worth a try – and with the two elements this took up quite a large chunk of the day – which is always excellent in my view! 🙂
Have you been on a nature hunt?
