Having Fun with Nanny

Posted by Caroline Elliott

After Tumble Tots on Tuesday, Monkey and I popped round to my mums for lunch s she had a fairly quiet day. Nothing too exciting you would think but the simplest of things made for the happiest of occasions.

My mum had got some toys and bits out for Monkey to play with so for a while we were building blocks, then they disappeared (and I enjoyed a rest) and it turned out Monkey had led Nanny upstairs on the hunt for more toys! He found his fave – which is just a little pull back VW Campervan. So simple but he LOVES it.

After lunch we had the best fun whizzing the car backwards and forwards down the hallway. I left my phone at home (and felt lost without it) but thankfully managed to catch a few shots on my mum’s tablet.

I love seeing them have so much fun together!

Lots of mimicking going on (from both of them!) 🙂

Then Monkey decided Nanny’s legs made a great tunnel, he went back and forth numerous times, even though he doesn’t really fit and nearly knocked her over! Poor Nanny!

I love this shot of the pair of them following the car into the dining room!

Monkey loves his nanny!

He was very spoilt as Nanny had made chocolate chip muffins for us as a treat – they were Yummy and Monkey loved his!

Just good, old fashioned simple fun with his Nanny, we all laughed a lot and it was just lots and lots of fun 🙂

What simple things do you enjoy with your little ones?

Family Photo Friday @ Thursday's Child, Friday's Thoughts

Toddler Sunrise Painting – 21 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I first saw this idea from Lucy at Baked Potato Mummy. Her little Potato isn’t much older than Monkey and I am always inspired by (and a little in awe of) the arts and crafts they get up to. The idea is that you fold a piece of card in half and your little one paints it oranges and reds for the sky. Then on a separate piece of folded card, they paint the bluey sea. Then when it is all dry you match the pieces together and have a lovely sunset picture!

It looks like such a simple way to have an actual picture at the end so I thought it was perfect for this week’s Creative Challenge.

I’d bought some new paints recently so I splodged some onto some paper plates as I figured that was the easiest way of doing it. For the sea part of the picture I chose purple, blue and green. For the sky I went for orange and yellow. (They didn’t have any red in stock the day I went to buy the paint).

A while ago, at the start of the Creative Challenge I had bought some sponge-brushes which I thought would be good for this so out they came. Monkey got stuck in – we started with the orangy/yellow sky.

Then, when he had had enough, we had a clean and then did the sea.

Monkey had loads of fun and we ended up with this masterpiece!

Hurrah, a successful creative challenge!! 🙂 We’re getting better at containing the mess when it comes to painting. I have discovered that the key is preparation, having a bowl of soapy water, cloth and tea towels on standby – along with a large amount of baby wipes to quickly clean up any splashes!

Do you like being creative with your kids? Or are you good at being creative cooking on a budget? Join in with the Creative Challenge and link up with me

Reflection #ThePrompt

Posted by Caroline Elliott

The Prompt from the lovely Sara at MumTurnedMom this week is “Reflection.”

As always, I wasn’t sure which angle to take. I had some provoking ideas – “Is your child a reflection of you and your parenting?” or “Is blogging a reflection of real life?” But honestly it’s been a busy old week and I really haven’t had the energy to tackle a deep or potentially controversial topic.

So as Monkey and I are sat on the sofa, at the start of a day where I have nothing planned, and we are both happy and calm, I am reflecting on how much things have changed. How much he has grown and how much I have grown as his mummy.

I make no secret of the fact that I found the first year of his life a struggle. Coming to terms with this new role of ‘mother.’ Coming to terms with no longer working, of trying to adapt to fit this new life as a SAHM. It’s why I started this blog.

If you’d asked me a year ago what my top tip would be to surviving, it would have been to get out of the house every day. For a large chunk of Monkey’s life – particularly since he became more alert and needed entertaining – I have had our weeks planned out. An average week would look like this:

Every morning, a work with my neighbour from 9-10ish. Then

Monday: See my parents
Tuesday: Tumbletots
Wednesday: Music class/Play date
Thursday: Storytime at the library/Play date
Friday: See Hubby’s parents.

Every morning and early afternoon was filled and if we did have a day with nothing, I would have to plan an activity – more for myself I know, because I struggled to spontaneously think about what to do to entertain him. I had to have a plan to keep myself sane. Days without a plan, or when plans got cancelled, were invariably the bad days. The days where I struggled, where I guess I panicked at the thought of having to entertain Monkey by myself all day. Where I started the day on the wrong foot and instead of being optimistic, I expected the day to be difficult, so of course, in a self fulfilling prophecy, it was difficult.

Things have changed now. Monkey has grown up. In may ways he is easier to entertain now. He has a longer attention span so isn’t distracted every 2 minutes (now it’s about 10 minutes ;)). He is getting more independent, and will find what he wants to play with sometimes. He can think for himself and though he obviously still wants a lot of my attention and interaction, and I am happy to give it, there are times when he doesn’t want or need me so much. I love watching these changes in him. It’s a bit scary to see my little man growing up and moving ever so slightly away from me… but for the most part I am just so proud watching him grow up.

I’m proud of myself too. The thought of a day with no plans doesn’t fill me with the same trepidation it once did. I don’t start the day miserable at the prospect. I know that he will be fairly happy pottering about in the house for part of the day. I know that a bit of telly won’t do him any harm (though he gets bored of the TV easily so it’s never on for long). If the weather is fine we will go for a run down a hill, or just on a walk around the local area, picking up sticks or knocking on trees.

If the weather is less good I will get out the paints, or cloud dough, or we could do some baking, and the time will pass. If we do go a bit stir crazy we can pop to a local shopping centre for a wander, or pull on the waterproofs and wellies and got for a splash about in the rain.

I used to obsess over weather forecasts to see what it meant for our day. Now I look out the window very so often.

I am a planner by nature so for the most parts our weeks are stilled planned, though there are definitely more gaps now. On a day with no plan, I try and form a vague plan in the morning, but it changes as the day goes by depending on how we feel and Monkey’s mood. I don’t cling to my plans like a liferaft.

Before Christmas I mentioned that we are thinking about baby number 2, and it is very much on our minds at the moment. The thought of going back to baby days does scare me slightly, because I struggled last time. I know it will be different this time, as I have done it once, and I have Monkey. But I know it won’t be easy so I am sure I will be needing my plans again if we are lucky enough to get pregnant again!

I’m also linking up with Mother Wife Me, Mama -and more and City Girl at Heart for All About You.

Playing with Cloud Dough – 21 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

We first found out about Cloud Dough in the summer and Monkey had great fun playing with it outside. You can read about it here. It was fab and I have thought about making it again but I am not always fond of REALLY messy play indoors, I do it, but I have to work myself up to it and prepare myself for the clean up operation!

As I have created the Creative Challenge Linky I felt I really should challenge myself to have some indoor fun with cloud dough.

Ingredients

What is Cloud Dough? It is Flour mixed with Baby Oil. It’s something like 8 parts flour to 1 part baby oil but I have to say I don’t really measure it. What’s the point in it? Well it turns to the consistency of sand, though has a much silkier texture. Otherwise you can play with it like wet sand, build things with it or just have a good old play.

I got a Tuff Spot ages ago with grand plans about this kind of messy play, but so far I have been too chicken to play with anything other than Play Doh in it. I just don’t trust monkey to keep things INSIDE the tuff spot. But as I said, this is as much about challenging myself as it is Monkey having fun and learning so we went for it.

And, do you know what? It was great! He has a whale of a time, as you can see! And yes, a bit of cloud dough managed to escape the confines of the Tuff Spot but it all got hoovered up

It started off quite sedately.. and he was moving some toys around in the cloud dough.

Then it got messier…

and messier…

then he had a little dance to “wind the bobbin up” in his head (a definite sign he is enjoying himself a lot).

He had a good stomp around..

and well he was covered from head to toe, but he absolutely adored it, which was great.

And it wasn’t too much of a nightmare to clean up, just pulled his clothes off and wiped his hands and feet and that was it. The cloud dough is in a tub to play with on another day, the tuff spot had a wipe and the floor a hoover and it was not too bad.

Phew! Successful Messy Play!

A quick word to the wise, if you do end up playing with it outside, like we did in the summer, make sure you sweep as much up as you can. Because our garden is a tip we left a pile of cloud dough in the corner of the patio, big mistake! It is a now a bit gunky pile of yukky stuff! It goes pretty disgusting when it has been rained on!

Monkey’s Tin Can Tower – 21 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Monkey loves building towers, with blocks, duplo, bean bags, anything.

At the moment he loves making a tin can tower in the kitchen. I try and persuade him to build them on the floor, which he does to start with, but he invariably starts lifting the tins onto the worktop 1 by 1, then climbing his stepstool and building it on the worktop. It tends to make me a bit terrified that he is going to knock them over onto himself and get hurt, but so far so good (fingers crossed, touch wood).

Anyway he built this tower yesterday and as you can see, he was dead proud of himself 🙂

Creative Challenge Linky #1

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Hello and welcome to The Creative Challenge!!

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

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

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

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

Like I say, it didn’t go too well.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s how this works.

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

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

Running down hills

Posted by Caroline Elliott

A couple of days ago, Monkey and I were enjoying a nice little walk home from his grandparents’ house. The sky was blue, the sun was out, we walked past some lovely spring flowers and it was just lovely.

Near to our house there is a big bridge – the blue bridge – and we spend a lot of time on the bridge looking at cars and buses. There is a little grassy area next to the bridge which Monkey loves – mainly because in the autumn we spent a LOT of time there playing around kicking up leaves. He likes it there, we play peepo around the trees, and he knocks on the tree trunk (not sure why but he enjoys it).

What I hadn’t ever really noticed before that day was the fact that this grassy area provides a great sloping hill down from the bridge. (It leads down to a road but it is only a Bus lane so not dangerous). I’d obviously seen it but not thought about it. Monkey though for some reason (after the obligatory knocking on tree trunks) made a beeline for the top of the hill, pulling me along with. Then, to his delight, we ran all the way down the hill together. He likes running down the smallest of slopes but this is the tallest and steepest ‘hill’ that I think he has ever run down, and well, he loved it!

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

…and again…

… and again! Many times over!

Oh the simple pleasures of running down hills! 🙂

Mud Mud Marvellous Mud - Outdoor Play Party

(Mummy Daddy Me)

Our little builder – 20 mths

Posted by Caroline Elliott

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

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

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

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

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

Free (ish) indoor fun – 20 mths

Posted by Caroline Elliott

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Playtime with household objects (ages 6 mths +)

Parcel tape play

Playing with velcro hair rollers and straws

Our failed Valentine Craft attempt!

Posted by Caroline Elliott

You may or may not have read that I have set myself a Creative Challenge to be more creative with Monkey’s playtime and to allow him to explore his creativity more at the same time. I know I am not alone in my fears about messy play but I am trying my best to brave with this challenge. (Please click here if you would like to join the challenge!)

With V day coming up I thought it was a perfect opportunity to be a bit creative. Hubby and I don’t really do valentines day but I thought that Monkey’s Nanny and Grandma might appreciate a card from him. So using an idea I’ve nabbed from Baked Potato Mummy I decided to do some cutting and sticking. I cut out some heart shapes and tore up some tissue paper in suitable valentines colours.

I was going to try and do the gluing on the hearts before Monkey joined in as I was worried how he would get on with the glue… but well I failed and my child is far too clever for me. He always seems to know when I am doing something I don’t want him to know about. I think it’s a combination of me being rubbish at being sly and the fact that he wants to know what is going on ALL the time to make sure he’s not missing out!

So anyway he came to find out what was going on and was immediately obsessed with the glue bottle and lid….

for ages….

…even while I was trying to get him interested in sticking things (he loves stickers so I thought he would love it, but, no). He eventually had fun blobbing the glue on the card, but he didn’t want to stick the tissue paper down.

And then, well I’m not really sure why, I think he thought I was trying to take the glue away from him (he was getting annoyed with having sticky hands so was trying to help!) but he started bawling. Properly bawling. As if his world was ending. For ages. For apparently no reason.

After a while I got out some little foam bits and he cheered up instantly – and played with them for a bit and then went to off to play-doh. (Kids, eh?)

So well, here are the valentines cards… but I’m ashamed to say that aside from a little bit of glue dobbing, I made them (eye roll). Not a great start to the Creative Challenge! I’ve tried to console myself that it was good sensory play, and good fine motor control practice, but, well, really it was a big fat fail wasn’t it? haha oh well, you’ve got to laugh! Maybe I will try something slightly less ambitious for our next messy play!

The upside was that when my little bro, Uncle Marky, came round for a play after work, the two of them had a whale of a time playing with the tissue paper, throwing it up in the air and all around! haha They were at it for ages! Silver lining and all that!

The Creative Challenge linky will open on the LAST WEDNESDAY of every month – so 26th February. I hope your creative challenge is going better than mine is so far! 🙂 Two weeks to go! Click here to find out more!!

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

I’m also linking up with Kid GLloves and Mini creations… though all Monkey really made was a mess 🙂 sorry guys! xx

Becoming a Stay at Home Mum

Can I really do this?

playtime ideas

Having Fun with Nanny

Toddler Sunrise Painting – 21 months

Reflection #ThePrompt

Playing with Cloud Dough – 21 months

Monkey’s Tin Can Tower – 21 months

Creative Challenge Linky #1

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

Here’s how this works.

Running down hills

Our little builder – 20 mths

Free (ish) indoor fun – 20 mths

Our failed Valentine Craft attempt!