Happy Holidays!

Now, I promise not to bore you with a lengthy account of our holiday – wonderful as it was – but I would like to share a few snippets… such as sign-eating trees….

and stunning waterfalls.

Mastering the tricky art of sandcastle construction….

and taking a first-ever splash in the sea.

Visiting a quirky collection of automata (see them move here)….

and taking a (slightly bemused) look at the Rabbit Village…

and, best of all, just taking time to sit and watch the world go by.

Birthday Bash

My little girl was 2 last week and, once I’d overcome my disbelief (has it really been two whole years?), it was time for a family celebration.

Mum made a wonderful cake…..

and ‘helped’ me make a wonderful present for the birthday girl (helped as in ‘did 99.9% of the work’)…

which proved popular with daughter and daddy alike!

We continued the age-old family tradition of frog racing….

but, as with all good parties, things soon deteriorated into nudity and silly behaviour…

… and a great time was had by all!

Dawdle Days

Judging by the amount of groups, events and activities organized for them, children these days seem to require an awful lot of entertaining! Take the small town where we live for instance – if we wanted, my daughter could go along to an organized event every day of the week: toddler groups, soft play, baby gym sessions, storytimes and rhymetimes – to name just a few!

As it is, we go to two toddler groups and one music class a week plus the occasional trip to the soft play centre. Now, please don’t mistake me, I think toddler groups, soft play centers and the like have a lot to offer – they’re a great place for toddlers to fine tune skills such as balance and co-ordination, use up some excess energy and interact with other children. They’re also great for mums as they offer opportunities to socialize and usually provide one of the (all too) rare occasions in the week when you get a cuppa made for you!

However, I don’t think that they should be the be all and end all: it’s important for children to have a bit of variety, a bit of randomness and a chance to entertain themselves. I guess I worry that, if kids are continually entertained – either by tv, organised play or all-singing all-dancing electronic toys, then how will they learn to use their imaginations and be creative? If they’re continually cosseted in risk-free ‘safe’ environments, how will they learn to assess risk? If we constantly organize and ‘manage’ their play, how will they learn self-reliance and spontaneity? If they’re always indoors, how will they learn to appreciate the natural world?

Personally, I choose to leave my daughter to her own devices from time to time in order that she at least gets chance to make her own entertainment. It doesn’t always work – if she’s tired and grumpy, she’ll refuse to play on her own and will soon be tugging at my legs. But more often than not, she’s quite content to play alone and I’m pleased to say that she’s quite an imaginative little thing. She’s particularly fond of playing with her ragdolls and will sing to them, pretend to feed and dress them, make them dance with each other or give them a ride on her rocking horse. I can’t resist sneakily peeking in on her sometimes as it’s just so heartwarming to see! 

As well as time to herself, I like us to have ‘dawdle days’ once or twice a week – days where we have nothing planned and can just go with the flow – no groups to attend, people to see or classes to go to. We can simply spend hours making daisy chains, painting pictures, baking biscuits, exploring the river banks or generally just mooching about.

This morning was a good example of one of our dawdle days. It was wonderfully laid back and completely unplanned. I needed a few bits and pieces from the market so on the way back we stopped at the park for an hour. Baby Small had brought one of her dolls with her and after she’d played on the swings and slide, she insisted that dolly did too.

When we got home I fancied a spot of baking so checked to see what we could make with the limited ingredients I had to hand (remember this was unplanned baking!) and opted for snickerdoodles. Can you guess which ones mummy made and which baby made?

Sometimes the best days really are those that are completely unplanned! Oh and if you’ve never tried snickerdoodles, do give them a try! You’re in for a treat…. 

 

xxx

Our Easter Weekend

What a perfect weekend! 

We baked…..

….and baked…..

….and baked some more!

We feasted with family…

and walked some of it off…

…and then some more…

and then some more (well, it was a big meal)!

We created….

…and displayed.

We marvelled at the sights of spring…

and the scents.

We drank in the views…

… and had a thoroughly fabulous time! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter too. 

xxx

A spring in our steps

This weekend we spotted sunny yellows…

and vibrant greens.

We watched the lambs in the fields….

and noticed smaller creatures too.

We delighted in the new….

and revisited old friends.

We hunted for treasures……

and made keepsakes of our finds.

A lovely weekend full of love, laughter and sunshine! I hope yours was bright and beautiful too.

x

Time Together

This weekend, as a Valentine’s Day treat, my husband and I spent some time together without the baby. This was quite a big step for me as I’ve spent very little time away from her – partly through necessity as I was breastfeeding up until recently, but also due to the fact that the fretful mother in me was reluctant to trust her care to someone else. However, as my husband and I have spent so little quality time together as a couple recently, we thought it was important that we had a weekend away. I must confess, I did take some talking around but in the end I agreed to it.

After dropping off the baby at my mum’s, we went out for a meal and it was lovely to have time to talk about ideas and thoughts rather than practical matters demanding our attention. In fact, it was just so lovely to have time generally. Everything about our time away was slow-paced and unhurried – a complete contrast to my normal day-to-day activities. Breakfast the next morning for instance, was a wonderfully leisurely affair with pastries and a paper – a real treat as we don’t have time to read the paper usually.

We then spent the day in Malvern, Worcestershire – walking in the hills and finally visiting the knitting shop in the town which had been enthusiastically recommended to me by a number of people. The Malverns have a special significance for us as my husband proposed to me at their highest point many years ago and whilst we were up there it made us smile to see another couple doing just that. It’s undoubtedly a romantic spot – even on a damp and windy february day. The visibility wasn’t great but you could still see great swathes of the surrounding countryside – the rolling hills of Herefordshire contrasting with the flat plains of Worcestershire. There was still some snow on the hills, although it had disappeared on the low-lying areas.  We climbed up Herefordshire Beacon which is topped by British Camp, an Iron Age hillfort and the snow dramatically picked out the ditches of the ramparts. I loved how the snaking trails of snow seemed to coil themselves around the hill….

And of course, snow always provides opportunities for adults to act like kids…..

You can’t see in the picture, but there was a perfectly good non-slippy path to the side of me but I opted for the more er… interesting method of throwing myself down a snowdrift and, yes, I did end up on my bottom.

So, we had a wonderful time but how did baby small fare? Well, I think it was clear when we went to collect her and had to prise her away from grandma – she just didn’t want to leave! 

Finally….

…some snow! This is the first snow we’ve had here this winter and I’m ridiculously excited about it. What is it about snow that fills us with such childish delight? For me it conjures up memories of days off school spent playing in the snow, building snowmen and sledging down the pea field on old carpet tiles. Oh to be 10 years old again!

Back to the present – the baby was a little uncertain about the white stuff at first but she was soon stomping about in it. I didn’t let her stay out too long though as she’s quite poorly at the moment (hence the snotty nose in the pic – poor thing) and I thought getting cold and wet probably wouldn’t improve matters!

Up North

Sorry if things have been a little quiet on here of late, but we’ve been visiting friends in Cumbria. We had a wonderful time but I’m a bit weary from traveling so instead of writing a lengthy post about all the lovely things we got up to, I’ve selected a few photographs from the trip….

Normal service will resume shortly!

Box of delights: ingredients for stress-free cooking!

As I’ve mentioned before, its important to me that we all eat together as a family at dinnertime. In order for us to have a leisurely, relaxed meal before baby bathtime, this means I need to have dinner on the table the moment my husband arrives home from work. Trying to cook with a tired, grumpy baby pulling at my legs and demanding “up, up, up” with increasing urgency (and volume) can be a tad stressful, so I try to find inventive ways to keep her occupied whilst I cook. In the past I’ve selected a few of her favourite toys to bring into the kitchen but these have never managed to hold her attention for long – I guess because they’re too familiar. I’ve also tried nursery rhymes and dancing around the kitchen like a mad woman – for some reason she wasn’t too keen on this either – perhaps mummy prancing about is again too familiar. What I needed was something new – something interesting that she could examine and safely fiddle with whilst my attention was elsewhere – so I came up with this:

A box of delights – full of interesting bits and pieces. I was keen for the contents to stimulate the senses so the box contains an assortment of brightly coloured, scented and tactile items. I was also keen that it didn’t cost me anything so everything in the box is stuff I’d already got – either in the kitchen or my crafting stash. The box itself was a chocolate box from christmas which I’d held on to once all the chocs had been scoffed (told you I’m a hoarder) and the first two items were also ‘recycled’ from the box – a length of ribbon that had been tied around it (cut short so there’s no risk of the baby wrapping it around her neck) and some of the plastic tray that held the chocolates, cut up and the corners rounded off so they’re not sharp. These have a interesting ridged texture and also make a nice crinkly sound when the baby squishes them. The baby loves to sniff things (in the summer she likes to sniff the herbs I grow outside), so I plundered my herbs and spices draw for things of a sniffable nature that were too large to be inserted into mouth, nose or ear, and came up with a nutmeg and a dried bay leaf. Next I wanted to add a bit of colour so I found out some fabric scraps – some felt and some silk – which had the added benefit of having contrasting textures. Texture is also provided by a prickly pine cone, a champagne cork, a piece of embroidery saved from a greeting card, a foam toe-divider (unused!), an old make-up brush, some butter muslin and some novelty yarn. I’m pleased to report that, so far, the box has been a resounding success and has kept the baby happy whilst I’ve been cooking. I know most of its effectiveness lies in the fact that it’s still very much a novelty, so I’m keeping it hidden away and getting it out only when I’m cooking in the hope that this will prolong it’s usefulness!

Update: I’ve removed the nutmeg after finding it can be toxic in large amounts (thanks CW) – although I think it’s unlikely that the baby would try to eat it, the idea of the box is to contain things she can safely fiddle with without me needing to keep too much of an eye on her – better safe than sorry!

Playing

Sometimes it’s nice to be stuck indoors…