A special snuggle & the same old (adorable) routine

I’m sat on the sofa, or propped up in bed. Invariably I’ve got my iPad and I’m working. The small boy, wanders in, spies me and goes in for a snuggle. We sit in companionable silence for a while, me enjoying his closeness, for it is a rare thing. Then the questioning starts.

Me: Do you want a drink?
Him: No

Me: Do you want a snack?
Him: No

Me: Do you need a wee?
Him: No

Me: Do you need a poo?
Him: No

Me: Do you need a tickle?
Him: No (he squirms)

Me: Do you need me to blow a raspberry on your belly?
Him: No (he squirms some more)

Me: Do you need me to eat your feet?
Him: No (he kicks his legs so I can’t grab his feet and he giggles)

Me: Do you need me to bite your bum?
Him: No. Not my bum!

Me: Do you need me to squeeze your squeezy cheeks?
Him: Noooooooo Mummy!

Me: Are you sure you don’t need a tickle?
Him: No. I do NOT.

Me: Do you need me to kiss you all over your face?
Him: No Mummy no!

What he really means is yes Mummy yes. So I do all of the above and we dissolve into a giggling, tickling, squealing mess. Then we sit, snuggled just a little bit closer and carry on sitting in our own special companionable silence.

I love these moments.

Back to School: My Nametags labels

The small boy starts big school in September. Ok, so technically he’s just in nursery there, but they still need a uniform, so we’re busy buying jumpers, book bags, school shoes, polo shirts, baggy big boy trousers, and all the other bits he’ll need. One of the things I’m insisting upon is that all his uniform is labelled. He is bound to lose his jumper in a pile of other identical jumpers, and life is too short to be sewing on labels, I found the My Nametags website and they seemed like just what we needed.

The My Nametags website let’s you design your own colourful labels, so they stand out when you’re rifling though the lost property box. It’s really easy to do. Type in the name you want, choose the font and colour of your text, select an image (we went for a star, but they had all kinds of things to choose from) and select a background for your label. We liked the blue bubble background, but there are so many to choose from, and they’re really funky looking.

We went for the stickers which you just stick on clothing or items of equipment such as water bottles and pencil cases. If you wait 24 hours before washing your item the sticker will have had time to fully adhere itself to the clothing and should remain there forevermore.

Back to school: My Nametags labels

I don’t think anything could be simpler. There is no sewing, no ironing, it’s just sticking a label on. It took me about 5 minutes to design and order the label, they arrived within a few days and it took about 10 minutes to label up his entire uniform. One set of My Nametags costs £11.95 plus £1 postage and packing, which seems like a good price to me, especially given how quick and easy they are to apply.

They’re fun, eye-catching, easy to use and seem to be good quality. I’d definitely recommend My Nametags and we’ll be going back for more once we’ve used these 56 labels up.

Note: We were sent these My Nametags labels for review purposes. All images and opinions are my own.

42 Days of Summer – frugal summer fun

It’s been a busy old summer for us, it’s our last before the small boy slips on a school uniform and goes to the nursery at big school, so we’ve been busy making the most of our time together. We don’t have a lot of money to lavish on grand days out, so our fun is usually fairly frugal, with the odd treat thrown in for good measure.

When it’s hot, there is nothing more enjoyable than an afternoon playing in the paddling pool with some friends, it’s important for Mums to keep cool with a jug of Pimms too. Playdates are a great opportunity for the kids to burn off some energy while the parents have a catch up and a sit down.

Picnics in the park are a brilliant thing to do, we live close to lots of great parks as well as National Trust properties. We often just throw together a pile of sandwiches, pick up a ball and his scooter and go and spend an hour picnicking and relaxing in the park.

One thing we like to do on rainy or dull days, is a spot of baking or creating in the kitchen. The small boy loves baking cakes and helping Mummy make lunch. His latest fun thing to do is making milkshakes in the blender. He likes helping to tip the ingredients in and whizz them up. But I think he enjoys sampling his creations as much as he does making them.

When the clouds gather and it’s wet and miserable we like to curl up with a good book. As a family we’re quite big on reading, a book can transport you anywhere in the world, or beyond. His favourite book at the moment is Dear Zoo.

There’s lots to do locally if we want a day out somewhere. Again to cut down costs we’ll take a picnic, but so far this summer we’ve been to Blackpool to see a show and go on the beach, CBeebies Land at Alton Towers, Brookside Miniature Railway as well as to the Foodies Festival and to various National Trust properties. We’ve used vouchers and membership cards where we could to help cut down on costs.

Having fun can be hard work, so a quick juice and a biscuit break is essential. We like McVitie’s BN biscuits, they’ve got a cheeky smiley face which appeals to kids, the biscuits themselves are not too sweet, but they come in raspberry jam, chocolate and vanilla flavours. The boys loved the jammy raspberry ones and I like the chocolate. They’re a nice treat if you’re out and about, or if you’re just having a fun day at home.

Hopefully we’ll be able to squeeze a few more days of sunshine and frugal fun out of this summer. We’ve got lots more adventures on the agenda before we have to pack his book bag ready for school in September and enter a new phase of childhood.

Parent Blogging & Boundaries

Tonight I’ve sat and written up a review of some swim pants and edited some pictures of them ready for posting tomorrow. Fairly standard blogger behaviour I think you’ll agree.

What was different tonight is I looked at the images I was going to use of my three year old son, stood on the beach in his swim pants, just being himself and I thought very hard if I should use them or not. I called hubs over for a second opinion and we had a fairly earnest chat about the images I would use of our son.

The pictures are in no way shape or form erotic. He is wearing baggy, nappy type swim pants and nothing else, he’s not posing seductively, he’s not doing anything which might entice or titilate.

I can’t get inside the mind of a paedophile. I can’t imagine what someone sexually attracted to children might find a turn on, but I think even paedophiles might struggle to find them erotic. So tonight we’ve had our first ever “but what about the paedophiles” chat.

In a previous job, I encountered a couple paedophiles trying to be rehabbed in the community. They were sad, lonely boys, intensely weird and probably destined for a lifetime of unhappiness. They’d been badly damaged by years of abuse during their own childhoods, and their idea of what was “normal” behaviour was horribly warped. My point is, unlike most of the angry mob, I have encountered paedophiles in the real world.

Would I let these boys anywhere near my son? Over my dead body. I do everything I can to protect my son from all the dangers of the world, always finding a balance between being protective without being over protective. Never wrapping him in cotton wool, but always being one step behind him if he needs me.

I can protect him as much as anyone can from abuse, but I think it’s important to remember that there aren’t more perverts and paedophiles these days, we just are more aware of them. Online is a different ball game of course, but he’s three and we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

I don’t hold with all this hysteria about no photos of the school nativity or sports day just in case they fall into the hands of a panting paedo. I’m sad to say that I’m sure paedophiles can easily find more erotic images than my son in baggy pants, or a shepherd in the nativity, or the three-legged race at sports day.

So publish and be dammed! Tomorrow, pictures of my boy in baggy swim pants will be on the Internet.

A bit of downtime with my little dude

Being a small boy can be tiring; always on the go, running around, screaming, weeing on the floor, pouring Cheerios everywhere, it is an exhausting business. So every so often we like to give him a pyjama morning.

There’s probably a really good scientific reason why children just need a bit of downtime every so often, we adults do, so I can’t see there being much difference for little ones.

Our small boy leads a busy life, he goes to nursery 3 days a week, playgroup one morning. We go on endless walks and park visits. His weekends are usually a whirlwind of Dads & Tots playgroup, swimming, birthday parties and seeing friends and relatives. We have to fit a lot into his week, I get tired, so he must do too. An occasional lazy pj morning is a huge treat.

I do love our pyjama mornings. We snuggle in bed with some breakfast and get the ipad out. He knows how to work it better than most, so he opens YouTube and starts watching what he wants. He’s 3, he likes to watch Curious George, Thomas the Tank Engine, Fireman Sam and Chuggington.

How lovely, you might think. But he doesn’t just watch the English episodes. He’ll happily spend a happy hour or so working through the back catalogue of Polish Fireman Sam, or German Curious George.

Lately he’s discovered a YouTube channel where a slightly odd man demonstrates and plays with Chuggington toys. He loves them. He loves watching other people play with toys online. It seems a bit weird to me, but it makes him happy. I guess it’s the modern equivalent of my brother spending hours pouring over the toy pages of the Argos catalogue.

Right now, this very minute, I’m sat in bed in my pjs typing this. He’s sat in bed next to me in his pjs, watching Chuggington and enjoying some milk and what’s left of an Easter egg. He’s happy, I’m happy. I’ll switch the laptop off in a few minutes and we’ll cuddle up and watch something together, he’ll stroke my hair absent-mindedly while we enjoy a few quiet moments together.

I think our pj mornings are just as special as all the lovely busy things we get to do together. I think it’s important that he just gets to relax, snuggle with mummy and not always be on the go, doing, doing, doing. Sometimes it’s just nice to just be.

downtime — Just chilling in bed with Mummy

BigJigs Play Patrol…fingers crossed!

It’s not unreasonable to suggest that we love toys in this house. In the last three and a half years our house has slowly but steadily filled with all manner of colourful things to entertain our small boy. One thing we were dead set on was that where possible his toys should be pretty good quality, preferably wooden, durable and ideally they shouldn’t beep, sing, or play teeth-grindingly annoying tunes.

Alas some of those have found their way into his toy-box, but largely the things that entertain him most are his cars, his wooden kitchen, a Manchester United scooter (for shame) and his pride and joy, his BigJigs train set.

A couple of weeks ago we applied to be one of the BigJigs Play Patrol Agents and today we heard that we made it through to the final 21. Excited is not the word!

There’s no voting, so I’m not begging for your support, but I just wanted to share our collective joy and excitement. Whether we get picked or not we’ll still always be happy and loyal BigJigs fans. We should hear in the next few weeks or so, we’ll keep you posted, but please keep your fingers crossed. Exciting times.

Our Visit to Wythenshawe Community Farm

Ever since our visit in March to Reddish Vale Farm we’ve had nothing but plaintiff requests from the boy to “go see the andimals”. It’s impossible to refuse such a delightful request, so off we trotted to Wythenshawe Community Farm for an adventure.

We’ve been a few times before because it is so close to home and it’s free. It is tiny but they’ve packed the place with animals, and at this time of year we were desperate to see the baby lambs.

It is a small community farm, but they’ve managed to pack in sheep, goats, pigs, cows, horses, chickens, ducks and a rather handsome peacock.

Clearly his favourites were once again “the piggins” there were three huge pigs having a snooze in a big-pig-pile. He kept on going back to have a look at them. I suspect it might break his heart when he finds out what sausages are made out of.

We managed to be there during feeding time which was lovely. They even brought out one of the orphan baby lambs and bottle fed it. Little Bobby (in the picture above) was adorable and so soft and placid. There were few children about by that time, but they all got to give him a gentle stroke.

I love this picture of the cows at feeding time, all quietly lined up, heads down, munching away. I couldn’t resist taking this snap.

We’ll be going again in a few weeks, they’ll be bringing the lambs out properly then and we can’t wait to see them. He does love going to the farm and seeing the andimals.

For more information about Wythenshawe Community Farm visit their website here.

Easter Treats at The Hard Rock Cafe – preview

Easter for us is a bit like Christmas (bear with me on this). It’s a whirlwind of trying to see everyone but never quite ending up spending quality time together; just me, the man and the boy. So this Easter we’ve booked ourselves some special, fun time together and everyone else can wait. It’ll be just the three of us and the Easter Bunny!

We spied this lovely sounding event and booked on it straight away. “Breakfast with the Bunny” at the Hard Rock Cafe, Manchester. It’s on Easter Sunday morning and is billed as a little bit of fun all the family. There will be Easter fun and games including egg hunts and egg painting. So in toddler terms that spells out chocolate and crafts, a dream combination in his book.

Guests at ‘Breakfast With The Bunny’ will get some tasty treats and sweets as well as a visit from The Easter Bunny who will be welcoming children and families to the special breakfast at the Cafe. I reckon we’re in for a pretty special morning, he’s at that age where he can appreciate all the Easter frivolity and Mum and Dad can enjoy an excellent Hard Rock breakfast.

We’ve long been fans of the Hard Rock Cafe, we’ve always had good burgers and great cocktails there, I can’t wait to try their breakfast.

If you want to book “Breakfast with the Bunny” then contact the Hard Rock Cafe in Manchester, 0161 831 6700, Price – Children £7.50 and Adults £9.00. If you do go, don’t forget to say hi, we’ll be the family covered in chocolate!

Mother’s Day Toddler Crafts

Like most toddlers our little one lives for a bit of gluing and sticking. If he’s given a piece of paper he’ll draw and colour, or cut it into shapes. Toddlers love all that stuff, and if you sprinkle it liberally with glitter then so much the better.

As Mother’s Day approaches we decided it’d be a nice thing for him to create a mini masterpiece for his Nan. We’d recently taken delivery of a fab activity pack from DoCrafts. The activity packs are brilliant, value for money selections of craft items. We got a general activity pack, but they also do seasonal ones for Christmas and Easter which are a really great idea, especially if you do a lot of toddler crafts.

We sat down and together we unpacked our activity pack. It was heaving with products to choose from and there’s a real variety of craft items, it costs £9.95 and the products inside are worth about double that.

We chose the coloured feathers, foam letters and the chunky pipe cleaners. From our own collection I grabbed a piece of green paper, some glitter and some pva glue. What you have there is the ultimate recipe for toddler joy.

We set to work, because this was a special picture for his Nan I did give him some artistic direction, mainly in the placing of the foam letters in the right order and the twisting of the pipe cleaner into a heart shape. Everything else was his own, pretty impressive work. I loved how he just tipped the glitter into the heart shape without prompting or suggestion. He chose the colour of the feathers and glued them on himself. In fact he glued everything on himself.

He was so proud of his little picture. I have tended to shy away from crafts at home because I don’t like the mess, but this has really encouraged me to do more with him, especially now I’ve seen how proficient he’s become with the paintbrush and glue as well as how much he really loved doing it.

I think we’ll have regular crafting sessions at home now, it’s fun, the look on his face and us working together on something was just joyful, and it’s not actually as messy as I thought.

Disclaimer: We were sent the activity pack free of charge by DoCrafts for review purposes, but it’s a cracking little bag of goodies, and these are our honest opinions.

The Day CBeebies visited Playgroup

Yesterday CBeebies came to film at our playgroup bringing the very lovely Alex Winters with them. Alex was so lovely, all the children loved him, some of them were a little starstruck, some of them recognised him but couldn’t quite place him, but he was lovely, normal, unstarry and lots of fun. My son just kept pointing at him and saying “Beebies man”.

Alex Winters CBeebies — Alex Winters chats to the children at playgroup. My monkey is modelling the paper hat!

Alex “worked the room” but then settled himself down at the craft table. The children were making woolly sheep with cotton wool. He did several pieces to camera and chatted with the children in between takes.

Alex was filming a series of information films for the CBeebies grown ups website. The segments he filmed with us were about doing craft activities with your child. He explained about how beneficial sticking and glueing and throwing glitter everywhere is to their development.

Some of the Mums and Dads were then taken to a separate room to be interviewed about doing craft activities with their children. I think everyone enjoyed meeting Alex and we all had fun making our woolly sheep. I think there will be disappointed faces when he’s not there next week!

Look out for the film on the CBeebies website over the next few weeks.

Note: I had permission from the parents of the children pictured to use these pictures, some did ask that I blanked their faces out, thus allowing me to show off my very mediocre photo-editing skills.