Staying sane - "gratitude diaries"

When Little E started nursery, they asked us to keep a little journal of his day. He was only 10 months old, so it was to help maintain a routine that worked at home and nursery. They filled in what he got up to at their end - when he slept, what he ate, what activities he enjoyed - and we did the same when he was home.

It was really useful and more than 2 years on, we all still fill in "his book" every day.

I've kept it up, because it makes me happy and I wondered if others would like to share in the idea.

Why do I like it?

1) It's a lovely memento. I just got back his old journal from nursery. They keep his old ones to help fill in his progress reports. The first entry is from 4/11/15, so over a year ago. Little E was obviously beginning to become confident with his colours and counting 1,2,3. It names the children he played with most at nursery. Our entries over the next few days talk about puddle hunting and his first nasal flu vaccine! It's all the little details there on every page. I can flick through and it triggers lots of happy memories.

2) It helps me to reflect on my day in a positive light. This is of course something that I started for nursery. I didn't want them to think I was a bad mummy, so I documented the "good stuff". However, it also meant that I began to see all the good stuff I did. Big E would come home from work and I would feel defeated   - Little E hadn't eaten, he'd watched too much CBeebies, he'd had a tantrum, etc. But then, while they had bath time, I would write in Little E's book and I'd remember we'd  had a cuddle on the sofa, that he'd sung me a song, that we'd done some water play at the sink, that I had handled the tantrum and that he'd at least eaten an apple. Big E often writes in the journal at weekends and he finds the same thing - you suddenly realise how much you have done for this little person and we're not doing too badly after all.

I think it works like a mindfulness and a gratitude diary all in one. I take time to reflect on my day and try to focus on the positive things. I'm intending to start one when no. 2 comes along.

We think we plan to keep this up until Little E starts school. We just won't be as lucky to have staff who have time to write such a detailed description of our child's life. We shall see.

Crafting by not a very crafty mum - Quality Street wrappers

If you are anything like my family at Christmas, you're about to get through a lot of Quality Street (other sweets are available).

I got a large tin free with my shopping this November. We could have saved them for Christmas, but me and Big E couldn't resist them and have started tucking in.

As always, there is then a huge pile of colourful cellophane left over. I thought there must be something we could do with these.

So me and Little E made "stained glass" sun-catchers. They worked out so much better than I thought they would.

First step: eat chocolate! Collect wrappers

Second step: Get out your sticky backed plastic. The blog that inspired me to do this suggested decorating half a piece and then you fold the undecorated half over the top at the end. This worked well for us. Little E liked chopping up the wrappers best.

Third step: fold over the plastic to seal your creation in. I then used a biscuit cutter to draw around and cut out star shapes. I was sure they would fall apart or curl up, but they stuck togetherness brilliantly. I used a hole punch to make a hole and threaded some ribbon through. Little E said "wow" when I showed him the result.

Even on a dreary, rainy day, they look nice in the window. I've got all sorts of ideas now of what's we could make. Definitely think we need to make a few for the tree. Plus, we might just HAVE to buy more chocolates. Win.

Crafting by nota very crafty mum - keepsake

Little E is three today and I thought it might be time to share a keepsake I am hoping to make for him.

When Eric was born there were so many ideas for capturing his first year - baby books, hand prints, etc, but it made me a bit sad that it all seemed to stop after this.

Then I started seeing long term projects - grown ups being given lamps filled with everything their mums had emptied from their pockets for years, journals full of letters from every teacher they had ever  had, etc. I have friends who have made lovely shadow boxes filled with memories or personalised art.

This is sounded a bit complicated! I am not sure when I thought of it, but at some point before Little E was one, I decided to try and collect a birthday badge for every year of his life.

My collection so far! Every year I've tried to choose a badge with something Little E loves. It was hard when he was one, as we weren't sure what he really liked. He did seem to like the colour orange, so I went for an orange badge and that has turned out to be his favourite colour (along with green). Diggers for his second birthday and it is all about super-heroes now he is three! He doesn't really know who Spider-man is, but he knows super-heroes run around going zap and say "To the rescue!" He spends hours at nursery playing super-heroes with the other children.

My plan is to try and do this until he is 18 and then have them mounted for a wall hanging. Time will tell if I manage this. I don't want to hide them in a drawer until that time, so I pin them to this cardigan remnant and they live in his room. I hope he will at least enjoy them even if I don't manage to finish my project.

Hope this inspires some of your own ideas.

Cake decorating - Person of Interest

My life has changed. There are pens for cake! After years of rubbish icing, I won't ever look back!

I've been planning a Person of Interest cake for months for Big E. He loves Lego and I saw the computer programmer minifig at a craft fair. I couldn't help but think he looked like Finch from POI. We love POI, so I had my TV theme this year for Big E's birthday cake.

I looked out for Lego figurines that I thought might work on the cake. I got a police officer body and a dog that looks Like Bear from eBay. I completed what else I needed from https://minifigs.me

 I found out about cake pens from a lady at work who, unlike me, is amazing at decorating cakes. Seriously, why did no one tell me before? I got a red one from Hobby Craft.

Exciting times!

Crafting by not a very crafty mum - Ruby Wedding Anniversary card

Big E's parents just had their 40th wedding anniversary. It was another nice excuse for me to try something new.

I saw lots of lovely ideas, but I did like the idea of a family tree. I got my in-laws to put their finger prints on a piece of card months before the event, in the hope they would forget what I was up to. I thought I would make them a pair of love birds at the top of their tree with their children, partners and grandchild as the leaves. I found a lovely sentiment to write on the card: "From strong roots grow beautiful leaves".

You'd probably need a bigger card if you have a bigger family!

Crafting by not a very crafty mum - peacock first anniversary card

My sister got married last year. She and her now husband chose a peacock theme for their big day. I was honoured to be asked to make the button holes, which I wrote about last year.

I was sure I could make them a card for their paper anniversary. I saw some nice children's crafts using coffee filters to make peacocks, but I couldn't easily get hold of coffee filter papers and Little E is still not that keen on painting.

However, when he does feel inspired, I keep it in a drawer to use for a later project. One of these became this:

As if by luck, we were messing about with paint in the garden a few weeks earlier. Little E was having fun mixing paints together and it was lovely watching him discover how blue and yellow become green.

I realised the blues and greens might work for a peacock tail and so cut out a circle from his painting. I had some nice shiny blue card to make a peacock body. Stick it all together and add some detail with a gold pen and I was done.

I also used this painting to make thank you cards for Little E's birthday. I have to make his artwork stretch when it is so limited!

30 days wild - wild cards for Father's Day

30 Days Wild takes place in June. It is run by The Wildlife Trust and encourages people to perform "a random act of wildness" every day in June. This can be something as simple as taking a moment to have a cup of tea outside in your garden. They hope by reconnecting with nature we will feel happier and healthier.

With Fathers' Day coming up, I was inspired to do some "wild art" cards.

I really enjoyed making these. I wandered around our garden collecting petals, grasses, etc. I grouped them into colours. It was very relaxing noticing all the wonderful things that grow in my garden...no thanks to me! I remembered doing it as a child - collecting fallen blossom, rose petals, grasses. What a shame that grown up life seems too busy to have a few minutes to yourself just mucking about.

I had cards ready set up with sticky backed plastic to stick the petals to. I started one for my dad, so little E could see what the idea was.

Little E was very excited when he saw all the colours. Then, as I expected, poured all the bowls onto his card and smashed them down! "I'm done, mummy!" It was very funny and demonstrated my son's usual method of handling things!

I then put a layer of sticky backed plastic over the top to seal it.

Sadly, although I had experimented and thought they would survive, the petals really faded and the cards were looking a bit sorry for themselves on the actual day. If you do this, I suggest you make them as fresh as possible. Big E still thought it was a lovely idea. :)

30 Days of Wild

I have signed up to the 30 Days of Wild challenge for June.

http://action.wildlifetrusts.org/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1823&ea.campaign.id=48499

The idea is to do a " random act of wildness" every day. It can be something as simple as looking up your favourite wild animal online, walking barefoot in your garden, taking a picture of a butterfly...

I was inspired to do this by Little E. The other month we were walking back from a weekly music class we attend, when he stopped at his favourite hole. "Not again!" I thought. A torn up area of grass verge is nothing to get excited about. I wanted to get home, have lunch, do "useful" things...

...when I stopped. Why was I in a rush? This muddy patch has given us some lovely moments. Splashing in our wellies, when it froze rock hard and Little E could stand on it, throwing rocks into it...

Little E is outdoorsy and I always feel I ought to be trying harder to get him on some nature walks. It suddenly occurred to me how much there was to experience on our way home. We took our time - played with the puddle, he rolled in the grass verges and I noticed the range of grasses and flowers in them, met a cat, pretended to be a dog. There were ants, beetles, butterflies and birds to look at. When we got home, Little E got me to roll in the grass in our garden and watch the clouds in the sky. I haven't done this for years.

And I felt happy (and slightly nauseated from the rolling).

I've signed up to 30 days of wild, which is supposed to start in June, but I am already trying to be mindful of it. I stopped and breathed in some wisteria scent near my house, noticed the flowers and lichens on the walls as I walk around. I practice mindfulness and this fits in perfectly - I am completely absorbed in what I can see around me and what my son is doing.

People keep telling me, "Enjoy it while it lasts, they grow up so quickly", but time stands stills when I focus on Little E completely. I hope 30 days of wild will give me more ways to direct my attention on what we do together.

Why not go wild too. :)

Crafting by not a very craft mummy - first anniversary card

I am fortunate to know lots of very creative people. It is inspiring. A few of them have made cards for their friends' first wedding anniversaries - appropriate as traditionally it is paper.

I fancied a go, as some good friends of ours got married last year. I got to be a bridesmaid and Big E was a groomsmen.

Ages ago I'd seen a lovely idea to use the score of the couple's first dance as a backdrop to the card. Our friends' first dance was "Your Song" by Elton John. I searched on Google and found the sheet music! Now...the website seemed legitimate and open access, but I am sorry Elton John if I have downloaded your copy righted material!

Their wedding colour scheme was green.

Step 1: Choose your colours and song sheet. It was easy to fiddle with the print size of the song, so I could make it the right size.

Step 2: Stick the layers together. I just used a standard glue stick.

Step 3: Cut out a little heart shape. I then decorated it with gold pen with their names, but you could just put the date or whatever you fancy.

Step 4: I left it at this stage for ages, but as I was putting in it an envelope, I added their wedding date to the top.

I hope they like it. :)

Crafting by not a very crafty mum - marbled paper cards

Marbled paper tutorials starting appearing on my Pinterest feeds. Some of them were so beautiful and it sounded easy. With Easter approaching it was a chance to try it out. The final result turned out better than I thought, considering I completely fudged the process!

I read through quite a lot of tutorials that I googled. They all used shaving cream, but they varied in what paper, paints, etc they used. Shopping is getting harder with Little E. He is nearly 2 and a half and my corridors echo with "I don't want to!" Nipping out for some shaving cream can turn into a half an hour battle to get his coat on.

So, I thought I would have a go with what I had in the house. I had foaming hair mousse, some left over finger paints and standard white printer paper. That'll do...

I have no photos of the process, as there was foam and paint everywhere to contend with! Little E also lost interest quickly. He loved the hair mousse (as always), but he didn't understand why we weren't playing with our Arctic toys in the foam like we usually do. I didn't mind. It was finally a sunny spring day and afterwards we went outside with his Artic toys to splash around in buckets of water.

I'll try to explain what we did, but I recommend looking up some proper tutorials.

First step was the only prep I did. I lined a baking tray with foil. Ours has a nice deep edge to it, so I thought that would work well.

Step two was to let Little E play with the foam and fill the tray. He liked this!

Step three was to squeeze paint into the foam. The finger paints I had were in little tubes, so Little E enjoyed giving them a good squeeze, even though he was confused why we were doing this.

Step four is then to swirl the paint around in the foam to make patterns. This is where my process fell down. The mousse didn't support the paint and it mainly sunk to the bottom of the tray. We did get some paint brushes and mix it about, but Little E couldn't really see what was happening, so I am sure this is why he gave up.

Step five is to press your paper onto the foam and soak up all those beautiful swirly patterns you have made. I thought mine wasn't going to work at all. However, I could see the paint was lurking at the bottom, so I just pressed down firmly until the paper made contact. I could easily see the paint soaking into the paper. The foam was so wet that the colours were transferred easily. Fortunately, I had baking parchment paper standing by to transfer our soaking wet paper onto. I made two sheets. Little E enjoyed watching me do this part and seemed impressed.

And...it didn't look too bad! 

Certainly not some of the fabulous patterns I had seen online, but I was pleased. It was definitely something I could work with.

When the paper was dry, I used a template to cut out bunny shapes. I placed it over where there seemed to be the best mix of colours. I felt the centre was too uniformly red.

Stick them to card and add an appropriate pun...

My final thoughts are that the process of marbling was easy and fun. I am sure it is something we will try again. Little E is still young and I'm experimenting with ideas that I have never heard of. I would definitely try with proper shaving cream next time. Making the cards took no time at all and I made a bunch in probably 15 minutes. I still have loads of left over marbled paper to make more if I need to.

Toddlers - keep it simple, stupid!

"Keep it simple, stupid."

Wise words from my medical registrar when I was struggling with the complexities of lymphomas and leukaemias. As soon as I realised it was her job to worry about that stuff and mine to get on with the day to day ward work, it all got a lot easier!

I liked the phrase and it has been a useful concept over the years.

I've been thinking about the simple things recently.

It probably started when we got some big cardboard boxes. It was exciting thinking about what I could make and I got really interested in making a castle. Loads of images on Pinterest are, of course, really quite elaborate creations.

You can also buy them ready made...It's all a bit intimidating.

When we first got the boxes, we purely used them as tunnels, which Little E loved.

However, they were losing their structural integrity, so one nap time, I opened them up and made a big circle. It looked pretty lame, but no time for anything else.

Little E came down from his nap, his eyes lit up and he cried out "A castle!" He played with it for days and we still get them out from time to time.

We also have a box full of packing pellets leftover from Christmas, which I don't think we ever leave my house. 

This has been a sensory toy, something to hide in, fake snow/rubble for the diggers, "leaves" to sweep up and currently...a bubble bath!

We also have a cardboard tube from a roll of wrapping paper that Little E loves. It even makes it into bed with his cuddly toys. It's a sword, a magic wand, a tunnel for cars, a trumpet... We have done nothing to it to make it these things, it just transforms in Little E's head.

It's made me realise that sometimes when we try too hard and make something for our children, we are ruining it for them! A box can be anything, but a cardboard car is a cardboard car.

Keep it simple, stupid!

Toddler activity - when your little one has other ideas...

Today's episode starts with my beloved flower wellies.

My sister bought these for me about 15 years ago. They have done me proud, but couldn't withstand the amount of puddle jumping I've done with my toddler. They were leaking and I needed to move on.

I didn't want to just throw them away, but what could I do with the them? The only recycle idea I found was to make them into a planter.

Little E likes digging, so I thought planting some flowers would be good.

So, I made this! Little E picked the flowers out from our local shop.

I got most of my inspiration from this blog... Baby Routes. She is a great blogger. Walking and nature with little ones.

http://babyroutes.co.uk/how-to-make-flower-pots-from-old-wellies/

From her video...her kids got stuck in. Aww...sweet.

Little E did not...Sigh.

At first I was disappointed. I then realised the reason he wasn't helping, was because he was too busy filling a bucket of water up with soil. He spent ages doing that. He then wanted to tip it all out. He discovered that he had created mud! I can only imagine this is how Man must have felt when he discovered fire.

I think he played with this mud for the next hour and we had a whole "mud kitchen" thing going on.

Now...this was hard for me. I am not a particularly "cool" mum. Big E is also not fond of mess and mud. When Little E started painting the gate with mud it took all my will power not to shout "Not on the gate! I'll have to clean that up! Your dad will be upset too!" 

Then I thought...it's mud! The rain will wash that away.

Thankfully it was all a lot of fun. An added bonus...Little E didn't throw any at me.

If being a mum has taught me nothing else, it has helped me to be more flexible. Little E knows his own mind and really doesn't want to be told what to do. I have to learn to create a space for him to do his own thing. I must be mindful that these projects are what I WANT. Hopefully he can then use them to do what he wants.

It's easy to get obsessed with picture perfect parent blogs with happy children joining in with brilliant activities. We probably all need to learn to go with the flow (and mud!) a bit more.

When messy play gets messy!

Oh dear...

Not everything I try goes well and this didn't go well at all...

I thought I would share this, as you can end up looking at lots of blogs with happy, smiling, well behaved kids and think, "What am I doing wrong?" You aren't doing anything wrong, people are only sharing the stuff that went well!

We go to a lovely toddler group once a week that always has a messy play station. One week, it was cold, cooked spaghetti. Little E loved it and I squirrelled it away as an idea that I could do easily at home. How messy can spaghetti get?

Really messy...

My rookie mistake? Forgetting Little E likes throwing. He threw it everywhere! I think we'll be finding spaghetti down the back of radiators for a week. When he started throwing it at me, I'd had enough and ended the game.

Picking cold, sticky spaghetti off the floor takes a long time.

This is why I have always been concerned about messy play. I have limited energy and I really didn't want to clean that all up on top of everything else I have to do. Worst of all, Little E didn't want to help the clean up and had a tantrum.

Sigh...Felt like a failure...

Then I reflected...

Until then, we'd had a really nice time.

He'd love it. Chopping, cutting, serving me bowls of spaghetti, sticking his hands and face in it! He cut it up with scissors and I showed him how to use scissors with one hand. It was great.

Yes, he had a tantrum, but I stood my ground and in the end, he came back and helped me tidy up. Yes! 1 point to mummy!

So...will I do spaghetti again? Maybe outside for the time being or until he is old enough to stop throwing things!

I'd definitely recommend having a go if you think you can contain the mess...or have a dog to eat it all up off the floor and walls and chairs and ceiling....

Toddler activity - ice world

I had all these high ideals of Little E not watching TV.

Guess how long that lasted...

I am so lucky to live in a world with CBeebies. High quality, fun and educational programmes on a dedicated channel from 6am until 7pm. At least I can be confident that when I turn the TV on there will be good stuff. He's learnt a lot.

The only problem...Little E LOVES TV. I think he'd watch it all day if he could. We had to bring in strict rules about turning off the TV. Cue tears and tantrums. It was hard. Now he'll turn off the TV, but looks at me as if to say, "Now what?" He'll play with his toys, but unless he is really interested, we can end up with him sitting on the sofa, shouting at me to turn the TV back on.

If the weather is good, no problem. He'll happily play outside for ages. But on bad weather days, the afternoons can drag on with him demanding TV over and over unless I keep distracting him.

It helps if I have some ideas of ways to entertain Little E. Hence, one soggy day, I pulled out - Mini Ice World.

There are loads of ideas like this on Pinterest. People call them mini-worlds, sensory bins, etc. I'd seen an artic one and thought it looked so pretty, so had been collecting items - some left over polystyrene from Christmas, glass pebbles from a charity shop, Schleich polar animals and some hair mousse. I got out our baking tray and covered it in baking parchment to try to protect it.

Little E gasped when he saw it and was engrossed for about 45 minutes. Result!

I had frozen some ice cubes, which I added as well. Little E wasn't that bothered to be honest, but I've seen other ideas when you freeze all sorts of shapes to make ice floes for polar pears, etc, so I might try that in the future.

He loved the foaming hair mousse! An old memory dredged up from my past. I used to sneak into my mum's hair kit and spray tiny amounts of hair mousse on my hand. I loved to watch it puff up too.

He kept pointing to where he wanted me to squirt some next. I dropped some of the animals in the foam and said they were hiding. This amused him. When he found them, he wasn't happy that the foam had stuck to them. "Dirty!"

Guess, they need a bath then! Little E is a "water baby". He'll mess around with water until the cows come home. So, I got some out.

After their bath, he poured most of the water into the tray! We were all very soggy by the end, but it was good fun. The baking parchment did not survive!

Little E began making the penguin and seal swim through the water. He said they were eating. I asked him if he knew what they ate. At which point, I remembered we had more items we could use for our icy world! A duplo fish and polar bear. In they went.

It was amazing how much there was to talk about. The animals, the experience, the polystyrene floating, the glass beads sinking...We both enjoyed it.

When he was done, I tidied the animals, polystyrene, pebbles and mousse away into a shoe box and hope to bring them out another time.

If you fancy a go, there is lots of inspiration on Pinterest. However, lots of them are pretty complicated with lots of ingredients and things you need. I don't want to spend too much money and end up with more junk in my house, so I aimed to reuse and recycle. Always great to hear anyone else's ideas.

Time to experiment with some more mini worlds methinks!