Sometimes it really is the simplest of things that excite children the most! ... read more
Cleaning frenzy
Mr C and I aren't extirely sure how, but it seems we've managed to produce a daughter with a bit of a cleanliness obession. Some of her first words included "clean, tidy and messy". From as soon as she was old enough to walk around with a drink she would get into a bit of a blind panic if any drink ended up on the floor. We mainly have cheap laminate floors downstairs, so a quick wipe with a cloth and the problem is easily solved, but she is determined that this wiping up should be done the second the mess is made and seems most put out if any thing else takes ... read more
Never too young to garden
Whenever Little Miss C goes out into the back garden, one of the first things she does is try to get into the shed to get one of her many watering can. Once she's got it she then marches straight over to the water butt where she can be heard chanting "fill it, fill it" until the watering can has been filled with water. After that she goes straight over to the veg plot and makes sure that all the plants get a drink. Sometimes the water even comes out of the spout of the watering can! ... read more
The power of a child’s imagination
The more I watch Little Miss C play the more amazed I am at the way in which she uses toys in different ways to how the original designers intended. One of her favourite Christmas presents this year was a Bigjigs train set. She loves playing with it and in particular letting the trains run down the far side of the bridge that is part of the set. Having seen how good it was letting trains go down the "hill" she decided to take things a step further. Her VTech Toot Toot Drivers Garage has a spiral ramp so LMC decided to combine the two - cue trains running up ... read more
Homemade playdough
The weather here has been awful since the new year and after all the excitement of Christmas and New Year I've had my work cut out keeping LMC entertained. A bit of pre-planning meant that today I was able to do something with her that in my opinion falls into the "fantastic mummy" category - home made playdough! I found several recipes online, but a nanny friend told me to look for the ones that involved heating the ingredients as these were the ones that she had found most successful. With that piece of information I decided to try this recipe from the ... read more
That bit in-between
We're just drawing to the end of that slightly strange period between Christmas and New Year that people often don't quite know what to do with. Here we've been simply enjoying time as a family of three. After nearly a week of get-togethers with extended family we're making the most of the simple things for a while. Amongst playing with the lovely toys hat Father Christmas brought for LMC (more on those later!) there's been plenty of Christmas TV to catch up on, trips to some local (free) attractions and also making the most of the adorable Jemima Puddleduck ... read more
Daddy’s slippers
And there was me thinking that Little Miss C was a bit young for dressing up. She proved me wrong though when she got hold of Mr C's slippers the other evening... ... read more
Holiday with toddler must-have items
It seems a while ago now that I wrote about our first foreign holiday with Little Miss C. We learnt so much in those few days about travelling with a little one and I therefore want to share wih you the three things that we took with us that I would encourage anyone travelling with a toddler to take. 1. Ergo Baby Carrier I'm afraid I don't have a photo of me using our carrier, but that's mainly because of the times it was useful. We flew with Easyjet from Stansted airport and I have to say that they were really good when it came to carrying baby equipment with us. We were ... read more
VTech Toot Toot Drivers Garage
It's as if Christmas has come a bit early for Little Miss C this year. I came home from town the other day with her buggy weighed down with the Toot Toot Drivers Garage to review from our lovely local toy shop, Cuthberts. The Toot Toot Drivers range comes from VTech, and as you would expect from them combines bright colours and noises to attract the children, with interactive elements to help them learn through play. The vehicles are a lovely size to fit into small hands, and also talk and sing in response to pressing a button on them whilst the Garage provides a fantastic centre piece ... read more
Messy painting
Whilst Little Miss C had her lunchtime nap on Monday I decided that we should make the most of the good weather and so I set up for us to do some painting in the sunshine. Whilst she slept it all looked so beautiful. I'd laid out everything carefully, taped the plastic sheet down so that wind didn't blow it away, put paint in four different containers, taped the paper down and I even had a special pot for the water that she couldn't tip over and spill. Then the artist woke up... She was very excited to see what we'd got lined up for the afternoon. She's done some painting ... read more