Silent Sunday

One step forward and one step back

We've been giving Eden lots of nappy-free time at home this week, and at 19 months, perhaps to be expected we've had a fair few wees on the floor! Today, however, Eden took herself over to her potty, sat down on it and did a wee straight away - all of her own doing, so perhaps she is ready afterall.

Her 'potty training' to use the term loosely as we haven't been pushing it, was just an experiment really. Eden has been in cloth nappies since birth, and although still relatively young by today's standards for potty training, it is said that toddlers in cloth nappies will be ready sooner. I have to admit though, I'm not in any particular rush to 'train' her as the thought of putting her beautiful cloth nappies away/ selling them, makes me sad! Equally, I can't use this as an excuse to hold her back if she's ready though.

So, this week we've taken a step forward towards her potty training. Of course the universe wouldn't be in balance if there wasn't a step back somewhere - and Eden's sleeping has been terrible this week! She has always been a really good sleeper - self-settling to sleep easily and sleeping through until 7am. This week she won't go to sleep unless we're in the room with her, she's waking at 6am, and she's cut her daytime nap down from 2 hours to one if we're lucky. I have no idea what's causing this, or even if it's linked to her potty training developmental step, but I hope it's just a phase and passes soon, as much for her own sake as to ours, as she's been a tired little button this week and much more prone to the grumps!

With all the busyness of toddler-hood this week I haven't had much time at all to devote to the blog, hoping to be back on track really soon!

Bottle-Flower Stamps

Have you ever thought that the bottoms of many drinks bottles actually look like pretty flower petals? I've discovered that they make cool stamp-prints when painting.  

I'm also learning (and I may be slow on the uptake here) that the more painting and craft we do together, the more Eden learns to copy me - like she is understanding that we're doing something specific rather than random! 

Starting with the outer petals before leaving to dry...

Using the bottle top and some yellow paint to create the middle of the flower

This paper kind of lost the flower-theme but Eden was having a blast!

One of the finished paintings that we did together

Baking Tray Wall Art

I love quirky things, and this is definitely one of them! Eden is 19 months, and our fridge is already cluttered with her artwork - I'm just such a proud Mum and love to display the finished articles of fun painting and art sessions that we do together. As she gets older, I'm sure the volume of paintings will only increase as she brings home her school artwork.

I think it's so important to display children's artwork, to affirm their efforts and promote self esteem in their abilities - encouraging the thinking that 'Mummy thinks it's good enough to put on display at home'.

I came across a site the other day called Budget Wise Home, and found a great idea for displaying kids' paintings - using the humble baking tray! Not only does it tick the box for displaying children's artwork, it's also really fun, still looks pretty funky on it's own without the art, and brightens up a dull corner in our dining room. Don't believe me? Here's a photo....

So why use a baking tray? For it's magnetic value! The baking tray frames the paintings wonderfully, and as the painting is held there by magnets, you can change them as often as you like.

Method
You'll need a selection of baking trays (I went to Wilkinsons and spent around £4 for the 3. Tip: Take a magnet with you to check they are actually magnetic before you purchase). You'll also need some spray paint (again Wilkinsons have a good range at a reasonable price).

I did 2 layers of spray paint on the top side only, allowing it to touch-dry in-between layers. I was going to spray the bottom side too but didn't think it would be worth it in the end, and up on the wall you can't tell.

Once dry, after roughly 3 hours, you can attach them to the wall. I used 'Command' small picture hanging strips, basically double sided tape but designed to come off the wall without leaving any marks. B and Q sell packs of 12 for a couple of pounds, and I used 4 on each baking tray. I was surprised at how well they stick to the wall, and its a bonus that they won't leave any marks if/when I decide to take them off.

I left the baking trays for 24 hours before attaching magnets and pictures to be certain that the paint was fully dry. Here's the finished results:

This was a really fun and easy project to do at home with great results! We have them in our dining room, but if you have wall space in the kitchen, being baking trays they fit perfectly with the kitchen-theme!

10 Tips for craft and painting with a baby/young toddler

15 months, experimenting with a paintbrush!

I love doing artwork with Eden! She may only be 19 months (yesterday) but we have a lot of fun together, she learns from the process, and we create loads of special memories and masterpieces that go in her memory box.

I thought I'd write down a few tips that I've learnt from doing painting and crafts with a very little one:

1. First and foremost remember little ones have very short attention spans so don't go into it expecting more than 5 - 10 minutes before they want to change activity
2. Plan and prepare beforehand - get everything, and I mean everything ready before you sit your little one down
3. If inside, put a shower curtain down to protect the floor - cheap ones can be bought for 99p in supermarkets, and they make the session a lot less stressful if you're not worrying about spillages
4. Have a bath ready-run before you start your session, so that your little one can be put straight in when finished. Eden loves baths and this is a fun way to end our painting session 
5. A bit of an obvious one - make sure both of you are wearing old clothes you don't mind getting stains on. I often just put Eden in a nappy if it's going to be particularly messy - this also makes putting her in the bath a lot easier afterwards too as you don't have to fiddle with taking off messy clothes
6. Remember less is more where toddlers are concerned - there's no need to overwhelm them with 20 different colours of paint, they'll be just as happy with a choice of 2 or 3 when they're little
7. As hard as you may find it, let the child lead - if you have a plan to do a beautifully designed painting it's probably best to leave it until your little one is a little older. If you force them to 'paint' when they just want to mix you'll end up with tears and frustration on your hands. But...
8. Toddlers learn through copying so be prepared to quickly demonstrate beforehand and chances are your toddler will try and copy you too
9. Give warning before you finish, don't just snatch the paints away
10. Keep it fun, and make sure you're comfortable with doing the painting session, you won't have fun if you're stressed, and neither will your toddler. If you're calm and happy your toddler is much more likely to be too.  

An odd thing happened today...

A delivery man (non-uniformed and driving a plain white van) knocked on my door and said 'Do you want a bed love?' It was a very strange moment, to which I answered, confused 'A bed?'. 'Yes I've got one in the van - I've brought too many out for delivery'. I must've been looking at him like he had 2 heads when I replied 'I really don't understand'. He explained he wanted to sell a bed in the back of his van, having delivered one to the house opposite. I politely refused, and he then asked if I knew anyone else locally who'd like it instead. Very odd. And highly suspicious. The most annoying thing was that it was right in the middle of Eden's nap, and woke her up. We'd had a really busy morning at toddler group and she would've had a 3 hour nap at lunchtime. Instead it was cut short, she only had an hour, and I had a grumpy toddler for an extra long afternoon - not even a trip to the Zoo cheered her up.    

Rainbow Rice!

This is a really easy play activity to do and any mess created can quickly and easily be swept up.

Eden's nearly 19 months old now, and is at the stage where she absolutely loves mixing and pouring! We were making playdough together the other day, she was helping me add the dry ingredients and all was going well until I added the water. All of a sudden her wonderful 'dry' mixture disappeared into a gloopy substance soon to become playdough and poor Eden dissolved into tears! Not the reaction that I was expecting! I happened to be videoing it at the time, and may have to create a post showing you.

Anyway, I thought as she enjoyed mixing the dry ingredients so much I would create some rainbow coloured rice for her to mix and stir. It was a big success! The method is really easy. All I did was buy a couple of big bags of bargain supermarket own-brand rice, add a few drops of food colouring and leave it to dry for abit. (Edited to clarify: No need to cook the rice first). I found that you only need the tiniest amount of food colouring, or else it will take ages to dry and the colour will transfer to fingers and hands when you play with it. 

Adding food colouring and leaving to dry

Mixing and stirring

Little colourful food measuring cups worked great as mini pourers

Learning a new word: 'Sprinkling'

Transformation of the mass of weeds!

The front garden of our new house is really starting to take shape!
When we bought our house nearly 3 months ago, the front garden was an overgrown mass of weeds, with a big mound of earth right in the middle, it remains a mystery what it actually was!

Before shot when we bought the house

The house needed so much work, but we felt we couldn't just leave the front garden the way it was so it was one of the first 'projects' we set our hands to. Within a couple of weeks we'd completely dug over most of the area, removing as many weeds as we could, ordered some turf and had a new lawn which just painted a much nicer impression of the garden, and the house as a whole.

New lawn laid

A couple of weeks ago we covered our borders, which had remained overgrown with weeds, with cardboard boxes from the move in order to supress the weeds. Then just last week, somebody offered 30 bags of topsoil on freecycle. It was in great condition with practically no weeds, and we used 19 bags to cover the cardboard boxes.

Fresh topsoil on the borders from Freecycle

Today, we visited Cypress Nursery near our house to pick up some plants for the borders. I'm a big fan of yellows, oranges and reds and we came away with 5 plants. A gerbera, 2 dahlias, a gazania and a 'coreopsis grandiflora sunray' - not sure what it's 'normal' name is!

After a visit to my parents this evening for dinner, we dug up some self-seeding yellow poppies and penstemons. 

The plants in our side border

Finally, we have 4 roses lining the front boundary border - 2 are from Cypress Nursery, one is from Gardener's World that we went to last week, and one was a gift from my parents-in-law when Eden was born.

The roses lining the front border

All in all, we're very pleased with the transformation of our front garden!   

Breastfeeding Awareness Week: Breast Milk Donation

Every Mum has a story when it comes to breastfeeding. They may have found it a positive experience, a difficult experience or a bit of both. For me, I found it to be a bit of both. I was going to write a post of my story, but have actually changed my mind, instead I want to promote the case of breast milk donation. This is something that I wasn't aware of when I was feeding my daughter, only subsequently finding out. But I think it's such a worthy cause to be writing about, and if I'd known about it at the time I would definitely have looked into becoming a donor.

There are 17 main breastmilk banks in the UK along with additional satellite banks, providing precious milk to sick and premature babies, increasing their chances of survival and aiding their long-term development. I watched a documentary the other day that stated that when hospitals run out of breastmilk donations, it can be purchased for upto £100/litre! That's an expensive commodity!

The UK Association for Milk Banking (UKAMB) is a charity set up to promote and support breastmilk donation. Their motto is EVERY DROP COUNTS. For more information about them or to find out more about milk donation please do visit their website.

A donation of breastmilk is such a special, lifesaving gift to consider giving.

Silent Sunday

Freecycle Bargains

I love Freecycle! I think it's great in promoting the 'Reduce, Reuse, Recycle' message, and I'm all for doing my 'bit' for the environment. I didn't fully discover it until I was pregnant, and realised just how much stuff babies need for so little time. We actually bought very little new - we had clothes handed down from older cousins, we bought Eden's Moses basket and stand for 99p off somebody local on ebay and we got some brilliant stuff off freecycle:

• Eden's cot
• Sheets, blankets and baby sleeping bags
• Baby play gym and toys
• A full set of brand new and 95% unopened reusuable nappies with all the accessories included - the extra small set had been tested out before deciding reusable nappies weren't for them. 

We've been really blessed by the kindness of people giving items away, and have returned the favour ourselves, donating our working fridge and freezer when we upgraded, as well as some other large items, and recently responding to an advert asking for some bluebells - our garden was over-run with them at the time!

This week, I was keen to get some plastic milk bottle tops, for counting and colour games with Eden. A kind lady donated 100 of them to us and we've been having fun with them: 

Sorting them into colours:

Enjoying the sound that mixing them makes:

Rolling them down little tubes:

Hiding them in big tubes:

Update: Salt dough handprints

Regular readers may remember that I did a themed week of play with Eden a couple of weeks ago, focussing on using our hands. We made some salt dough handprints, and so I thought I'd do a quick update of the finished results. 

After baking the dough, I found the food colouring had sunk to the bottom, so I was left with a stone-coloured handprint. I painted the inside of the handprint with nail varnish and the results look pretty cool! 

They're really easy to make, and a nice little keepsake. They could even be used as a paperweight to give as a gift.