I'm leaving on a jet plane

Ok, so any excuse to sing that song as it reminds me of special times, but tomorrow we will be setting off for the airport to go on our holidays! We will be spending the night at the airport before jetting off to sunny Spain on Saturday.

We are going with another couple and their baby which is a first for us as my partner and I are both introverts and like our own space. But this time we have hired a villa big enough for all 7 of us and will be having a sociable time with friends.

I am currently at the 'aaaahhh nothings dry so can't finish packing, quick we must put the heating on, it's an emergency' stage of packing, but I'm sure that calm will be restored tomorrow as my mum has very kindly offered to do the school run and take Grapie out for a walk so I can finish up packing without a tiny person unpacking faster than I can pack!

Then there is the small matter of getting myself ready to appear in a swimsuit, after a month of snuggly autumn clothes where no flesh had to appear in public. The least said about that the better I think.

Getting to the airport by train will be an experience with two children, two suitcases and a trunki (which child number 1 will want to ride on the whole time!), too much handluggage, two carseats and a buggy (which child number 2 will refuse to sit in and try to escape out of at every opportunity!)

But once we are there, splashing in the pool, making sandcastles, eating ice cream and best of all making memories, we will have a fantastic week of family fun. Then we will have to travel home..........!

Sensory ways to explore letters

We have been playing lots of games recently involving letters and alphabet, to help princess learn without even knowing it. This post focuses on sensory ways we used to explore the letters in Princess' name.

We made some no cook playdough and while Princess was playing with it, I drew the outlines of her letters. She then made some playdough worms and shaped them to fit in the letters. Lots of wiggly playdoughy fun.

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We used different coloured chalks to practice how the letters in her name are formed by writing her name on the stepping stones in the lawn. Princess then traced over each letter several times, using a different colour each time. This really helped her with learning to write the letters, but also forming the letters herself has helped her recognition too.

Incidentally, you might notice in the picture that Princess has shaving foam all over her arm. This is because we had just tried drawing letters in a tray of shaving foam. This did not work for us at all, as Princess was in sensory overload I think! All she wannted to do was spread it all over her arms! Bur at least she had fun!

I made Princess some letter cards with glitter to help her practice how the letters should be correctly written. Who doesn't love seeing their name in sparkly glitter! I drew each letter then painted over it with glue before tipping on the glitter. I added a star to show princess where to start on each letter. To stop the glitter from getting everywhere, I painted another layer on glue over the top when it was dry and it has sealed it nicely.

I showed princess how to draw each letter starting at the star. The feel of the glitter as she traces the letter evokes more senses and enables her to remember it on another level. We now have these stuck to the kitchen door so she can trace them regularly. As Princess is left handed, she seems to have a tendency to write the letters backwards, so this is good practice for her to remember how the letters should look.

Her letter recognition has come on so much since doing these activities, the can now type her name on a computer without any help, and is starting to be able to write her name. It's not quite obvious what she has written yet but if you know it's her name, you can definitely make out that she has made the letter shapes. And the main thing is that she enjoyed herself!

Family fun at the fair

"Step back in time with the spellbinding Carter's steam fair" promised the posters. As we arrived at the usually quiet green, it was clear that we were about to do just that; we were met by an array of colourful, shiny vintage vehicles, trucks, cars, trailers, caravans, all superbly preserved and fabulous. 

Then, there was the smell: a smell that conjures up memories of fun times -candyfloss, popcorn and roasting nuts. The rides and stalls were a wonderful mix of classic oldies such as bumper cars and watzers, vintage thrill rides and kids carousels, all blasting out music of a bygone era.

The girls had a fantastic time, Princess went on a couple of rides, was overjoyed to win a prize by catching a rubber duck on a hook, and had an icecream from a fantastic vintage ice cream van, but her absolute favourite thing of all was the helter skelter. She went on 3 times, once with daddy and twice with me, and it was just like I remember from being a child. Carrying our mat to the top of the spiral stairs, the wooden slide with ridges in, and sliding down faster and faster till we landed on a mat on the grass. I can see why she loved it.

And although Grapie was too small to go on the rides, she had a great time soaking in the atmosphere, dancing to the music, people watching, and she loved looking at the carousel horses. We will just have to come back next year when she is big enough to go on, but this year, she was pretty pleased to win a prize too!

Alphabet catch and match

We have been playing lots of letter games recently to help Princess with her letter recognition in a fun way, without her even realising she is learning.

We recently bought some kids chopsticks for Princess after she showed an interest in our adult chopsticks, and they were perfect for this game. They are also great for developing strength in hand muscles, which she will need when she learns to write.

I put some rice into a box, along with some alphabet beads, one of each letter. I printed her off an alphabet scavenger hunt list, in lower case as the beads were upper case. The game is to catch a letter bead and match it to the letter on the sheet.

This requires her to match the upper and lower case letters, and also involves a fair amount of fine motor skills as the beads are small and fiddly. Princess enjoyed playing this game, although it didn't hold her attention for the whole alphabet. When she was finished, I put the rice and beads into an empty jam jar for next time.

Mr Potato Head- Felt travel game

We are huge Toy Story fans in our house. We love the films, and we also have lots of the toys. And as much as we love Woody, Buzz and Jessie, the toy that is the most fun to play with has to be Mr Potato head!  So as we are going on holiday in a few weeks, I thought I would have a go at making a game we could bring with us for the plane, and Mr Potato head (and Mrs of course) was the perfect choice.

I started with the potato shapes out of brown felt, and once they were cut out ,I started drawing the features on paper before cutting them out of the felt. The picture above shows the features I started with from copying the actual toys. Then I had some fun by giving them different accessories, moustaches, and expressions.

These are my favourites, I was going for Mr Angry Eyes, like in the film as Princess find this hilarious in the outtakes, but he just looks a bit melancholy. And I love this moustache!

Here is the complete set, I put some bright green felt in for a background, and used a baby wipes container to keep them in (a dvd case would also work well).  It's a lot of fun to play (I quite like having a turn too) and a big hit with Princess! The felt pieces stick to each other really well, and I think it will easily and quietly pass a bit of time on the plane and beyond!

Surviving a sick day- when mummy needs a sickie too

The change in weather has hit us! That, along with back to school germs, has meant that we are all full of cold at the moment. It's not fun to have poorly children at the best of times. Runny noses, sleepless nights, grouchy, clingy children are hard work especially when they are both ill at the same time. But we've been dealing with it.

But this morning, I woke up with the sort of cold that in my pre-children days would have had me phoning in sick, not even needing to put on a sick voice. Duvet days are just not an option with 2 little livewires in tow, especially when those little livewires are both ill too. What's a mummy to do?

Well, here are my top tips for surviving a sick day.

• Insist on a nap - Princess gave up her naptime a while ago but I made it clear today that if she was staying home from preschool then she had to have a nap. We all had a lie down together on my big bead and eventually they were both asleep. Ok, so I didn't really get a sleep, but just lying down with no one needing anything was just what the doctor ordered!

• Relax the rules- There were several rules relaxed today, mainly to do with screentime. Princess was allowed to play children's apps on my Kindle today for longer than usually allowed, as long as she stayed in bed, while I got Grapie dressed and ready. Also as a very special treat she was allowed to eat her lunch on the sofa with Cbeebies on (this never happens in our house, I always insist on eating at the table).

• Have some treats- Mainly edible treats, today's favourite was pirate biscuits! Even Grapie had a bit!

• Printables- Easy, almost instant fun! Activity Village is a fab website for all sorts of printables. We also printed some pictures of pirates, stuck them to lollipop sticks to make puppets, and Princess did us a puppet show

• Movies- Disney was just made for sick days, snuggle up on the sofa, enjoy and they might even fall asleep (mine didn't).

Hopfully this will get you through to bedtime without too many tears, we survived our sick day, and hopefully everyone will feel better tomorrow.

What happened to my newborn baby? Happy Birthday G

Things have been a bit quiet on the blog this week, and that is because we have been busy with Grapie's first birthday celebrations. She has had a lovely time, had lots of presents and a fun party, but her birthday has left me with mixed feelings about her growing up.

There are so many thinvs about Grapie that are still so baby-like. Her size for a start; she has always been a tiny baby, she still wears 3-6 month clothes, so she still looks more baby-like than many one year olds. Then there is her clingyness, it's still the end of the world if she's parted from me for any time at all.

Then there is her partiality to her milk. I know I'm not the only mother to breastfeed her baby past one but I never really had any plans to breastfeed a toddler. Princess was ready to stop at one but Grapie shows no signs of giving up, and as it's currently the only way of getting her back to sleep at night time I will be carrying on feeding her out of laziness and exhaustion for the forseeable future.

But there are so many ways that Grapie is no longer a baby but is fast on the road to toddlerdom.  She can almost walk, well, she has taken a few steps on a few occasions but has decided that knee shuffling is the way forward.

And her talking is coming on really well she can say "all gone" in a very cute voice, and does monkey noises whenever I call her a cheeky monkey! She can point things out in a book (playing this game is her absolute favourite at the moment, she gets the book out herself and 'asks' to read it!)

There are definitely things I am looking forward to about her growing up. Getting a good nights sleep is definitely top of that list, as I know that one day it will happen! (Another bonus is that people have stopped asking how she sleeps as mostly they assume a 1 year old does sleep by now!)

But there are so many things that I will miss about her babyness, especially as chances are Grapie will be my last baby. The helplessness, the sweet milky breath, the teeny tiny clothes, the complete and utter dependence, that milk drunk, open mouthed sleep, all cuddled up in my arms. I could go on but I will only make myself broody!

I am so proud of the tiny, determined, funny little girl my little baby is growing into, so I will try to avoid to much looking forward or back, but I will be embracing this new special stage in my Grapie's life. And Princess is very glad that her baby sister is becoming her playmate and her friend!