Auntie Time

As part of my extended family I'm very lucky to a) have a niece and nephew and b) be able to see them plenty. My brother sees them every other weekend and comes to stay at my mum's house, meaning that I am able to see them at the same time and Bubbah gets to spend time with his cousins, which he adores. They're all within a good age range of each other (Bubbah is two, my nephew is 3 and my niece is 6 next month) which means they can play together nicely and Bubbah loves following them about trying to join in their games. My niece has fallen quite easily into the eldest cousin role of keeping the peace and making sure they play nicely in that tongue in cheek bossy way young children can do so well.





I absolutely love seeing my niece and nephew so much, having been very involved with them and seeing them on a regular basis since they were little. As such we have a close bond and I get greeted with an excited running hug and cry of "AUNTY TASH" every time they see me.




Something I like to keep up is spending proper time with them, taking interest in what they say even if it's putting together every puzzle they own and laying them out on display for the rest of the day (they have a lot of puzzles) and coming up with fun (even if a bit silly) games and activities to do. For their birthday/Christmas presents I tend to get them at least one "craft" thing as they love making stuff (and getting messy) and sometimes said then made/painted item finds it way back to me, proudly presented by a beaming child.


This Easter my brother is taking advantage of them being off school and having them for a few days before all the bank holiday madness. I'll be seeing them in this time and already have a few ideas, my main one being: pizza making! As previously said they love making things and getting messy in the process (mess always make it more fun) so I made up a couple of pizza bases for them, Bubbah and my brother (who wanted to join in too) and tomorrow I'll be lugging them and a load of topping choices over to my mum's house. They have fun, we spend time together and they get dinner out of it; everyone's a winner!

How to boost your toddler's brain function (apparently)

I was browsing Mother and Baby's website the other day and came across this article which reports on a study claiming taking your toddler shopping can help improve their brain function.

The study says that activities such as...

• shopping
• painting
• arts/crafts
• being read to
• being encouraged to tell stories

all increase different areas of brain function (movement, social skills and talking ability) and can even increase children's happiness levels. Passive things such as looking at picture books and watching TV don't.

Professor Paul Anand of the Open University explained that watching the process of mum and dad choosing items and paying for them is ‘particularly significant in relation to child happiness’.

He continued, ‘Children are getting visual stimulation, they’re getting out of the house and into a new environment, they’re bumping into other families where social skills come into play and they may get the chance to do something physical in a shop like run around.’

Prof Anand added, ‘There does seem to be a connection between the kinds of activities that are taking place and the skills that are being developed.

Source

I'm all for stimulating Bubbah's brain but I must admit I never viewed shopping in that way! Recently, he's taken to grabbing random items and dropping them into the trolley. My best example of this is when I'd put a bag of bananas in the trolley, turned around to grab some tins of soup, turned back and found Bubbah had added six bags of bananas into the trolley. So, not quite there with supply and demand as we would never get through seven bags of bananas in a week. That's a lot of banana bread!

So what do you think, does accompanying you food shopping make your toddler smarter?

Crafty times and the Creation Station

Since the beginning of this year Raphael and I have been bit by the craft bug. This has been in part from a course I did just before Christmas where we looked at doing craft with recycled things (card, bottle tops etc) and more recently because of The Creation Station running sessions at my local children's centre. Nicole, the woman who runs these sessions, has been absolutely lovely and so patient with Bubbah when he decides to run off and, say, wash his hands mid-craft!

 As with any most things involving toddlers The Creation Station provides jumpsuits to cover their clothes (which comes in handy, especially when Bubbah decided to potato print his jumpsuit) and incorporates music, interaction and different craft techniques to keep things interesting and fun for them. Previous examples include; ice cube painting, comb painting, potato/veg printing/painting and rolling pin painting.

 Each week we come away with something different, even if it's just a picture Bubbah has scribbled over. My favourite home pieces have been the broccoli monster and stained glass kite below as I would never have thought to make something like that.

These have pushed me at home and after a quick supply gathering (aka stealing paints etc. from Nana's house and eventually buying my own paint) we now have frequent craft/painting sessions which Bubbah loves. We've also bought a craft kit from Nicole and made our very own spoon puppet!

 And generally Bubbah is always please to show off his work (after some cajoling and flashing the camera at him) as seen here with his teddy bear's picnic picture (complete with Paddington gripped in hand).

Mother's Day, 25 things and getting back to "normal"

Since I last posted we've had Mother's Day so I thought I'd do a quick summary of my Mother's Day...

Not particularly exciting, I got woken up at half 6 and continued the normal daily routine (food, clothes, etc) and did our weekly food shop with my mum. We (Bubbah and I) gave my mum her cards and presents and she surprised me with a (giant) card of my own! Post food shop hubby was awake and presented me with my card and present from Bubbah. Having convinced me to open my original present (Catching Fire on DVD) two weeks previously on promise of a different present I received these:

Since having Bubbah I don't really wear much jewellery (my earrings are to intriguing and Bubbah likes to pull things, everything else was too dainty) but I couldn't resist these when making up my list (hubby likes to have choices) for Mother's day. This necklace and bracelet are from ASOS Curve and I'd been somewhat desperate to have a necklace from their collection as I like my chains longer than average. Their length is perfect for me and the bracelet matching was the icing on the cake! I also like that they're made of steel rather than silver plated; no green skin for me!

Elsewhere, things are slowly beginning to settle into some form of normalcy. Hubby has been diagnosed as having sleep apnoea and we're waiting for a special air machine and mask from the hospital to help him out. Once we have the machine hopefully he'll be sleeping better and have less sleeping fits. He's back doing a full week at work now so I've had to get back into my ironiung, breakfast and lunch making routine pretty quickly after a few months off.

To round of this post I decided to join the "25 things" posts I've seen cropping up on some people's blogs. Feel free to add a fact about yourself in the comments or pinch the format and do your own post :)

1. I'm 23
2. I'm a stickler for grammar and spelling
3. I have a diploma in magazine journalism
4. Home cooking and baking are passions of mine
5. I own way too many books (according to hubby anyway)
6. I seem to keep falling back into the dystopia genre (think Uglies, Hunger Games, Divergent to name but a few)
7. When at uni I got really into vintage clothing and accessories
8. I was devastated when my vintage ankle lace up boots died at the toe and couldn't be saved. I've been looking for a decent replacement ever since
9. My two year old brings me more stress and laughter than I ever imagined
10. I can remember weird facts
11. I'm that annoying person who sits in a film-adaptation of a book pointing out everything the film changed/missed out
12. I'm big on romance but don't need big gestures
13. Salted caramel chocolate is my favourite
14. I love the smell of baking bread or freshly cut grass
15. I'm onto my second recipe scrap book
16. I'm prepared to the point of ridiculousness - I will always have at least one pen, some plasters, some tissues, some calpol sachets and antibacterial wipes and/or gel on me
17. I can quote Dear Zoo verbatim 
18. I've been to every Taylor Swift concert she's done in the UK
19. One of my best friends lives in Leeds, which is a bummer!
20. I love making things and have made a sock dinosaur for Bubbah
21. Crafts/painting is always a big hit with myself and Bubbah
22. I always put on different voices when reading children's books (as such "Are the dinosaurs dead dad" is only allowed to be read by me as Bubbah loves my dad voice too much)
23. I love Rod Stewart, Meatload and Bon Jovi's music, it's my dad's influence
24. I've written a novel
25. My favourite flower is the germini flower

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

Gosh, what an original post title! In anticipation of the weekend sun(!) last Friday, my father in law suggested we all head to Frinton on Sunday (9th March) and, never one to turn down a day trip or the seaside, I swiftly agreed! We headed off early (for everyone else, whereas Bubbah and I were up from 5:30 *yawn* and totally ready when everyone else was just waking up) and managed to hit the beach before it got crazy busy.

I'd never been to Frinton before and was completely besotted with how picturesque it was (or "stuck in the 50s" as others said) but then I like that kind of smaller community vibe as it reminds me of growing up spending summers in Hayling Island/Margate mere minutes away from their respective beaches and practically living there before returning to my grandparent's house for a picnic tea/fish and chips!

Bubbah had never been to the seaside before so I was very excited about how he'd react. He loves his baths and playing in the water, and happily spends hours in the sandpit at my mum's house. However he completely freaked out at the feeling of the sand on his feet and made me put his socks and shoes back on! He also spent an hour running screaming from the waves as they rolled in and got anywhere near him.

Finally, after that hour of many screaming runs and dog chasing (the boy is dog obsessed and the quickest flash of dog would send him toddling after them chanting "dog, dog, dog, dog!" until I either distracted him or the kind dog owners stopped their dog and let him say hello) he finally ventured into the sea after daddy and absolutely loved it!

Lots of splashing (and falling/bumping down deliberately) later I managed to drag him out of the sea (now kicking and screaming about coming away from the sea rather than running kicking and screaming away from it) and get him changed out of his absolutely soaked clothes and into Frinton high street to grab some lunch, whereupon Bubbah promptly fell asleep in his pushchair!

After a quick tea of fish and chips (so filling) we got home just past Bubbah's bedtime and, clearly affected by all that lovely sea air, he just about managed to stay awake for me to get him in his PJs and into bed and not a peep was heard from him until his normal wake up time the next day!

Budget busting: stock check

Like many people at the moment, our budget is down to a very fine line. Hubby gets paid and things are great until about the week or so before he gets paid again and it gets a bit more tight. So to help our budget and reduce feelings of panic I began looking into way to keep on top of our money. One such way is a monthly/fortnightly stock check.

Now clearly I'm talking about my house and not a shop but the principle is much the same. So once a month or fortnightly (depending on how tight the purse strings are) I drag everything out of the cupboard, fridge and freezer (one at a time or I'd end up putting peas in the fridge or something silly) and list down to the minute detail what we have.

This works in several ways, firstly it helps reduce waste. I did a stock check last week and found four tins of coconut milk. I barely ever use coconut milk but went through a phase where I made curries or coconut rice, And then I forgot about it and the tins sat languishing at the back of the cupboard. Thankfully because I'd forgotten about tins over something fresh there's a bigger scope for using something before it goes off. When it's something fresh that's looking a bit limp I'm faced with one of three choices; chuck it, freeze it or cook it. Thankfully most fresh things we have can be frozen in some form or another!

The fridge usually goes next and this is where the second bit of help comes in. By knowing what I have in that needs using up quickly, it helps with meal planning. I haven't posted a meal plan on here for a while but I do it every week. When I know I have a load of mince in the fridge that needs using up next week I can use my lists from the cupboard/freezer to see what I can make with it (e.g. chilli, lasagne, spag bol, burgers or rissoles) which in turn saves us money for the next week's food shop.

Somewhat unconventionally it can also give you a few nice surprises. As well as the coconut milk languishing at the back of my cupboard, during the last stock check I found an unopened pack of m&s Dutch shortcake biscuits (a firm favourite of mine from childhood) that had clearly been pushed to the back of the cupboard by other things.

Yummy!


So, let me know in the comments below, do you ever do a stock take?

Radio silence and a difficult diagnosis

Phew so it's been a while hasn't it readers?! Apologies for my radio silence for...oooo the last few months. I took a few weeks out at the end of November just to sort some real life things out and get organised after falling behind with my usual stuff. And then it happened...

One night my husband came home from work complaining he felt exhausted. Fair enough, I thought, he's been working really hard recently. So I suggested we get an early night. Halfway up the stairs he collapsed. I was walking behind him and leant forward to check he was conscious/breathing. He was breathing. In fact he was snoring. Months of investigations, tests and doctors appointments later and we've finally got a diagnosis of sorts; narcolepsy.

In a nutshell, narcolepsy is:

What is narcolepsy?

Narcolepsy is a rare neurological condition. It affects the brains' ability to regulate the sleep-wake cycle, which can cause a range of symptoms such as excessive sleepiness, cataplexy and more.Source

So we have the diagnosis and now we're dealing with it. We're waiting for an official diagnosis which involves an overnight stay at a sleep clinic as until then hubby can't get the medication to help control narcoleptic episodes.

And that's what's been going on and where I've been. Hopefully normal schedule will soon be resumed!