Looking past the Martyr Mum Title!

Last year of my twenty's! A great day to reminisce and appreciate what I have in life. I've spent the day with my bestie her lil lady and my little dude we went to a theme park and had a fantastic time... If you'd have told me ten years ago I'd have entered a theme park not even stepped on one thrill ride but had an amazing day I'd have laughed in your face. Yes that's right me the adrenaline junkie had a fantastic time on the teacups!!

The highlight of our day watching sea lions and parrots little dudes face lit up and I realise that life's not about me anymore his happiness leads to mine and if I can make him laugh just once it makes my day!

I read a piece on netmums the other day on Martyr mums. It was based on an article written by The Times Daisy Waugh. It makes you wonder why working mums and stay at home mums cant just agree to disagree. Martyr ...One who makes great sacrifices or suffers much in order to further a belief, cause, or principle. So by that definition I have given up my life for lil dude and am suffering?!?

I love being at home with my lil dude my day evolves around him and his mood reflects my mood. Some women may think that's sad that my life lacks purpose but who are they to judge me I am happy and is that not what all life is about.

Would I work days if I had to would I put him in childcare well yes I would have no choice. I know I'm blessed to be able to chose my hours and to have a very hard working husband who who has made our lifestyle possible. On the other hand how can I blame others who want or have to work who am I to tell them how to live their lives. If you need or want to work then surely a happy mummy leads to a happy family. What good would it do staying at home with the kids because you feel duty bound to be there and being miserable as sin, who's that helping. Surely in this day and age we can understand that women have the choice to work or need to as a generation we are having to work more to sustain a decent lifestyle.

Cant we have a nice mix of  stay at home mummy's and career mums without feeling the need to downgrade each others parenting styles.

Do our insecurities effect our judgement of others? I worry lil dude will think I lack ambition hence the blog and I'm sure working mums worry about leaving their kids. Lets face it motherhood is one huge worry however your tackling it so lets try and concentrate on our own family whichever way it works best for us.

We spend our days teaching our kids to be honest and non judgemental so why arn't we listening to our own lessons??

Dino World

So as you may have seen we have already done digger land in the garden and as it got closer to summer those little plants at the edges kinda overtook so we turned it to dinoland but lil dude is going through a daft stage with bugs and those flowers attracted sooo many bugs. A rethink was in order!

Then I saw fun at home with kids dinosaur garden and inspiration hit she used blue gravel for a "water feature" and it looked so so amazing. I have to say have some serious green eyed monster of Asia's garden and home she has play areas that I could only dream of. If you get a chance take a look at her blog (but allow a couple of hours!) I loved the idea of adding a whole new level.

Well I'd already seen this volcano aquarium decoration and was itching to buy it but hadnt made up a reason yet (lil dude loves volcanoes almost as much as dinos) So here was the reason and also went to pick up the stones....they were nooooot cheap the blue ones came in a tiny bag and were expensive so rethink! I had brought some sea coloured marbles a while ago and not got round to using them as anything more than loose parts so improvised and used them instead and it looked pretty cool!

We have a gravelled edge to our patio which went perfect with the prehistoric theme also it is in clear vision to my kitchen window so I can wash up/make lunch while he plays and keep an eye on him.

Mr Pteranodon loves to perch on the old fence which adds a cool upper level to the area.

A few bigger rocks placed around the "lake" for the dinos to sunbathe on.

And the centre piece... a real volcano. Although it goes a bit against the natural play ideas I am leaning towards it adds a great dimension and lil dude loves filling it with stones and dinosaurs.

Ricetastic Airport...Budget Play Time Week One

This is Week One in our budget play time using toys around the house or cheap to source to create fun play concepts. This post cost me nothing as had the bits all round the house if you want to backdate the rice cost 40p and the play tray £1 but I must use the rice on average once a week and the tray more often than that!

You will need-

• Some Cardboard from the recycling bin
• Rainbow Rice- We made this a while ago using happy hooligans recipe.
• Tray
• Toy Planes (or if your feeling creative some laminated pictures of planes)
• Sharpie
• Few cones/barriers if you have any from other digger or race car sets etc

Lil dude got some little plastic planes free with a magazine recently and they are flavour of the month apparently they are a red and green arrow :-) twinned with a very well timed fly over by the real red arrows recently on route to an airshow lil dude is in plane mode soo what better than making an airport for him to play with.

Construction consisted of cutting a long strip of cardboard and drawing the lines then cutting to size. I made a small hanger to fit the plane in by folding the same cardboard and sticking down the edges with tape. A couple of squares with H's drawn on the and we were set.

Lil dude had been playing with his rainbow rice that day so I just stuck the bits in the rice added some random cones we have in the toy box and popped the planes and helicopter in. The box we use is a pound land kitty litter box as advised by Happy Hooligans and it gets used "a lot."

This may not be the most glam small world but I wanted this blog to be more about affordable play ideas than ones that look stunning but are currently out of my price range. One day I dream of owning every type of toob (yep that's the dream!) but until then budget play ideas is as far as we can get.

The Airport needed some work done apparenty so the diggers had to be brought in. I'm yet to create a small world that the dinos or diggers dont get involved in!

If you liked this take a look at Hidden Art Station for another budget crafting session.



Time to Cut Costs

So part of this blog was about saving money and saving my lil dude from iwant'titus (yes its a condition of course it is would i lie to you!) We haven't got as far as the cut backs yet so that's the next stage!

I'm gonna stick to two paid activities a week. Lil dude is not an active kiddywink he is much happier doing puzzles or sitting with his dinos. He is quite happy to follow the lead and run riot when with other kiddys so I am sticking with the gymnastics and soft play toddler group once a week. They shut these in the summer hols anyway and me and my bestie usually go to farms, parks or just chill in the garden with the kiddies so that should cut some costs there. We have no holiday booked this year except for a long weekend away which is so far unplanned but will be travel lodge or premier inn so low cost.

Shopping.... oh shopping a few months back I only shopped online and saved money soo gonna revert back to that and will avoid supermarkets like the plague. I have a problem I cannot walk into a supermarket and buy a carton of milk I enter one supermarket and spend £50 its bad and i don't know how i do it its like a trip out and freedom of walking the aisles goes to my head. What can I say I need help!

So mission avoid supermarket is in order!

Also I'm gonna start giving lil dude £5 pocket money a week. This may seem a lot but I spend so much on random bits of junk for him and even more on even more plastic dinosaurs. So he will be getting £5 if he wants to get a magazine, toy, car boot goodies etc that's his lot. I want him to start seeing that these things cost money and that he has a limit.

So that's it the life plan for now it may not seem much but if I try too much at once I will run out of enthusiasm a week in!

Wish me luck!

Poorly Toddler

Oh the joys of being a mummy. My lil dude is currently asleep (I am fully aware I'm on borrowed time) his temp is up and he's flinching in his sleep after a rough night and a high maintenance day I've come to the realisation that this wont get any easier. The worry never relaxes the stress of watching listening and praying wont cease. I guess this is the long haul! Funny thing is they warn you of these times when you fall pregnant (bit late then hey!) and there's no way then you can ever imagine the worry the connection the all consuming love that you feel. We've had a couple of horrible nights in the hospital in the past and they haunt me every time hes so much as got a cold. I almost have a bag packed and shoes at the ready for the hospital run. Its crazy isn't it really. But hey I've realised ever since motherhood hit me that life will always be crazy from the crazy fun to the crazy worry. But in all reality would I change a thing....Nope.
From the happy tears to the sad I've never been happier!

Hidden Art Station

You will need-

Lining Paper,
Masking Tape &
Crayons

This one is especially good if you have laminate or tiled floor as can just be left and pulled out when required. As you can see I have the perfect setting for it, I could just pull the sofa back then replace over the top but this can be done anywhere and is easily removed so dosn't have to be left out.

All you need to do is lay some lining paper down and use masking tape to secure the edges and let their imagination run riot. On its first day this was hand... and head prints. Lil dude had us all lying on our backs drawing round our heads.

I then pulled the sofa back over it and forgot it was there.

Untill today when lil dude was climbing the walls a bit so it turned into a train track with a road beside it.

I wont win any points for artistic talent but we had fun and its a great one to work together as he tells mummy what to draw while he gets the trains and helps colour.

Icy Dino Dig

Well a big thankyou to www.happyhooligans.ca for todays activity it was fab and we had loads of fun recreating this one!!

A while back I filled an ice cream tub with water, mini dinos, fossils and stones and left it to freeze. It then stayed in my freezer for aaaaages as the temperature was certainly not ice play recently.

Looks cool doesn't it!

Well today the weather was strange humid warm but chilly winds. So we cooled of in the house with this. I put some normal salt, some garden salt, and warm water in containers mixing in a lil food colouring as I went. Poured a bit of warm water over the icecream tub and the block of ice just tipped out.

 I explained that we were going to have a Dino excavation and be paleontologist's. Well lil dude was sold as soon as he saw a Dino spike peaking out and after a quick explanation of how salt and warm water will melt the ice and free the trapped dino's he promptly started scooping salt on. Well he soon realised a spoon full wasn't cutting it so on went the entire cup of salt.
I really have to remind myself of his age sometimes my inner perfectionist wants it all to be done carefully while watching each reaction the realist part knows lil dudes limits and to enjoy it thoroughly I have to step back and embrace the chaos! Do you ever find yourself going to correct your kids and having to check yourself because in reality that's how they learn and why should they do it like that anyway because we say so?!? I try to give lil dude the freedom to do things his way to learn from chaos but like I said it goes against my upbringing and includes a fair bit of tongue biting!

So the poured on salt made some wicked cracking sounds and made a great mess to mix and get lil dudes hands into.

He then used the lil tools I provided to hammer saw and jab (In little hooligans she uses better tools to free but I could see younger lil dude loosing a finger or worse so we limited it to plastic toy tools and teaspoons) he realised the hot water was the best Dino freeing device and sent me running back and forth to the tap. He almost forgot about the poor trapped souls as pouring the water became priority number one!

Then back to the digging for a final burst and the were all free!!! This was a fab activity and will be recreated again I may do a smaller ice block next time as without the proper tools the mass of ice was a challenge to say the least! Minimal clean up and cheap as chips to create! Lil bit of advice if doing inside the garden salt is sharp on lil feet we learnt this the hard way after spilling a bunch on the laminate and as soon as lil dude walked he yelped at they spiked the souls of his little bare feet. There was no injury's but next time I'll keep this one for the garden or at least pop some shoes on him.