Quiet time book

For years now I've been hoarding old cards, scraps of material, wrapping paper and other such things waiting for the day I might need them. Finally that day has come - that day was today.

Today Josiah and I had a craft filled afternoon. I quickly made him his own guitar to keep him amused while I rifled through my craft box to find materials to make Josiah a new book.  I has a load of leftover blank cards from when we made our own wedding invitations which were ideal as nice strong double thickness pages. Next I had to think of ideas for what to put on the pages. Here's what I came up with:

 Soldiers with glittery textured hats.....

Lumpy bumpy bubble wrap....

 Bright coloured stickers with simple pictures drawn on....

 A variety of different textured hearts....

 Felt letters....

 Bright textured paper in one of his favourite colours...

 Bright smiley faces and a character with googly eyes....

I hole punched the pages and tied them together with ribbon and then it was time to give it to the boy for his verdict. In all the book took me about 20-30 mins - really very quick and easy. What did Josiah make of his new book?.....

He instantly loved it - result!!!

I am the music man...

There is nothing that catches Josiah's attention quite like music. Theme tunes have him stopped still and when daddy plays guitar he's totally mesmerised. He likes to reach out and touch daddy's guitar and try to join in but daddy's not such a fan of grubby little hands on his pride and joy.

Well now Josiah has his own make shift guitar and can join in with daddy any time he likes. He loves banging the strings and it doubles up as a great drum too. Who knew you could have so much fun with a loaf tin and some elastic bands.

Child's play

So I finally found a use for that out of date box of risotto rice at the back of the cupboard...

I remember when....

I remember when morning snuggle time was peaceful and relaxing. The boy would wake between 6am and 7am and I'd bring him into bed with us where I'd lie there and feed him and doze a little as we snuggled peacefully. After he'd had his milk I'd lie him in between hubby and me and give him a toy or a book and he would happily amuse himself while I snoozed for another 20 mins or so.

Oh how things have changed!

This morning started out much the same as it always used to - boy woke at 6:30am and came into our bed to have some milk. As I lay there trying to doze as he fed, he fidgeted and kicked me in the leg repeatedly. Once he was done I put him between hubby and me and handed him a couple of toys. He waved his teething ring in the air as if flying a spaceship and then decided to 'land' it on my head. He noticed I had my eyes shut so decided to pat my face repeatedly to make sure I was paying attention to him. Then he decided to amuse himself for a while by pinging my bra strap - thanks kiddo!

He soon got bored of me and decided he wanted daddy to play so leaned over and patted daddy's face. He then grabbed daddy's hair too for good measure. This resulted in grunts from the husband as he flung a pillow over his face to shield himself from the boy's advances. School boy error - a few weeks ago this would have worked but now that Josiah has learnt the concept of "hide and seek" it only served to make things into a game.  He giggled as he pulled the pillow from daddy's face and grinned as he patted daddy's face some more.

Something tells me that it could be a very very very long time before hubby and I get another lie in!

Isn't it funny that when our little ones are tiny and unable to move around we find ourselves wishing they were more active and could 'do more fun stuff'. But once they can move we find ourselves wishing they couldn't!

I do love watching Josiah exploring the world now though and love helping him to learn about his environment. I've been pinning all kinds of ideas on Pinterest for creative play but here's a quick one I stumbled across when trying to amuse a grumpy boy one morning.

I had my sewing box out looking for something and Josiah was fussing and grumpy. I noticed a bag of ribbons and said to hubby 'they might be fun to play with later'. Sure enough, I come home later to find hubby had given Josiah the ribbons to play with and he loved it. So many different colours and textures to play with and it's a nice calm activity (as opposed to banging stuff together and making lots of noise like the boy does with most other things).

Dinner time fun

I love food.

Josiah also loves food.

But he's just started getting picky about what he eats and now he wants my food. If we're eating something different to him he wants what we have and is not afraid to help himself! So I've pretty much abandoned baby purées and begun trying to find ideas for things that we can all eat. Tonight Josiah had potato, leek and sweetcorn soup with some homemade pizza toast. I made pizza toast as a snack for me and hubby too and we sat round the kitchen table and ate and talked together.

Pizza toast is so quick and easy. Make some toast, spread it with some red pasta sauce, sprinkle with a little grated cheese and toast under the grill. It can be cut into easy to hold pizza fingers.

Here's the recipe for the potato, leek and sweetcorn chowder. (NB In babies with dairy sensitivity this recipe can produce explosive results - as we just found out!)