Busy adventures of a rambunctious 13 month old

Whichever way you swing it, a mummy’s day at toddler groups and baby outings is usually an excellently devised ploy for “mummy socialisation”. Usually we get other mummies involved, get chit chatting and make effort into meeting new mummies! Selfish isn’t it? Definitely not, I’m not feeling very guilty about it, my son gets to enjoy himself in a plethora of locations all catered specifically to his cognitive and motor skill development with themes and colors and appropriate little activities and mummy gets to feel normal! In a crowd of people who know the score, the other mummies (a breed different from childless women who have time to draw on their faces with pristine detail, not the crayon style squiggle I manage to throw on each morning) all understand that sometimes it takes three attempts to get your pants on the right way, sometimes; it’s impossible to contemplate drinking for fear of H.I.T ( hangovers with toddler) this breed of people, the mummies are a great resource for moaning, worrying and endless chatting, they also won’t mind when you can’t really be bothered with dress shopping but would rather have a looksie in mamas and papas or mother care.

Today we had one of those days, we visited Squiggles and Giggles our new favourite haunt on a Thursday, may have been distracted by a shop! And we then went to drop mummies car at the garage, visited our local library to drop off books and attend story and rhyme time with my nephew and sister in law and even had time to go to soft play after!

BEWARE: this ones full of pictures! Over proud mother!

Squiggles and Giggles

Not that I want the place to be so full I lose my place but this really is a fantastic place! Well worth the awards it’s won! The owner, Suzanne really deserves medals! I mean all those children, sticky, covered in goop and paint and pen and making a mess in her lovely set up! Sainthood imminent!

Today’s theme was The Very Hungry Caterpillar 🙂 there was paint! An incredible assortment of “sensory” toys, more like a treasure trove of all the lovely things he’s not allowed at home but can go nuts with at squiggles and giggles 🙂 and he loves it! I love it too! No cleaning up! There was squishy splat bags and caterpillars everywhere! There was a cooking area with pans and lovely green spaghetti all fun to shove hands in! There was crunchy crispies to appease the messy nature of toddlers. All in all it was just such a ball! The other mummies are lovely too. Could be an acquaintance in there or two 🙂

🙂 here’s a post on recreating some squiggles and giggles creative play ideas at home!

http://shareandremember.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/rainbow-rice-garden-sensory-play.html?m=1

For rainbow rice!

Afterwords the shops found us…. Uh oh! However we did not spend a great deal of money!! Picked up just a few bits for our impending holidays (July) and a little pressie for my goddaughter. All from Matalan. 🙂 not that I looked for me but the kiddies had some fab things in today! Really reasonable where price was concerned! Actually rather bargainous!

Some really fab little pinstripe shorts were only 5 pounds!!!! And the two pack of cotton ones were 4 pound!! What more could you want for clothes that will get sandy, sticky, wet and covered in sunscreen!

The library was fun my nephew enjoyed it particularly a lot more than Landon did, but he will be persuaded that listening is fun eventually! 🙂 he did enjoy the music parts afterwards. And we forgot the camera in the car! No library pictures I’m afraid! 😦

Soft play was a different story! Mad running around like headless child. We tried one we hadnt been to today Landon had oodles of fun there!

The only problem with my son is that even after all of the running and playing he got to do today! It still didn’t wear him out! I’m not sure if anyone has any tips on disciplining/keeping in order a part monkey with the agility and sleuth of a panther cheeky little critter!

However we’re doing excellent on the nap / milk front. No bottles!!! Except for sleepy time. Well within our recommended amount daily as he only has one in the evening for bedtime now and the rest as additives in meals or yesterday he had a milkshake. I wasn’t quite sure I was going to be able to fight the bottles away from him. And today we didn’t even manage a nap! Just a catnap in the car journey. However I’m keen to keep the nap as a grouchy baby is just no fun come 5pm with an hour and a half to go until bath/bed! 🙂

I think it’s safe to say Landon had a fun packed day and can’t wait for his next all about him day!

Xoxox

My Baby Shower! <3

So, whilst it’s been almost a month since my baby shower, I thought i’d leave it until i’d started my blog to really acknowledge it’s existence. My shower was thrown for me at 29 weeks pregnant, I was lucky enough to have a wonderful friend who came up with a great deal of games to play with goodies to win!

The baby shower idea was only accentuated by routine trips to the big shopping centre near myself where we couldn’t stop being overexcited with the pregnancy and the impending new arrival. And somehow on one of these trips we ended up stumbling across the WHALE THEME. Once we had found the whale theme, that was it, no stopping us from finding, no no wait…. HUNTING down everything whale themed.

Totally gone to town on the whale theme and now even new babies bedroom is going to be all whale themed! picked the perfect bedding from Mamas and Papas called Bubble Blue.

http://www.mamasandpapas.com/range/bubble-blue-new/7462/

The excitement meant in the midst of things i’d managed to not done the invites in time and i had a lot of friends missing, but much to my avail! My friend from Tanzania was coming to see me and it coincided with the baby shower! <CUE> Excited tears and lots of jumping up and down.

The day of the shower came and I had arranged the most amazing whale themed desserts buffet, I was rather impressed with my level of faith to the WHALE THEME!

These were the invites designed by a lady on ETSY.

The food was fab! That was done by some contacts of mine I had a wonderful woman called Lisa do cakepops, iced cookies and the most amazing looking whale themed hazelnut nutella cupcakes! She then linked me up with her friend Allison Allan who did me again, an amazing whale themed cake! All of which were mighty delicious, Not to mention the favours I ordered from another local source Diane who made whale themed chocolate treats for people to take away! 🙂

And then the best of all was a best friend of mine, the also expectant Libby did me some fab cupcakes her and her mum had obviously worked really hard on! 🙂 They were beautiful I was so overwhelmed at the gesture perfect with the theme of blue and whales too!! These are them……

Charlie, Party host and Baby Shower extraordinaire came up with three games for us to play, they were;

1. Baby Shower Bingo! Where we filled our ‘bingo’ card with ideas of the things i might receive as gifts, and then as I opened them crossed them off if we had guessed correctly.

2. Pin the Sperm on the Egg, one which i’m sure shocked the older attendees! ha! although my grandmother-in-law seemed to have great fun in it! 🙂

3. Nursery Rhyme Quiz, this one was just too hard for most people to get! My partners auntie guessed the most right, then again, she is a teaching assistant 🙂 THINK thats cheating! 🙂 However me and my own auntie took great pleasure in mocking the game adding rude suggestions of things Tom Thumb sat on and that some other character caught, namely private parts and STD’S.

My guests also filled out prediction cards and wishes for the baby! both have been kept in his memories box for keepsakes 🙂 Touching gestures and brilliant ideas! ❤

Can safely say I had the most wonderful afternoon with some fantastic friends and the ones who couldn’t be there were missed but i was blessed to have those who came. I got well and truly showered with presents! And I can’t thank the host Charlie enough! Lucky to have a friend like her not only did she throw me a fab shower but she made a fab nappy cake too!

And in true style of myself someone made sure I had a Ralph Lauren gift to complete the shower! Excellent! 🙂 Little baby and I extend full thanks to everyone who could make it, and especially for all of the presents! However we’re still not sharing his name! So you’ll have to be kept in suspense!