Peek a Boo Pegs

I found a photo of a simple clothes peg mechanical toy on Pinterest a while ago. I copied the chick and egg from the original photo, using craft foam, then made my own version using foam hands and a tiny printed photo of girl.

I was quite pleased with the results but although Boy and Girl both liked the Peek a Boo pegs they also wanted to get their hands on them. Since they are too young to work the pegs without giving into touching the (flimsy) foam part, these peek a boo pegs are unlikely to last very long. But this is one activity that I will definitely be coming back to when they are a bit older and can be more involved with the making part. I thought I'd blog about it anyway because I was quite proud of the end result, even if my babies weren't :)

Whirlwind Supermammies

We spent this morning at the home of a friend with two children around the same ages as Girl and Boy. I sat and watched in awe as this lady crammed about a month's worth of entertainment - and a hearty lunch - into two hours.

Boy was utterly enthralled as toy trains followed play dough, stories, hide and seek and a box full of toys - and aren't all toys so much better when they belong to someone else? When the rice-filled balloons came out all four children were bursting with glee. The balloons burst too, of course but not before lots of headers, throwing, kicking, catching and rubbing on the small babies' heads to produce some seriously spiky do's. My favourite part of the morning was watching Boy's wee pal dancing 'The Robot'.

By the time we were ready to leave, both babies were exhausted - as was mammy. They looked mildly disappointed when things returned to their usual pace this afternoon. Eh mammy we've been playing with these pipe cleaners for seven minutes here, what's next?

Tea Party and Baking Cookie Cups

Last week I picked up a lovely dolls' porcelain tea set for a real bargain. I couldn't wait any longer for Girl to get old enough to use it with her dolls, so at lunch time today I sat down on the living room playmat with Girl, Boy, Upsy Daisy and Teddy and we enjoyed a little sexism-free doll's tea party.

When planning the tea party in my head I had all sorts of fantastic and super creative Enid Blyton-esque ideas for what to serve. Rainbow jelly, home made sausage rolls, cream scones and real cooled tea for starters. But in time honoured tradition, I couldn't really be bothered spending hours on a spectacular tea party at which Boy would likely turn up his nose, and which Girl would need liquidised anyway. So I poured a drop of milk in the teapot and put a pinwheel sandwich (peanut butter and banana) atop a slice of strawberry on each plate.

Well I was pleasantly surprised with how much entertainment this simple spread provided. Boy insisted on pouring cup after cup of "tea" for himself and the dolls, while Girl sat really well and gobbled up the strawberry and sandwiches. We pretended to feed the dolls and made lots of yummy noises. Although a fair bit of milk ended up on the floor, it was a lovely way for Boy to practise his co-ordination and pouring skills, while enjoying the whole social ritual of a tea party.

Once we had finished, Boy gathered up all the dishes unprompted and took them to the kitchen sink (after attempting to put them in the bin, but still). Then he asked to wash his hands. This is usually code for "I want to stand at the sink and see how much water I can direct onto everything within 20 feet." But actually he wanted to continue playing with the little tea set. He filled the cups with water and drank from them, then "washed" them and put them on the drying rack. Over, and over, and over again.

Later, inspired the success of the tea party I went all Nigella and made chocolate cookie cups filled with yoghurt and fruit (and a sneaky spoon of nutella for mammy and daddy) for after dinner. They were so simple to make and looked quite fancy and inviting. And they were pretty tasty too. I used my tried and tested chocolate chip cookie recipe which Boy helped with (flour EVERYWHERE but who cares!) and a muffin tin. We put a ball of cookie dough in each muffin case and poked a hole in the middle, then baked in a hot pre-heated oven for 15 minutes. Once cooled, put a spoon of yoghurt in the middle of each cup and top with a couple of pieces of fruit. Easy peasy.

I hope we have another tea party soon, if not for another chance to use the sweet porcelain tea set, then for another reason to make yummy chocolate cookie cups and serve them to friends. And to encourage all this manly dish washing of course.

Friday Fun

Today has been a somewhat frenetic mix of playing with friends (Boy), gossip with other mammies (me), puking (Girl), sleeping (Girl and Boy), cooking (me), eating (me, B and Girl), more puking (Girl), refusing to eat (Boy), tantrums (me and Boy), jogging in the rain (me and B), cutting, gluing and colouring (me, Boy and B), eating glue (Girl), yet more puking (Girl) and collapsing with exhaustion (all of the above).

It was great to catch up with a couple of friends this morning, and Boy was thrilled to see his little girlfriend. No clever activities needed, just a lot of shrieking, banging, running in circles and cuddling. I got to hold an ADORABLE three-week old baby, and I introduced another friend to the joys of feeding her almost-2 year-old toddler a lemon for the first time (with camera at the ready, naturally).

Foam Party

Sadly I am not 19 and getting soapy drunk in the student union again. Please, that's so 1996.

Nope, I'm doing a version of the good old shaving-foam-on-a-tray activity. This one has the added fun element of actually making the foam yourself using a glug of Fairy liquid, a splash of water and a hand blender. To those of you who just thought, "eww, but I use my blender for food", hurray! I'm not the only dullard on this web page! To those of you who just thought "what an eejit", perhaps the University Challenge blog might be more up your virtual street.

I first tried the activity this morning with Girl, and although I didn't get the squeals of delight I had imagined after reading the idea from HandsOnAsWeGrow, the foam definitely caught her attention and she plunged her hands straight into it.

Sometimes it is hard to appreciate a sensory experience like this from the point of view of an eight month old. While she was exploring the foam with her hands (and mouth, naturally, yuck) I was immediately wondering why she wasn't enjoying the activity. Why isn't she smiling and cackling with glee? I must be doing something wrong. So I started splashing about in the foam myself, which resulted very quickly in a big splodge of soapsuds flying into her eye and splat, that was the end of that. It was only afterwards I realised it might have been wiser to just let her get on with it instead of trying to force the foamy fun.

When Boy returned home from creche, the leftover jug of foam had returned to its original state, so we got to whizz it up again with the hand blender. Girl was immediately itching to get her hands and mouth sparkly clean but Boy was reluctant to even touch the foam. I tried driving his chuggers through it - he was not impressed - and putting splodges on my face and Girl's head. He managed to crack a smile at this but still wouldn't touch. However when I got out some measuring cups he immediately got stuck in, scooping up foam with one cup and pouring it into another.

Overall it was a pretty successful activity. The babies got to experience the texture, smell, taste(!) and other sensations from playing with the foam. I learned a good lesson about taking a back seat. My hand blender is now VERY clean. And I am very keen to see whether Himself notices that I'm just refilling his shaving cream with washing up liquid from now on.