Culture

Another trip out with Daddy today into Oxford. Much fun was had watching the workmen.

And then playing with erm I mean interacting with the illustrated manuscripts at the Bodleian.

Underneath

It's been a day for dens. The dining table has been utlised between all meals as a haven for small boys and animals. (Mummy got in on the act too but at 36 weeks pregnant getting out again wasn't pretty!)

The boys spends a lot of his day on the phone (old mobiles and toys) having pretend conversations with various people. I don't really know where he gets his obsession from as I hate using the phone.

When he wasn't under the table he was under a chair or under the duvet (although he seems to have lost the art of having a nap in the last few days which is poor timing for my stage of pregnancy).

Under the table is usually where the dog spends mealtimes so as soon as he saw the fur being put down he thought it was for him! He made an exit when one too many toys got thrown in though.

Ways to buy a bit of peace and quiet.

Take a pause from sorting washing and check your mail whilst drinking a big mug of coffee.

Give a small boy an apricot chewy bar and he might just take himself off to read a book.

Allow one small boy to raid the kitchen drawer and have fun with a roll of bin bags...

Daddy Time

I'm not sure who had the most fun yesterday. The boy and his dad took a bus to the train station and then spent time watching trains and buses and people. There's work on the line south of here so there were lots of buses of passengers disgorging and lots of trains starting out from here. A cup of milk and the cost of the bus ticket and it made for a cheap date.

We don't watch tv with Isaac - I figure there'll be plenty of years of tv watching in his future and the longer we can keep him out of the habit the better (plus I can't bear kids' tv). But we do watch the odd bit of sport and as the Winter Olympics are on at the moment we've been watching a bit of skiing so this morning the boy announced he was going to ski.

(Photos from Matthew's new toy - an iPhone)

Crayons

Mostly when I've offered the boy crayons to draw with he's been more interested in biting them or breaking them but he seems to finding the crayon love at the moment.

It's Matthew's birthday this weekend and as his first love is the dog I've been trying to get some good photos... the dog is less than impressed though at being a star.

He did deign to have his tummy rubbed for a bit though which gave me chance to snap his grey chin.

Daily Bread

I've had this book on my Amazon wishlist for a while now after seeing it mentioned on Kat's Blog but not having set eyes on it in the flesh I didn't know how useful it would be as we can always make bread in our bread maker. Kat came up trumps again this morning though with links to this blog which is not only beautiful but has a recipe from the book. So the obvious course of action for the day was to make a batch of no knead bread.

The toddler didn't understand the no knead part and spent a lot of time getting messy and having fun with the sludgy dough - I don't know if the dough should be this wet or if I didn't get the conversions quite right, I'll try it again next week and take a bit more time working out the proper recipe instead of just winging it.

The bowl is from Cley and was a present to Matthew from my mum one Christmas when he was going through a bread making phase. You really do need a very big bowl for this bread so it was perfect.

It's been cold again here so it took a good few hours to prove so this isn't a lunchtime bread on the first day you make it but there's plenty of dough to keep some in the fridge and use one subsequent days.

Whilst it was on its second proving we did a bit of prep for dinner and some reading at the same time.

The boy helped with the chopping of the herbs.

And then the bread was ready. I wasn't convinced that a grapefruit sized piece would be enough for us for one meal but it would have been okay. As I made two loaves though we had a bit extra and the rest will make fantastic bruschetta tomorrow. I'd say the texture is more like ciabatta than french bread but that may be because it was so wet - she's not kidding when she says you'll need floured hands to shape the dough. Actually the dough wasn't shaped as it was so wet I just sort of plonked it on the board and hoped. The one on the right wasn't keen to get off the board into the oven and so has cous cous on the top as I'd put a mix of cous cous and flour on the board to stop them sticking.

So there you go - fresh bread, green beans, tomato and herbs, fried halloumi and raw carrots. A yummy dinner even if I do say so myself.

Passing time

Well about now I should have been snuggling up with a newborn. Sometimes this pregnancy has felt unreal as the start was so full of mixed feelings as I'd just lost a baby at 5 weeks and then got pregnant straight away afterwards. So here I am with about 5 weeks to go thinking about what could have been and also thinking of friends who should have been holding their twins around now too. I at least have another birth to look forward to.

I made some quick snacks today - date and walnut popped in the blender and made into crumbs and then squished into balls. A quick and tasty snack (I guessed at the proportions and it wouldn't stick very well so I added a tiny bit of orange juice too). The boy seemed to like them as he kept going back to get more.

Fun with mummy's sunnies.

And a self-portrait.

Getting out

I've been feeling a bit like everything is a bit of an effort for the last few weeks and the weather's not been very good so we've been spending a lot of time indoors. I had to go and see the chiropractor today which is just down the road and we have to walk past the park to get there and so it was too much to hope that Isaac would go all the way there and back without wanting to go to the park. So even though we had a couple of snow flurries this afternoon and it was cold we went for a play in the park.

Lots of fun with a big box

If you leave an empty box around for any length of time in this house it will be sequestered by either the boy or the bear. This one was the boy's domain.

Day 1. He just spent a lot of time lying in it and making a house out of it.

Day 2.

We put the washing basket on top with a play silk over it and made a den. And then various things were posted in and out of the box.

Lots of paint

I don't know where this week's gone! Everything feeds to be speeding up at the moment.

We've had lots of demands to paint this week and I've been using watercolours either on normal card stock or on watercolour paper instead of the paints sold for children. I have to say the whole experience is so much nicer and as you use the watercolours diluted it doesn't have to be more expensive.

Small boy rediscovered the cans of shaving foam in the painting drawer and was all for using them in the kitchen so off we traipsed to the bathroom for some messy fun.

I don't like using foam too often as it can't be good for his skin but he seems fairly resilient and he has such a good time. I swear the boy will develop webbed feet though as he spends a lot of time in the shower in a morning both with me and whilst I'm getting dressed and has some playtime in the bath in the evenings too so an extra bath after foam play will mean 3 lots of water today (and that's not counting 'helping' with the washing up).