Sewing practice

Isaac found a needle and thread this morning and asked to sew. Who am I to say no? He had fun running the needle randomly up and down and then pulling back the threads with a seam ripper.

Doggy humiliation of the worst kind - dressing up!

I made cheese. Matthew was delighted and asked why I haven't done it before. Seriously it's so easy everyone should try it. I followed the instructions on Kat's blog.

I managed to make soup too with some of the squash box. There's a whole load in the freezer.

Isabel's latest trick is putting her hands in the air and then smiling cutely. The only problem is when she does it at meal times and ends up smearing her dinner all through her hair.

Where did that week go?

On Monday along with our usual veg box we got the squash box. I look forward to this every year and I've been wanting to make soup and other lovely foods all week but they're still sitting in the box looking at me.

There's been a whole lot of this (photo by Isaac).

A fair bit of rough and tumble.

Lots of imaginative play.

And a sickness bug. I'm still catching up on washing and sleep is a distant memory but at least we're on the mend.

The bouncy bumpy road

The last few days the boy has expressed a desire to do some art but usually as he's supposed to be going to bed. So today I preempted it and offered him some painting time. He had such a great time. Up until recently painting would have been over and done with in about 5 minutes and the effort of getting everything out and then cleaning it up again afterwards meant it often didn't seem worth it. The only reason he stopped today was because he was out of paper (7 sheets). And although there was some hand painting today it was as much about putting the imprint on paper as painting the hand which is a definite change.

Thankfully at the moment her ladyship is happy to be amused by the goings on from the comfort of her throne.

I've had a rough few days. Sleep has been minimal and both children have started the day at 4.50am - even if I get Matthew up and go back to bed again it's still too much too early. Feeding often in the night I can cope with but actual waking and especially having to get out of bed does not make for a happy mama.

I've been having a few issues with anger management. In a perfect world I would see my triggers before I explode but lack of sleep does not make for clarity of thought. This blog post is so spot on about anger. Thankfully Matthew's workload is due to ease and we might get some family time and things may be a little easier over the next few weeks. We might even get a holiday...

I find the act of creation great for stress management - sewing is my first choice but baking and cooking come a close second. It's telling that I've not had chance to even make bread in the last few weeks. Today though was a bouncy bumpy road day - it's like rocky road but different.

I'm eating a lot of cakes at the moment to help cope with the tiredness (are you spotting a theme here?) and whilst I'm not averse to buying them I much prefer them to be home made both for the act of making them and so I know what's in them. This is my attempt at kidding myself that I'm being heathy...

Bouncy Bumpy Road*

(all amounts are rough and subject to what I have in the cupboard)

300g dark chocolate

125g (half a packet) of unsalted butter (I'd be interested to see what it's like with coconut butter instead)

3 tbsp agave syrup (or golden syrup)

around 200g of mixed seeds (today was about 50g linseed, 75g pumpkin seeds & 75g sunflower seeds - you could use some rich tea biscuits as in rocky road or if you make your own almond mylk the almond mush would be great)

200g-300g of mixed dried fruit (cranberries, raisins, blueberries & cherries today from a premixed packet), flaked almonds, chopped nuts, desiccated coconut etc - it depends what you've used as to how much it absorbs the chocolate mix and I tend to find more of the dried ingredients is better

method

put the chocolate, butter & syrup in a pan and melt

put the seeds in a food processor & blitz

add all the dry ingredients to the pan once everything's melted and glossy

mix well and the put into a foil lined tin, press down and refrigerate

And then a week after the event we're seeing the tick saga in play. Today I was the patient and I had to go off to hospital to have 'lots' of ticks taken out of my ear. The insert from the water jug was the instrument used as both tongue depressor and tick remover.

*the bouncy bumpy road comes from a song

Daddy's beans

We find trains everywhere in our house at the moment - they come to bed with us too. Today was a first though, trains parked very neatly on the piano.

Lunch was Daddy's beans. I'm not entirely sure how they got the name but bean salad from the supermarket is a firm favourite with the boy but only if stolen from Daddy and not if served up on his own plate.

The play silks were out this afternoon and much fin was had. Apparently I was a scarecrow (we sang the dingla dangle scarecrow at toddler group this morning) and Isaac had to climb on top.

Isabel loves playing peek a boo with them.

I had to have my feet measured - if he's bored his favourite thing to do is to take my socks off and do something with my feet.

First we had the tape measure.

And then we had the slider like they have at the shoe shop - well sort of...

There was a run away zebra this afternoon. I found him later at the top of the stairs. All the cheese he ate must have given him lots of energy.

And when I was feeding Isabel I heard noises from the kitchen... The boy was drawing a moon in turmeric on a baking sheet.

Batgirl

Here's the haul from Danna's. Isaac's not sure about the doll with no face so there may be some features added but he loves the other two and has been hauling them round the last couple of days getting up to all sorts of things. The apples are now losing their bag more often and Isabel has managed to get hold of them.

The girl has discovered the joys of being upside down. She keeps launching herself out of my arms without much warning which is a little scary.

And when she's not upside down being a bat she's flying high.

Police king fairy pirate boy

One of the great things about going to Danna's is raiding the sewing supplies and the box of made goods that get sold at craft fairs and table sales. I've been thinking we need more dolls in the house but been uninspired by the rag dolls I've seen and the Waldorf dolls that I love are all very expensive (I'm hoping to make my own one day). These ladies will fill the gap perfectly and Isaac has taken a shine to them an the fabric apples that we also brought back (he puts them in a bag like at the apple orchard but that means Isabel can't play with them).

The dressing up stuff has reappeared again and so today he's been a fairy (I need to get him some wings)

A police fairy

A king police fairy

And a pirate

The long drive

One of the favourite play things in the big park at my Mum's is the old and battered frame of a car. This time we were driving to Switzerland before we could get out and play on anything else...

And then he spotted some red cars driving past whilst he was on the swing and he then had to jump down and go an paint his car red.

Obviously I had to hold the paint pot whilst he drove.

We popped along to the yurt and as soon as we arrived the boy ran to the log circle. I love how simple this is and yet how compelling it is to small boys. I think we need to do something similar in the grotty bit of the garden that doesn't get used for anything.

Trains go with us pretty much everywhere. He has mostly unbranded ones but Granny & Grandpa bought him a couple from the Thomas the Tank Engine series and they get a lot of play. They rarely stay with their given names though.

These ones were driven on top of tables, underneath tables (whilst we had our brunch) and through the grass and gravel - who needs a track.

I love the simplicity of childhood. The best thing about any cafe or restaurant that we go into is a glass of ice to crunch and handle. He eschewed his ice cream in favour of ice this day.

We are now home and trying to make sense of all the sorting out that comes with a car full of things.