DIY story book

I suppose, if anything, Driver Dan's Story Train inspired this activity. When it comes on, I always have to pretend to be Driver Dan, ToddlerGirl is Hip and BabyBoy has to be Hop (rabbits, donchaknow). Sundry cuddly toys get to rotate the task of being Twinkle. The redeeming feature of the programme is the stories, which the eponymous lion reads in the later half of the episode - proper books! The first half is some loosely thrown together plot which has something to do with the following story. I'm not really a fan, but it is completely inoffensive and it is a good introduction to some stories I, sorry, we may not otherwise encounter. I've recognised a couple that have come on, but most are new to us. (Another way to find new books is #fictionfriday on Twitter, championed by HomeDad.)

ToddlerGirl's very into her imaginative play. She has a slightly disturbing fascination with pretending dried apricots are babies, and that she is a troll who lives under the bridge (for that, read dining table) who pops up to steal the babies and eat them. She likes it best if I pretend they are my babies and she has to wrest them from me with some semblance of a struggle... There is some deeply disturbing sibling rivalry subtext to this, isn't there? She also likes pretending to sail boats, while pretending her brother's a big fish roaming the seas, so it's not all baby-eating. Honest. She throws him back most times.

Anyway, today I decided to try and channel some of that imagination, as I was tired and wanted to do something sitting-downy. So I made a blank book and got her to tell me the story while I wrote it down. She then drew pictures to go with the words. It was quite good fun!

Take:

Some A4 paper, folded widthways in two (I used 5 sheets)
A needle
Some thread
Coloured pens

Take the folded paper and make two big stitches in it with the needle and thread to hold it together as a book. You could use staples if you wanted, but I couldn't find the stapler. And this way I don't have to worry about the staples coming out and getting eaten or embedded in feet/fingers/other.
Get toddler to tell you a story, and transcribe!
I went for the minimal intervention approach, although I did point out when we were starting to run out of pages that maybe we were getting to the end.

For those of you who are interested, here is the story ToddlerGirl wrote:

Once upon a time...
There was a car and a rabbit.
The rabbit was stuck up a mountain.
The car was stuck in the water. The car was sinking.
Fireman Sam likes rescuing things.
He is going to rescue the rabbit first.
He is going to climb up a ladder and rescue the rabbit.
Now the rabbit isn't stuck any more.
Fireman Sam is going to sail in a boat and rescue the car.
Fireman Sam loves me.
Let's have a picnic for Fireman Sam.
Everybody is happy!
Then Fireman Sam got stuck!
What a silly Fireman Sam!
The car can't reach him.
But the rabbit can jump up high and reach him.
The rabbit jumped high and rescued Fireman Sam.
What a clever Fireman Sam!
Now Fireman Sam isn't stuck.
The rabbit jumped down and they had a picnic and a tea party.
And nobody got stuck again. What silly things!

Small potato prints

I love Small Potatoes. It's like Creature Comforts but with potatoes: sing it with me! "Small potatoes on the moon! Small potatoes in the sea!" Utterly random, but hilarious. And remarkably short at 3 mins or so.

Being so enamoured, I did then feel a bit like a axe-murderer as I hacked into my Baby Charlottes for a spot of spud printing.  I was doing my Christmas shopping online (yes, I am that organised, sometimes) and found ChattyNora's wonderful posters, which although they are hand-drawn have a lovely retro-print feel. And then I had this idea that the kids would like making Christmas cards for the nearest and dearest - told you I was organised - and wouldn't it be simply darling for them to print lovely festive symbols and then shower them with glitter?

Yeah, right. There is a place for glitter, and it isn't all over my floor. I am reminded of the conversation I had with my husband earlier this week about getting a real fir tree for Christmas. There are not enough hours in my day for that amount of hoovering. It gets everywhere. And, with a TMI warning, I mean everywhere - and what goes in must come out. You know what I'm talking about. Glitter makes many things nicer, but the contents of nappies remain unimproved.

But if you wish to pursue the potato printing route, sans glitter, take:

Some small potatoes
A sharp small knife
Some paint
Some paper

Cut off the end of the potato to create a flat surface to work with.
Cut shape/pattern into the end of the potato - simple is best, in my experience. Holly leaf, snowflake and stars, for instance. The areas left raised are what will print, so you need to cut away quite deeply in order to get a clear stamp.
Splat spud into paint, wipe off excess if possible.
Make prints.

Needless to say, potatoes are not suitable for eating after use!

Plant races

Let it never be said I don't share my failures as well as success.

I stand by the concept as sound in principle, but let down by poor execution and maintenance. Time has been at a premium of late as I have been prepping like mad for job interviews, fending off vomiting babies and slumping glassy-eyed on the sofa at the end of it all. The more eagle-eyed among you may have noticed that blog output has dropped accordingly.

I can't blame that alone on the failure of this project, as it has been some weeks now and the plant pots are resolute in their determination not to hint at any sign of germination. But hang on, you say, what exactly was the project? Allow me to divulge...

Having watched the Mr Bloom episode on 'growing', and having had some genuinely interesting conversations with ToddlerGirl about the difference between something that is made and something that is grown, the idea was to plant two fruit stones and then race them, to see which grew first. The result, as you can see, is a dead heat. Possibly with the emphasis on dead.

I may un-inter the fruit stones and see if anything at all had started to happen before I lapsed in my watering efforts but, as I may have mentioned previously, I'm a bit rubbish at growing stuff.

If you want to try such an enterprise and have more commitment to the cause than I, take:

2 plant pots
Some compost
2 fruit stones of different species - we used plum and peach

Stick compost in pots.
Plant stones in pots.
Water regularly.
Wait.
And wait.
And wait.

All rights reserved to give up and revert back to watercress...

Watercress Oakley

I was in the pub with a friend (pre-kids, so long ago!) who was trying to describe this programme she had seen with blue rabbits and talking trees and it all sounded nonsensical and surreal... Not uncommon for things to sound nonsensical and surreal after a few bevvies, but I have latterly come to the conclusion that she must have stumbled upon Everything's Rosie.

It's got talking trees! The last kids thing I watched with talking trees was The Last Unicorn film. And that was a rather over-familiar, one might even say 'fruity', tree. If you have seen the cartoon, you'll know what I mean. If you haven't, here's the clip.

Is Oakley a derivative of that proto-tree? You decide...

If you want to grow your own Oakley, take:

A section of kitchen roll
Some Tipp-ex or white paint
A black felt-tip
Some cotton wool
Watercress seeds

Draw an Oakley face on the kitchen roll - using white paint or Tipp-Ex makes the eyes stand out
Stuff the roll with cotton wool
Sprinkle watercress seeds on top!
Water the seeds - keep the kitchen roll tube slightly damp to stop the seeds drying out
Wait a few days for Oakley's 'branches' to grow!

(THEN EAT THEM!! MWAH HA HA HAA!!)

Stick horse

Mock me, will you sock? Roaming defiantly un-paired? Well HA! This'll teach you.

I'm not a fan of princesses in general, but for Little Princess I will make an exception. She's 4 years old, charming, frustrating, stroppy... did I mention she's 4 years old? I'm told she's very like I was at that age.

Visually, it reminds me of King Rollo, but it's actually drawn by Tony Ross of Horrid Henry fame. Little Princess lives in a castle, with her Mummy, Queen (who's permanently wearing a headscarf, crown balanced on top) and Daddy, King (usually wearing a tie and scruffy jacket). They are pretty much a normal family but they happen to be royal. And there's sundry other supporting characters who live with them in the castle - take the Prime Minister, for instance. To quote his biog on the Little Princess website, he'd "rather ride around on his tricycle with the Princess than run the country". Obviously a Tory then.

It's very wittily observed. Little Princess is pretty much at the centre of all things, and yes, I can relate to the feeling that your household is run around your preschooler. Of the staff, the General is my favourite, all well-meaning bumbling and 5 o'clock shadow. He rides Nessie, the stick-horse which inspired this activity. Have you seen Monty Python & The Holy Grail, where the knights pretend to ride horses but are just followed by a chap clapping coconut shells together? It's that sort of deal with the General's horse. Plus there's a wonderful romantic subtext going on with the General and the Maid that's begging for it's own ITV2 miniseries. (How I wish I had a Maid! I'd settle for a General though, if he was good at washing up... heck, I'd settle for a dishwasher.)

I'm not keen on princesses, all beautifully useless waiting for their princes. And I do think that the 'princess' message pushed at our kids is potentially damaging, especially when there are books like this in school libraries today (as dissected in an excellent blog post by SenseofEntitlement). However Little Princess is much more "real" than the usual princess fantasies; being 4 years old helps, of course, as even princesses have to learn how to use the potty. All in all, it's one of the programmes that I will hop across to Five for; it foregrounds relationships in most of the plots, getting along with people, helping each other, and that sort of thing, but not in a preachy or idealised way. It's a world much closer to one that I recognise... apart from the Maid thing*. But if we had a maid we wouldn't have stray socks available for horse-transformations, so there's an upside for you.

Anyway, you can buy yourself a real "Nessie" for the princely sum of around £15. Or you can fashion your own by using the inner tube from some wrapping paper and a sock.

Take:

One sturdy tube of around 1m length (ours was from some old Xmas wrapping paper)
One sock - white for preference
Some newspaper
A rubber band
Some white paper and some brown/black paper - or fabric if you want something more permanent
Some felt-tip pens - washable, if you're bothered about re-using the sock

Take the sock and stuff it with newspaper, up to just beyond the heel.
Insert tube into neck of the sock.
Sellotape edge of sock to the tube, and loop a rubber band around it for added security.
Draw a face and spots on the sock
Cut out two 'arches' out of the white paper and fold in two lengthways.
Use sellotape to attach these 'ears' to the horse.
Cut a length of brown or black paper and frill it for a mane.
Sellotape mane to horse - I cut tabs and alternated the side I stuck the tab down to make the mane stand straighter.
(You could use fabric and stitch the mane and ears on instead - I was going for a fast make so didn't bother. If the appeal proves durable, I may re-make it in that fashion. If I can be bothered.)

Gee up! Get busy with the boxes and toys for an obstacle course/jump race for the littl'uns...


*And we don't have a pond either. Or an Admiral stood in it. Or in fact any staff at all...

Are you living with a toddler or foreign exchange student?

Let's check:
* Are you struggling with the language barrier?

* Do you regularly suffer from cultural misunderstandings, or appear to have mis-matched cultural norms?

* Do they have strange ideas about what constitutes weather-appropriate clothing for your climate?

* Do they regard with suspicion any food you present them with, or refuse to eat it at all in preference to their own tried and trusted favourites?

If you answered yes to all of the above, please check you haven't accidentally taken a stray foreign exchange student home from the supermarket instead of your own toddler. It's an easy mistake to make.

My parenting bookshelf

I know some parents dismiss parenting books out of hand - "I don't need books to tell me how to raise my kids!" - but I hope I wouldn't be so arrogant as to think there's nothing left to learn. (Arrogant, moi? Only when the mood takes me.) One thing I do know is that there's no one right way to parent: that's why there's so many different approaches and books on the market and not a single "Parenting Bible". Now, some may be more right than others but that's my personal opinion, of course...

So many of these books are just that though, opinion based. A book I really rate is 'Unconditional Parenting', by Alfie Kohn. It's one of the rare books that backs up what it asserts with proper research studies. Something that I think you will find lacking in many of the 'popular parenting programmes' on television today. Kohn takes a bit of a kicking from people who don't really understand his approach, and in part I believe that's because his book outlines the approach without really tooling you up on how to apply it. You have to think, quite a lot, about how it applies to you, your child, and the situation you're in. It's not a 'one-size-fits-all' naughty step for two minutes, forced apology and hug approach.

Being a parent is, to state the obvious, hard. I've always been either in education or employment and with the former you get grades to let you know how you're doing, and in the latter you have objectives against which you are appraised. Basically, there's always someone else there to sit you down and say "you're doing okay, good job!". With parenting, I miss that structure. I am Lisa Simpson, screaming "Grade me, grade me!" now school's shut down. (Which ironically is one of the points Alfie Kohn makes about how damaging reward-based discipline can be. You lose your ability to trust yourself, seeking praise and valuing only what others tell you is "right" or "good".)

With a few parenting years under my belt I am learning to trust myself more, particularly now I have a second child and know the world won't end if he accidentally eats dirt from the garden. I am learning to trust that I will make the right decisions for them, mostly - and if in fact I make the wrong decision sometimes, that's still a useful experience from which to learn and improve. But it's nice to be able to reach for a book at times when whatever's going on is foxing me a bit, or I get to the end of day like today when gritted teeth are the only thing that's got me to bedtime and I need some fresh resolve or ideas.

My general slant on parenting, the one I strive for, is a "working with" rather than a "doing to" approach. It's not always the one that comes easily, but it is the one that I aspire to. So, my parenting bookshelf includes:

Unconditional Parenting - Alfie Kohn
How To Talk So Kids Will Listen (And Listen So Kids Will Talk) - Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
When Kids Push Your Buttons (And What You Can Do About It) - Bonnie Harris


These are the ones I would recommend, and they all cover "toddlers to teens", so I expect to continue to get plenty of mileage out of them! I've read plenty of awful books too, but won't name and shame them here (who knows, maybe they work well for others). The Kohn book emphasises an approach, How To Talk So Kids Will Listen gives practical tips, and When Kids Push Your Buttons looks at how your own 'agenda' as a parent can create stress-points that cause showdowns between you and your child, and how adjusting your own attitudes and expectations can yield better outcomes.

I find the books helpful because they encourage me to think about things from different perspectives and consider what underlies the behaviour of my children, to try and deal with the cause and not the outward symptom. It also makes me think about how the effects of what I say and do as experienced by the person on the receiving end is not always the same as what I intend. For instance, when was the last time you were sent to your room to "think about what you've done" and actually thought about what you'd done as opposed to "this is SOOOO UNFAIR!"?! The toddler years are interesting in all sorts of ways, but boy, I'm glad I've got plenty of time to prepare myself for the teenage stage...

Chugger!

So having lovingly put together a Vee, ToddlerGirl requests a Chugger! Tsk, so demanding. Grabbing what was to hand, I threw together a Wilson.

Take:

1 box
1 piece of plain paper
1 felt tip

Cover box in paper.
Draw Chugger on top, sides, front and back of the box.
Give to toddler and let her colour in!

Add optional random empty box as a garage. Do trains live in garages? They do now.

Pretend telephone - homage to Chuggington's Vee

Chu-ggington, chugga chugga chugga chugga chugga... I have been caught humming the theme tune in the supermarket, 'tis true. Thomas the Tank Engine it aint, and though I never thought I'd say it, I actually prefer it. (Thomas was never the same after Ringo stopped voicing it, the miserable toad.)

We usually catch Chuggington's Badge Quest of an evening, which is a seemingly unending series of tasks that the "Chuggers" have to complete. (And by "chugger" I don't mean a "charity mugger", that's just what trains are called in this. Why can't they call a train a train? Don't get me started, or I'll be bringing Waybuloo into it again in no time.)

Although I am sure I've seen many (many!) Badge Quests, the badge-boards never seem to have more than 5 badges on them. What happens to the rest of them? These are the things I wonder about in quiet moments. (It makes a change from worrying about the Euro or whatever. I like wrestling with the big issues, me.) The 'quests' are a random range of things from "recycling" to "follow the leader". Badge Quests yet to feature include "leaf removal", "rush hour" and "dealing with customers outraged by extortionate price hikes".

Funnily enough, I've never seen anyone buy tickets in Chuggington, yet this week's Cbeebies magazine does have a ticket-conductor set on its front. If you hurry you can still get one, the next issue's out on Wednesday so you've got til then. ToddlerGirl was amused for five minutes or so but by far the best bit is the "Stop/Go" paddle that you flip to tell the trains to stop or go. Crazy, I know! It's been like living in an MC Hammer video this week. ("Stop! Hammertime"!) I'm well trained in the stopping and going now. Now if ToddlerGirl would just return the favour in the potty training area, we'd be laughing...

Anyway, here we have a "Vee" of sorts. Vee is the disembodied voice that
tells the Chuggers what to do. Orwellian? Maybe. My take on it is a new spin on the tried and tested yoghurt-pot telephone.

Take:
2 jelly pots
1 dessert pot (Milky Bar in this case).
1 kitchen roll inner
Some blue paper
Some plain paper and felt tips
Some string

Cover the jelly pots in blue paper (or paint, if you have some that sticks to plastic.)
Sandwich some blue-tak between the two pots by way of cushioning as you drive a screwdriver carefully through the bottom of first one jelly pot and then the other. (Be gentle or it will crack!)
Using the same method, put TWO holes in the dessert pot.
Cover the kitchen roll tube in blue paper.
Use the screwdriver to carefully put a hole in each side of the kitchen
roll.
Knot a length of string and thread it through one jelly pot, through one of the kitchen roll tube holes, then up out of the top of the kitchen roll. Now thread the string up and down through the dessert pot, and back into the kitchen roll and out the other side. Knot string and other end.
Pull the string up in the dessert pot to draw strings tight and pull 'Vee' together.
Draw the train sign and colour it in before sticking it on the front of the kitchen roll.
Draw Vee's lights and stick them on the dessert pot.

You can then pull the jelly pots out and talk/listen into each end as appropriate. Of course, once we had Vee, ToddlerGirl then sensibly pointed out we needed Chuggers - so watch this space.

The likeness to Vee could be better with more effort, but it passed the time on a wet morning. Obviously the string is a strangling hazard so as ever, be careful. (Those eagle of eye will notice we used balloon ribbon and not string. Our string is currently AWOL. If you see it, give it some stern words and send it home!)

Money-box

I rue the day I let my toddler go on the crappy kids' ride at the supermarket. "The airplane" has become a mild obsession. You wanna know the worst bit? I did a quick shop run over the weekend, and it's gone. Replaced by some pink jeep thing. I'll have to break that traumatic news next time we visit.

So while I'm mostly saving up for the kids' therapy, ToddlerGirl is mostly saving up for these rides. All of which is a round-about way of getting to the point that she needed a moneybox. Which needed decorating.

I know my parenting falls short at times, but I don't know whether to be worshipping at the feet of Charlie and Lola's never-seen mum, or reaching for social services' phone number. She's remarkably 'hands-off' in her approach, leading to genuine concerns she may be slumped over a bottle of gin somewhere. My fears solidified after reading "I'm not sleepy and I will not go to bed", in which Charlie's told to put Lola to bed. Which he does: giving her a bath, bedtime drink, brushing teeth, getting her pyjamas on, tucking her in... and of course, being Lola it's not quite that straightforward. If I'm honest, while my lips are pursing and my bosom is heaving at such wantonly irresponsible parenting, part of me wishes I could sack off the bedtime routine so effectively...

Charlie and Lola's from the pen of Lauren Child, and even if you don't know Lauren Child's name you'll know her style. It's that collage-cut-out-effect, with the words all wibbly wobbly, different fonts and sizes. Which I would attempt to emulate but Blogger makes all that too much like hard work. Lauren Child does capture the spirit of the 4/5 year old girl very well though. In fact, I am thinking of starting a campaign for a "Talk like Lola" day. If pirates can have their own "Talk like a pirate" day, why not? It would absolutely and completely be a very fun and goodish sort of day.

For this money-box, we were aiming at a Charlie and Lola-ish decorative effect. So I cut out a selection of C&L pictures from our magazine stash, and let Toddlergirl get busy with the sticky. I picked a cocoa tub as the lid is fairly tight and so fulfils the key function of a money-box, namely being resealable. Also, the plastic lid was such that it yielded fairly easy to my knife.

Take:
1 cocoa tub (or similar)
Wrapping paper
Selection of pictures/stickers/decoration of your choice
Blue-tak, sellotape and glue-stick
Coins!

Stick some blue-tak under the lid of the cocoa tub, to cushion the impact as you use a sharp knife to cut a slot in said lid.
Wrap the tub in wrapping paper - leave some overhang at the top to fold down and secure inside for a neat edge.
Stick decoration on.
Let toddler put coins in.
Take coins out so toddler can put coins in again.
Repeat last two steps ad nauseum...