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...

Poc-Poc biscuits

I cannot wait for 5.50pm. It's love. The Adventures of Abney and Teal has cast its spell upon me, and I am smitten.

If Oliver Postgate (Clangers, Bagpuss etc) was still alive and making animation today, I'd like to think it would be something like Abney and Teal. They live on an island in the middle of a park in a city, exploring and having fun with their friends. There's no heavy-handed moralising, there's no conflict, it's just... lovely. It's that plus the soundtrack in particular, I think, that reminds me of Bagpuss, the way it is stripped down and simple, which in itself mirrors the idea of the characters all living in this oasis of calm, adrift from the rest of the world. It is innocent, joyful, and simply beautiful to watch.

It's from the same stable as Teletubbies and In the Night Garden, but has more of what we grown-ups would recognise as plot; perhaps due to its 10 minutes length as opposed to the half-hour or so that Teletubbies and ITNG have to hold tiny attentions. But there is something endearingly retro about it, and I find it so refreshing compared to the 'modern' animation styles of Numberjacks, Waybuloo, and the other wide-eyed, gawping, brashly coloured computer-generated characters that bombard us. Of course, I don't doubt for a minute that Abney and Teal isn't computer-generated, but it has the feel of an illustration brought to life.

It offers less for BabyBoy, but ToddlerGirl is also pretty smitten, and has taken to declaring "That was an adventure!", Teal-style, at various intervals. Picking tomatoes, is an adventure. And why not?

So we had a biscuit-making adventure. The Poc-Pocs appear to be made of wood, so to try and get the 'woodgrained' appearance, I marbled my biscuit dough with cocoa, although I did overwork the mix a bit, which is why it isn't as streaky as I would have liked. They taste nice, though!

Take:
2oz flour
1.5oz butter or marg
1.5oz sugar
A teaspoon of cocoa
Half a dozen raisins or so

Chuck the flour, butter and sugar into a bowl.
Give toddler a fork and stand back.
When toddler has finished 'mixing', give it a bigger mix until the mix turns into something resembling breadcrumbs. Keep mixing a bit more after that until it forms a dough. If it is being especially stubborn, add a couple of drops of milk.
Next, add cocoa, and mix just enough to streak the mixture.
Get toddler to help you roll out the mix to about a 4mm thickness.
Give toddler spoon to lick while you cut out Poc-Poc shapes with a sharp knife.
Cut raisins in half, and push into Poc-Pocs to make eyes.
Bake around 180 degrees Celsius, or Gas Mark 3, for about 10 minutes.

64 Zoo Lane: Crocodile

64 Zoo Lane is, in some ways, a poor man's Tinga Tinga Tales. But it is on during Cbeebies Bedtime Hour and if Baby Boy's struggling to get to sleep then it can stretch a tired toddler for an extra ten minutes before bath.

It is hardly cutting edge animation, and the stories are so-so, but the idea of a girl who lives next door to a zoo being told bedtime stories by the animals is quite cute. I take exception to the theme tune however, which sings that "some are slimy" while showing wriggling snakes. Annoys me every time. Everyone knows snakes aren't slimy, don't they? Or am I being a pedant?

(Flash back to our most recent zoo visit: another mother pointing at a gorilla, saying "look at the funny monkey" to her toddler. My daughter points at the animal and asks me what it is, I tell her it's a gorilla. Which it is. Other mother shoots daggers at me and mutters something like "monkey, gorilla, whatever". It's none of my business what she tells her kids it's called, does that not cut both ways? It's not like I made a point of mentioning that a gorilla's an ape, not a monkey. That, I feel, would have been pedantry.)

Anyway, 64 Zoo Lane's crocodiles are pretty basic and easy to mock up. (Mock croc, geddit?) I don't know why my daughter decided an egg-box should become a croc, but she did, and it did.

Take:

1 long thin box (I used a breadsticks box)
Half an egg-box (the bumpy half)
1 piece of card
Plain paper
2 googly eyes if you have them, a bit more paper if you don't.


Cover the long thin box in plain paper.
Cut jaws out of one end of the box.
Stick the egg-box half onto the top of the box (I used glue and masking tape to secure it).
Cut 4 feet and 1 tail out of the piece of card and attach to bottom and back of box respectively. I folded the 'fat end' of the tail over to make a tab for the purposes of sticking.
Croc at this point looked like so:


Next, paint crocodile in colours of toddlers choice. Ours was green, yellow, red and blue. And sludge where they all mingled.
When crocodile is dry, stick on two googly eyes, or make two paper eyes.
Cut pointy teeth out of paper, and stick to jaw end to give a toothy effect.

You can "feed" the crocodile bits and pieces by pushing it through the teeth, or make fish shapes from the spare card if you like.

It didn't take that long to make: as projects go, it was pretty snappy! (Ok, I'll stop now...)

Dipdap: Snow-shaker

Dipdap is an odd little cartoon. At only two minutes in length, it's quite convenient if my toddler wants to watch one more thing before we turn the TV off. There's no dialogue, it's all music and sound effects - great for export, one would imagine. It's very simply drawn, and for a character with no facial features other than saucer-eyes, Dipdap conveys quite a range of emotions. It's an amusing little animation. Baby Boy thinks so, anyway.

Dipdap lives in a world where The Line creates random situations around him. It's great fun trying to guess what the Line is drawing, and what will happen next. Rolf Harris would love it. Probably.

In one episode, Dipdap finds himself inside a snowglobe. The shaker inspired by this isn't exactly a snowglobe, but both kids seem to get a kick out of it.

Take:
1 plastic see-through bottle
Some sequins/metal table confetti
Some olive oil (a few tablespoons or so)
Some water

Pour water into the bottle.
Carefully add the sequins/confetti.
Add the olive oil.
Close lid - tightly!

Baby Boy just likes shaking it and watching the bits fall. My toddler likes the 'bubbles' that the oil and water make when they mix. The oil was a last minute experimental addition, but it definitely makes it more interesting: the confetti goes down, while the oil bubbles go up. Hours of fun! (Well, minutes, anyway...)

Noddy: Pirate ship for the bath

I've never been a fan of Noddy, although I remember the original books from when I was little. I found the characters hard to like and the plots too preachy, and while the TV series has been updated it still doesn't float my boat (pun intended).

Most of the stories revolve around the naughty goblins trying to mess up whatever Noddy's doing and generally episodes end with them being punished. Note that the goblins are never actually invited to join in with anything the Toytown toys do, and they live far away from everyone else. Add to that, the goblins are ugly and very visually different to the rest of the toys, a palette of sludgey grey-greens rather than vibrant primary colours. I don't really like the "good = pretty, bad = ugly" message that comes through in a lot of kids stuff - Disney in particular is quite bad for that - and in general I think there are undertones which are quite unpleasant to the whole goblin plot-device. I know it's a kids programme, but some gestures in the direction of empathy would be nice. There are some episodes which are a bit more developed than the "goblins try to spoil the fun" plot, so I try and filter viewing on that basis. Noddy and the pirates being a case in point...

The pirate plot revolved around pirates hunting for treasure, mistakenly taking some that doesn't belong to them, and Noddy helping to resolve the situation. Pirates seem to be pretty ubiquitous these days on kids TV, books, etc., so it's no wonder they're fairly big in our house. Peppa Pig gets a commendation for being the only kids programme I'm aware of to feature pirates which also includes girls, at Danny Dog's pirate party. (There were actually quite a few female pirates in days gone by. It's interesting reading, although I wonder why these particular 'criminal types' have been rehabilitated as suitable children's fodder? Why them and not highwaymen, say? At this age I don't need to get into the finer points with my kids, pirates are just funny people who sail boats and look for treasure, end of.)

Of course, every good pirate needs a boat, be they imaginary-cushion boats or ones for the bath. We approximated our own bathtime pirate-boat as follows:

Take:

1 plastic bottle (we used an olive oil one)
1 piece of paper
1 piece of blu-tak
1 chopstick or similar mast (beware pointy ends!)

Using a sharp knife to get started, then switching to scissors, cut a hole in the side of the bottle, to create the hollowed out boat-shape. File any sharp edges down with a nail-file.
Decorate a piece of paper for the sail.
Make two small cuts in the sail and slip the mast through. (I used a bamboo chopstick, which gave me an enormous splinter: I'd recommend filing them down too!)
Stick blu-tak at the bottom of the bottle.
Stick mast into blu-tak.
Sail away! (Enya soundtrack optional).

We added a couple of Little People as passengers/pirates, and I was gratified to see that it remained quite stable. The sail was good for blowing on to make the boat move, although a longer stretch of water would have been better. There are only so many times you can turn the boat round in a bath. I'd also suggest not getting too attached to the sail as it will end up soggy... Spares are good!

Mr Bloom's Nursery: Ladybird nibbles

We're not an especially green-fingered bunch. My daughter kills plants with kindness (over-watering) while I tend to kill them through neglect - with two kids and a cat, something's got to give! However Mr Bloom's Nursery rekindled my interest in gardening, and I like the idea of my kids knowing where their food comes from (and I don't mean Tesco).

The initial spark sputtered a bit after I realised just how quickly weeds grow back (who has time to weed every week?!) and that a bit of effort is required beyond chucking some water on when it's hot. My style of gardening boils down to sticking it in the ground and hoping for the best, and it delivers mixed results.

Our tomatoes, however, proved hardy sorts, and my daughter has enjoyed watering them with a special watering can from her grandparents. (The previous watering can was of less traditional construction, shall we say: an empty plastic milk bottle with some holes punched in the top end with a screwdriver. It did the job though.) After much waiting and watering, finally - finally! - we had some red tommies. Behold!



They were harvested with great enthusiasm, but when it comes to eating them, enthusiasm dips. I think perhaps Mr Bloom may have some responsibility in that area... I think the programme is great, teaching kids about how things grow and all that, but I wonder whether having animatronic vegetables - Sebastian the Singing Aubergine, Margaret the Cabbage, Joan the Fennel to name a few - is sending out mixed messages. Put it this way, when we are in the veggie section of Tescos, and my daughter points at the butternut squash, she doesn't shout out "Look, mummy, squash!", she shouts "Look, mummy, Raymonds!"

I had thought that having grown them she might have been more inclined to try them though. Baby Boy will chomp them down happily, but he's an undiscerning sort, bless him (and so was my toddler at that stage). Taking my cues from Mr Bloom and our garden friends, I tried dolling them up as ladybirds instead. I wish I could report that she then gobbled them up with gusto, but nay. But if you want to try similar, here's what I did:

Take:
2 tomatoes
4 raisins
Some balsamic vinegar

Using a sharp knife, cut the tomatoes in two.
Position tomatoes on plate with raisin placed at top, in the dent where the stem was.
Taking sharp knife again, dip it in balsamic vinegar, and draw a line down the tomato halves, and then dip again to add each spot. (This can be a bit fiddly).

Job's a good'un! I did try this with marmite instead of balsamic vinegar, which was frankly revolting, although more aesthetically pleasing. I also tried brown sauce, which was also less fiddly but possibly an acquired taste. Our tomatoes are quite intensely flavoured so with a blander (shop-bought) type, I'd give brown sauce another go.

Ladybirds are our friends, says Mr Bloom. I think my daughter has taken this too literally: every time we see a ladybird, she has to stop, greet it and give me a full report on what it's doing... Our walks have become epic. Thanks, Mr B...

Something Special: review

Something Special is a masterwork; the crowning achievement of the ubiquitous Justin Fletcher. Cbeebies seems to rotate the series, and the producers seem to have nailed the format by about series 3 or so (you can spot the difference based on whether Mr Tumble or Justin introduces the programme). Mr Tumble comes into his own in those later series, and indeed we don't call it 'Something Special' in our house, it's known simply as 'Mr Tumble'.

I've watched it with my kids from a very early age, as what I found fascinating is that, throughout the programme, the presenter/characters use Makaton, a form of sign language. We did baby-signing with our kids in a rather half-hearted fashion using a book to teach ourselves, and that is, I think, derived from Makaton.

It's more a comment on our commitment than on baby-signing in general that the only sign that seemed to stick with either of our kids was 'milk', but it is amazing the difference that one sign can make. Just the other day, my grumpy boy was squalling and I couldn't figure out what he wanted - it was too soon for food or sleep - and then he starts desperately clenching and unclenching his fingers, a distress beacon of flashing digits. Ah! thinks dozy mummy, it's afternoon milk time...

Anyway, the reason that they use Makaton in Something Special is that the series is aimed at children with special educational needs, so where perhaps speech may be a problem, Makaton is another way for them to communicate. The children which Justin meets often (but not exclusively) have special needs. From a diversity perspective, I think it is great that my kids get to see a whole range of people represented on television, and I really like Something Special for that reason.

Another reason I really like it is the range of scenarios that Mr Tumble and Justin encounter, a wide spread of activities, from shopping to sailing. I find it quite interesting to watch, and I have picked up quite a bit of the signing myself without realising it. My daughter likes the signing too, and will often do that while she talks, which is sometimes a bit odd when we're out and about, but who cares... My little boy also seems to have picked up a bit, and will wave at the TV at the appropriate moments at the start and end of the programme. I really like the gentle humour of the series, the friendly tone, and that the kids actually do learn quite a lot from it, not just the signing but also about the wider world. I think Justin Fletcher does an excellent job presenting it, it is pitched perfectly.

It was quite an exciting moment last year when one of the series we were watching featured, as Mr Tumble's house, a holiday home we stayed in a couple of years prior. We went back there this year. It is a gorgeous house (see above,) so I will quite happily glaze over and pretend I am still there, looking at the sea view and enjoying the sunshine. I didn't tell my daughter we were staying in Mr Tumble's house. I think the lack of spots would have confused her.

Octonauts: Fish Biscuits

We all enjoy a bit of Octonauts. I love it as I (and the kids) get to learn about bizarre new marine life - Dwarf lantern sharks! Spookfish! Blobfish! - and it's all factually accurate (as far as I can tell, not being a marine biologist). My daughter loves it because of the adventures, and my son loves it because of the pretty colours and bold animation (I assume that's it, as for a while, when he was a newborn wracked with wind, Octonauts would be the only thing that could temporarily distract him).

The gist of the programme is Peso the penguin, Kwazi the cat-pirate and Captain Barnacles the polar bear have exciting adventures following their mission of "Explore! Rescue! Protect!" There's a supporting cast of Shellington the scientist (and otter), Professor Inkling the squid, Tweak the rabbit (the engineer and one of the two girl characters), and Dashi the dog (the other girl who just seems to take photos. I'm not sure what her role is, if she's a scientist, journalist or what, really.)

Their adventures are amusing, exciting, and all realised in a very cute style of animation I want to call "anime" but will probably be corrected... The merchandising doesn't seem to have caught up with this programme yet, there don't seem to be any associated products available in the UK yet, other than some storybooks. Which may be no bad thing.

I can't even find a proper recipe for 'fish biscuits', which are the staple food of the Octonauts, cooked by Tunip, a Vegemal (a cross between a vegetable and an animal, we assume, and of indeterminate gender). I'm not interested in the Lost 'fish-biscuits' which are fish-shaped but citrussy, I don't think those would satisfy a polar bear, let alone a cat-pirate.

So, I have created my own.

Fish biscuit recipe

5oz flour (I used self-raising but plain may work better)
2oz butter or margarine
1 egg
1/2 can tuna flakes in brine
Tabasco sauce
A little milk

Rub in butter and flour.
Beat egg and stir into mixture.
Drain tuna flakes well, press out as much moisture as possible, then stir tuna flakes into mixture.
Add extra flour if mixture is too sticky, until it becomes a dough-like texture.
Add a few splashes of Tabasco sauce and mix well.
Roll out onto a floured board.
Cut into fish shapes (or, for perfectionists, make a fish template out of greaseproof paper and use that to cut around).
Place on greased baking tray and brush with a little milk.
Cook Gas Mark 6-7, or around 220C (in our fan assisted electric oven) for about 8-10 minutes or until golden.


"Oh my god, you've actually made fish biscuits," uttered my husband, in tones bordering on horror. "Did you have to?" And then he ate one, admittedly under duress. The verdict? It was "Surprisingly okay, actually."

My daughter ate the whole of one before deciding she didn't want a second, and Baby Boy chomped through two (half of each ended up on the floor, but that's par for the course). So draw your own conclusions on taste. I personally think they'd have benefited from more bravery with the Tabasco sauce, but they were pleasant enough. (If you've ever had cobbler, then they reminded me of the pastry you get on top of that.)

Another thing I like about Octonauts is that when my daughter plays pretend-Octonauts, she has to be Kwazi but I have to be Captain Barnacles, which I am pleased to think recognises my place in the pecking order of the house. Daddy is Dashi, apparently. 'Nuff said.

3rd & Bird: Cowboy hat and boots

3rd & Bird is a mainly song-based animation centred on Rudy the cockatiel, Samuel and his sister Muffin (who are lovebirds, I think). The key messages are usually around teamwork, understanding, and perseverence. It's quite fluffy in many respects, fairly gentle after a busy day. I'm a bit confused about the 'worms and birds should get along' line they keep promoting (we have ravenous blackbirds in our garden, no wormy harmony here) but otherwise it seems harmless enough, and my son likes the songs.

So a recent episode had little Muffin wanting to be a cowgirl, which sparked the desire in my daughter for cowgirl hat and boots. It's cheaper, if not quicker to knock something together at home, especially given how quickly she grows. Et voila.



I was going for a ten-gallon style hat but perhaps would make it shorter next time.

Ignoring my husband's comments that the hat looks like something out of The Nightmare Before Christmas, I'm reasonably pleased with it, and my daughter enjoyed getting stuck in with making and painting the hat.

To make this, I took:

1 cereal box, of a size that it can fit round child's head
1 box which is long and fairly narrow (like a Mr Kiplings cake-bar box)
1 paper plate
Some brown paper
Newspaper and papier mache paste
Paint

For the hat:

Cut the cereal box in two, so the end of the box is intact. Squash the end of the box slightly to create a dip. Frill the end of the box so you can attach it to the plate. Using sellotape, attach the plate to the cereal box as shown.

Cut the centre out of the paper plate, leaving the edge of the plate intact, and leaving about an inch within the edge intact also. Snip this extra inch into a 'frill', but do not attach this to the box - this frill is to aid the fit of the hat.





Then, make up a papier mache paste (flour and water in roughly 2:1 proportions, and a bit of salt) and dip newspaper strips in the mix. Cover hat in strips and leave to dry.

When dry, paint brown. Add a strip of brown paper above brim for decoration if desired.

For boots:

Take a box that your child's feet can fit through. Cut box in half, removing ends so you have two tubes. Shape top edge into cowboy boot shape. Cover with brown paper.

Take some of leftover card from cereal box and cut into approximately a 10cm x 20cm rectangle. Fold into three and cut slits down the folds of around 5cm, as shown. Stick onto brown paper, roughly 30cm x 25cm (the paper shown here was a bit wider than 25cm, I trimmed it off afterwards).



Trim the brown paper level with the middle section, leave the outer sections of brown paper longer. Attach middle section to bottom of boot-leg section (you may need to bend the boot-leg section to make it rounder as you do this). Take the two strips of brown paper and overlap them with each other at the back of the boot. Secure with sellotape, to make boot-backs.

To be fair, the boots would benefit from some elastic underneath the foot to keep the sides squarer, but I don't have any elastic at present. Without this, the boots make fabulous duck-feet, don't you think?

Baby Jake: Footprint fun

Have you seen Baby Jake? A relatively new addition to CBeebies, in that style of animation I find a little creepy with people but fun with cats. But one of the rare TV offerings both my under-1 and nearly-3 year old both like.

So: Baby Jake. A bit bizarre. Don't look too closely at the rabbit. The longer you stare, the freakier it gets.



It's fine, is Baby Jake. It's repetitively familiar, same basic plots, same characters, same songs (both my kids love the "goggy gia" one and that other one he always sings - I want to call it the "oggy oggy oggy" song, but suspect I am conflating my references). It keeps both kids quiet for 10 minutes which is a rare gift and not to be argued with.

Anyway. There was an episode which was a "snowy adventure" and centred on footprints which captivated my toddler. And so the following activity was born, the closest approximation I could manage in the circumstances.



Take:

Flour
A tray/dish
Toys

Add flour to tray. Stamp toy's feet in flour. Make footprints.

Get bored of making footprints. Add water to flour. Make playdough.

An easy way to kill an hour... And if you are super-organised, you can even then transform the playdough into papier-mache adhesive.

Which was a thought that only struck me as I made up the papier-mache mix later that day.

"Magic baby see, magic baby do", they sing at the end... Which always reminds me of a certain Nirvana song, which is as tenuous a link as I need to link to it.