Kwazii finger-puppet

ToddlerGirl's love of Octonauts is such that we record it and incorporate it into the bedtime routine, the only slight downside being that if it ever comes on TV at its scheduled time, a look of dismay crosses her face: "It's not bedtime, Mummy!" (Some days, dear heart, I wish it was. When did sleep start to be something you look forward to, rather than to be avoided at all costs? Is it just when your own kids arrive?!)

We're a bit short on Octonaut toys though, as I mentioned previously. It seems that Amazon, Tesco and Argos do have a some in stock, but they're a bit pricy, if you ask me. (And if you don't ask me, I'll still think it anyway.)

So, we make do. And if I say so myself, I'm quite pleased with how this turned out, although I didn't involve the kids in its creation. You'll have to bear with me as I try to describe how I made it, there were a lot of adjustments made as I went along. The first hummus pot measurement is as precise as it gets, and then everything thereafter was adapted in proportion to that. (Should anyone does want more accurate measurements, let me know and I can get my ruler out again!)

I had the felt lying around from a project some years ago, various coloured 20cm x 20cm squares, so that was my starting point. I'm thinking about making Captain Barnacles and Peso versions, when my needle-stabbed fingers are up to it. I'm pretty sure I wasn't a seamstress in a former life...

Take
1 square orange felt
1 square black felt
1 square blue felt
1 square cream/pale yellow felt
Some stuffing (about enough to fill an eggcup)
Cotton of various colours


Cut out a circle of orange felt - I used the lid of a hummus pot to draw around.
Using running stitch, stitch around the edge of the circle, leaving a thread trailing behind where you start, so you can pull this thread as well as the end of the thread where you finish up.
When you've stitched all the way around, pull both ends of the thread to pull the edges of the circle together, bunching it up. Don't pull it tight yet!
Add stuffing, and pull tighter. Knot ends together as tightly as possible (without snapping the thread! From personal experience, it's very annoying when that happens. There may be a small gap in the centre, but I think that's okay.)
Cut out a small square from the orange thread, then cut in two diagonally to make two triangles.
Place one triangle at the top of the ball, with the long edge touching the ball.
Stitch halfway along the long edge, then bend it 90 degrees before stitching into place to form the ear.
Repeat with other ear.
Cut out an eye and and eyepatch from the black felt. The eyepatch needs to be a similar shape but larger than the semi-circular eye shape.
Stitch eye into place.
Cut a long, thin strip of black felt to form the band for the eyepatch. Stitch into place.
Stitch eyepatch into place, over the band.
Cut a figure 8 shape from the cream/yellow felt (but without cutting out the internal holes)
Stitch onto the face using pink thread in the centre of the shape, to both secure the shape and form the pink nose.
Put a few white stitches into the eye.
Take a brown felt tip pen and add freckles to cheeks.
Cut a rectangle out of the orange felt, long enough to fit onto and around a finger.
Stitch rectangle into a tube, turn inside out and stitch top of tube to Kwazii head.
Cut a rectangle of blue felt. Stitch the top of the felt around the bottom of the Kwazii head, to cover the join between the tube and the head.
Cut a square of blue felt, and cut it in half.
Stitch the two short sides together, and turn inside out. Fold edge of triangle back on itself, to form hat.
Stitch hat onto head.
Treat self to glass of wine.

Voila. Be warned, this finger-puppet did necessitate an hour talking in my best Kwazii voice to the toddler yesterday. Yow!

On teething

My neck is not a teether
My ear is not one either
Do you mind if I enquire
How I've raised a half-vampire?

It is hard to keep calm
With teethmarks in your arm
But I'm sure that adoption
Isn't really an option.

And you might want to kiss her
But you just bit your sister.
Please don't do it again.
(Take deep breath, count to ten.)

Oh, how can such tiny teeth
Cause disproportionate grief?
I wish teething would end,
My poor, sore gummy friend.

Numberjacks: Number-flapjacks

My toddler has been insisting for ages that Numberjacks is called Numberflapjacks. She's had flapjack on a few occasions; obviously it's made an impression.

I would love to be able to say that I could whip up proper Numberjack-shaped flapjacks, but I don't think the properties of flapjack lend itself to sculpting. (There's a reason oat products didn't feature in my GCSE Art & Design course.)

But what is Numberjacks, I hear the uninitiated enquire? It's a bizarre series where animated number characters (with strangely stubby eyelashes) solve problems in the real world, such as foiling the evil Numbertaker from stealing all the legs from a chair, and various other objects. It's odd, but I like the vaguely educational slant it has to it. My daughter likes numbers at the moment, so she gets more out of it than, say, Alphablocks, at this stage.

But on to the flapjack! It will do the waistline no favours but gets hoovered up in no time. This makes a batch that fits our 25cm x 16cm tin.

Take:
150g butter
100g sugar
2 generous tablespoons of golden syrup
400g oats
1 large bar of chocolate (you'll probably only need half the bar for the flapjack, but we melted the whole bar and then the leftovers mysteriously vanished...)


Melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup over a gentle heat.
When melted, add the oats and stir well.
Press the mixture into a baking tin.
Bake at 180c for 25 minutes.
Now comes the tricky bit...
When the mixture is cooked, leave it to cool in the tin for a while.
Cut out number shapes from greaseproof paper to use as stencils.
Stick number shapes onto flapjack - I used a bit of golden syrup to stick them on, although I wonder whether sticking the numbers onto the mix before baking may have worked better.
Melt chocolate over a bowl of hot water.
Paint chocolate over flapjack, using the back of a teaspoon and being careful around the edges of the stencils.
Wait til chocolate has cooled so it is no longer runny but is not rock-solid, and carefully peel off stencils. (If you stick it in the fridge and let the chocolate set completely then it becomes tricky to get the stencils off. But if you peel it off before it has set enough, it will ooze.)

Ta-dah! Tasty number-flapjacks!

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...)

Peppa Pig: Fairground game

The fairground episode of Peppa is a classic. Don't mess with Mummy Pig! She wins all the giant teddies at various fairground games, spurred on to victory by dismissive comments from the stall-holders. "You've got no chance, it's impossible!" says Miss Rabbit, but I think it is Mr Bull who has a line something like "Archery is a game of skill, too hard for women!" Watch Mummy Pig's eyes narrow... You can see why Daddy Pig wants to stay on the right side of her.

We were in town the other week and the fairground was set up on the common. My daughter was very excited to see it, so we had a wander round. I had no idea how expensive those things are these days! She had a go on the bouncy castle, a carousel, and a trampoline, leaving no change from a fiver. Lord help us when Baby Boy's old enough to want to go on things too. Peppa Pig's fairground only charges £1 a go! Our was between £1.50-£2.00. That's inflation for you...

Behold the mutant offspring then, of too much Petit Filous and cost-cutting skinflintery. Our very own DIY fairground game.

Take:
6 empty yogurt pots
1 piece A4 paper
Some old wrapping/tissue paper

Decorate A4 paper, and then cut into strips to wrap round the (cleaned) pots
Stick strips onto pots (although you could probably not bother with the decoration if so inclined)
Screw up the old wrapping or tissue paper into a ball
Stack pots and throw ball at them - well, you get the idea.

Baby Boy liked knocking down the 'towers' of pots, squashing them and trying to build them up again. My toddler liked playing the actual game, so it pleased both of them, provided they both weren't both trying to play with it at the same time. I think I need more pots!

Luckily(!), given the amount of yogurt we get through between the two of them, we're in no shortage of the darned things... I'm wondering if they're potentially good for potting seedlings if I have another go at growing stuff again next Spring. 101 uses for a yogurt pot?

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...)

I'm scared of my bathroom

Oh, September. Or should I say Spidertember? For it is that month once more, when the eight-leggedy-ones scuttle out from wherever they lurk, humming Barry White tunes and looking for lurve.

I will have to lock down my bathroom as some sort of biohazard, due to the Tegenaria Gigantica (Giant House Spider to its mates) who thinks my shower vent is an ideal love-nest. It's the only sensible option.

(Have you seen that Phill Jupitus sketch on spiders? He would understand.)

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!

Please don't batter your brother

Please don't batter your brother,
It really is awfully rude.
He thinks it's good fun,
To play with someone:
He doesn't know you're in a mood.

Please don't bash the baby,
It stresses me out to the edge.
You say that you love him:
So hug him don't shove him,
Or I'll really jump off the ledge.

Please don't pester the puss-cat,
She'll likely do more than demur.
You just want to play, see,
But that ukelele
Is not made for stroking cat-fur.

Please don't slap your sibling,
I tell you it's really not on.
It might be your toy,
But keep hitting the boy,
And mummy will make it be gone.

Please don't mither your mother.
It's been an awfully long day.
The only thought in my brain
That's keeping me sane,
Is bedtime is coming, hurray!

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...