Bacon baps and perky pigs

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I was woken up this morning by the gentle pitter-patter of raindrops falling through the leaves outside and a symphony of birds. As I turned over I could feel the dawn's light through my eyelids and smiled inwardly; holidays! The view that greeted me was a towering mesh of deciduous skeletons.

The night was a mixed bag. I flitted between sleeping soundly and then getting really hot legs and feet and having to throw off the bed covers; I'm used to a 7.5tog duvet at home not a 10tog! The Boy first stirred at 5.45, but then settled back down by himself until 7.15 (a full 12 hours in the end)! Hoorah for the great outdoors and fresh air!

We had a fabulous breakfast of variety pack cereals (like children aren't we?), croissants, pain au chocolat and coffee, accompanied by yet more bird song as the window in the kitchen slides all the way back to bring the outdoors in. Wellies on and up we squelched through the mud (by the way, the Maclaren didn't get bogged down at all) to the reception centre for our welcome talk. It's a lovely touch to have this chat explaining the facilities, the ranger's job (including activities for children and night-vision walks), the food & wine delivery service (to your room, ordered through your television!), the bike hire and the local attractions and walks. All of this is accompanied by a bacon butty and a cup of coffee. Vegetarian like me? No problem, would you like a croissant or an egg roll?

After lunch, we visited Dick Whittington Farm Park. We will never go again & I wouldn't recommend it. It's £6 for adults and children over 3 years old, and £5 for children under the age of 3. Babies who can't walk are free. Personally I think that's really steep, toddlers should be cheaper than that, if not free. I don't think I've ever heard of a place that charges for at least under 2s. The total cost was £17 and we were there for 1hr and 15 minutes. In that time, we spent 40 minutes in the reasonable-quality soft play area, which was packed: lots of weekend dads who unfortunately were spending more time on their iPads than playing with their children. The toilets are, um, functional but the floor is quite frankly filthy.

And so to the animals. Yes there are a selection of farm animals including pigs, some sweet lambs, donkeys, goats, chickens and geese. However, these chickens are in a ridiculously low pen which made me think of battery farming. I was not particularly impressed with the conditions that many of these animals were living in. The aviary is four foot by five foot housing a large amount of small birds, too many for that space. There is a 'tropical' house with a couple of terrapins, one tank of goldfish, some lizards and snakes, tortoises and something large and worrying, I forget it's name which is quite frankly probably for the best. To be honest, the place looked like a pet shop rather than something intended for visitors. 'Extras' on the farm included a snowy owl, a pedal-kart track (an extra £1) and a sandpit. I will admit that we were chuffed to see a couple of llamas, The Boy thought they were camels which I thought was quite an impressive connection to make.

However, back we came to out beautiful cabin which The Boy is calling our 'little house'.

Oh and his new favourite word is 'huh-woh', as in 'hello'. Very cute!

Swings, Cornflakes & Birthday Cakes

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I'm trying to make more of a concerted effort to do things on the weekend. Yes it's a time for relaxation, but it's also such a precious time together as a family that I don't want to feel the weekend has passed and we haven't left the house or got any recollection of the time passed. It's tricky, especially as we take it in turns to have a lie-in on each morning; it means we only have the afternoon to do things in. However, I like a challenge!

Saturday:

Saturday saw us testing out the new Maclaren Techno XLR that they very kindly sent me to review (more on that later). We went to a local Country Park and Lakes which is stunning. I took my 365 photo, The Boy tried to chase the swans and ducks, and discovered the magic of splashing in puddles with his new wellies. He needs more practise though! There was loads of mud everywhere; my boots, hubby's boots, The Boy's boots, the wheels of the pushchair, the slide, the boot of the car, the upholstery! How much is a valet? Anyway he had fun, look at his little face:

Then we came home and made cornflake cakes. This was prompted by a twitter discussion between @Mammywoo, myself and a few others, who suggested using Mars bars in it. Yum is the result. Although are you supposed to mix something else into the melted chocolate aside from the cornflakes because they're really hard to eat! Golden syrup I think I missed out, suggestions please? The Boy did really well spooning out the cornflakes, although there were a few times that he only had one flake on the spoon by the time it got to the bowl, bless him. He loved spooning it into the cases, but he now thinks that the cases are called cakes. Don't ask, it's probably best not to!

Tricky work this cake-making business!

And yes, he does appear to be left-handed.

We then popped over to Ikea for tea. He sat beautifully and ate it all up, I was so proud of him. Then on his last mouthful of pear, it tickled his tonsils and he vomitted all over the table. Joy!

Sunday:

Party-time for The Boy's 5yr old girl cousin. My brother always does good parties, he's a chef and does enough 'proper' party food to feed the 5,000! Egg sandwiches, cheese sandwiches, scotch eggs (or party eggs as my brother-in-law calls them), crisps, chocolate fingers, tea-cakes, iced ring biscuits, cocktail sausages. Yum! My brother had hired an entertainer aswell; some of them can be way over the children's heads, but this one pitched at exactly the right level for 2-5yr olds; magic tricks, party games, balloon animals and circus tricks. Even The Boy managed to sit down for a few minutes and enjoy it.

But at the end of the day, nothing can distract from the pleasure of a Cadbury's Chocolate Finger!

Weekend Activity

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We've had fun this weekend. Well I have anyway. The Boy has just gone with it. Hubby has glared at me before cleaning up the mess (he's good at this). But generally it's been fun.

This weekend in my attempt to tidy up the house, I decided to do the plaster-casts of The Boy's hands and feet. We've had these kits lying around the house since he was born. Bought the first one, read the instructions, misunderstood the instructions in my post-partum befuzzlement and thought it involved making a plaster of Paris mould of his feet before casting it with the same stuff. I stood there wondering how the hell we'd get his feet out, all I could picture was his tiny squidgy toes stuck in a block of plaster. With the Health & Safety instructions from work about plaster of Paris and using it with children running through my head, I backed away from it pretty damn sharpish.

Then I bought another kit at Christmas time which seemed great and easy to do and this is the one that I decided to do yesterday. For a start it involved making a rubber mould. Hoorah, he will not lose his feet in a devastatingly awful accident with an over-zealous mother! I read the instructions carefully, really carefully. I made the mixture up and left it for a minute as per the instructions 'the mass will be ready in a minute'. I rushed it through to The Boy who was dutifully transfixed watching Justin and Mr. Tumble. I pressed his foot down and… it bounced off. It was ready in a minute, it set in a minute. Cue the tantrum from me as I'd screwed up the first batch of mixture and this was the last lot.

So I dug out the other kit and made that one up instead, because I had clearly realised I was not going to be providing my child with concrete shoes. The moulding kit powder reminded me of being sick as a child as it smelt of Kaolin and Morphine. Remember that? Tasted grim but worked a treat. Anyway, I digress (me? really? never!). I used the electric food whisk, poured it into the bowl and raced through to The Boy and hubby, who by now were on their second episode of 'Something Special'. Bless his little heart, he glanced down as mummy shoved his foot into the goo, wriggled his toes a little but held still for a few minutes until the mixture set. It only took three minutes to set, and I tentatively peeled it back from the edge of his foot and he slipped it out. Mix up the plaster of Paris, pour it in and wait for it to set.

This is the bit that I'm bad at. I can't wait for anything.

Tick follows tock follows tick follows tock…

While I was waiting, and it was clearly working as I thought it would, I did the other foot. Poor child, three episodes of the antics of a man wearing yellow trousers and a blue waistcoat and he was ready for bed. I cared not, I was in a creative mood.

This is the end result of the feet moulds:

The detail is absolutely amazing; I will admit to having a little lump in my throat when I saw his tiny weenie toes.

Today saw me doing his hands which are a tad more tricky. You have to pour the mix into a bag and then plunge their hands in. This I did and held his arm in the bag. He wiggled his fingers and I tried to stop him. This is harder than it sounds when his hand is incased in bag of purple gloop. Anyway, the little poppet kept still and we managed to get a mould of both hands.

As you can see they are incredibly detailed, but the left hand didn't work that well as there is an air bubble on one of the fingers, and because he wiggled his fingers too much they have ended up a little thinner than they actually are. I love them but they're also a little macabre aren't they? What the hell am I going to do with them? The feet are going to be painted silver and mounted in a box picture frame, but I am at a loss of what to do with the hands. Wrap them up and put them in his keep-sake box possibly. That'll traumatise the child in the future when he unwraps them!

Anyway, if you haven't done a cast yet, you have to do one! I wish I'd done it when he was younger. Now onto 3d sculpting next weekend!

Since posting this: several people have asked me where I bought my kit from. I bought it through e-bay using the seller ‘Borrowed Moments’. They also have a website here.

My Top 5 Good Things About Having Children

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Whilst reading twitter earlier, I realised that I hadn't put any posts on my blog for over a week. When your blog is not very old anyway, a week is a long time! Then I saw a tweet from @MetalMummy about a listography from @KateTakes5. Kate's idea is along the lines of the Wordless Wednesdays, Silent Sundays and The Gallery (all of which I'm pretty rubbish at remembering to do) but is a list with a topic.

So this week's theme is as follows:

My Top 5 Good Things About Having Children

1) Bearing in mind the time of year, it's got to be be Christmas hasn't it? The Boy's little face when he was 'ope'-ning his presents was priceless. He got a little excited and wanted to 'ope'-n every present he saw from then on in. He also adores the 'Chris (tmas) tree' and likes to go and examine all the baubles. Aside from the religious origins, it's what Christmas is all about isn't it?

2) Soft-play centres. I love them! Hubby loves them! The Boy loves them! Especially Coconuts, an excellent (if not pricey) local centre. There's an awful lot of wiffy play centres out there though, aren't there? But find a good one (like Coconuts) and wahay! The ballpits, the tunnels, going the wrong way up the slides (and trying to avoid getting told off!), we love it all.

3) Finally the downstairs of the house is constantly tidy-ish. I've managed to train hubby that stuff needs to be put away or it will be eaten or broken. Aside from The Boy's toys everywhere, the place is presentable. This is a major feat in our household.

4) Playing with his toys. The range of toys that are available nowadays is completely unbelievable. I used to have to play with a cardboard box and a wooden spoon (ok not quite, but you get the picture).

5) The look on his face when he looks at me. Absolute unconditional love. He doesn't care how many zits I've got, if I'm wearing clothes that have snot stains on them (his not mine), or if I'm a size or seven too big. I'm his mummy and he loves me. And I absolutely adore him with my whole heart, he is a complete and utter treasure and amazes me daily with all the things he's learning how do to. I grew him, that's the cleverest thing I have ever done!
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Apologies to Kate for two things: one is that I'm not very good at telegraphic writing, secondly I've changed it from kids to children in my list.

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