To Draw or Not to Draw That is the Question

Yesterday was a lovely sunny day so Callum and I sat out back on the fire-escape and did some drawing. A couple months ago I'd bought Callum some of Crayola's Colour Wonder pens and paper. They were a bit expensive (a pad of 30 pages of paper costs £2.99 from Woolworths) but they are so great I don't mind paying the money. There is no need to worry about the walls or clothing being drawn on as these pens only interact and mark the special crayola paper. Awesome.

Lately Callum has been drawing what he likes to call vehicles, Cars, Buses, Taxis, Lorry with trailer and so on. When he first started drawing them a couple months ago at first I couldn't see what the picture was actually meant to be so I sat down with him and watched how he drew the vehicle and asked him to talk me through it, now I can clearly see what is meant to be what and can even at times distinguish between the different types of vehicles. It's fascinating to watch and see how children's little minds work and how they see things in life so differently from us. I love it.

So here are a couple of the pictures that Callum did yesterday with an explanation by me of what one of them is meant to be.

Enjoy.

I have and Idea!

This has become Callum's latest saying. Sometimes it's used when he is being disciplined for something naughty he did and he'll pipe up with "I have and idea, stop talking to me and I won't be naughty." Cheeky little monkey monster! Other times it's used to make a suggestion.

This morning Callum rather than telling me he had an idea, enacted out his idea first (with Mummy and Daddy not in site I hasten to add) and then reports to me afterwards:

"Mummy I had an an idea, it was a really good one. I got my book down with the football."

Said book had been on top of his wardrobe (it was his Fire Engine one) amid other books, toys and games. Expecting his bedroom to be a disaster zone when I went in there I was pleasantly surprised to find that even though he had used his football to get the book down he had had fantastic aim and not even knocked anything out of place let alone off the top of the wardrobe. Way to go!!!


Of course the little monkey monster is now back to telling us his great idea of leaving him alone, he needs to eat now or telling us we can tiday up his toys while he watches cbeebies. Got to love that boy of ours.

Choo Choo Train

One of the joys of Callum being at playschool now is getting to see all the cool things he makes. Today they had lots of empty boxes and things and glued them all together. Callum proudly informed me that his was a train. He's spent time on and off this afternoon pushing it around the floor, running around with it on his head and going choo choo. It's so adorable and has been fun for him to play with. I'll have to get a photo tomorrow of the 'train' and Callum playing with it.

Last week they made paper daffodils for St David's Day and that has been planted in one of our indoor plant pots and every day to and from playschool he points out all the daffodils we walk past and says "That's like my daffodil at home Mummy."

We've always done art stuff at home but it's nice to have the surprise of something different.

Is it All Black and White?

Callum loves grapes! He has them for breakfast lunch and sometimes even dinner, of course they are with other foods but grapes are a constant picture on his plate. As you can imagine we therefore get through a huge amount of them and practically every other day are buying more. On Thursday Callum and I needed to go and do some food shopping, a trip to the butchers for his Four Fat Sausages and to Sainsburys for some other foods including grapes.

Lately Callum has been wanting the black and white mixed packs so upon entering the supermarket we head over to the fruit section to obtain the grapes.

I turn to Callum and say "Can you see the black and white grapes?"

and his reply... "No but I can see the green and purple ones Mummy."

And do you know what he's right they are purple and green aren't they? So why do we call them black and white? At the time he didn't ask me this question but I know with how Callum is and asking questions that he'll soon be asking me, so what do I tell him? I see some time spent googling to find this answer.

So much for things being seen in black and white it now seems like it's green and purple.

Four Fat Sausages

Last night Callum refused to eat his dinner, he wouldn't even try it so Daz and I were strict and said we wouldn't cook another meal for him. If he'd just tasted a little bit we would have been willing to but every so often Callum likes to do this and as we explained to him what was stop him refusing to eat a new dinner we'd cook for him. Through the tears and tantrums he informed us that for dinner the next night he wanted eggs, sausages and pasta.

This morning as you can imagine we had a very hungry little monkey monster and after telling me that he wanted toast and grapes for breakfast he reminded me of what he was having for dinner tonight... Eggs, Snake Pasta (which is way of calling spaghetti) and sausages, in particular Four Fat Sausages. He then went on to sing the song Four Fat Sausages Sizzling in the pan. I was then told that Daddy would be having sausages for his dinner tonight too, but Daz only gets three Fat Sausages. Callum was a bit confused when I bought eight Fat Sausages at the butchers this afternoon telling me he was only eating four of them and that I'd bought too many but at the same time telling me I had to buy three for Daddy. I don't know what goes through his mind at times.

Have We Cracked It?

Fingers crossed we have.

Since day one Callum has always been a bad sleeper, even as a baby he just wasn't interested in sleep, there were (and still are) too many things going on around him for such simplicities. Daz and I have tried literally every trick in the book and put up with so many sleep deprived nights.

Firstly we tried the controlled crying method which culminated in Callum showing us his Hulk powers and the double gates on his bedroom door being ripped off and thrown across the room... I kid you not. This was after we'd had weeks of the method being in place and still hours and hours and hours each night of the crying and not just by Callum. So that went out the window.

Then there was the withdrawal method (not at all as bad as what it sounds like) which never really seemed to work. After months the furthest away I got was a step away from the bed. That kid of ours just knew as soon as we'd stepped outside his room and start the crying and calling you back routine.

There have been the falling asleep on his floor tricks, letting him fall asleep in our room and transfering him to his bed capers, the quick return method, the try and exhaust him but end up too exhausted yourself tactic and lots more. None ever worked. So it seemed that Daz and I were destined to never have a good nights sleep (and our neighbours too) and to be forever trying to get Callum to go to sleep.

Then last year just before Christmas I said enough is enough. I was fed up with spending hours on end coaxing Callum to sleep and then being woken up in the middle of the night by covers being snatched away and pushed to the edge of the bed and either Daz or moving to the front room to sleep on the sofa. But how could we put an end to this we wondered, we'd tried nearly every trick in the book save for drugging him and obviously we didn't want to do that... well... no honestly it never entered our minds.

Then it hit us and we wondered why we'd both been so dumb... bribery!!! I've come to the conclusion that our son will one day make a good politician he is always open to a good bit of bribery as well as having an answer for everything. So armed with this Daz and I stocked up on the little hot wheels cars that are a firm favourite of Callums (and Daz'). For every night that Callum spent the whole night in his bed without waking us up, in the morning he got to choose one car from a selection of them. Days is all it took for Daz and I to have our bed back to ourselves. Heavenly.

Then disaster struck. A few days before Christmas our boiler broke and we had no heating and the temperature really dropped. WE all bundled up and snuggled for warmth in our bed and so we went straight back to square one. Arrrrgghhh!!! Was this just the way things were meant to be?!?

The boiler was fixed within a few weeks and after the excitement of Christmas was over we once again begain the arduous task of a good nights sleep. This time it took a little longer but we got there. Yay!!! We had our uninterrupted sleep back. The only thing left to do now was to encourage Callum to go to sleep in the evenings without me sitting in there for half an hour or however long it took. See that was the other problem we had, Callum flatly refused to let Daz get him off to sleep, in Callum's words it had to be "Mummy get me to sleep." I love my son and will do anything for him but I also love Daz and the two of us need to spend time together but with the way things were our evenings were spent apart. So you've guessed it... out came the bribery cars. We started this about two weeks ago and to date it's going really well.

Daz and I do the bedtime routine. Daz baths Callum while I hoover the flat, then I get Callum ready for bed and read him a story while he drinks his milk and then miracle of miracles (well after a reminder about the bribe) I can walk out of the bedroom without a screaming crying fit from Callum and with the promise that I will come back in a little while and check on him. I can then get on and tidy up the dinner mess and within about half an hour it seems our little Monkey Monster is fast asleep. So for the moment it seems we have finally cracked the whole sleep problem that has haunted us for years.

Now we just have to see how things work without the bribes becasue we are quickly running out of space to store the what seems like a million and one toy cars.

The Madness of Modern Families

RDF Links

Families Thames Valley West

The BBC have been showing a thirty minute tv series called [I]The Madness of Modern Families[/I]. It shows the lengths that parents (well some parents I'm hoping that not all parents feel this way) go to or feel they need to go to be the perfect parent. They have a comical side to them but it does give you pause for thought.

Is there really this big pressure to be the perfect parent in society's eyes? Is being able to hold the best and most talked about (in a good way) birthday party all we have as parents to live up to? Who decided this? Do we in effect end up making our children suffer for this, what affect does it have on them? Is it that important that little Biscuit can count to twenty in every known language when he is a year old? Or that cute little Lollipop gives out the best glitter nailvarnish in her party packs? Or that Florida's Mummy spent weeks making the most amazing school concert costume so she (to me Florida sounds like a girls name, doesn't it to you?) would outshine every other child on the stage and what does it matter if she's only playing a dustbin?

I've not managed to catch all of the series as it's on when I'm putting my little monkey monster to bed and reading him a bedtime story but the ones I've caught a brief bit of are the birthday party one and the extra-curriculum activities one.

I remember on the birthday party one this father said that after so many years of stressing over his daughters birthday party he turned round to her and said (as best as I can remember)

"You can have a party but at some point you'll cry, someone will open your presents, you'll eat and drink too much and be sick, you will argue with your best friend and most of the other children you won't even know. Someone will hurt someone else and you'll be very tired at the end of it all and not have enjoyed it. If you want you can have that... Orrrrr I can take you now to the nearest toy shop and all that money that would have been spent on the party you can be spend on buying as much plastic crap as you want."

It did make me laugh but in reality this is a father who has just felt that he can no longer or most likely doesn't want to be in the "Party Bag Brigade".

This week (which I only caught snippets of) was about ballet lessons for babies, Swahili for toddlers and such.

I'm not sure outside about outside of the UK but here in Jolly Olde Blighty children start school younger than when I was a kid (which yes I know was a similiar time to the dinosaurs roaming around but that's not the point) at just four years old. They attend playschool, or nursery or pre-school, whichever you want to call it although I'm sure there is some difference I'm yet to comprehend between them, from as young as two years old now. I've heard at some places how they are more about the teaching to read and write side of things and not the play and interaction side. Are we so interested in making our little darlings grow up so quickly? I'm all for learning and yes last week when Callum showed me how he could write his name I was proud (even though it doesn't 100% look like his name I can work out which bits are which letter) and showed it off and told everyone. I'm not though worried that he has shown me no interest in wanting to learn the alphabet chart, he can sing the song and that's all that is important to him, and you know what that is all that is important to me, what makes my little boy happy.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this blog. I just wonder why there is all this pressure out there to do all these things and who puts it there. It sure isn't children as they are happy enough jumping in puddles and throwing leaves at everyone.

Anyway I'm off now to start planning for Callum's first "big and proper" birthday party. It isn't until July but I need to make sure I have just the right number of children... and the right type of children to attend the occassion. That the party bag will be the talk of the county for the next year and that I have enough diamond crusted presents for the parce the parcel presents.

Dance Dance Dance

Recently I've been looking into dancing lessons for Callum. He's full of energy and loves to dance along to music and follow the dance steps on

Cbeebeis Boogie Beebies.

I found a dance studio that is about a five minute walk from our home and costs £12 a month. Bargain! I asked for the welcome pack and registration form to be sent out so I could read up on it.

When the brochure turns up it has a whole section on dress attire, guess what it said?

Yep... pink tutus!! It did bring a smile to my face. When I get my voice back from this cold I've had I'll phone them up and see what they say for boys but still it was tempting to send Callum to disco dancing for toddlers in a pink tutu. LOL.

Let It snow Let It Snow Let It Snow.

Yes!!! At long last it decided to snow. I've ben wanting this for so long as Callum has never properly seen real snow before, the last time we had snow that settled enough to play with was when Callum was only 5 months old and so a little too young to appreciate it.

I woke up about 7 o'clock this morning and there was this winter wonderland delight before my eyes and a big smile on my face appeared. Already I had plans for for what to do. I should have known that when I said to Callum to come look out the window and see the snow and he didn't want to that those plans wouldn't see fruition. OH well such is life with the little monkey monster, we had to go out in the snow anyway for the walk to playschool. At least it looked pretty.



I thought maybe the walk to playschool might change his mind but no that didn't, he just kept telling me he didn't like it and it was scary even after I explained that snow was just another type of rain. Nothing could change his mind and make him see the fun in snow. Is this little boy really my son I thought, snow is awesome!!! How can you not want to touch it and throw it? Strange boy. All the other children at the playschool were loving the thought of snowballs.

Upon picking Callum up from playschool somebody had down a 360 degree turn about snow. Audrey who runs the group had during the morning taken the children out in groups of two to shuffle up snow and bring it indoors for them to play with in big bowls until it melted and (surprise surprise yes Mummy is right) it turned into water! So I now had a little monkey monster wanting to play with snow... just as most of it had melted. *laugh* We managed to find a few garden walls with snow remains on them and had mini snowball fights on our way home. Now somebody keeps glimpsing outside asking when more snow is going to come, guess which one of us it is. :D

That's Fuunneeeyyy

All children are funny with their little sayings, or how they perceive things or just something they say. This weekend Callum has been in extra funny mood and had Daz and I in stitches with laughter.

This weekend Daz and I started a new weekend routine with Callum. We'd talked and decided that rather than we run ourselves ragged all week and weekend that we needed some ground rules for the weekend and a set plan for both of us to have a rest. What we decided on was that on a Saturday Daz would have the morning to have a lie in, or whatever he wanted and that that morning would be Callum and Mummy morning for us to do what ever we wanted. And on Sunday it would be the other way round with me lying in and Daddy and Callum having their morning or whatever they wanted to do. I must say it worked fantastically and we had one of the best weekends in a long time with no tired tantrums from Mummy and Daddy or from Callum. :D

Originally Callum and I were going to go out, grab a drink at Costas and then go and buy scrummy food and make Daz breakfast in bed, but Callum put an end to that. Instead we spent the morning lounging in our Pyjamas, playing Cars and seeing how many cars we could get to go all the way down the ramp on his garage. Then I had the great idea of trying out the exercise ball I'd bought during the week. Callum loved it and the two of us played on that for a half hour or more, doing forward rolls, sitting on it and bouncing and all forms of fun stuff, whizzing across the front room floor on it. Daz said the laughter from Callum and I woke him up and said it was such a great way to be woken up.

Daz then decided we needed to have a treat for lunch so suggested Callum's favourite... McDonald's. Callum laid out the plans for the rest of the day. "We go McDonald's in Brewery, then toy shop, Entertainer in Brewery and then Sainsburys and buy all the food up, with a book and a car for me." Sounded a good plan.


When the three of us got to Sainsburys to do the shopping Callum took up his usual pose... standing up in the trolley pointing the way and telling me to go either left, right, forward or backward and most important of all... STOP! Some nice old man started giving Callum directions but he was all "No, that way, not his way." Callum directions were "Forward Mummy. Left now STOP!" I want that." What did he want? The huge pink (I'm still to fathom out Callum's love for pink) smarties tube. He was practically falling out of the trolley to get them, somehow we managed to avoid (1) a tantrum and (2) not getting the smarties. The next aisle was the crisps aisle where Callum in his typical manner used what is a common phrase of his "But it's my favourite..." to persuade us to buy him multi-packs of crisps. You may be wondering by this point where Daz is, well he was running round other aisles grabbing things that we actually DID need. LOL! Callum and I were nearing the end of the crisps aisle when suddenly Daz appears round the corner in his cowboy stance mode going "Draw pardner." and cocking his fingers in a guns actions. Normally Callum will reply by doing Iron Man laser noises but this time he goes "But Daddy I can't I don't have any paper and pens to draw.". He had this look of utter confusion on his face. I love that little monkey monster of ours and he has such a wicked sense of humour and comes out with the most funny of things.

What do you say when those five (well six if you have a polite child) words are uttered?

"Can I have a pet please."

What do you say? How do you explain to your child that a pet isn't a good thing to have in a 2 bedroom flat? How can you avoid those pleading eyes? And how do you avoid the feeling that you yourself would like a pet?

Yesterday I had to deal with these questions. Callum was watching something on Cbeebies about pets and he turned around and asked why we didn't have a pet. Before I could answer those words were uttered... "Can I have a pet please, Mummy?" Arrrggghhh I thought how do I deal with this? I'd love nothing more than to get my little boy a puppy and they could grow up together and enjoy the wonders of life. But sensible Mummy mode crept in, with a blindfold on to avoid those pleading eyes.

"A pet wouldn't like living in a flat, Callum. It's too high up and we have no garden." I tell him.

"But why can't I have a pet?" he replies.

"Where would it sleep?" I ask

"On the shelf." He replies.

I then wonder what pet he is talking about, but we never get that far in the conversation as toy cars are there as a distraction.

I think about how long will it be before we have to give in and buy a pet for Callum? And given our love for animals we may be easy targets at relenting and buying a pet sooner than we realised and wanted to. Maybe it's time to invest in a fishtank and so called easy pets to look after and see how our little boy handles that.

I know for sure we won't be getting any more birds. We did have two budgies at one point called Havoc and Storm. Callum and Storm were forever trying to hatch plans for the Great Bird Escape and sadly Havoc and Storm had to go live elsewhere, at Callum's Grandparents. They are still happily living there and the Great Bird Escape seems to be a forgotten memory. So there's why we won't have any more birds.

Rabbits will be out too as after the way Callum showed my Mum and I his hunting skills with the pet rabbit I don't think they are save around him. Don't worry the rabbit is still alive, it just never tries to outrun Callum again as he can catch it.

Maybe in months to come you'll be seeing a photo of Callum and his new pet, we'll see.

Good Morning

Good Morning Mummy!

That son of mine makes me laugh and he is so adorable. After having woken up, had his juice milk and a little cuddle in bed with Mummy and Daddy he turns round to me and says:

"Mummy time to get up, it's sunny. Daddy can stay in bed though and sleep, he needs it."

He gets off the bed and goes to walk off and then says:

"Oh and here's a big cuddle for you Mummy to get you up."

And Callum gives some of the best cuddles there are, throw his arms around your neck and big squeezy hug cuddles.

What Mummy couldn't get out of bed after that?

Photograph Update

Photos from April onwards

Should I sack Mummy?

It's been a while since I let everyone know what has been happening in the world of me, blame my Mummy as she forgot the password and the email address she set up for emails to be sent to. I have one word, useless, but I still love her.

So what has been happening lately in my life? I'm now at playschool full time, five wonderful mornings a week. Playschool is cool and I get to play with lots of toys and other little boys and girls, although girls can be silly at times. They also have a fab pink bike, I've asked for a pink bike for christmas but I keep getting told that pink bikes are for girls I find it all a bit confusing as to why but I suppose I'll now ask for a new garage and some new cars.

Last month we had this thing called Halloween, my cousins Eloise and Alex came round to our home and we went and knocked on our neighbours doors for sweeties. Everyone looked very funny and those sweeties were very yummy although Daddy and Mummy wouldn't let me eat the whole bag full in one go. Parents! Lucky for me I managed to hide some under my bed that they didn't know about. Hehehe they were very nice indeed.

A few days after Halloween was Fireworks night. Daddy and Mummy took me out and up on the fire-escape to look at all the pretty fireworks going bang and the bright glittery colours. I've been promised that next year we'll have our own fireworks, I can't wait.

Anyway Mummy is allowing me to watch my tv shows so I'm going to sit down and see what I can learn today, tv isn't as uneducational (see I know big words!) as people think, it has taught me lots of things.

Oh I'll post some photos of what I've been up to lately. Bye.

Off to the Zoo

I'm going to the Zoo Zoo Zoo.
How about You You You.
You Can Come Too Too Too.
We're going to the Zoo Zoo Zoo.


If you haven't guessed... yes I went to the zoo yesterday. It was my first time to a zoo and wow was there lots to do. That's why I kept dragging Mummy and Daddy round so quickly so we could see everything, I knew Grandad would catch everything on camcorder so they could see it all later at home.

I'm not quite sure of all the names of all the animals we saw but here are some pictures of the ones I know and there are also some photos of me too.


Me and Mummy just as we get into the zoo, I wanted to go on the Noah's Ark Explorer thing.


A Monkey Eating.


I know what this is, it's a MONKEY!! I don't know why I always get called a Monkey I don't think I look like these, they have a long thing on their bum they can hang upside down with, that looks cool wish I did have one.


This is a cat, a sand cat.


A Big Bird.


Apparently these are called Iguanas, they look very funny and don't really do much.


A fish that has whiskers like a cat. It was very big.


PENGUINS! I think Mummy really likes penguins and she told me about the time she got to stroke and feed one.






And this is how I measure up to a Penguin.


Sealions.






Some type of Bird, Wolf and TIGERS RRRRGGGGHHH!!!!





Time for ice-cream and a rest from all that walking.





Africa Land where there were Elephants, Rhinos, Giraffes, Osteriches, Turtles and lots lots more. See lots of photos.














I think the thing I liked the most was getting to ride on the elephants, not real ones though.