Being a person too

Half term is upon us, so I've got all sorts of stuff to post about, but for now I'm going on a rant.  I'm almost certainly about to make myself extremely unpopular, so to all those who are about to 'unfriend' me on Facebook, it was nice knowing you.

I love my children, I love them more than anything, but I also love my husband and I don't think it's unreasonable to be a person too.  I make a lot of time for my kids, regular readers of my blog will know the enormous amount of effort I go to to put together activities to do with them - from cooking to balloons full of paint, to maths competitions with Maltesers as prizes (that was today, that post is coming later, watch this space) but I only have the energy for all this because I get couple time and 'me' time.

All three of my children have learned from a very early age that from 8 in the evening it's time for sleeping.  I have spent hours with each of them getting this to work, which involves (gasp!) leaving them to cry.  I don't enjoy listening to my children cry, but do you know what?  They're fine.  Every ten minutes I go upstairs and rock them until they're quiet (honestly, if rocking them makes them quiet, there's nothing seriously wrong) and then disappear for another ten minutes.  After about two weeks (or what feels like about two years) all three of them got the hang of it, 8 o'clock is the time that they go in the dark and on their own, and they go to sleep.  They get enough sleep, I get time to do my own thing, I can put up with whatever they throw at me the next day.

The same thing goes for sleeping in my bed - it's my bed, they have their own beds and they can sleep in them.  If they're ill and I have an early start that's another thing, but aside from the odd day they don't sleep in my bed.  They have their own beds, although you'd think I make them sleep in the shed from the reactions of some people that my middle daughter has never slept in my bed, but I once asked her if she wanted to get in when she had been sick at 3am and she looked at me like I was mad and asked why she would want to do that.

When they were little I also made them wait for feeds, with other children and a busy life I simply didn't have time for demand feeding - when you've got to get to after school clubs and music lessons, and then cook dinner and get children into bed on time sometimes these things just have to wait; and I won't take any nonsense over food either.  If you're not hungry that's fine, but there's no pudding and there's nothing else to eat until the next meal time.  That's the rule, it's always been the rule and as long as you stick to it, nobody argues.  Do you know what, none of them have starved.  There are things they don't like but in general they're all really good eaters, and they love trying new foods.

And what has this crazy regime of having a few hours in the evening to myself done to my children?  Absolutely nothing, they are well adjusted, independent, polite and friendly.  They love time with me, but they can also entertain themselves, and having a routine means that they know where they are and what they are doing.  School holidays we do two activities a day, and I get nagged to make sure they get done, so time together is fitted in just the same as everything else, so they feel valued and considered.

Don't get me wrong, if you feel the need to cuddle your children until they fall asleep, or have them sleeping in your bed until they're 8 then go ahead, I have no problem with that, there are loads of different ways to parent and I'm not claiming that mine is better than anyone else's, but what I am sick of is the comments and the posts on Facebook about how terrible it is to ever let your child cry, or to, essentially, have a life of your own if you are a parent.  I'm not claiming that I have all the answers, I can think of plenty of things I should have done differently, but I'm also not a Disney villain who sits in my evil lair rubbing my hands together in glee at the sound of miserable children and I want somebody, for once, to make a case for a way of parenting for which I, increasingly, feel like I have to hide.

The Enchanting Tale of Robert the Doorstop

Okay, so maybe this is a bit of an exaggeration, it might not be that enchanting, but still, you might like to meet Robert:

Robert is a little wonky-eyed and he doesn't have much of a figure, but he's always smartly dressed and has a smile on his face!

Robert is a combination of a problem with our cats knocking the stuff that lives behind one of the doors over and making it impossible to get into the room, a lot of scraps of material and a whole load of rice we had sitting around from a previous craft project.

So, first thing was to choose some material for his shoes, then draw round a roll of sellotape with chalk and cut it out

Then choose material for his trousers, shirt, face and hat and cut strips accordingly.  I can't remember the exact measurements of each but they need to be long enough to go all the way around the outside of the circular pieces plus a few cm more just to make sure.

Next the kids used the sewing machine to attach all the rectangular pieces together.

Next thing they did was choose some material for his tie.  I cut and pinned this on as it was really fiddly, but they then hemmed around the outside using an overstitch.  I appear to have missed taking some pictures of the next bit, but they then used buttons and ribbons to make him a face and sewed them on too, plus sewing a few lines on to separate his legs and mark off his arms.  You will see these in the finished thing.  Sorry!!

 So, once all the detail was done we turned him inside out and sewed down the back, making sure the circle made by the fabric was small enough to pin onto the circles to go at either end.

We sewed on the bottom circle (his feet), and the front half of the top circle (his hat), leaving it to flap open so we could turn him the right way out and stuff him.

Once he was the right way out we filled him approximately 3/4 full of rice.  This was a LOT of rice, we made him a little bigger than we had intended to! 

Then we filled up the last 1/4 with cotton wool.  Make sure it's stuffed very full, otherwise his head will sag.

Then all that was left to do was to oversew his hat the rest of the way round.  Doesn't really matter how neatly (or not!) this is done since it's on the back of his head which will be facing the door.  And hey presto!  Robert the Doorstop! 
What a guy ...

The Island of Mangalor

Regular readers might remember the Theme Park project we did last Summer.  the kids have remembered this and asked to do another one, so we did a hotel complex project over Easter.

I started by drawing an island on squared paper with beaches and attractions, so the kids could choose where to build their hotel complex. 

This, of course, needed a budget.  Then more maths followed, choosing what to put in the complex (shops, games rooms etc) and to place the rooms etc. 

Then they had to decide how much to charge for their rooms and work out running costs.

And then calculate how much money they made over two weeks.  This took a long time, but at the end they both had a profit to spend on advertising.

Obviously they both opted for a TV advert, so we watched some holiday adverts, they decided what they wanted to do, and we got making clips to go in it.  We set up an area to take pictures using some red paper and a table, and the kids spent some time making things out of Lego before I came in with my camera to take the pictures and videos.

 Then we put them all together in order, chose some music and spoke very nicely to my helpful (sometimes) teenager.

Who put together the adverts for us.  If you want to see the final adverts you can find them on YouTube at the following addresses:

Sun Shell Hotel
Costa Del Mangalor

Making Faces

I love pudding.  In my world the point of dinner is to get to pudding.  Unfortunately, this doesn't do my diet any good at all, so several times a week I try to have a pudding which I don't like, and a nice quick one which I try to keep in the fridge for emergencies are the fruit corner yoghurts.

This means that we end up with a whole load of the pots, which I've thought for some time must be good for making something, but I could never think what, so this week we've decided to make them into 'puppets'.  This is one of the least complicated things in the world, essentially you just stick some stuff on the pot to make it look a bit like a face, and use your hand in the back to make it talk.  There's no special secret to this one, just a whole lot of PVA glue, a random selection of craft stuff and some imagination.

So anyway, here are the creations:

These are my 7yo's creations.  They are a cat (top left), a dog (top right), and two monsters at the bottom

These are my 9yo's creations.  They are a frog (top, note the long tongue and legs), a queen (bottom left, note the crown), and a three eyed monster.

And these are mine.  I made a king (top left), queen (bottom left), princess (top right) and prince (bottom right).  I for some reason insisted on giving them all gold tongues "because they're royalty" and the prince has not only lost his beard but his tongue has also turned round sideways.

Rock pooling

So, the Easter holidays are upon us, and we're luck to live not (very) far from Botany Bay, which is a great place for rock pooling.  So we packed up a small net, some tubs, some drinks, a whole load of fruit, put on our wellies and set off.  We also took with us what turned out to be a broken camera, which explains why I only got one shot of this one.

We did, however, have a lovely time, despite not finding a starfish, and only one crab, which turned out to be dead, but mussels, limpets and sea snails galore.  Despite the children protesting because it was a lovely day, we were all very glad to have taken coats and wellies because there was quite a gale down at the coast.

The other lovely thing about Botany Bay is that it is all chalk cliffs, so as a bonus we got to bring home some big old lumps of chalk for drawing on the patio with

A Little Book of Treasures

Hooray for the school holidays!  Time for a project ...

This week we've been making secret boxes which will blend in seamlessly (ahem) to the kids' bookcases.  First they marked themselves our some rectangles - two 15 x 25cm and one 25 x 5.7.  These formed the covers and spine of the book.  I then took these out to the garage to cut them out as I'll let my children do a lot of things, but I draw the line at circular saws (much to their disgust)

Once cut out they each had a set which looked something like this:

While I was gone, they marked out some lengths on another couple of pieces of wood - some 10 x 12mm baton and some 4 x 4.5mm stripwood.

They then used a junior hacksaw to cut them into the correct sizes.  Then there was a whole sanding party going on.

 They marked 1.5cm in from three of the edges of the 'book covers' and we then set about nailing the baton pieces around the outside, leaving the 1.5cm gap around the outside.  One thing I have found over the years when children are using hammers is that if you hold the nail with a pair of pincer-nosed pliers, nobody's fingers get hit.

 

Once they had all been attached on, each of the children had something a little like this:

After that (and a good night's sleep), more nailing ensued to attach the spine and two of the pieces of stripwood on to make a book shape.

Leaving one of the smaller pieces of stripwood to slide in and out of the bottom to get the treasures in and out.

 Once both were all finished, we were left with these - tomorrow's job will be painting them to look like books, and then they will be added to their bookcases where I have no doubt they will blend in seamlessly.

Frosty the Sockman

One of my many missions for the Easter holidays is to sort out the socks, so today I started with my youngest two's underwear drawers and came up with quite a pile of ones which needed getting rid of.  Never one to waste an opportunity for activities, we set about having some fun.

First, we needed to assemble the bits - cotton wool, bag of rice, beads, sewing scissors, small elastic bands and (of course) assorted socks and tights.  Plus, not in the picture, we also needed a funnel, a large cup, and a needle and thread.

We each selected a white sock, then used the funnel to pour a cup full of rice into it.

Then we secured the top with one of the elastic bands.  Make sure the band is tight on top of the rice.

Next thing was to put a large ball of cotton wool into the sock, and tie the top with another elastic band.  Again, this needs to be tight on top of the cotton wool.

Then we cut the top off the sock, and the end off a coloured sock.

This coloured end goes on top of the 'head' to make a hat

Then we cut another strip off the sock and cut through it to make it into a long rectangle.

This was tied around the neck to make a scarf.

The final step was to sew on a few beads to make eyes and a nose (although my 9yo didn't want to and used our sewing time to make herself a second snowman)

So, four little snowmen all in a row.

 

The White Witch and the Crown of Biros

You'll have to excuse me for the slightly bizarre Blog title this week, but I'm going to start by telling you a very boring and (thankfully) very short story.  My childrens' school is having book week this week and Friday is dress-up-as-your-favourite-book-character day.  My 9yo is going as Katniss Everdeen in her Mockingjay dress (this involved making a dress, then plucking seven reject feather boas and spending hours and hours and hours painstakingly sewing them onto the dress) and my 6yo is going as Gustavus the magical cat from the Rose series by Holly Webb.  I believe I've already blogged the cat costume, might get the Katniss one up here one day but for now I'm focussing on me.

This year I'm also up at the school for the day so I needed a costume too.  I do love a good villain, so after considering various alternatives (Malificent, The Queen of Hearts), I finally decided to go as Jadis - the White Witch from The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe.  I made myself a white dress and furry jacket but I wanted an icicle crown to go with them.  This was where I ran into problems since I couldn't find how to make convincing icicles anywhere online.  Then I struck upon an idea, so this is how to make an icicle crown:

First I did was to buy 30 of the cheapest ballpoint pens I could find.  I could have gone cheaper but I would have had to have gone into town and for the sake of 80p I didn't want to brave the crowds.

Next thing to do was to take out a pen, remove the lid, end and ink.  Cat hair covered trousers are optional.

Then I lit a candle.  I did the first couple with a lighter but then decided that that was going to be totally inefficient.  If you hold the pen case just above the flame until it starts to bend, you can then twist, push or pull the plastic gently and hold it in place for a couple of seconds until it sets again.

Once I had done this all the way along, the pen cases looked like this.  Starting to look rather icicle-like, if I do say so myself!

Once I'd done a couple, I heated the plastic to make it soft and then pierced it in two places with some wire, threading each one on as it was done.

When I had done them all (or, more accurately, 28 of them since I had to save two for my children to have a go at melting at the weekend because they are odd like that), I linked the two ends of the wire together and twisted them.

A few hair grips later and one finished icicle crown.  Now to start my devillish plans for an eternal winter.  Mwahahahaha!!

The Great Lego Project

A blast from the past today since I'm extremely busy sorting out for a party next weekend and making the most stupidly time consuming costume ever for book week. 

This was a couple of years ago (2012) but we cleared everything out of the conservatory and used all our our construction toys (and quite a lot of masking tape) to make what was named "The Great Lego Project".

I masking taped off two part circles - one labelled 'Earth', and the other labelled 'Moon' (specially for the space lego kit), and then we got building.  This went on for weeks, gradually adding more buildings, even using our Jenga at one point (as if all this wooden railway, lego, marble run and K'Nex wasn't enough!)
Turns out we've got a LOT more construction kit than we first thought ...