A Lovely Birthday Weekend

It was my Birthday yesterday, I turned a grand old 26 years. On Saturday we did our usual Saturday thing of popping to the local farmers market, a cheeky stroll round some charity shops, and then popping into a cafe near us that offers people with various learning disabilities the opportunity to gain experience in the working environment. We like supporting local businesses as much as possible, so try to visit whenever we can afford it. My mum came with us as we were searching for things we can use for our impending wedding! She finally caved and had a go at babywearing, I think she loved it a bit.

On Sunday, we gave the hall we're getting married in a fresh lick of paint. Safe to say, I was thoroughly exhausted and looking forward to a nice quiet birthday.

Monday rolled around, and I had a deliciously quiet birthday. I was greeted with cards, and daffodils, and coffee (yesss), and a really cool Batman tshirt off my boys. I had a lovely long bath with a Terry Pratchett book, and that evening we went out for an Indian (Indy ate loads, as always)

Today we went into Cardiff to spend some birthday money! We popped to Lush as Indy suffers with eczema, so got him a couple of Ickle Baby Bots and a pot of Dream Cream, as they work wonders on his dry patches. We also got him some Burt's Bees shampoo, as his hair has been looking dry. I'd heard a rumour that Pound World had gelli baff and Play Sand in stock so on the off-chance we went in. We found some! I'm so excited to try the gelli baff with Indy. We couldn't resist opening the sand, as Daddy was itching to have a go.

All of this was topped off nicely with a bath. Indy was so knackered that a bit of boob and he was fast asleep by 7! Bless him. We're hopefully finally getting round to our Easter themed 'treasure hunt' with the packaging paper tomorrow, so I'll be sure to post!

The rest of this week!

Looking back this week, considering we haven't been out much we've still managed to cram loads in.

I made Indy a little book nook! (Complete with his DVDs) Indy is a proper little book-worm, he loves nothing more than snuggling up and 'reading'. He reads out loud to himself in his own little language, it's amazing how they pick up the tone of spoken word.

We also tried some colouring again, but this mostly involved Indy attempting to eat crayons (everything. Everything in his mouth.) so didn't last for very long.

We had a really lovely day today, we spent the morning together, and then met up with Indy's friend Sioned and her mum Jo for a coffee at a lovely coffee house around the corner from me. They obviously had missed each other and spent a while shouting 'hiyaa!' and giving each other slobbery kisses.

After biscuits had been eaten, we strolled over to the charity shop a few doors down. I am in love with this charity shop, it's run by the community for the community, so we try to support it every way we can (this normally involves us coming home with piles of books and DVDs and tablecloths and records etc). Today was a real winner, we found a wooden train, a Stephen King book (for me), and a toy shopping basket complete with contents, still in it's wrapping! I think Indy is still a little young to understand it though, as he kept handing me the cardboard boxes asking for food.

We also popped into possibly the best bookshop I've ever been in (but I may be biased). They'd posted on Facebook earlier saying they had a cardboard box and a load of brown packaging paper going free, so naturally I jumped on it and had ideas flooding through my head already. Whilst we were there we also picked up a Thomas the Tank Engine book, as Indy is choo-chooing constantly.

I think we'll have a play with the packaging paper this weekend, I have visions of making nests and Indy has to discover the eggs inside, or possibly using it as mud in a farmyard, I'll be sure to show you what we get up to with it!

The week so far

This week has been a fairly quiet week in our household. Both of Indy's friends have been poorly, so we've had none of the usual playdates. Instead I've been inspired to try and find some fun new ways to engage with him at home, and to prevent the usual cabin fever!

I had a quick rummage in the cupboards, and found some lovely thick zip-lock bags we'd picked up at the farmers market. Inspired by other posts I've seen, I filled one bag with fingerpaint, and stuck it to our glass dining table with sellotape. Indy loved it, and it was nice and easy, mess-free fun (hurrah!).

He loved it so much, I wanted it to continue, so I found another zip-lock bag and filled it with glitter and water, and taped them to a tray so he could play with them in the living room. He was captivated! He loved squidging the two bags at the same time, feeling the contrast between them, and seeing the colours mix. This is a definite one to repeat, he loved it so much he tried biting them both several times (do they ever get over the 'putting everything in their mouth' stage?).

I wanted to keep up the DIY sensory play, so the next day we had some fun with posting pasta. As I previously mentioned, Indy still puts absolutely everything in his mouth, so pasta is the perfect play item. I had an old coffee tub (definitely not a caffeine addict...) and carefully cut holes in the lid. I snapped a handful of spaghetti in half, and demonstrated to Indy how they slotted into the holes.This activity is great for hand-eye coordination, and the spaghetti made a really satisfying noise when it was dropped in. Again, this activity kept Indy focused for so long I was amazed. I'd never seen something grasp his attention for quite so long. Please excuse my unhoovered carpet, Indy chases me when I hoover and attempts to sit on it, so it's a task I manage only a couple of times a week. Landlords really love putting beige carpets into houses, eh?

Introduction

Hello, and thank you for wandering over to my little blog :) Before I dive in, let me first introduce myself and my little family.

My name is Rebecca, I'm 26 on Monday (eep!) and I'm a stay-at-home mum. I have a degree in Art & Drama, and have had a few jobs relevant to that in the past. I've worked as an area manager for a company that delivered interactive science lessons to primary school kids, I was also a presenter and did classes myself. I then moved on to being a domiciliary carer for the elderly. This was certainly an eye opening experience - you name it, I've seen it. But it also helped develop my patience and understanding of people. I'd like to think I've learnt from every job role I have, whether it's been a positive or a negative. Most recently, I made cloth nappies and baby clothes, as well as reusable sanitary products. I lost the love though, and felt like I needed to do more, and involve my toddler more. So, Indy-Plays was made!

I'm due to get married to Jon. He's all sorts of awesome and is the most supportive person I could have asked for. He works from home, upstairs in his office, so although he's in the house, I don't get to see him very often. He works long hours in a stressful job, so our evenings normally consist of attempting to relax, either by playing Call of Duty or watching Fringe... He's also a crazy talented musician in a covers band called Duck'n'Cover, I'll link their music when it's online :)

Together, we made an incredible little human being. It still astonishes me now that we actually made something. And that thing is an adorable perma-dirty super adventurous 18 month old boy called Indiana. I know. Awesome name. Indy is so funny and clever, I honestly couldn't be prouder. I love spending time with him, and watching him learn and grow and develop into the man he's going to be. I want to facilitate that, I want to join in with him. I want to encompass all the senses possible, to engage him, to do it with things around the house or things I can easily obtain, I want to think outside the box and watch him learn outside the box. Why? Because I love it when Indy-Plays.