A quick post. I just wanted to share with you all that Parenting Guest Blog is back up and running. It ended up having an extended hiatus, but in the past few days two new posts have gone live. Please check it out, and feel free to get in touch with your guest post.
Archive for the 'ideas for dad' category
2 for 1entry to UK Gardens
I get the money saving expert emails, but don’t often pay all that much attention. As it was I only caught wind of this by hearing Martin Lewis on BBC Five Live, but it’s a great offer and well worth a look.
Buy May’s edition of Gardeners’ World magazine, and inside you’ll find a card which entitles you to 2 for 1 entry to some top UK Gardens like The Eden Project. It lasts for a year and can be used as many times as you like! A cracking offer and well worth having in the wallet as part of your parenting arsenal!
Full offer details can be found here: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/deals/cheap-days-out/gardeners-world
Painting Outside
Hope you are having a lovely saturday. We have just had a magical afternoon, one of those
The bear painting her shoulder
truly special moments. We have been painting in the garden 
Just monstrous fun!
I’d been intending on holding fire with this until the weather’s a little warmer, but the sun was mostly out and while not the warmest day, it wasn’t too windy.
It took a bit of setting up, to make sure I was ready before the bear unleashed hell. I split one of the boxes from our recent house move and then propped it up against the bushes, using bricks to stop it blowing down.
I grabbed some of the huge brown paper we have from a scrap centre, and I also took an A3 sheet of white paper and masking taped TILLY on it in big letters. I then found some trays and poured some of our old and new paints.
Rather sensibly I set up a washing up bowl and some towels too… but that’s not too exciting.
It was after 10-15 minutes of flowering about with this that I unleashed a bear clad on in a nappy and the two of us had an absolute blast! The most amount of fun I have had in a long old time. Standing in paint and then dancing on the paper, flicking it with my hands, smudging it everywhere.
I know this is meant to be an activity for the bear, but man I loved it! She really did too, she giggled and shrieked and slathered paint all over herself, me, the bushes, the grass, anything she was allowed anywhere near.
Our outside painting masterpiece
We used cotton wool, paint brushes, hands, feet, arms, legs, feathers, cotton wool, sticks and leaves to paint our canvasses.
Not quite sure how long we were out there for, must have been over an hour, the paint was topped up alot as we got through a fair bit. The washing up bowl also became a bit of a bear bath, and so as she painted herself we got one of our big rhino tubs and filled it with bubbly water, which became a game in its own right.
I’m sure there are some of you baulking at the thought of doing this, but if you are brave, willing or able I recommend it, while the angel couldn’t participate even she enjoyed herself just watching.
So without going anywhere we all got some fresh air, Tilly and I got some exercise as we pranced and danced and crawled about, we got to be creative, experiment, blow off some steam, make a mess without trashing the house (although the grass could do with some rain), have some great quality/bonding time and giggle alot.
Once we were done we hit the bath and are now all chilling out in comfy clothes, clean, warm and everyone looking really quite content. Just marvellous.
Curry next. Yeeha!
Peace
Dan x
National Trust – 50 things to do before you’re 11 3/4
It’s the weekend again! HAZAAR!! Had a much better week this week and been a bit more in my usual groove which is really rather refreshing. Something else that’s refreshing is news of the National Trust releasing a list of things for kids to do outdoors. Called 50 things to do before you’re 11 3/4′s it’s a bucket list of outdoor activities and childhood rites of passage. Just wonderful!
As I hope my ideas for dad section of the site will at some point show, I am a massive play advocate. It’s an important part of childhood, an important asset to learning and most importantly of all, play is fun.
I was however, dismayed by an article on the bbc today headlined: Child’s play not easy for modern parents, what utter bullshit. Forgive my choice of phrase but it is complete and utter bullshit, and if you believe it then please just fuck off. Playing is simple, just get on the floor and get on with it.
Sure, we all lose inspiration from time to time, or mundane parts of existence can get in the way, but good grief “Almost half of 2,000 parents questioned said they would welcome expert help on how to play” really?! EXPERT HELP!?! If you want expert help in how to play talk to a bloody child! Or even better, play with a bloody child!! Problem solved.
“Playing with your kids is just as important as any aspect of looking after the home.” Are they seriously comparing raising a child with housekeeping? Yes, we would like to live in clean tidy houses, however I sincerely hope most of you would agree that you would rather live in a slightly messy house than raise a child whom you never played with 0r who doesn’t value play?! Surely? Please?
My fondest childhood memories are from games conjured up in imagination in my garden, and of building a new den each day using cricket stumps and rugs and whatever else I could find.
I’m aware I sound quite obnoxious and that this little rant isn’t that constructive, but it makes me so mad when people over-complicate simple facets of our existence. I understand that I am luckier than alot of parents in that I work so close to home, and I get at least a few minutes to play with the bear everyday. I understand that it is tiring and hard to always be motivated to play, but what I don’t understand is why people need ‘expert advice’ for all areas of their existence?
Humanity is an amazingly adaptable species, for thousands of years we have gotten on just groovy without needing pseudo experts and quasi-scientific responses for every action or event. Trust your instincts and where possible trust your child’s instincts too. (I say where possible with regards to things like safety, important damage etc..)
The one thing I would suggest you really take away with you from that article is this “Play is one of the most simple and basic activities. If it feels good and the child enjoys it, then that’s the way to do it.”
Amen.
And So, onwards and upwards and back to the National Trust. Their new campaign is lovely, there’s a site you/your child can sign up to https://www.50things.org.uk/to get your family motivated to get out doors. I haven’t joined, but I will. If you do nothing else, why not check out the parents area here. It has all the info you need on the project and gives you the full list, which includes such wonderful things as:
- Climb a tree
- Roll down a really big hill
- Build a den
- Run around in the rain
- Fly a kite
Simple fun things. My happiest memory with the bear is dancing in the rain whilst caught in a torrential downpour.“You don’t make memories hiding from the rain” – please quote me on that. It’s true.
Thank you for your patience with this whinging, before I go,
1) I implore you to play more, both with your kids and for your own sanity
2) I ask you to support this National Trust campaign, lets keep play as it should be. Video games are a fun addition but shouldn’t replace getting muddyand
3) I recommend slapping the next person that spoon feeds you bullshit touted by non-descript ‘experts’
Have a fantastic weekend x
Easy Chocolate Cake – A mothers day winner
easy chocolate cake, the mess we made
Enough of SEO and kitchen ukulele sessions. I thought I would share with you a cracking cake recipe. A couple of weeks ago I posted a fairy cake recipe and told you about the bear and my adventures in baking.
It was mother’s day last weekend. I’ve always found it a bit of an odd one, it’s not about buying presents (except perhaps for some of her favourite chocolates or such like), it’s about Tilly and her. We’ve already done some framed photos, picture mugs and such over mothers day, birthdays and christmas and I really wasn’t sure what to do this year.
So given our recent baking endeavours I thought something from the kitchen was a good idea, but I wanted it to be a bit special. I wanted to back a cake but if I’m honest, I was a little worried. I’ve never really made proper cakes. And proper cakes involve your measuring being spot on, and I’m a bit haphazard.
I hit google with chocolate cake searches and very quickly found the BBC’s easy chocolate cake recipe. It looked straight forward enough, so I grabbed some of the ingredients and thought we could give it a go, if it didn’t go well, nevermind at least we tried.
Let me say now, it was gooooood. Really, really chocolatey lovely.
Let me also say, it is really easy to make. Tidge had a blast, I didn’t panic too much. The only sticking point was how long it took to cook. It’s quite a wet recipe with oil and water being added, and it took me alot longer than the advised time to get it cooked. But it worked.
We left the layers over night, then made the chocolate sauce the following morning, which is painfully simple. That takes a little planning as you need the sauce to set a bit, but it is good. We used is as an opportunity to go to the park and chase bouncy balls.
Decorating was alot of fun, we used white and chocolate buttons on top of the chocolate icing, we had plenty leftover so enjoyed munching that, and the bear enjoyed swiping buttons while I wasn’t looking. All in all we had an awful lot of fun, and mummy was suitably impressed.
I think I shall be making chocolate cakes fairly regularly now….
the finished chocolate cake
Ideas for Dad – Baking fairy cakes
Baking is great.
You get to make a mess and you get to eat warm cookies, beautifully light fairy cakes and gooey brownies. The really great news though is that all these things are incredibly simple to make and alot of fun.
Lets get this straight, I am not a master baker, sure I can find my way around a kitchen, but I’m no chef. I can now make all of the above with my eyes shut (ish) and even more, so can the bear. She knows exactly what ingredients she needs for fairy cakes and as it was our starting point I thought I’d share our recipe for baking fairy cakes.
Fairy cakes are ideal for the novice baker. We started baking them a few months ago, mainly because she loves the kitchen and helping out. Baking seemed like the ideal thing to do, plus I love cakes and making a mess. It’s a match made in heaven. We have had so much fun in the kitchen, it’s been a great bonding experience.
Another piece of good news. This recipe does not take particularly long to get through. 15 minutes tops, and that allows for ‘toddler time’.
Child friendly recipe for Fairy Cakes
- 125g butter/spread (we often use whatever spread we have at home)
- 125g caster sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence (can be done without, but does add a little something)
- 2 eggs (medium are fine)
- 125g self-raising flour
- Beat the butter and sugar together
- Add the eggs, flower and vanilla essence
- Mix until smooth and sticky
- Stick them in cake cases – I usually get 12
- cook for 10-20 mins at 200°C /Gas Mark 6 ( fan oven 180°C) until golden on top
- Leave them to cool before adding some topping.
We either do simple icing sugar (icing sugar and tiny bit of water) or butter cream. I much prefer butter cream (75g butter, 175g icing sugar, splash of milk) as it’s easier to get right and means we can add things like chocolate buttons more easily
This is a great recipe and so easy! Please enjoy. I will add some photos of some of our creations at some point.
hey
Hey everyone,
It’s been a couple of weeks hasn’t it? And absolutely nothing has happened on the site has it? TSK! How awful and absurd. Thought I’d drop a quick note to say hi to you all, been a lot going on at work so not really had capacity for anything exciting for here. I did however see Bon Iver on Monday night, an awesome gig, absolutely cracking.
Been working on some more words for some spoken pieces but they need some crafting, think I can construct them into one or two longer better pieces rather than lots of similarly styled shorts.
Got some stuff to update all the parenting/family sections too, just need to take some to do some writing.
I also have been a bit carried away buying domain names, so may have a few projects to update you on soon.
so basically, stuff is happening in my head, and nowhere else.
Speak soon x
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Exciting news – 12 week scan
Hello everyone,
I hope you’ve had a good week? Another crazy one in my world, but alas it is the weekend now and lovely it is too. Other than a general panic about the fact I have a driving lesson tomorrow all is well. All is really well in fact. We had a scan yesterday
52mm’s of incredibly wriggly loveliness, that even waved hello before going to sleep.
012 week scan - Pip 2
So our little family will be getting bigger at the end of April/early May next year. When we had Tilly’s first scan I stared at it for days, sporadically crying, just overwhelmed by the rush of emotions I felt. This time round I was much calmer (a few tears in the scan still) but not the same levels of emotion post scan. I think it’s because it just makes sense, I love being dad, it’s my favourite thing to do, and it’s what I’m best at and another baby just adds to all the love in our house.
In honesty there is another part of me that is a bit ‘cripes there will be two of them’, but that’ll all come out in the wash. I am nervous that I won’t have as tight a bond with this one as I do the bear, but that’s because a) alongside Helen she is my bestest friend ever and b) because I worry that breastfeeding working out this time means I won’t be able to develop that same bond, but again, sense tells me that I will always work hard enough to make it work.
Can’t state enough how much I love being a dad, and another little bean to throw all my heart and soul into sounds great to me Think I’m meandering a bit, but nevermind
Baby – Hooray!
Tidge was funny when we told her, I was looking at the picture she asked me what it was, I told her it was a baby she said ‘no daddy’ giggling then when I told her it was in mummy’s tummy she just ‘no’ zoned out and carried on watching the monstrosity that is In the Night Garden.
Only took a few minutes before she started asking more questions, ‘where is it?’ ‘can I cuddle it?’ ‘I will show it my toys, shoes and books’. She’s asked quite a few times today where the baby is and gleefully told grandma about the baby today. So I think she is set on the idea too Think she will make a wonderful big sister.
So, my world continues to change at ever increasing pace, time to hold on for the ride. Fortunately Helen is feeling much better than she was at this point with Tidge, aside from being really tired and having to eat constantly, so fingers crossed all will be well.
Enjoy your saturday xx
