One of Me, Three of You

Glossing over the fact that it is nearly the end of April and I am only just getting to this, here is a round up of our tuff tray efforts from March. I think it's fair to say the novelty of the tuff tray is wearing off for the older two so it is becoming harder to set things up that hold their attention. A, on the other hand, is still loving it and is generally happy with quick set ups. Our first themed tuff tray for the month was for Pancake Day . We haven't done much ice or water over winter so I froze some lemon segments into ice cubes and added some utensils, flour and oats. It turns out that the combination of melting ice cubes and flour wasn't great, it all ended up a bit gloopy! I think it's fair to say the boys take after me in not being keen on textures like that and once things started to melt they lost interest. The following week was World Maths Day so I went for a nice simple set up with number cards, our painted wooden numbers from Ikea and p...

I'm having a bit of a crisis of confidence with my blog at the moment, and have been pondering why and what to do about it. I feel like there are many reasons why I am struggling to find the will and the time to write at the moment, not all of which I need to beat myself up about - some of them are temporary (like approaching 'heavy' pregnancy) and some are positive. Without trying to tempt fate, one reason why I am writing less is that life is ticking along fairly well. I find it easier to write about the boys and parenting when I'm finding it all a challenge - it's definitely cathartic and stops me dwelling on things quite so much if I get it down on paper. And at the moment we are trundling along pretty well. Don't get me wrong, we still have plenty of challenges (T is doing a good impression of the awkward middle child, W is moving us into a whole new world of parenting challenges as he gets older, and A has suddenly developed his own opinion on things ...

I am loving W's writing at the moment - in the same way that I will be sad when their last baby phrases in their speech disappear, it will be a sad day when they spell most things correctly. W decided to make a calendar the other day, he wasn't at all phased about adding March and April on to the end when he realised he had missed them out. I think 'ortom' is my favourite though!

W had superhero dress up day at school last week, and I think we surpassed ourselves with our homemade efforts! The cape was a Christmas present a couple of years ago, W made his mask and I discovered the benefits of some felt and a glue gun for the top and belt. We had to do a quick last minute fix on the cape so it fastened around his shoulders rather than irritating the eczema on his neck. I think he was the only one in the class not wearing a shop-bought costume but he seemed quite happy with that. He said there was the odd comment about how his belt looked like a pair of pants but he looked a lot cooler than a lot of the kids coming out of school at the end of a surprisingly hot day! When he was little he really wasn't into fancy dress - he would definitely not be found running around a play cafe or soft play wearing a cowboy outfit or a fairy dress. They have got more into dressing up at home in the last year or two but we are still in the realms of handmade costumes for...