Am I A Bad Mum?

I question a lot of things that I do as a mother as I want to do things right for our boys. But one of the main things I do question is the food that they eat.

From the weaning stage I wanted to prepare their food myself. Not sure why as I don't think the pre made food is bad for them, I just wanted to. I think I needed to feel like I had a purpose, as silly as that may sound. They did have jars, they didn't eat EVERYTHING homemade as that would have been near impossible but I did my best. Sweet potato, broccoli, Parsnip - the list goes on.

I fed them everything and I let them try everything but this has still made them rather fussy eaters!

They eat a lot of fish fingers, turkey bites, potato waffles and spaghetti. Why? Because they actually eat it. But I ask myself, Does this make me a bad Mum?

The reason that they have this for their tea most days is because if I am totally honest, I am fed up of making them food that they don't eat. Which means they hardly eat any tea. And really eating fish fingers for tea is better than eating nothing!

I will freshly prepare a roast or a pasta dish or maybe some lovely looking dish from one of my cook books. Sometimes it takes a good while to make it and I will be so proud of it, to then put it in front of them and they turn their noses up at it. They won't even try it and tell me that they don't like it. So all that effort had gone to waste and it ends up being thrown in the bin as it is so mushed up from the many attempts at them trying to eat it.

But when I place fish fingers and waffles with tomato ketchup in front of them they will polish the whole plate off.

I make sure they eat fruit and veg, they will eat sweetcorn (one by one) and they will happily eat a punnet of blueberries in one sitting. So they get their 5 a day but they just don't have 5 star, restaurant style meals because they just don't eat them.

Am I going for the easy life and should I be persevering with 'normal' meals like lamb meatball pasta or fish pie? Does it make me a bad mum for letting them eat turkey dinosaurs 4 days a week?

I just want my children to eat and if they are happy eating the food they are then I am a happy mummy to see them eating. I am hoping one day they will start to eat 'normal' meals but until then I want a fight and stress free mealtime so this is how its going to be until otherwise.

   

Is He Ready For Potty Training??

As the title suggests I am thinking about potty training. I am a huge believer of being led by your toddler when it comes to potty training and not pushing them.

Just after Finley had turned two my Nan started on at me about potty training. She said things like 'its about time you started potty training isn't it', 'he should be out of nappies now' and 'look he wants to go on the potty'. But in my mind he wasn't ready and I always told her he would tell me when he is ready. I don't mean that he would one day say to me 'Mummy I am know ready to use a potty', I mean that he would show me signs and then we could give it a go.

Well it happened when my youngest was only a few months old. We had had the potty around the house, so he could get familiar with it, for a while. He used to sit on it fully clothed but he wouldn't go near it with no nappy on. And I didn't push as didn't want to scare him. But then all of a sudden he said 'wee' so I got the potty and he sat on it an wee'd. So I followed his lead. It was a long road with lots of accidents but it happened and I was so glad I had waited for his signs to tell me that he was ready.

Now with Noah just turned two, potty training is at the back of my mind. Niggling away as I 'think' he is showing signs. He tells me before he is going, sometimes after and he will sit on the potty. He will also sit on the toilet before bath time and do a wee. So is he ready?

I don't want to push it and I think he is too young. But he isn't too young really and I think because he is my second the whole potty training thing would be the last of nappies, which is great but that's like the last baby stage isn't it.

He wants to do what Finley is doing and he is very interested when Finley uses the toilet. So I think this will help us.

But am I giving myself excuses because lets me honest potty training is a NIGHTMARE! Wee on the floor, 20 pairs of pants a day, carrying a potty with us wherever we go and the constant nag of 'do you need a wee'.

In all honesty I don't know if he is ready so I was thinking when the sun shines, if it shines this summer, to go in the garden naked (Noah not me) and give it a go. Because what have I got to lose apart from my sanity and my nice wee free decking?

Wicked Wednesdays #27

That's not how you wear your shorts Noah!

Homemade Thank You Cards - A Personal Touch

Noah turned 2 last week and he had a party on Sunday. And with a party comes presents, lots of them! I have always been old fashioned and sent thank you cards. I think this may be due to the fact I love to receive them to know people liked what we have got them and I also think its a lovely way to say an extra special thank you.

I have found the shop bought ones are quite expensive so I thought this time I would make homemade ones. With Noah only being two his input into what we actually did was minimal but I wanted it to be something he had done and I was pretty pleased with how they turned out.

I was going to do a hand print card but the amount of cards I needed to make this would have been pretty stressful. So I decided I would fold some card and get him to paint the front. I was planning on using A4 card and cutting it in half to make them A5 but luckily while going through the craft box I found some ready made cards left over from making his initiations last year. All I needed to do was fold them.

What I did was literally put a painting apron on Noah, fold the card, give him the paint brush and the paints in a bowl then put the card in front of him. I used 4 colours to begin with - red, blue, yellow and green - just because these were the colours we had. I also added in some white at the end, because after all the colours had been mixed they looked a bit mucky.

I then handed him card by card and got him to paint on them. Some of them have more paint on than others, as being 2 he refused to put much paint on some of them. We also went from paint brush to using hands which I thought made some of them look great.

When they were all dry I then wrote on any space I could find 'Thank You' in a metallic pen that we had. We had envelopes for the cards too which was a great help.

To me these are more personal and I am hoping all our friends and family love the personal touch of these thank you cards.

A Toddlers Imagination Is Incredible

The imagination of a toddler is amazing. I find myself at least once a day just sitting and watching my two playing. They aren't at an age that they play together properly but they do play independently and its fascinating to watch.

Their imaginations are both at different stages so when they play, they play very differently and I think that is because of their ages. Noah is 2 and Finley is 3, nearly 4.

I was sat watching Noah the other day playing with his Peppa Pig figures. As I walked in he had Peppa and George talking to each other. Peppa was saying 'Sorry' to George and George was replying with 'That's ok'. I have to be honest I was very surprised at how Noah's imagination has come on recently. I then sat there and watched him play with various different figures, with him making them talk to each other and having different conversations. A lot of the things he was saying and doing were things he has picked up from us or his big brother.

My heart could have burst watching him play like this. 

He spends a lot of time playing with the little figures that we have. He puts them in and out of the different vehicles and he is very happy to play by himself.

Finley is very different to Noah. He wants someone to play with him a lot of the time. Even if he is just building a tower he wants to have someone help him, sometime we don't actually help him we just sit with him and watch.

Finley has started to play a lot of imagination games with crocodiles and things chasing him. I think he has picked this up from nursery. He will run from one side of the house to the other saying something is chasing him. He sometimes says a monster, I do my best to tell him here isn't such things as monsters as I would hate for this monster thing to turn into something he is scared of.

The other game he plays is jumping from sofa to sofa saying there are crocodiles. He tries to get Noah to join in, which he tries, but his little legs don't quite get him between each gap which ends up with him in a heap on the floor.

The imagination of children is amazing and I love the fact that they don't have any inhibitions about it. Because as an adult we do don't we, we will play with them and pretend along side them but when in public we tend to feel a bit silly. And look around to see who is watching us. But I think we need to take a leaf out of our children's books and just be ourselves and have fun.