Another Reason to Love Tampons

When you become a parent certain things in your life that you used to take for granted go flying out the window. Like sleep. Some of these things (like a lack of sleep) you expect to happen, and recognise that for a period of time things will be bad, and then improve - but never be quite the same ever again.

Some things you expect to change but not necessarily be as bad as the reality. For example: the ability to have a shower every day - maybe it will become every second day you think to yourself. However, once that kid is born and gets older you may find yourself getting to day three and thinking to yourself "gee, when did I last have a shower?" or that you can no longer have a long relaxing shower without some kid yelling for you, or best yet - that you never get to shower alone again.

We are living with my in-laws at the moment while we renovate, and since my oldest boy Jeffrey must have been a seagull in his past life (and is a food scavenger if you didn't get the reference), my father-in-law has now discovered that eating his breakfast by himself is a thing of the past. No matter how hard he tries, he ends up having to share his breakfast. So now he makes twice as big a bowl of cereal for when Jeffrey inevitably comes along with his own spoon and sits alongside. Which is super cute too by the way.

One of the things that I took for granted before becoming a parent was (and excuse the crudeness of this next part), the ability to go to the toilet all by myself. What luxury the days before children seem! Where I could go, sit down and do my business without having to concern myself with what the kids were up to. Or best yet, without having to have them join me. When Jeffrey was little I used to be able to plonk him in his activity centre for a few minutes to have this precious alone time in the toilet, but of course as he got bigger that was no longer acceptable. So I'd bring in some of his toys to play with. One time it was 'that time of the month' and of course I had a box of tampons on the floor in the toilet. Well, this was discovered by Jeffrey and BOOM - new game! Taking tampons in and out of the box was apparently hilariously fun. Take them away - make baby cry. 

So now I keep a basket of tampons in my toilet at all times. When I can't get the kids to keep themselves occupied while I go to the toilet, they get to take them in and out of the boxes and basket, sort colours - all kinds of fun! Truth be told, it is now at the point where the minute I go to the toilet Matthew comes barrelling in to claim the basket for play time. 

So just when you thought tampons were just for monthly use, you find that they can be used on a daily basis... To occupy your kids and have a few minutes peace on the toilet! 

A Lesson in Safety

A couple of months ago I was dealing with a severe case of hives, having a week off work while forced to take steroids to control them. My parents were looking after my kids one day so I could have a day of rest and at some point I received a phone call from my mum. She was calling to tell my my youngest son Matthew (1 year old) had burnt his hands on the front of her fireplace and did I want to meet her at the local hospital or have her take him to the kids hospital and meet her there? Obviously this wasn't the time for questions, so I said to meet at the local hospital as it was the closest. All through the phone call I could hear Matthew screaming in the background. 

I managed to get to the hospital before my parents arrived with the kids, and so when they pulled in I could hear Matthew's screams/crying from the car even a few metres away. While mum and I waited with Matthew to be seen I got the full story. Jeffrey (my nearly 3 year old) needed to go to the toilet (and since he's still relatively new to the world of the toilet he had to go right now if you know what I mean), so my mum took him thinking Matthew was following, as he had been all morning. It turns out he wasn't. It turns out he was distracted by the fireplace, went over, moved the fence and put his hands against the glass of the fireplace door.

Matthew and Chris (my husband) in the Emergency Department of the children's hospital after a first round of dressings at the local ED.

Two months on Matthew has now fully recovered, and has had a complete sign off by the doctors. So now I thought it was time to bring up the importance of safety in the home.

Now, the fence in question in front of my parents fire had never been bolted to the wall. When some people hear that, they are rather horrified. And in hindsight, so am I. However it is important to take into account that the kids (prior to this instance) have never been in the room where the fire is unattended. Ever. Of course it is easy to say that the fence should have been bolted to the wall - and it now is. I guess the point I want to make is that it is important to never take safety for granted.

Matthew the next day with his 'boxing glove' dressings.

It is important to always keep safety in mind around kids, and a large emphasis is placed on 'baby-proofing' before your baby is even born. My husband and I even went to a home safety seminar run by Kidsafe prior to the birth of Jeffrey. We bought all the necessary equipment to 'proof' the house and some was done prior to his birth, the rest was put off for when he started becoming more mobile - things like cupboards that needed to be kept shut etc. We purchased certain 'proofing' items for at our parents homes and moved easy to reach (and breakable) items out of reach. As Jeffrey got older we continued doing some 'proofing' as we went. However some of the items that we needed to 'proof' we never on our initial list (like the fridge and freezer that he was obsessed with opening) and some items we never ended up needing to do as it wasn't an issue - like cutlery drawers.

Matthew on an outing the next day - socks used to keep the dressings clean.

So when Matthew came along we figured we were already covered. We had already gone through all of the proofing we needed to do with Jeffrey. Well, it turns out we were wrong. Matthew is a climber where Jeffrey was not, and Matthew is a cheeky little kid where Jeffrey was not. Jeffrey learnt very early on to not touch certain things, where Matthew goes ahead and does what he's not meant to whilst watching you with a cheeky smile, just waiting for your reaction.

Round two of dressings - fingers free to use, sort of!

We had the exact same set up for the fire at my parents house when Jeffrey was a baby/toddler. Never an issue, he was never interested. The difference between my two boys in their interests and behaviours should have clued us in to the fact that we should have treated home safety differently with Matthew. And we did for certain things - doors to cupboards containing glasses were tied shut etc, but the fireplace we didn't think of as it is only used for a few months per year, and always with an adult present. We never thought that the kids would be in the room alone, but we didn't account for the distraction of a toddler needing the toilet and Matthew's curious personality combined. 

So let my scare be a wake up call for you. Don't be complacent when it comes to safety, especially around fires. Even if you think you'll be be in the room all the time, you never know when the instance might come when you aren't there. Even for a split second. That's all at takes. And treat home safety differently for each child. Don't assume that because the way you had things worked for the first child will be the same for the second, third, or fourth (or however many kids you have) as it may not be the case - and many injuries that occur in the home can be easily prevented by doing some simple 'proofing'.

Matthew now - fully recovered.

A Blog Neglected

You may have noticed that it has been quite some time since I last posted anything. Much to my chagrin I have not made the time to post lately. This year one of my goals was to post something at least once a fortnight, but as the saying goes "the best laid plans of mice and men...".

Life seems to have gotten extremely busy lately. So much so that most of my creative efforts have gone completely out the window in favour of one overarching project that has taken over my families life: renovations. That's right, we decided to renovate our house. Now, I'm not talking a small renovation, I'm talking major work. Removing walls, completely redoing the kitchen, taking out our existing bathroom and combining the bathroom into the existing laundry.

On top of the renovations we have been dealing with some other events in our house. Namely, sickness of one kind or another amongst all of us, my youngest (Matthew) burning his hands, my husband commencing a new job and now myself undertaking additional duties (and one extra day a fortnight) of extra work.

So whilst I miss the creativity in my life at the moment, I honestly don't know where I'd fit it in!

SO, in the coming weeks expect new blogs on a more regular basis as I try to put more focus on that area of my life. You can expect one on the renovation, one on the burns episode (as it shall forevermore be known) and one on trying to juggle work/life balance.

See you soon!

Matthew's First Birthday Rainbow Cake

My youngest son Matthew is set to turn one at the beginning of April and we decided to celebrate his birthday early since my Grandparents are here from Canada.

When Jeffrey turned one I knew exactly what to do for his birthday cake - a dog. He loved our dogs and always had - they brought a smile to his face every time he saw them. So I made him a dog cake. Same goes for his second birthday. He loves Thomas the Tank Engine, so I made him a Thomas cake (not that it turned out very well!). But for Matthew? There is no one thing that Matthew loves more than another - he seems to love everything equally! I thought of his cheeky grin, but you can't just make a smile - it's creepy. Then I came to the idea of making him a rainbow cake. It suits his personality just perfectly. He is bright, cheerful and makes everyone smile when he gives his cheeky grin.

So to the internet I went to search for images of rainbow cake. I knew how I wanted the interior of the cake to look so I just needed some inspiration for how the cake would look on the outside. I came across a cake blog called Bird on a Cake and in particular, her Rainbow Petal Cake and decided that's what I wanted for Matthew - with the colours I wanted of course. What I liked in particular with this blog is that there was a tutorial for what I wanted to do, and that it didn't seem too difficult and would look great when done (provided I managed to not screw it up monumentally).

Away I went making the cake - I mixed the batter and separated it into six separate bowls for colouring. Once that was done, each layer had to be baked separately. While this was easy enough to do, it was certainly time consuming! Jeffrey watched and quite enjoyed tasting the cake mix (and was most upset when I told him he'd had enough) and sniffing all the good smells.

Jeffrey tasting the cake batter

Cheeky boy caught in the act!

Jeffrey smelling the cake to make sure it is good - he must be from quality control!

Finally the cake part was all done, and started to come together slowly but surely.

Then the decorating began! Note to self - when needing to concentrate, send small child elsewhere (props to my mother-in-law Carolyn for watching my kids while I did this by the way - couldn't have managed otherwise!). Despite my kiddies being looked after by their Nan while I did this, Jeffrey couldn't be discouraged from trying to get involved and the one major mistake I did make in the patterning on the side of the cake happened when I was trying to ice and keep him from tasting everything at the same time!

Encouraging a boy to stop touching

Jeffrey watching mummy concentrate

Slowly but surely I worked my way around the side of the cake, doing the different colours and spreading with my palate knife like the instructions said. I did encounter a bit of difficulty in keeping my lines straight while I did this. I think if I were to make it again I'd do this bit whilst sitting down so that I didn't have this issue. As I was icing it also became evident that I might not have enough icing to do the top of the cake in the same petal pattern as the sides.

I thought about just leaving the top of the cake white, but decided instead to create a swirly, marble type effect. I achieved this by icing the top in white, dropping food colour in a circle on the top (much like the drops on the top of the complete cake), and then smearing it down and around with a palate knife. If I'd had enough of the coloured icing I could have done it with that instead.

The end result of this cake was pretty spectacular. Everyone seemed to really love it at the party and there was certainly not much left over cake at the end!

Fuzzy Bunny Baby Blanket

Like many crafters I like to read magazines and websites to get ideas and inspiration for new crafts I’d like to try. One of the websites I’ve subscribed to the newsletter of is called FaveCrafts. On one of their newsletters I came across this pattern for a Fuzzy Bunny Baby Blanket. It is super cute! The pattern is by Cecilia Jorcin and is absolutely adorable. It was one of those things that I couldn’t just put on my crafty “To Do” list – I had to try making one straight away.

Of course, I loved it so much that I had to make a few more…

I did make a couple of modifications when I was making them. I found that after I had made my first bunny blanket, that I thought the blanket was too small (the pattern states 10 inches x 10 inches which is approximately 25cm x 25cm) – so I made it larger (30cm x 30cm). Also, just to change things up I tried having the bunny head on a corner of the blanket rather than in the middle.

Because this blanket is intended for small infants/children I also changed the beads that are used in the original pattern for small pieces of black felt.

I really want to thank Cecilia and other crafters like her for sharing such wonderful patterns on free to access websites. It means that crafters like myself can try new things and learn from other more experienced crafters. Cecilia has a page on Facebook that you can find by clicking on this link.

Happy crafting everyone!

And Now Back to Crafting...

Welcome to my craft space. Literally, this is it. Something that I thought I’d share is a little about how I manage to find time and space to craft in my life at the moment. I do get asked by people how I manage to find the time to do my crafting. My answer: I elect to not do other things. Like exercise. Or clean (I hire a cleaner – if I could only hire someone to exercise for me too!). And I neglect my husband (sorry!). But, I choose to craft instead of these other things as it’s a means of me keeping my sanity and helping me have my own identity outside that of being a mum, wife and housekeeper (albeit a poor one).

(little corner of the kids playroom)

So I have a few locations where my crafting takes place. Number one is the little corner of my kids playroom where my sewing machine sits. If I need to (or feel so inclined), I can even store my machine in the table and fold it down so it takes up less space. I use the floor in this room as well to sort my supplies and to measure and cut fabric. There is a full sized wardrobe in this room that I use to store a lot of my craft supplies in. 

(storage!)

I know it seems like a lot – but this isn’t even everything! The projects I’m currently working on stay out stored in plastic tubs or in a bag I can take with me to work on a project if I go somewhere. I also have more supplies stored in the shed – I know, it’s crazy! The one other area I craft is in this super comfy la-z-boy rocker/recliner in front of the tv of an evening. So there it is, my craft space!

(comfy rocker - note the tubs next to it with my current projects on the go!)

When I do craft, it normally takes place in the evening. This is starting to become difficult now that my toddler is pushing the boundaries of bedtime. Often this means that it is 9pm by the time I manage to eat dinner, making it too late to get much done. In the last week or two I have been attempting to craft during the day when the kids are playing in the background or napping (just to try something different). In order to do this I need to be able to get the kids focus on something else and in the past I have been able to distract Jeffrey by letting him play with my felt stack or my fabric offcuts – though as you can see this leads to a big mess for me to clean up!

 (into the felt pile he goes...)

(and of course spreads it around.)

(such a mess!)

Occasionally, I’ll notice that Matthew is no longer interested in whatever toy he was playing with and he has come to investigate what mum is doing. First signs are the little fingers on the edge of my sewing table! He thinks it’s a major win if he manages to snare what I’m working on. 

 (fingers peeking...)

 (he thinks he's being sneaky...)

(caught in the act!)

This week in particular though, Jeffrey was super interested in what I was doing and wanted to help mummy with her ‘work’ instead of doing his own ‘work’ (aka; drawing, colouring and stickers). So I thought – why not get him involved?

I went to my latest stack of offcuts and pulled a few out and we made a cushion together! It was a lot of fun. As you can see from the end result, it isn’t perfect. Nor was it intended to be. Nothing was measured, and it was a bit of a mix and match/free for all in terms of fabric placement and our attempts at pinning. However, Jeffrey was involved every step of the way. He fetched the fabric with me and watched while I used the scissors. He told me which colours had to go next to each other. He handed me pins one at a time to pin the fabric together and then sat at the sewing machine with me watching me use it, being sure to tell me to ‘not run over pins mum!’ every time we came to one. Once the cushion was turned the right way around he helped me stuff the cushion, and told me when there was enough stuffing inside.

 (I love my new cushion mum!)

 (I must take it to bed. Can you spot the two toys made by mum?)

Ultimately, I didn’t get as much done in terms of crafting today, but together I made memories (and a cushion) with my son. He loves it so much he carried it around the house, slept with it and took it to my parents house with him for a sleep over.

So if you think you have no time or space for crafting, look around again and see what nooks and crannies of your house you can find to use. And if your kids interrupt what you’re doing all the time – why not take a break and get them involved? It might not get your project done, but you’ll have lots of fun and maybe get them started off on a crafting path of their own!

(happy little boy with his craft)

Happy crafting!

Gender Equality in Kids Toys

Following the aftermath of Christmas I have begun braving people coming to my house once again and talking about what we got the kids for Christmas. Inevitably I get a reaction when people hear about two of the gifts that my 2 year old son received: a doll house with furniture and two people and a tea set. The doll house is wooden and I have plans for Jeffrey and I to paint it together, but the tea set is white, pink and purple.

The reactions I get seem to go two ways. The first is by people who think that it's great that I give my son toys that are typically 'girl' toys, and those who make comments along the lines of "well, I guess we can tell you wanted a girl", or "but they're girl toys/colours". I very much object to the whole idea that a doll house or tea set has to be a 'girl toy' or that purple and pink are 'girl colours'. If you ask my son to choose something and there are a number of different colour options, he will go for the pink 9 times out of 10. The 10th he'll choose the purple.

Jeffrey loves to have a tea party and has a great imagination and does role play with his toys - which is why I gave him the doll house. With his cars, animals and soft toys he has always done this role play with them. Creating beds, taking them shopping, cooking for them etc. So why not give him a doll house? It's just the same thing: him rein-acting the things he sees in every day life around him and this is great for his development.

This is the same with a tea party. Jeffrey has always liked to have a tea party. He used to get his food and dishes from his toy kitchen (which just happens to be predominantly pink by the way - it was the kitchen I liked most in terms of size and layout at the time) and set everything up for him to have a tea party with his toys. And then get anyone else who was around involved too. So why not give him a tea set?

I was talking to my friend Emily* about this recently. Emily has a little boy called Stuart* who is 3 months older than my boy Jeffrey. Stuart has cousins who are girls and so when he goes to their house he plays with their toys. Emily says that he gravitates to the prams and dolls every time, but that she would never buy him those for at home. I was a little bit taken aback. I asked the question: if he likes playing with those sorts of things, why not get him something like that for at home? Her response: he can play with them at his cousin's house so he doesn't need them at home. Also, they are always in pinks and purples and not in boy colours. I wasn't sure how to respond after that, so I left it alone.

If you Google "gender equality in kids toys" you'll come up with all sorts of articles discussing the issue. So it is obvious this is something that people are interested in and talking about. In fact, in one article I came across in the Sydney Morning Herald it talks about a group called Play Unlimited which has formed to lobby big toy companies such as Toys 'R' Us into no longer segregating toys along gender lines. I am completely with them on this. If you go to their 'Why it Matters' and 'According to the Experts' pages there is a lot of good information there that to me makes a lot of sense. Kids do understand labelling from a young age and even if there is a toy they would like to play with, if it is marketed to girls (and they are a boy) they will discount it and move on to something else as they will see it is not for them.

An article on Mamamia discussing the gender equality in toy issue takes the opposite side of the fence. The article discusses that even if the toys are not segregated along gender lines anymore children will still gravitate towards toys based along gender lines and that even though boys and girls may play with the same toys, they do not play with them in the same way. I would agree with this - of course kids play with toys in different ways. Though I would also say that who cares if my son doesn't play with a toy in the same way as a girl? If he wants to play with it, let him. 

I don't push Jeffrey to play with these 'girly' toys, he chooses what he likes to play with all by himself. He equally loves to build Duplo, run and play, throw balls and rough-house with us. I'm also not trying to justify giving him these toys - I don't feel I need to because there is nothing wrong with it. What I would love though is that rather than people seeing/hearing that Jeffrey received these toys and plays with them, and jumping on the gender issue, they could see what I see. A kid who loves to use his imagination, and for now doesn't care that toys/items are 'girl' colours. A kid who engages in role play and doesn't need me to entertain him all the time. And above all, a kid who is having a great time.

In the future I am going to continue providing toys that he is interested in, regardless of the colour or perception of the toys being for girls. I don't think the way toys are marketed is going to change any time soon, and as a society we will probably still be having this discussion in 10 years time. But for now - back off of my kid and his choice to play with toys that interest him.

*Names have been changed to protect privacy.