Autumn sun

Leading by example

A sun shiny crispy cold day is usually a good day to go for a nice walk in the Scottish hills. Unfortunately as the wee man gets bigger ironically our ability to take him too far is limited. He is getting a bit heavy now for the back carrier. We still refuse though to let such days pass us by. It's been a while since we have visited Mugdock Park so we headed there for the day on Sunday with a good balance of adventure park, nature and walks to enjoy it was perfect.

The wee man has always been adventurous at the park and though checking it out a bit first will usually be happy to give it a go.

Sometimes though we get the odd, I'm too small after a first attempt and he will lose interest and walk away. My hubby might disagree but I try and not force any issues. After all that just takes the fun out of it. So what better way to approach it than "leading by example" a.k.a having a go myself first. I will probably regret this attitude at some point as I'm not generally good with heights and am not an overly adventurous person.

It does make me proud when he gives it a go and with a little support achieves something which though now might appear small I'm sure increases his confidence in facing future life challenges

It might seem small but I think it's all amazing

  

Googling glitter

I'm not an overly "artistic" person but goodness I surprise myself of what I am capable of sometimes. Doing arts and crafts with my toddler is never that high on our things we need to do today list. Unfortunately these days he knows where everything is and he decides when he wants to play it and sometimes I don't have a good enough reason to say no. The mess itself is not actually what scares me but my ability to think about what we can do with any of the materials we have. There is not a lot of choice in the house actually in way of "materials" and dare I say they have been added to the Christmas short list. This past week it seems all the wee man wants to do is gluing, cutting, sticking, attempting to finish a whole bag of cotton balls making various sized sheep (what else do you do with cotton balls?) and yes GLITTER! The capability of the mess involved here might have scared me a little bit. I faced my fear and like with most unknowns I asked my friend Google "Glitter pictures for toddlers" and got this

 Glitter shapes or animals

Material: 

construction paper 

scissors 

glue sticks 

glitter and confetti 

small box with lid or small container 

rubber bands 

wax paper

Cut out shapes or animals from the construction paper. If you teaching your toddler shapes, then use shapes. If you teaching them animals, then use animals. This is fun and can be a great learning tool.

Give your toddler the shapes and a glue stick. Help them cover both sides of the shapes with glue.

Place one at a time in the box. Add some glitter and confetti and seal the box or container with the rubber band.

Hand the box to your toddler and both of you count to ten while he is shaking the box.

Lay out wax paper on the counter. open the box and show your toddler what they made. Lay on the wax paper so it can dry.

Place a new one in the box and start the process over.

So an impromptu session with glitter worked out quite well in the end and it's something I have actually chosen to do with him again! *gives myself a nice pat on the shoulder* One of the best bits was probably running around the house looking for shapes I could use to trace and cut out. Apologies though for picture quality but I am yet to master the skill of doing arts and crafts with a toddler and take pictures at the same time.

When it's epic

Epic is actually a relatively new word for me. Working with children in schools I have identified it as THE way to describe something big and usually cool. What though when it's EPIC, that is huge, but it's a very negative response to not being able to get your own way aka "The Tantrum". I'm actually not sure whether to call them tantrums or just general break downs in behavior of the good variety. It ranges from tears to begging to ear piercing screams. Recently the wee man's responses to not getting his own way has been EPIC.

I get it he's only 2 years and 8 months and pushing boundaries is what they do. I admit I strongly believe in setting boundaries, I'm a supporter of "routine" be it flexible but these days....

These days it honestly feels a little bit all over the place. Why am I debating with a 2 year old? It can pop it's big EPIC head over anything. Like peeling his fruit and cutting it in half and he decides that today he would like a whole one when yesterday he was struggling and spitting the skin out. I have those moments where I can stand really strong then I have those moments where I just want to give in. It really wears me down. He did the same thing yesterday, I never gave in to the tears, but here we are in the same situation today. I know stick with it and we will get there in the end but seriously am I allowed to question when that end is?

I think I'm actually writing this post in the hope I can look back on this post and go yeah I weathered that storm and actually it was not so bad and sometimes actually funny if you look at it a different way. Then again I will probably look back on it and think and "I thought that was bad?"

EPIC it's a good word though.