Long time no blog...

So time for a quick catch up, since the last time we have.......

We've had Spud's birthday. Cake, presents and kids fighting over toys. It was the usual magic.  This year Spud's birthday was mainly bought to you by Tiger. God I love that shop. I may never go into any other shop ever again. 

I got the Kid's Dough Set which they both loved. The press was a little flimsy but for a few pounds the dough and cutters were worth it alone.  I love the Tiger play dough, it's not worth me making it for the money and it has such lovely vivid colours.  I much rather save my expensive gel food dyes for cakes!

Spud also got crayons and pens from Tiger. They are lovely and chunky for little hands to grip, Spud had loads of fun colouring with these and the chunky felt tip pens, which he also sucked resulting in funky day-glo lips (and some mothers worry about artificial sweetners!). 

We made a suitably deranged "mad hatters" Easter bonnet for Spike's Easter Parade. He quite understandably won precisely no prises. It's just as well that he enjoyed making it so much! 

Easter eggs! Nom nom nom. 

Before Christmas Spike entered a competition to win a Posable Bing Bunny and he only flipping won! I think he had to draw a picture of Bing or something, it was so long ago that I can't remember, but here he is with it. He had a Bing toy for his birthday so he gave this one to Sam. Good brotherly behaviour that.

I am working on the boy's room. It's going to be Star Wars themed, like you're inside the Millenium Falcon looking out. Spike is very excited about the new bunk beds that are coming. There's gonna be a Wampa skin rug, reading nook (yes they definitely had one on board the falcon shut up), more murals of Yoda, Chewie and some inspirational Star Wars quotes. It'll take a few weeks to put together which is fine by me, I'm enjoying it quite a lot! IKEA! 

Xoxo

Vegan Ventures - What Would Prot Do?

I've a few reasons for going back to the vegan way of life. Before my life of smallholdings and never ending mountains of eggs I had flitted between vegetarianism and veganism since my mid teens. The way animals are treated in our industrialised farming system bothers me, it always has.

chickpea and mushroom burgers

My great aunt was a smallholder who worked for the milk marketing board with many friends in the farming community. I visited a lot of farms throughout my childhood, some were better than others. So my opinions are not born out of some cosseted, city born ignorance. 

The choice of eating meat/dairy free is made from a position of privilege. I get that I can afford to choose not to eat these things many cant. However, meat and dairy isn't particularly good for me and I'm trying to loose weight so bingo!  

curried tofu, spinach, pepper and pea scramble

My main reasons for choosing veganism are environmental. I don't know how anybody on earth can refuse to identify as an environmentalist when our lives depend on not totally knobing up our ability to survive on this planet. The meat and dairy industries are devastating the natural environment due to the absurd scale they are now conducted on to satisfy our overindulgence. From greenhouse gases produced by stock and the processing of them; to the inefficiency of using up natural resources required to feed animals that could have fed many more humans.

“If all the grain currently fed to livestock in the United States were consumed directly by people, the number of people who could be fed would be nearly 800 million,” reports ecologist David Pimentel of Cornell University’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. He adds that the seven billion livestock in the U.S. consume five times as much grain as is consumed directly by the entire U.S. Population.

The same goes for water use. If you give the slightest shit about people starving and thirsty in the world then this should be an issue

red onions, peas, peppers, harrisa cous cous with home baked dinner rolls

                               

I'm not in denial that we as a species are omnivores, of course we are and the eating of meat has been pivotal in our evolution. However, we are far from obligate carnivores and as long as you don't try to live off just bread and potatoes you can find everything you need in a vegan diet. Dark leafy greens are a better source of calcium than dairy and there is more protein per calorie in broccoli than there is in beef. Coupled with fortified soy milk and lobbing nutritional yeast in pretty much everything, nutrients sorted! Besides, when your diet has started to poison you it's probably time to evolve again. 

coconut yoghurt, banana and mixed berry smoothie bowl with chia seeds

                               

In my previous existence as a small holder our main sources of meat were what we had raised our selves and game that my partner caught. The welfare of the animals as always a paramount concern however something a friend said to me recently really got me in the feels, "You can't kill something humanely if it doesn't want to die."

                       

                                                  chicken-less chickpea nuggets

Am I going to cock it up on occasion? Yep! I went out the other night for a meal and ordered the veggie burger without the cheese and mayo, well done Kath.  I did however completely overlook the fact it was served in a brioche bun. Doh! Meh, next time I'll remember (hopefully).  

In a few weeks I've dropped a couple of dress sizes, which is probably a couple of stone but I find weighing too depressing so I'm not going there. 

What would Prot do?

Illness and plans.

It's been aaaaaaaages since I last posted. In my defence we've all been horribly ill for about a month.  As soon as one of us gets over it another goes down with it and once it's gone through us all then Spike brings back some new and more exotically horrible the next time.  By the time the day has been done and I've got the boys off to bed I've not had the energy to think let alone organise thoughts to words and then type them out. I think spud summed it up best with....

Snotty, gunky eyes, coughs, chapped lips and cheeks, temperatures, aches and pains the works. Tis the season!

So we've had St David's day, Spike and me made welsh cakes and a massive mess.

Spike really enjoys baking and it's always a great opportunity to get them counting by recognising the numbers on scales, counting how many spoons of flour/sugar etc you put in, how many cakes we cut out, the points on the Stars etc.  It is however, awe inspiring how much and how far one child can dispense flour across a single kitchen. 

I try and get the crayons and pens out for Sam everyday. He loves having a scribble. I also try and get the paints, glue and things to stick out 2-3 times a week. He definitely has artistic aspirations and likes to "sing" atonaly at the top of his lungs as he draws. 

My bargain of the month has been this bundle of play mobil. I got a police station and emergency vehicles, a farm, a big Noah's ark and animals and a vets for £40. Cash back! The boys love them but the bits get EVERYWHERE!

I also got myself some toys this month. The aim is to join a local brass band or jazz workshop band and... *ahem*.... Socialise or something ridiculous like that. I also have my eye on an Autoharp and some music recording software. Just stay in and make music all by myself? Yes yes, a much better idea.

On the subject of music I'm going to see PJ Harvey at the field day festival in June. Yay! I saw her years ago supporting Morrissey in Birmingham. It was the uh huh her era, fantastic. I hands down and heart out adore every single song/video/poem/everything this woman has ever produced and am super excited. I also aim to get Spike and me in a tent at the Greenman festival this year. Groovy.

I leave you with these poorly boys cwtched up under the "bettermaker blanket". I wasn't aware this was a bettermaker blanket until my cousin pointed it out but a bettermaker blanket it is.

Growing up.

First day in uniform goodness me Spike!

Space Saver.

The parental units have gone on a jolly to Spain and Spike is with his Dad for the weekend.  I'm taking the opportunity to get on top of some organising of the kiddos stuff.  Even though my folks place is pretty roomy kids have a wonderful ability to fill every square inch with their stuff.

I got some great Curver storage baskets from Morrisons. Four fit perfectly side by side in the bottom of the Welsh dresser in the conservatory, the end of which had kind of been designated kids stuff space.

 My next job was to organise the stuff in and on the dresser to try create a less cluttered look and some room in the drawers for more kids stuff.

I've got a kid size table and chairs coming for the boys so I needed somewhere for the paper, pens, crayons and the various other materials needed for kid type crap art making.  

I then gave the whole dresser a good rub over with some wood polish/balm type stuff and started my paint pump dispenser type things.  I've been collecting hand soap bottles, washed them out, got the labels off (thanks Cath) and filled them up with paint yay!

Much less waste and mess, HOORAY!

Well, in theory.

Spud and I had a great day today, I had planned to take him swimming but the rain was so absurdly heavy I didn't even want to drive in it, let alone drag a child through a car park in it. 

Luckily Spud loves hanging out. 

I broke out the new blocks I got him from Morrisons the other day.  He had loads of fun with them, we built towers and did some counting.  He gets the concept of counting although every number is "Tee".  

We also sang nursery rhymes, hilariously he continues his approach to counting with singing.  So "Baa Baa Black Sheep" is "Baa Baa Baa Baa Baa Baa WOOOOOOL!"  And "Row Row Row The Boat" is "Row Row Row Row Row Row STEEEEEEAM, Row Row Row AHHHHH!"

And of course we did painting using our new paint pumps..

I save the really long lengths of paper that come in Amazon parcels for painting and colouring type activities.

Concentration.

"Look Spud you did an awesome tree!"
"Nuh, quack quack!"

"righto"

Both of the boys are over their Dad's house tomorrow.  Don't know what I'm going to do with myself, how strange.  I've got about a thousand sewing projects started that need finishing, might have a bash at getting on top of some of those.

xoxo

Lamination nation.

Mountain Mumma heights has been turned into a wipe clean paradise thanks to....

THIS...

Huzzah, I have now been able to level up our morning message literacy activity.

  

As well as being able to help him identify words by sight, select and stick the words himself, I also 

write out what our main plans are for the day underneath with a whiteboard marker. 

I'm also in the process of making some activities

Here he can use a white board marker to write over my words and then also select the corresponding letter cards to spell out the words.

In other news Spike's teacher has put in a bid for some of the educational psychologists time next time he/she is at the school to get the ball rolling with him being formally assessed. She was at pains to point out that assessments at nursery don't often happen as at that age they are pretty low priority; the suggestion seemed to be that ed psych have a set amount of time to spend in the school and start with referrals in the top year and work down. If they run out of time before they get to Spike then 

Pthere will be no assessment. If this is the case I may have to see if there are other avenues other than the educational one for me to get him a referral/assessment. 

With the rising threes staring in January his class size has almost doubled and it has got a lot more 

noisy and disruptive. He has started saying things like he "doesn't like nursery" and "nursery is boring" which is a massive shift from before Christmas where he would ask every single day when he was going to nursery next and call a register of his toys using his class mates names. His teacher has said that he is evermore  withdrawing  into his little rituals  in class as the younger children's behaviour and play seems to be overwhelming him.

The nursery have been fantastic on keeping me updated on his progress in class 

A drawing of the three little pigs, I think "Miss" did the first pig to get him started. 

Self portrait.

The school uses the seesaw app to upload pictures of the children's work and activities during their sessions. It's fantastic, they also just type the homework for the weekend up there so there's no loosing it in school bag - house transfer etc. I just love seeing the photos of what he and his classmates get up to in class.

Spud has been a bit snotty and teethy of late. He is still doing THAT SCREAM. I don't know how to discourage him. It's like acknowledging he has done it just feeds the attention seeking nature of him 

doing it in the first place. However, it really is THAT BAD it is almost impossible not to acknowledge it has happened on some level. It's hard to ignore blood coming from the ears.

It's a good job he is my super cute cuddly spuddly or we would be having problems. He's getting super chatty now. We have...

Peeeach = please/ give it to me quicker

Nuh = sod off

Kich = cuddle/kiss

Uh? = what do you want?

Whas thaaa? = what is this thing I am pointing at and can I put it in my mouth?

Ahhh gan = all gone

Key! = spike/ pops/ milk/ drink

Iya = salutations

Car

Bye bye

Night night and various animal noises and names. 

After picking up Spikey from nursery today I took the boys through the car wash. I kind of wish I had just had the cheapest one done. My theory was that it was so bad that it needed the most thorough one but with automated car washes the reality seems to be the worse the car is the less effective the wash is. Anyway, Spike  thought it was the coolest thing in the world but Spud is yet to be convinced. There was no out and out crying but there was a bit of "the f*ck is this?" Face pulling. 

Spike is spending Friday night to Sunday night at his Dad's so I may take Sam swimming on Saturday as he has never been before. Looking forward to it as it has been ages since I last went and Spud and I seldom get quality time together.

Xoxo

#itaffectsme

Hello dear reader, please will you consider supporting this little campaign?

Taken from the #itaffectsme Facebook page...


"It affects every single one of us whether through a family member, ourselves, friends, partners or just someone you see in the street or like me, crying on the tube. Yes, I am that girl.
SO I've come up with an idea to start spreading awareness on social media to get people talking and learning about mental health. Admittedly not an original idea but an idea nonetheless!
Now everyone loves a selfie, my news feed is full of them, that and engagements or cats, or cats getting engaged. But what I would love you all to do is take a selfie with a post-it note on your forehead saying #itaffectsme. Like my ridiculous cover pic.
Because it does, it affects all of us. And then put the link to the Mind donation page, donate and then share and share and share https://www.mind.org.uk/get-involved/giving-to-mind/donate/
#itaffectsme is simply the statement that at some point in all our lives we have seen or known mental illness in ourselves or others and have been affected or moved by it.
And the selfie is to stop people having the need to hide, or be embarrassed by it, to show a united front and to express the universality of these illnesses.
I would freaking love it if you would all support me in this endeavour, it is such an important issue and you have no idea how much I appreciate all your help in advance.
The plan is I will post a video on FB and Twitter on Tuesday at 9am with instructions and my own selfie BUT if you guys could already have your selfies taken so you can upload them and the link straight away that would be amazing.
I'll post at 9am Tuesday so you can be fingers at the ready!
Thank you so much in advance for all your love and support always and big smooches all round."


Don't forget #itaffectsme (@itaffectsme on Twitter.)

Text SUPPORT to 70660 to donate £3 to MIND

Literacy Love

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo... the literacy initiative begins!

Actually for quite a while now we've been doing a "Morning Message". I first read about it on Jennifer's website and thought it was a great, free and useful little tool. More about it here.  

I tend to do the Morning Message over breakfast. While the boys are eating we talk about what day it is (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday etc), the weather, what we are doing imminently and what we are going to do later.  It didn't take long for Spike to become familiar with the format; the predictability is helpful as Spike likes it when he knows what to expect.  I'm trying to use phonics and cvc words as much as possible to help him become accustomed to them. They are great words to start off with as they tend to sound exactly how they are spelled which is good for kids as it is less confusing for them. The Morning Message is also great because Spike decides what we write; the fact that Spike is so involved with what is being written helps to keep him engaged.

The pink underlined words are words that he recognises/we are working on him recognising.

As you can see we are mainly working on the smaller words at the moment.  On this message he was able to recognise "is", "no" and "at".  We have been doing the Morning Message for a few weeks and I am already seeing an improvement in Spike.  He is able to predict correct linking words such as "is", "in", "at" and "on" etc whilst doing the message and is also using these words more in his general speech throughout the day.

In the afternoon we did a Treasure Hunt.  

I wrote a list of things for Spike to find which he loved doing. Then after he had found all the objects he counted the objects and wrote down how many there were. 

Here he is telling me that there is a difference between stormtroopers and snowtroopers, silly Mummy!

I wrote the numbers first in a light colour pen in the box and then Spike drew over them in a darker pen. He also wrote over the numbers in words identifying each letter as he went.

It was a good activity and will definitely be doing it with him again.  When the weather clears up it would be a good one to do outside including some tree and plant identification. Hopefully by then he will also be ready to do some sort of art activity off the back of it. I'm not holding my breath though. I like the idea of incorporating other learning themes within the literacy activity. So here there was a fair bit of maths but we also talked about machines, which of his animals live on the continent of Africa, characteristics of the animals and dinosaurs and their habitats and the difference between machines and living things. Apparently not doing a poo is one of the more significant points.  

Spud yn dweud nos da....  

xoxo

The spectrum and us.

There was always something about Spike. He was gorgeous and super clever but something niggled me.  He was a fantastic baby; he fed well, slept well, was content, would play great by himself, was interested in numbers and picked up new information really quickly.  For months I took comments on how alert he was as a compliment.  I clearly had a little genius in the making and we all think our little crotch goblins are going to be the second coming of Jesus Christ secretly.  He was WAY ahead on all of his milestones, building massive towers out of blocks when the milestones said 3-4 blocks and had double the vocabulary.  Then at around 16 months the talking stopped, even "Mummy" and "Daddy" and he started talking in scribble.  This extended until we went on holiday when he was 22 months and while he was on my shoulders some seagulls flew over us and he pointed at them as said "birds!".  YES SPIKEY BIRDS!!! That same holiday we also got "sand", "sea", "beach" and "flag".  We have built from there since and whilst he is certainly still a bright boy his speech is quite robotic.  He hates chit chat, his conversational skills are best described as ruthlessly efficient.  

Socially Spikey has always struggled. He doesn't have any interest in joint activities. I consider myself a bit of an arty farty type and from about the time he could support his own head I had designated the end of the kitchen as The Kid Craft Area. It groaned with poster paints (with the proper lids that the paint brush fits in!), glitter, foam shapes, coloured feathers, coloured lollipop sticks, pom poms, glue sticks, stickers and a myriad other supplies.  It is so hard to get him to do any sort of arty activity.  Occasionally the mood will take him and it generally always takes a really sensory angle such as hand/finger/face/whole body prints. I have never been able to get him to use a colouring book and he has never had any interest in drawing or writing. 

The Nursery has said that he does the same things everyday and has little interaction with the other children, preferring to observe them.  On tidying up after the children leave for the day his teacher started noticing little caches of lined up objects hidden around the room; eventually she realised Spike was doing it.  He refuses to be touched by his teachers and even hates being touched by me unsuspectingly.  He will howl as if in pain or fright from just a hand being placed on his shoulder. 

 Noises are also a big thing for him. His major hatred is a two-stroke engine like you would find in a petrol lawn mower, hedge strimmer or chainsaw. Quad bikes and motor bikes are also foe. Fair enough you may say, they are loud. But does it really warrant planking on the side of the road to cope with the over stimulus of a chain saw being used 3 miles away half way up the mountain?  One time we'd been for a walk down the lane and two quad bikes drove passed us resulting in a melt down of truly biblical proportions. I had to carry him back up the VERY STEEP LANE as he was terrified of more quad bikes coming. This is a kid who would (if you didn't stop him) march up to and jump on the biggest most maddest horse or a growling dog. He'll climb anything, isn't afraid of falling and you have to watch him like a hawk because he'll throw himself off stuff for the fun of it.

Early on it is hard to pin down your niggles as anything legitimate as children all develop so differently and he was my first. It's only really crystallised for me now Spud is getting older and I can compare the two.  Ahhh THAT'S what conversational babbling is supposed to sound like. Also, Autism presents so differently from child to child. The spectrum is huge and even children who are diagnosed within the same bracket can exhibit very different behaviours.  When you first start bouncing your observations of your child's quirks to other people you'll get a couple of, "No he can't have autism he smiles too much/he can make eye contact/he talks too well".  Not entirely unsurprisingly it apparently turns out that your kid doesn't have to act like the understudy in Mercury Rising in order to have autism. 

We are very much in the early stages of diagnosis. The teacher is fairly certain and tests are apparently going to happen.  Regardless of what diagnosis he gets he's high functioning and in many respects it's a positive thing.  If you can capture his interest in a subject it is sooooo easy to get him to take on board the information. He practically teaches himself anything to do with maths/numbers. But there are drawbacks and Mike's obvious one is getting him writing.  However, I have some initiatives to hand and will keep you updated on the results.

Ciao Ciao x 

The Best Thing I've....

Read | I'm getting myself the Game of Thrones books to read. I also want to fill in all the gaps in my Terry Pratchett reading as well.



Watched | I have finally caved and started watching Game of Thrones. You were all right, it is very good.

Heard | Really loving me a bit of Jenny Lee at the moment:

Also Courtney Barnett:

Made | Loads of makes on the go at the moment. Quilts, crochet, sewing and scrapbooking up to my eyeballs as usual in WIPs. A project I am most excited about is my studio Ghibli playset that I am making for my Niece's up coming second birthday. I am crocheting the Totoro characters and a large Cat Bus for them all to fit into. The patterns will be available for free on this blog.

So far I have completed a Chibi Totoro you can find the pattern here

Worn | Mainly enormous jumpers as it's starting to get chilly on the mountain. Also a lovely scarf that my sister got me for Christmas, a really wide and really long one. The way a scarf should be!



And Lastly ... I'm thinking about my to-do lists this year a lot. For Myself and for the boys.


For myself,

• Lose weight 
• Do my bookkeeping qualifications 
• One day trip a week with the boys 
• Get outside everyday 
• Go to the caravan more 
• Visit the Pratchett's in Oxford 
• Start playing a musical instrument again 
• Read more 

The boys list is more a list of the places I want to take them this year.

Bristol Zoo
An Aquarium
Legoland
Ape Sanctuary
St Fagans
Noah's Ark Zoo
Margam lots with Aunty Hannah
Big Pit
Raglan Castle
Caerleon Baths, Museum, barracks and Amphitheatre
Chepstow Castle
Oakwood
Techniquest
Newport Wetlands
Caldicot Castle
Festival Park Owl sanctuary
Walnut Tree Farm Park
Pontypool and Blaenavon Steam Railway
Twmbarlwm
Folly Tower
Neath Abbey
Swimming at least once a fortnight if we can.
Pontypridd Pit Pony Sanctuary
Wookey Hole
Cardiff Museum, I have a feeling we are going to have to go here often to see those flipping Mammoths.


There will be lots more to add to this as the year goes on I am sure!

(I pinched this from Eileen at In My Playroom)

Winter Photographic Scavenger Hunt.

The Winter Photographic Scavenger Hunt popped up on my reading list somehow and looked fun!  Most of the people I follow on here I have found through my cousin Ann so suspect that is how I found it.

These are my finds so far...

2) Tinsel. 

 Spud was helping me find the things on the scavenger hunt.

4) A Star.

  Well, star cookie cutters... but I love them! A much appreciated gift from my lovely friends, The Pratchetts in Oxford.

                                                         5) A Snowman

.... or... snow family.  I feel I may be playing fast and loose with the titles again.  This came home from nursery at the end of term.

6) A tree that has lost all its leaves.

  Four generations of my family have climbed this tree.  Its a good tree.

7. Berries or Nuts.

  Well,  these would be berries which Spud and I found in the garden.

12) A Fancy Button.

  Well it's not massively fancy I'll grant you that, but it is pink and in the shape of a flower.  That makes it pretty fancy compared to the buttons on most of my clothes. This came off a painting of a gingerbread man that Spike brought home from nursery.

18) An arrow

 On the weather vane in our garden. Nice view of Cwmbran in the background.

20. Cutlery.

 Yep.

21) Your Own Handwriting

My to-do list this year.

That's nine out of Twenty one photo's to get done, so not a bad start!