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