Geekling's Newborn Nursery

It won't be long before I am re-doing Geekling's nursery, so I thought I'd post about his newborn nursery (which is largely the same now aside from a few changes, such as a new bookshelf, new cot due to the first second-hand one being a nightmare of breakages and problems, new block out curtains, and dropping the cot height etc).

Here is Geekling's first cot.  I made the cot valance and nappy stacker myself from freehand patterns.  The balloons were put in the cot to keep our cat out.

The view from the door.

Here are some canvas I made and put above his cot.  Sadly, I think the effect is lost on redacting Geekling's name but I don't really want that appearing on the blog.

I painted the wooden letters white, then glued them on after having glued the material on.  The material I used matches squares from a quilt I made him (that is rather embarassingly still sitting waiting for the ribbon edging to be sewed on...).  I also began making a mobile of birds from the same material but never finished it.

Easter presents - plastic eggs and finger puppets

Geekling is almost 14 months and has never had chocolate, and we weren't about to change that over Easter.  So I got a pack of plastic eggs and put some of his favourite treats inside - sultanas and dry nutrigrain cereal.  I also made a couple of felt bunny finger puppets and put them inside a couple of eggs.

Here and here are the puppets I based Geekling's on.

And here are the ones I made (still tail-less, as I haven't made it to a craft supplies store or made some pom poms yet):

Update: I am *almost* finished reading through one of my new favourite blogs from the start, and have under 12 months of posts left to read!  I just came across her post from last Easter where she'd made the same little finger puppets and thought I best link it since I copy so many other ideas from her.

Making shopping fun!

I hear lots of horror stories about shopping with children, especially toddlers.  I suppose we've had a few public meltdowns, but to be honest I suspect most of them were due to unplanned hold ups extending the trip into meal or sleep times.  Geekling has always loved shopping centres - something about the bright lights and vibrant packages on the shelves all vying for attention?  Now that he is mobile, Geekling really enjoys shopping with us, although he often refuses to sit in the trolley or be carried - he wants to walk everywhere!  It slows us down a little, but he takes such delight in it that we certainly don't mind.

One problem we are having is that he wants to pick things up off the shelf and hand them to us (or occasionally try to make a run for it with his new item :).  This has already caused one breakage - although it wasn't Geekling who broke the goods, it was me!  When he went to grab a ceramic mug from the shelf of the $2 shop, I swooped in to stop him, and my handbag swung straight through between my arm and my body and broke one of the very mugs I was trying to save!  I happily paid for it and took the broken cup home to use as crocks in the bottom of a pot so it wasn't wasted, and I certainly was glad we were in a $2 shop rather than somewhere fancy!

We are going to try to involve Geekling a little more in 'helping' with the groceries - we discovered this weekend that the cat food is the perfect height for him to remove from shelves so we let Geekling pick the 5 cans that will feed our family cat (Z) this fortnight.  He did so well! Z is a fussy kitty and will only eat casserole or mince style tinned food, so we did put one of his selected tins back as it was not the right type, and he did chose one in a different brand to our usual that we kept so it will be interesting to see what Z thinks of his selection.

I wonder what other aisles have products we buy at his height?

Lifeline Bookfest

Geekling and I had a lovely morning yesterday at Caboolture while Hubby had his weekly sleep in.  We went to the Lifeline Bookfest and came out with a swag of books, mostly for Geekling, for $17. All kids books were under $2!

Many of these books are the touchy feely type which Geekling LOVES at the moment.  The "My First Science Book" at the bottom left has some wonderful ideas for fun experiments and lessons that I can't wait to try, although I think Geekling is still a bit young.

After the bookfest we had a brief play by the lake in the same park, Geekling loved watching the ducks, geese, pidgeons and water hens but kept refusing to hold my hand or be picked up, instead wanting to chase them too close to the water so we moved on to the play area.  It was really well suited to toddlers - they had a fantastic swing and other equipment sized for my 13 month old rather than 5 year olds.

We had a great little play, and well and truly wore Geekling out which made for a great nap.

Muffin Tray Meal #1

I've seen muffin tray meals popping up on many of the blogs I follow, and in particular Muffin Tin Mom.  I thought it was a great idea so decided to give it a try today!

Top row (left to right): Nutrigrain, apricots & sultanas, strawberries
Bottom row (l to r): Cheese, farfalle (bow tie) pasta, home made meat(and veg) balls.

I plan to do this at least weekly (most likely on weekends) and aim to include at least one new food each time that Geekling hasn't tried before (in this case, Nutrigrain).

Geekling really loved being able to select what he wanted from separate compartments, although he ate the nutrigrain first, followed by the fruit and left a little of the savory stuff which he had a second go at later.

Half way through I had the bright idea to tape the tray down to stop him flinging it on to the floor, which meant we could enjoy our dinner at the same time.

Homemade Pat Mat

I made Geekling a pat mat once before following a bathroom clean out - Hubby had a jar of hair gel that he had only used once years ago.  Rather than throw it out, I tipped it into a zip-lock bag and watered it down to the perfect consistency and added some red food dye.  Sadly, the only zip-lock bags I had at the time that were large enough were vege steamer bags and had instructions and branding all over them.

Now that we have some nice big plain zip-lock again, last night I snipped a corner off the old one and squeezed the contents into a new plain zip-lock bag, added a little more water and dye, and some glitter.  I taped it to Geekling's highchair tray.

Then the agonising wait til morning to see if he liked it.

Success!  Geekling loved it.  He was fascinated by pressing it and having the thick liquid content move about to reveal the white of the high chair tray underneath.  When he is a bit older a homemade mat like this will be great Montessori style aid for teaching him letters as the large letter can be drawn on the underside of the mat in permanent marker or on a piece of paper under the mat for him to trace.

I think the same thing could be achieved using shampoo, conditioner or any number of bathroom lotions (the latter two of which would be more opaque).  You'd probably need little or no water added if you used these substitutes.

Fuzzy Yellow Ducklings

After coming across the absolutely GORGEOUS "CAT" concept book by Matthew Van Fleet in Big W, but failing to buy it only to find it absent when I went back, I've fallen head over heels in love with Van Fleet childrens books.  I went and bought CAT online, along with a couple of other Van Fleet books, and a couple of favourites from my own childhood ("Dear Zoo" and "There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed A Fly")

I was thrilled to open my package today - it was "Fuzzy Yellow Ducklings" by Van Fleet and Geekling loves it.  I just knew he would, as he's a big fan of both pop up or lift the flap books and touch-and-feel books.  I can't wait until the rest of my recent book spending spree arrive!

Speaking of books - The LifeLine Bookfest is on this weekend in Caboolture.  I've only ever been to the ones in the city before, so I hope there are just as many bargains to be had in the Northside version.  I'll be scouring the 'fest for kids books, craft books, gardening books, budgeting books, cook books, cat books and more.  I will report back on my findings after this weekend :)

Kitchen Substitution - Zucchini Mini Muffins

Hubby grated some zucchini and yellow button squash up to use in Geekling's dinner tonight but grated far too much, and as luck would have it I had just purchased a mini muffin tray today - so I decided to whip up some zucchini mini muffins for Geekling's snacks.  I had a quick Google for recipes but many included ingredients I either did not have, or did not have the time to prepare as I was cooking our dinner at the same time.  In the end I roughly used this recipe.

My first problem is that we had run out of butter, and while I had cream on hand I didn't have the time to whip or shake it into butter tonight.  So I substituted flavoured oil - actually the oil I keep saving from sundried tomatoes when I buy them (I'm a bit of a hoarder so half our fridge is filled with dregs like this that I think can find another use).  I think it worked really well, and added a little extra flavour that was needed as I was omitting the bacon and salt.  I didn't measure the zucchini (and squash) - I just added what we had which was well over the recipe requirements, added some sliced spring onion as I was slicing it for our dinner as well and as we have a glut of eggs at the moment I added two instead of one.

The recipe filled my big tray of 24 mini muffins and I had enough to make 3 full sized muffins extra, which Hubby and I will take for lunch.  We sampled one of the mini muffins and it was very tasty :)

Queensland Science Centre

Yesterday Hubby and I took Geekling to the Queensland Science Centre at Southbank.  We thought perhaps it would be a bit too old/advanced for him, but I think you're never too young to start visiting museums and while there were a few things that held little interest for Geekling, and obviously he's too young to grasp the science behind the exhibits, he truly enjoyed the trip and there was plenty he could play with.

We've taken lots of photos, but due to the nature of many of the exhibits being in motion and the photos being taken on a phone, they're not wonderful quality.  But enjoy!

Geekling loved the spinning chair.  Its probably against all the parenting rules ever written, but I spin him around like this in the glider in his nursery sometimes, he thinks its the best :)

Geekling riding the noisy suction device!

A pulley exhibit to lift an 80kg fridge.  Hubby would lift it from another pulley when Geekling would reach for the rope, but I just couldn't capture a photo showing it.

Geekling's absolute favourite - a fan that blows to suspend a beach ball in the air.  He threw a bit of a tanty when we finally moved on!  I'd have let him play for hours but there were other children waiting by then!

He loved the taxidermied birds and bugs (like his Mumma loved as a kid).  Some were set up on a perch, but a few were displayed belly up which I found quite creepy.

Geekling found a friend in the infinity mirror.  It was probably his second favourite after the balloon and took a lot of convincing to get him to move on!

He was so excited to see this table of wooden blocks and loved wrecking the gorgeous pictures the previous visitors had made.  He also kept trying to put them in his mouth so Mumma has made a mental note that things this small are still a no-no.

Geekling *LOVED* Mumma lifting him to peek out of the hole in the box.  He's a bit little to get his head clear out though.

 And lastly:  the result of so much stimulation on the way home :)

Homemade Play Dough

EVERYONE knows how to make homemade play dough.  In fact, I think the hospital staff check new parents have the recipe before they let you take your new baby home.  There is a recipe on the back of most Cream of Tartar packets.  For anyone who doesn't know, my preferred recipe is here.  Its a no cook recipe and takes only a few minutes to make and is so cheap!

I whipped up a batch for Geekling last weekend, and he loved it.  We poked it with our fingers, and used alphabet cookie cutters with letters from our names, and of course Geekling tasted it a couple of times but each time he spat it right back out (which I am happy about - while its non toxic, its quite high in salt).

I've kept the batch in an airtight container, and will have to make some in other colours soon.  I came across another Montessori blog which suggested a "Play dough of the month" type idea, most inspired by American holidays and seasons, and am thinking of adapting it to Aussie seasons and holidays so keep an eye out for monthly play dough updates :)