Fishing Game Tutorial

Jacob frequently asks to play fishing.  This involves sitting on the edge of the decking, waving bamboo sticks around and proclaiming that we've caught Stuff (Stuff doesn't have to be limited to fish.  We've caught bears, spiders, sharks, flowers, vegetables ... pretty much anything he can imagine or see).  Still, I thought it would be nice if he had a proper fishing game, and having some felt in various colours, I decided to make a rainbow of fish.

I'm sure I must have seen this fishing game somewhere, but I don't recall where so I can't add credit where it's due.  Still, I'm sure it's different enough that I can claim intellectual property ;)  I should really have done pictures for a tutorial as I was making them, but it's pretty simple really, so I'll just make it up.

1. Get some felt.  Tesco do a nice set of multi-coloured felt, which I've used for tons of craft projects where I needed little bits.  Otherwise, I buy individual sheets as I need them.

2. Imagine a fish shape.  Better yet, draw a fish shape on a piece of paper.  Copy/trace this onto your felt (fold it first, so you get both sides).  Cut them out (at the same time.  Pin them together to aid this).

3. This tutorial doesn't sound much like a proper tutorial.  Sorry.

4.  Sew on buttons for eyes, or bits of felt, or fabric, or whatever you like.  I did some with buttons, some with bits of white felt sewn on with black French knots for pupils.  I don't know if fish have pupils.

5.  Sew on fins, if you want them.  I embroidered some, used some sticky felt shapes I had in my Box for others.  If you haven't got a Box, I can't help you here.

6.  Sew the sides of the fish together, using blanket stitch, because it looks nice.  Look on youtube for blanket stitch tutorials, it's very easy.  I used a nice contrasting thread.  When I ran out of patience, I sewed straight lines on the back finny bit, so I didn't have to stuff it.

7.  Before you get to the end, stuff using fibrefill or whatever floats your boat.

8.  Close it off at the mouth area, adding a washer to your last stitch and finishing off under the washer.  After I spent a week searching for (and finding!) individual washers in car parks, I found that you can buy a box of about a million of the fuckers, for about 99p from Poundstretcher.  If your consumerist sensibilities don't allow you to shop in Poundstretcher, I can't help you.

9.  Spent fricking ages trying to find cheap magnets-with-holes-in-them to tie onto string for a fishing rod.  Give up, and buy these cool extendable picker-upper things from the cheap yellow-box section of Tesco.  They have a super-strong magnet on one end, collapse into a pen shape, are good for picking up things that have fallen into tiny gaps, and work nicely as fishing rods in a magnetic fishing game.

10.  Make a nice drawstring pondy thing, to keep it all in and use as a pond to fish in.  I haven't done this yet.

11.  Ta-dah!  Marvel at your incredible crafting skills.  I do, on a daily basis.

Jacob LOVES this game, he makes his own rules up, but he mostly likes waving the stick around and doing the colours of the fish in English and Welsh.  See, it's totally educational.

Enjoy ;)

Octonauts and the Great Ice Capade

(I was undecided as to whether 'Ice Capade' should be one word or two.  I feel it should be one, but The Ice Capades, are two, as I found when googling.  I also found this video from 1988, showing an unfeasibly-young Jason Bateman and Alyssa Milano presenting Super Mario Bros at the Ice Capades.  It's worth it, even if just for Jason Bateman's awesome hair-and-jumper combination.)

Before Jacob was even a twinkle in anyone's eye, we stumbled across an original Octonauts book in Borders and as the style appealed to our kawaii-sensibilities, we bought it.  We subsequently had a child, and when he became old enough to enjoy use CBeebies as a babysitter, we were very excited to find that they were in the process of making it into an animated series.

Of course, because Jacob is a sensible child, he loves the Octonauts with a passion second to none, and we are overjoyed that we can indulge our whims with him, rather than having to put up with interminable games of things we don't care tuppence about (like ... I'm struggling to think of another CBeebies show with a comparible amount of merchandise that we actually dislike.  We do like our children's TV shows.  We used to record Charlie and Lola to watch before bed ... again, pre-Jacob).

Anyway, today marked our fourth consecutive nappy-free day, so we decided to get Jacob something to say well done.  By chance, Tesco had the Peso playset which is usually impossible to find (and which is why we have several Barnacles and Kwaziis from various playsets, but no Peso), so we snapped it up.  Jacob was practically shaking with excitement when we told him what it was for :D

And by pure coincidence, I spent much of yesterday evening progressively freezing layers of Octonauts toys into a tupperware container, ready for a Science experiment on liquids and solids today.  When we got home, I presented Jacob with his very own Octonauts iceberg (Peso even came with an iceberg, we really could not have planned this better) to investigate.

He also had a bowl of warm water, a sponge, a pipette, a blunt knife and a salt-shaker.  Peso oversaw all the ice-breaking action.

Jacob had a whale (ha) of a time, scrubbing the iceblock, sprinkling it with salt and hearing it crack, and biting it with the shark-like teeth of the Gup-B.

As he rescued each Octonaut/Creature from the ice, they were lined up and attended to by medic Peso, who wrapped them warmly in the towel so they could recover from their iceventure.

We ended up with a bowl of freezing cold water, a soaking wet carpet, and a very happy child who understands the properties of ice, the differences between liquid and solid, and why things float or sink.  Perhaps an activity better suited to the garden on a hot day, but a winner nonetheless.


Disclaimer: post not sponsored by Mattel.  But if they would like to send me a shed-load of free Octonauts toys as a thank you, they would be most welcome :D

#2 and #3 done already!

Look at that - just 4 little days into my half-term break and somehow, I've done 2 out of the 5 things off my list. And when I say 'I', I mean 'we'. Jamie needed to print some stuff, so he hoiked the printer upstairs and installed it into his shiny new study.

And this evening, a half-fledged idea to make J-cub a play-kitchen area in the living room turned into 4 straight hours of sorting and organising toys, so that everything is easily accessible and easily tidyable. Very important. We've got a bit lax on the old tidying front round here, and it's doing my head in.

So Jacob's cafe is now open for business, with his cash register and wares available on the left, his oven ready to cook breakfasts and light lunches, fresh fruit and veg in their baskets, and his teapot and cup out on the table ready to pour me a thousand imaginary cups of coffee. And Batty and Judy are eagerly sitting at the table, awaiting service.

It's gonna be yet another rainy day tomorrow, and for once, we'll be prepared with plenty of fun things to do. Today J-cub went the whole day without his dummy and bunny (apart from naptime), and it's good to have lots of play options if he's going to do the same tomorrow.

A little amusing moment from our day earlier - J-cub has (finally) learnt to say sorry and due to the bucketfuls of reinforcement we've been pouring over him when he says it spontaneously, he's now over-using it slightly. Case in point: I was in the kitchen earlier, bashed my elbow and shouted 'Ow!'. J-cub (in the lounge, out of sight), called "Sorry Mummy!".

Quite possibly the funniest, and cutest, thing he's ever done.

Easter egg hunt

Amongst all the excitement of our picnics yesterday, we forgot to have our Easter egg hunt. Thankfully, I'd also forgotten to actually get the hunt ready, so there weren't piles of slug-ridden, melted chocolate eggs all over the garden. I popped out and hid (I use the term loosely, as I couldn't have made them much more obvious and he still needed help to find them) them around the garden, before we let him loose with a handcart to collect them in (no baskets, all buckets full of sand and shells). My camera was out of battery, so I was using Jamie's phone to record the occasion, and managed to capture the moment when the first egg opened and its contents spilled out - see them here in freefall:

About 6 hours and 12,000 cries of "Gegg!" later, he found the jackpot and we took them out of the sun to investigate...

...and J-cub discovered that he likes chocolate, a lot. By the end of the day, he could even unwrap tiny mini foil-covered eggs himself, carefully removing every last scrap of foil before popping it in his mouth with a declaration of "Mmmmm, nummy!".

All remaining chocolate will now be snaffled this evening, for the good of his waistline (and to the detriment of my own).

Can we have some time off, please?

Several PJ-days in a row for us all, as we nicely round off last week's bug with a high-fever-inducing-virus, which has struck us all in turn over the last few days. I hate this time of year.

I do wonder how much quicker we'd get better (and, to be fair, how much less ill we'd be in the first place, without nursery-bugs added into the mix) if we didn't have a super-energetic toddler to wrangle, when all we feel like doing is carting our sweaty brows and achingbones back to bed, to wallow in self-pity and sweat for 24 hours. Not that I'd be without him, you understand. It's just that on days when you haven't slept due to bone-shaking chills wracking your body throughout the night, and your muscles are consequently as seized up as though you'd run a marathon, and your head feels like it's been wrapped in clingfilm, and you can't see straight ... on days like these having a toddler burst into tears because you have the audacity to lie down on the sofa, or repeatedly demand "Mummy delp!" when he wants you to help him build a tower, or just pull and tug at every appendage every time you sit down for FIVE SECONDS ........ it can just all be a bit much.

At least, at this age, he is slightly more independent, capable of getting himself snacks if we let him loose in the kitchen. He likes to stand on his little stool and watch me make toast, demanding "Triangle toast Mummy!" while he plays with the salt and pepper shakers, which are people-shaped and 'nest' in a little cuddle. "Tuddle Daddies!" he says, adorably.

He's also pretty good at entertaining himself some of the time, as long as a Finding Nemo DVD isn't too far off, and Tilly is somewhere closeby for tail-grabbing opportunities. This little moon-buggy vehicle has fold-down steps on one side, and he'll happily spend ages walking all his little people up the steps. (No, I don't know what's going on with his face here...)

This is a J-cub patented Look, with a capital L. He cuts his eyes at you from under his fringe, with his lips tight and almost-but-not-quite-smiling. It usually means he's up to some variety of No Good. Here, it's because he knows his Daddy wants to be left alone, but Daddy's legs are crossed in such a way that his foot makes a perfect bouncy-seat, and J-cub wants a ride. And he's getting one, whether his Daddy likes it or not...

...see?

He managed to get a double-bouncy foot ride here (the holy grail), as my legs were similarly crossed, but in mirror fashion, so he could get on both our feet at once, and the bounce was much more secure (am I explaining this at all well? It makes perfect sense here...)

And finally, when all else fails, the arrival of the postman (at 2pm this week - what is the world coming to?) always brings some delight - here an Amazon packet made a perfect hat, and it also was kind enough to be printed with the number 2 on BOTH SIDES, so J-cub could turn it over and over, each time announcing "Doo!" and carefully forcing 2 non-compliant fingers to stand up together to illustrate his point.

Busy weekend ahead - hopefully we can battle through the illness long enough to get through it all. Why can't I be ill on days when I only have work to contend with? I could just leave him in nursery and spend a restful day in bed then...

Quiet weekend

The end of this half-term break has come about all too soon, as always. And, as always, I steadily came down with some sort of exhausting virus which left me in bed all day Thursday and Friday, with Jamie following me over the weekend and J-cub spiking a temperature all day today. Fingers crossed it'll pass for them as quickly as it did for me (although actually, in retrospect I've been ill pretty much all week, and only today am I feeling better). Meanwhile, we've done lots of nothing this weekend, apart from watching Finding Nemo sixty-three million times (I swear, J-cub wakes up chanting 'Meemo, meema, meemo, meema' every day) and spending an awful lot of time cuddling.

J-cub's cries of 'Tuddle Tilly!' every time she curls up to sleep are now grumpily tolerated, although not so much when he tries to sit on her.

We've had the return of Buckethead very much in evidence this last week...

And inexplicable signings of 'crocodile' in the bath, even though there are no crocodiles to be seen and he doesn't seem particularly perturbed by whatever dangers he's imagining...

I spent today's naptime dusting off my shiny new sewing machine and whipping up a fleece lined Dinosaur hat, which I was super-proud of (especially after I'd unstitched the first attempt, which had the stegosaur spikes going up the back and then down one side) but which J-cub flat out refused to wear. 'Dorodee dat!' he shouted angrily, banging it down on her head. And, to be fair, Dorothy is a dinosaur after all...

So long half-term, back to work tomorrow ... :(

Day 25 - In the garden

(Friday August 13th)

Hmmmm I hadn't realised it was Friday the 13th until I typed the date above. That might account for why I went into a bit of a shutdown and found it hard to function all day.

Still, we had some fun playing in the sunshine in the garden:

And J-cub once again 'helped' me in the garden. And ate some French beans straight off the wigwam. Yum.

Day 18 - Family fun

(Friday August 6th)

We all spent the day at home today, having lunch and photos and with lots of visitors dropping in and out all afternoon to wish my sister and her fiance love and luck.

J-cub thoroughly charmed all and sundry by being utterly charming:

...and playing some kind of weird envelope-based game with his Uncle (to be) Sebbo.

Later in the afternoon, someone delivered the cupcakes for the wedding cake, which were stored in the garage and we had to keep going out for a quick look at because they were SO beautiful. I wanted a tower of cupcakes for my wedding, but I was argued down by my mum, who thought it was weird. My sister always gets what she (and I) want(s).

Due to these frequent garagey trips, the inner door from the utility room down some steps into the garage was propped open, as was the door from the utility room down some steps into the garden. J-cub decided this was a perfect opportunity to try out his stair skills, by climbing from the garden, across the utility room, and down into the garage (and vice versa), over and over again. The garage was empty and very echoey, and perfect for an impromptu baby disco. We practised singing and shouting and dancing (spinning around) and generally had a whale of a time with nothing for him to Not Touch and lots of room for him to run around. If I lived there, I'd so turn the garage into a playroom, it would be AWESOME.

A Day in Pictures

I've started writing about 20 different blog posts today, but gave up on all of them. Instead, I've decided to share some of the hundreds of photos I take of my boy each day. Today has been (of course) marred by coughing, runny nose, diarrhoea and vomiting. When will it end???

We've still managed to have a lovely day though. I thought maybe there were too many photos here to post, but I don't really care. This blog is for me, as well as you, and I like them. So there.

07:00 Up at the crack of dawn, we decide to beat the Easter crowds and get our shopping done early after dropping Jamie off at the train station to go to Manchester to see his beloved United

07:15 - J-cub has a power nap

07:45 - Home and smug with all the shopping done

12:41 - J-cub is feeling poorly and hungry and tired

13:02 - Happily eating rice-cake, houmous and salmon before being sick everywhere

13:20 - Back to his favourite spot, resting on his fleece blanket

13:32 - Streaming with cold

13:34 - Playing some music

13:38 - Tired and grumpy and ready for bed

15:04 - J-cub went down for his nap at 13:45. At 14:30, after my lunch, I went back to bed too. It takes me ages to fall asleep, and I was just dropping off when I heard him banging around. New favourite game = balancing Things on Other Things. Jemaine and Blue Ted on the cot rail.

15:05 - Slapping the wall (J-cub is experienced at making the most noise possible in his cot)

15:06 - Waving for the camera

15:36 - More balancing - squishy ball on the back of the chair...

15:37 - ...and dummy on the back of the chair

16:42 - Walk to the duckpond with giraffe ears in place to quell the angry sobs caused by having his nappy changed

16:43 - I join in the giraffe-ear fun. I meant just to walk to the duckpond and back, but he kept looking up at me with such delight that I kept on walking. We walked for an hour, all around the woods surrounding our village. I was unprepared for the mud (wearing suede boots), the 2 massive hills (forgot my inhaler) and the effort of the walk (I managed to switch the Mei Tai from my front to my back without taking J-cub out, never done that before). We saw 2 ducks and 3 dogs and it was VERY exciting

18:06 - Tea of toast, yoghurt and pear to prevent any further bad tummyness. J-cub adores pears.