Saturday 29 March 2014

Puddle jumping in Cleadon Park & shell collecting on Marsden bay.

I've had a bad week. The first couple of days I had agony with toothache, and then came the terrifying, horrible dental surgery experience, so we didn't get out of the house at all until Friday, which was awful for everybody. (Mammy gets a bit "caged-cheetah" when she's housebound!).

We also had some seriously impressive thunder storms. All fiery-fork lightening and hail, which even I didn't want to go out in!

So when it got to Friday and I felt a bit better, I grabbed Charlie and his wellies, and we went hunting for some big splashy puddles in the park.

My personal highlight of the week has to be the breakthrough with Charlie's messy play. He allowed himself to be absolutely covered in yellow and green paint this week, and for him that's massive. He actually sat in the tuff tray and put his hands and feet in it himself; whereas before anything sticky or wet or slimy would have him running for the safety of familiar things. He was always curious, but his nerves held him back.

I've had to be very patient with him, but with some gentle encouragement and praise (and mammy & daddy getting stuck in too!), he's starting to realise that getting messy can be fun!





Picking up a dirty stick and digging with it in the mud! (So proud!)
He did all this himself. Swirling the water around with his finger and then putting his entire hand in and feeling the mud.


Couldn't wait to go off by himself exploring!
He found lots of flowers, and correctly named the colour pink.
He needs a bit more help with yellow and white.


I really want to grow some of these of our own!

Heading home

Mothers day

It still feels really strange being one of the actual mothers on Mothers Day and not just the daughters! I love it though. This was my second Mothers Day, and we have a sort of tradition going where instead of buying cards to send each-other "from Charlie" we get him to finger paint reusable card, (when he's older he'll be able to get more crafty with glue etc).

A few days ago he discovered painting with a paintbrush, and loved it! So daddy helped him to paint me too cards, made out of some of the ridiculous amount of cardboard that his tuff tray came in!

One of the cards is a purple dinosaur and the other one is daffodils, trees and a sun. I love them both and will be proudly displaying them on what will be our 'art' wall in the play/music room upstairs.

They both have lovely messages inside :).

I also got two gorgeous lush items which I'll be reviewing at some point next week.

For a Mothers Day outing, I asked if we could all go to Marsden Bay because I love it. There's a gorgeous pebble beach, loads of cliffs with seagull nests, "Seagull island" and a "Grotto" inside the rocks.

It was really foggy and misty. The sea was wild and dramatic and the tide was coming in which limited our time on the beach, but I still loved it. We collected shells, scooped sand,  watched the waves and then had a lovely time in the Grotto.

It was a perfect Mothers Day. 

    I tried to get him interested in my brilliant shell-find but he'd found another fun activity, picking up sand and gravel and sprinkling it onto a big rock! He shouted "rock!" as he was doing it, and as I was carrying him up the steps afterwards "Bye rock!".... I think he likes big rocks. That's okay!

Charlie found a huge rusty.... thing... he called it "wheels!" I was cautious of him touching it (and banging his head on it) but he was really interested in dropping pebbles through it and feeling the rusty texture.


                                                                     In the Grotto in the cave!

A great mothers day!


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3 comments:

  1. Some lovely photos of Charlie enjoying the muddy puddles - messy play can be the most fun play a child can have and it's great for their exploring and sensory experience. I'm glad you had a lovely family day at the beach and the sweet photos of you and Charlie. Happy Mothers Day and thanks for linking up and sharing with Country Kids.

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  2. Love your funny face photos =P It is always nice to go out and about! Looks like you had so much fun here. #countrykids

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  3. What a cutie, looks like you had lots of fun

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