Kentwell May day

(Goblin is 43 months)

To celebrate May day this year we took Goblin to Kentwell Hall in Suffolk to see a reenactment of Tudor life. We took Goblin to the hall last summer and he loved running about in the huge grounds of the manor. This year we are planning to take part in the main summer reenactment so we wanted to Get Goblin used to being there. 

We needn't have worried. Goblin was in his element running all over the place exploring every inch of the manor and its woodland. But what was particularly pleasing was how interested he was in what the re-enactors were doing. He asked lots of questions of everyone he came across.

He also helped decorate the May tree, and chatted with "tudor" children handing out the flags for the May day parade. We had been concerned that he wouldn't like the parade because he isn't keen on loud noises.

But he loved the parade and joined in dancing and singing and running along beside the "Tudor players". I think the only problem with taking him to participate in the summer will be getting him to leave at the end of the event.

If you would like to visit the summer Tudor reenactment at Kentwell hall you need to visit on one of the weekends between 15th June and 7th July, unless you are a homeschooler, in which case you can visit on a special homeschoolers day on Wednesday 3rd July. Ironically you won't find the homeschool day advertised on the regular Kentwell hall website, its on the schools website.

The Sunday Parenting Party - the Parenting Smug list

<center> <a href="http://www.tamingthegoblin.com/search/label/The%20Sunday%20Parenting%20Party"><img border="0" src="http://i.imgur.com/FJIJWl.jpg"/></a></center> Its time for the Sunday Parenting Party. Please link up your parenting posts and check out what others have linked up. Please don't link kids activity posts, they can be shared at Kids Coop. ******

Last week I shared with you one of my disaster mornings when everything got a bit too much and I felt like I was battling my child. When I've had a bad moment, hour, morning or day I sometimes need to remind myself of the good things that are going on.  On a good day just looking at my sons little face or listening to him babble away will make me smile and I know exactly why I love being a parent. But its not so easy when your child is busy wigging out on the floor and you are at the end of your tether.    At times like that I need something a bit more tangible. So I look for all the issues we could have, but don't.  And I list them:

• Well thank goodness he doesn't refuse to eat.
• Well thank goodness he sleeps through the night.
• Well thank goodness he doesn't ever say he's bored.
• Well thank goodness he can play on is own. 

I call this my "Smug list" because lets face it, it relies on you knowing what other parents are having to suffer through and being grateful that you aren't having to deal with that on top of what ever trauma you are facing today.  Do you have a mental parenting smug list - whats on yours? ***** My recommended reads from last week include Are you a Mama like me? ~ Mamas like me Introducing your baby to solids ~ Mums make lists 12 tips for a smoother morning ~ Carrots are orange And now to the linky I'm sharing this at

Kids Coop - Ginger bread letters

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It's Kids Coop. Please link up your child related posts and check out what others have been up to. This week I'm looking the following:

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(Goblin is 43 months)

Goblin has started to take a bit of an interest in letters. I think this has come from nursery where they are trying to get the children to recognise the lets of their name. As a result any time he sees a word beginning with the first letter of his name he says "that word says 'Goblin'". He doesn't quite understand that the letters can make different words that aren't his name. But it's a start. 

I wanted to do some activities at home that would build on this interest, but Goblin can spot a mile off if I try to ram classic education techniques down his throat. And he just won't engage, its of no interest to him. So I have to find ways of incorporating letters into our normal play.

We do a lot of baking so I decided we could make ginger bread letters. We were going to visit friends and we made biscuits for each of the children in the shape of the letter for their name. 

We didn't use biscuit cutters. Instead be cut the letters out with a knife so they were bigger than nornal. 

When we got to the friends house I got Goblin to hand them out, thus having to match letter to name off child.

And now to the linky

The Imperial War Museum Duxford

(Goblin is 43 months)

With the weather improving we've been doing more outdoor outings. Recently we took Goblin to Duxford Imperial War Museum. It is not a cheap day out. Tickets for adults are £17 each. Having said that I hadn't appreciated how enormous Duxford is. You could easily spend an entire day there with hanger after hanger of amazing planes, land vehicles, radar and radio equipment, and informed volunteers on hand to explain stuff enthusiastically.

There are lots of exhibits with buttons and levers so children can interact - although some of them aren't exactly at the right height for little kids. We managed to show Goblin some of the science of aircrafts using fans and control panels.
For older kids this is a wonderful place to learn a bit about WWII, but Goblin is a bit young to be burdened with that so we stuck to the engineering and science side of the learning.

And there are things for the adults to drool over too. Hublet was very excited to find the Blackbird - the fastest manned aircraft and heights flying aircraft ever. Even I was rather impressed by how beautiful its engines were.

The museum hangers sit along side a light aircraft runway. So when you aren't ogling the old planes you can watch the little ones taking off.

As Goblin's vehicle obsession has extended to planes over the past few months this was a pretty perfect day out for us. And the open outdoor space meant he could have a but of a run between hangers so he didn't get too antsy.

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The Sunday Parenting Party - "The one where ....."

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It's the Sunday Parenting Party. Please link up your parenting posts, old or new, anecdote or treasured tips, happy, sad, good or bad. Please don't link kids activities, they can be linked to the kids coop.

***** (Goblin is 43 months)

Goblin has been testing the boundaries recently and I have to admit its probably the hardest period of parenting I've gone through so far. He is utterly delightful as long as he is getting his own way and doing what he wants to do, but the second you ask him to do something - even if its putting his shoes on so you can take him to an activity he has asked to do - he will start screaming "no", throwing himself on the floor, kicking, hitting, bellowing. Well wow! There was me thinking smugly that Goblin's two year old tantrums had been rather mild, when actually they just hadn't fully arrived - he was obviously a late bloomer in the full mega meltdown stakes.

I feel slightly out of my depth as to what to do with him. I've read lots of Positive Parenting books and follow all the blogs. I know the theory and on a good day I can put it into practice.

On a good day I can stay entirely calm while he is having a tantrum, but it doesn't seem to actually make a difference. He still has it and it still lasts a long time. At least I have learnt not to worry about what other people think, so I can quite comfortably sit on the floor in a shop while Goblin screams hysterically and rolls himself about on the floor because I won't buy him yet another Hot Wheels. When I feel the tantrum might be abating I offer a cuddle, which sometimes sends him back to screaming, but sometimes calms him and allows us to move forward. So that's what I do on a good day when I am able to implement my Positive Parenting ideals.

But here is what I did the other day when I entirely failed to use positive parenting techniques.

Goblin had taken over an hour to get his clothes on. I had known it would take a while so I'd got started early. We needed to leave the house at 10am to get to the farm where we were meeting friends. After an hour of him failing to get dressed while messing about down stairs I kinda lost the plot. I grabbed him and carried him under my arm to his room where I threw his clothes in and shut the door yelling "You can come out once you are dressed". I then stomped off to my room where I tried to calm myself down.

To my amazement he got dressed really quickly - which actually only served to irritate me as I'd been trying for an hour to help him. But he then refused to leave the house. He said he didn't want to go to the farm, he wanted to go to the steam trains instead. I agreed to check to see if they were running. When I checked on line they weren't running. I tried to explain this to Goblin and was met with "yes they are".

Well what do I do with that? 

"No Goblin I checked, they aren't running, we can go tomorrow" his response "Yes they are running" Scream, shout, hit.

Not knowing what to do I told him to go to his room to calm down. I hate the idea of sending a child to their room. It feels wrong to me on so many levels - first because its where they sleep and I don't want sleep associated with punishment, second because I don't think kids are good at calming down on their own, I feel 'time in' is better than 'time out'. But to be honest I was losing any patience I had. All my knowledge of what positive parenting solutions I should use where out weighed by the fact that I couldn't calm down. It was better for the both of us to be apart.

Goblin went to his room and when I felt I'd calmed down I went to find him to try once again to explain that we couldn't go to the trains but we could go and see his friends at the farm. I knew if we didn't go to the farm he'd ask in the afternoon and then get upset when I told him we'd missed it.

But I was met by more screaming that the trains were open.

I went and sat at the top of the stairs and sobbed. I was out of ideas. I don't want to fight with my child. I don't want to scream and shout but sometimes I get worn down and 8am is not the best time for me even on a good day.

Eventually I decided my only option was to be tough and stop offering choices. I went and picked him up and informed him we were going to the farm. "You are three, you don't get to dictate what we do".

He shouted and fought as I marched to the car.

By the time we were half way to the farm he'd calmed down, I'd calmed down, we'd both said sorry and we had a lovely morning at the farm. 

But it didn't last long. The afternoon was pretty much more of the same.

Sigh!

Why does it have to be this hard?

*****

My top five from last week are

Peeing outside ~ Raise a boy

100+ brilliant bump and baby bloggers ~ Mums make lists

No School road less travelled ~ Fiddlesticks and Faerymother

Learning to enjoy the ride ~ 3 Children and it

Spin City ~ The Tao of Poop

And now to the linky

Kids Coop - Cardboard boxes

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Its time for Kids Coop. Please link up your child related posts and check out what others have been up to this week. I'm linking the following:

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(Goblin is 42 months)

As Goblin gets older I have become wiser in the art of playing with cardboard boxes. When Goblin sees a giant cardboard box he instantly starts listing things he wants it to be. So the latest box acquired from our good friends was apparently going to be a helicopter and a boat and an aeroplane.
In the past I would have set to work cutting it up and trying to build an elaborated construction (for examples see here and here and here). It would have taken a lot of time and Goblin would have been frustrated while I was busy with my masterpiece.

So now I stick to a few basic rules
1. Try to retain the structural integrity of the box. 
In the past I would have cut down the sides to make the shape more "boaty" but the more you break the boxes integrity the less stable it is and the less durable. This limits the length of time that it will remain intact for play. So keep it looking boxy and get your kid to use their imagination instead.
2. Involve your child in the decorating
In the past I would have spent a lot of time trying to build what Goblin had requested but not included him in the process. Now I try and keep it a lot more simple, and get him to give ideas.
3. Embrace paper fasteners
Paper fasteners are my new secret weapon. All kids like moving parts on their creations right? Well paper fasteners are a super simple way of attaching stuff so it can spin around. Thus giving your child something to fiddle with.

So my latest cardboard creation was a simple boat. I did not try to make it look too much like a boat. Instead I asked Goblin what a boat needed. He told me it needed a propeller (yey! paper fasteners). And a steering wheel (more paper fasteners). After a bit more thought he also decided it needed a radar, start buttons, and flashing emergency light. which were achieved through a  yogurt pot, straw and bottle cap.
As we played with his boat I pointed to some barnacles on the keel. "You need to scrape those off so the boat will go faster. Oh and you'll need to pain the hull". My imaginary play suggestion ignited another idea with Goblin. And he set to work actually painting his boat.

And himself! 

This simple box provided an entire day of imaginary play. I love cardboard boxes.

And now to the linky

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Outdoor fun with friends

(Goblin is 43 months)

The trouble with going on an outing with friends who have much younger children is, its always a little tricky finding things to do together that all the kids will enjoy. Recently went to the woods with some good friends and their 10 month old baby.

I love taking Goblin to the woods because it gives him an opportunity to run free and play with the natural "toys" such as sticks and leaves and mud. However, sticks, and leaves and mud are not ideal toys for a baby who is still inclined to stick everything he finds in his mouth.

When Goblin set off at top speed into the woods and discovered a half built den he decided to finish the job. Normally this would be entirely awesome. However he picked a spot deep in the woods surrounded by ditches and brambles and not at all buggy friendly or crawling baby friendly. Fortunately our friends were happy to hang out on a picnic bench by the path and feed Baby T while we played.

Eventually Goblin was ready to move on and we found an activity we could all participate in, walking round the lake. Baby T's dad is a keen fisherman and he and Goblin spent a while throwing bread into the lake and enticing the fish to the surface. Goblin loves Baby Ts dad and enjoyed the one to one attention and information on fish that was imparted.

And further on from the lake there is a special dipping pond at the woods. It has a path around it that allows you to get really close to the water so you can see all the creatures within. Baby T was able to crawl along the path and hang over the edge to look at the newts, frogs and toads. I was very excited by the fact that the frog spawn and toad spawn were right by the path so you could see it and touch it. Did you know that frog spawn is laid in clumps and toad spawn is laid in strips - I didn't. I learnt this from my friends while out on the walk (if you look really carefully in the photo you can see a tiny amount of toad spawn about an inch in from the TTG watermark - the eggs are much closer together). We filled a jar with some frog spawn so Goblin can watch it grow at home.

And Goblin did something I haven't seen him do before. He asked if he could hold Baby T so he could see the frogspawn. I thought this desire to show and share was so cute, and Baby Ts mum was happy for Goblin (with my help) to lift Baby T over the edge of the fence to have a good look at the frogs and toads.

Despite the nearly three year age gap, by the end of the day Goblin and Baby T were bonded. And we had a great day out.

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