The Sunday Parenting Party

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Sorry to anyone who was looking for this post earlier today, due to our holiday I lost track of the days and forgot it was Sunday! Anyhow its time for another parenting gem and today I have a guest post from the wonderful Hublet. If you have never read any of his guest posts before you can find them here. 

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A Tale of Two Parents

(Goblin is very nearly 3)

We are often told that as parents you must work as a team providing a single message to your children to prevent confusion.

While this may be true, it does not alter the fact that you are different people with often disparate ideas on how to raise and entertain the kids.

This is particularly relevant in our situation as we don't have one parent working and one doing the bulk of the childcare as is often the case.  As the Monko has said, we each have 2 days alone with Goblin, 2 days together with him and 1 day where he is in nursery.

It has become clear that we have very different experiences on our days alone with Goblin.  With Monko there are play dates, art activities, music classes and nature trips.  

I on the other hand being an antisocial, geek, tend to play with Lego, go for walks, cook, climb trees and build forts.

I like that Goblin gets to do different things and am also glad that I don't have to drag myself along to the invariably titled "mother" and child groups.  

I can't tell if this is just teaching Goblin to continue my avoidance of social situations but then I remember the alternative would mean talking to people so quickly move on.

On our days together with Goblin we tread the middle ground.  We don't go and see other people but do go out to the zoo or other family outings.  It is also our chance to go to the shops for the traditional supermarket toddler tantrum.

In general though we have a pretty good split without arguments or stark disagreements on parenting decisions.

Our main areas of contention seem to be:

1. Following the advice of parenting books
   (Monko tends to read a book and for a short period will fanatically try and follow it, whereas my utter confidence in my own superior knowledge is only rivalled by my modesty)
2. Religion
   (Monko is a lapsed Catholic who seems to have settled on the 'meh' camp, I am a militant atheist with a tendency to make inappropriate comments which offend people)
3. Rainbow rice

I can not express this strongly enough how much I f*cking hate rainbow rice.

Here is a graph to help illustrate my feelings: 

Goblin seems to know this fact and insists on getting it out at every opportunity, particularly weekend mornings when I get up early so Monko can have a nap.

I am a sucker for his cute little face and dutifully get out the tarpaulin, diggers and tub of rice, only to watch him gleefully fling it about the room for me to tread on for the rest of the day.

Why does he torment me so? 

Then, just as a tub of rainbow rice reaches the end of its life and I gleefully get to dump it in the bin, I see another batch of the vile stuff drying on the table!

I would happily spend the day treading on discarded Lego and plugs if it meant freedom from rainbow rice!  Readers outside the UK will not have developed the cast iron feet required for living around British plugs which can in an emergency be used as caltrops.

I love my wife.  I can put up with her blind belief in the random rantings of unqualified opinionated loons, or the parenting books, but the rainbow rice will have to stay on her side of the fence.

In summary, if you partner (or grandmother, neighbour, nanny etc) does things differently with your child then it can be quite a good thing.   If only because it means you don't have to.

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My top five posts from last week were 
Reality bites ~ Two-daloo
Why your baby (or Toddler) should get messy eating ~ Your Kid's Table
Let Them "Do it by Myself"~ Like Mama, Like Daughter
The Truth about Toddlers - The Cutie and the Beauty
My Strong Willed Child ~ Triple T Mum
These were posts either contained a message I totally agreed with or where posts I totally related to. You guys can grab a featured button from my button page. 

For your chance to be featured and to share your great parenting posts please link up this week - Here is the linky

While I'm at work - Banana bread

(Goblin is 27 months)

While I was at work today I received a series of photos. They were photos of Goblin baking, or should I say, eating various baking ingredients. When I got home I was given a piece of delicious banana bread. I thought it would be mean not to share the recipe with you so I asked Hublet to write it down. Not only did he write it down but he also wrote the instructions. They were more amusing than my second hand write up would have been so here it is as drafted by Hublet.

Ingredients - All these are ballpark as I don't really do recipes, I do weigh things but not very accurately:

250g plain flour

250g brown sugar

100g butter

100ml milk

1tbsp lemon juice

1tsp baking soda

1tsp salt

1tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

4 ripe bananas (mashed with a fork)

50g mixed dried fruit (optional)

Hopefully nothing else I have forgotten!

Wash everyone's hands, several times if necessary since it is now a fun game.

Preheat oven to 180C (Gas mark 4, 350F) (convection, fan ovens will be lower) 

Explain to toddler that oven will be hot soon, despite it currently appearing like a warm place to climb into.

Put sugar into a plastic bowl and arm toddler with a wooden spoon.

Melt butter in microwave and cream into sugar

Prevent toddler from eating sugary butter goo

Add all other ingredients mixing in throughly (I can't be bothered to sieve things or add in a specific order)

Mash an extra banana to replace the one your toddler ate

Pour into a greased (or lined with baking parchment to be safe) loaf tin then put into the oven.

Spend the interim tidying up and licking bowls/spoons.

Bake for about an hour, checking with a skewer until it comes out clean (mine ended up needing an hour and 15 minutes but I would check after an hour as it will depend on the dimensions of your tin)

Remove skewer from toddler as he is waving it wildly

Leave to cool in the tin for about 10 minutes then turn out onto a cooling rack.

Eat rapidly

I'm linking Hublet's cooking instructions to 

 

While I'm at Work - Woopie Pies!

(Goblin is 27 months)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HUBLET!

Its Hublet's birthday today and I bought him a cake. In fact I got greedy and bought him two cakes. But yesterday in preparation for his birthday he did some baking of his own with Goblin. They made Whoopie pies! So now we have a lot of cake to eat - so much for the diet!

Hublet is an excellent baker, but like me he takes shortcuts when it makes life easier. So for their baking escapade they used a cake mix. To be honest with Goblin's short attention span a cake mix is perfect because it can be made in just enough time to hold his interest. 

Goblin stirred it all up and helped Hublet to spoon it onto the baking trays. 

While the pies were cooking they made the filling. This was milk and sugar whipped to within an inch of its life using an electric whisk. Apparently Goblin was very intrigued by the electric whisk and kept asking "what's that noise?" 

 Hublet put the Whoopie pies together, and Goblin's last job was to help eat them. MMMMM! Birthday baking.

I'm linking this to 

 

While I'm at Work

(Goblin is 27 months)

Hublet and I take turns to look after Goblin while the other goes to work. He does Monday and Tuesday and I do Thursday and Friday and Goblin goes to nursery on Wednesday when we both work. I thought as Goblin got older it would be easier to go to work, but its actually got harder. Goblin is growing up so fast and he is so interactive and fun to be around and I miss him when I am working. 

But luckily Hublet keeps me informed of their daily activities by emailing me photos throughout the day. Not only does it allow me little moments of pleasure knowing my boys are having fun, but it also gives me some insight into Goblin's days with daddy. They are quite different to his days with me.

For instance Goblin often gets out the Megablocks when he is with Hublet. He hasn't touched the Megablocks with me in over a year, but apparently its a frequent activity when the boys are on their own. They build huge towers and Goblin steals Hublet's blocks to make his tower bigger. This is a series of photos I was sent on Tuesday recording the progress of their activity.

Hublet also does lots of jigsaws with Goblin. I got a very proud email on Tuesday while I was at work, telling me Goblin had done all the bit of the jigsaw you can see in the photo on his own. 

I love that Goblin gets the opportunity to do different activities with each of us and has different parental input. I'm sure it will help him develop different skills and respond better to a variety of situations in later life. We are very lucky that we have jobs that allow us to share childcare. 

I'm linking this to