Success for me is ABC - Ability, Believe in yourself and Creativity

If there is one thing that I always try and install into the boys, its that effort is everything. I like to think that I do a great job of letting my family and close friends know exactly how much they mean to me and this has always been something I have taught the boys, especially when it comes to Mrs M. Back at the end of November I asked the boys to think of a thoughtful gift that they could create for Mrs M, I didn't specify what but said if they wanted any advice or help all they had to do was ask.

A few days later Opeie came to me with his idea. He has always loved the book I made for Mrs M when I asked her to marry me and he reads it a lot. I think it is because it is about how we met and with each page an insight into how we got to that magical moment in Orlando. His idea was to create his own book all about his beautiful mom which I was super excited about (part of me was worrying about the amount of time we had to complete though).

The thoughtfulness of this gift really touched me as he knew it was going to take a lot of time and effort but he wanted to show Mrs M just how much he appreciates being home-schooled. This was another huge bonus for me as from an educational view it was the perfect way to wind down our year of home-ed, combining literacy and huge amounts of creativity. 

We got to work quickly. Opeie wanted to make a 'Mommy ABC' in the style of one of his favourite Dr. Seuss books. An A-Z of everything to do with Mrs M with rhyming couplets on every page. Firstly he wrote all the words down that made him think of her, for the letters he struggled with we looked online for lists of words for that letter and combed them looking for relevant words. Trying to combine the words in rhyme was going to be tricky but luckily the first page was a breeze and it was all the motivation Opeie needed "Big A, little a, what begins with A? Auntie Lottie's Autumn Aeroplane A A A". As soon as the words were down that creative flair kicked in and he was drawing an aeroplane with a beautiful autumn print.

This was pretty much how the following few days of daddy school went, we would sit down and try and work out a rhyme for the page and then Opeie would grab his crayons and start creating. Then a couple of days before we had reached December I received an email from the company that I was going to use to create the book with a discount code for 40% off, perfect I thought, until I saw that the off was only valid for 8 days!!! Feeling a little deflated I mentioned it to Opeie in passing and he said "we can finish it by then dad", I loved his enthusiasm but I genuinely thought it would be pushing it for a 6-year-old. This is when I realised that when it comes to an amazing mom that you want to make smile at Christmas, anything is possible.

As soon as breakfast was out of the way on the mornings, Opeie pushed himself to complete his 26 drawings that he knew he needed to create, along with the 26 pages of writing to cover each of the letters of the alphabet. This had gone from an amazing creative and literacy based activity to an awesome lesson in working to a deadline and time management, not something that I would have ever purposely added into our homeschooling schedule but it all happened so organically.

One afternoon Opeie had written 9 pages for the book and drawn some of the pictures an he said his hand was really hurting. I had been telling him for about an hour to stop and we would do something else but he was so focused on getting the book finished, it was adorable to watch. With all the pages written and all the drawing complete Opeie started looking for backgrounds to mount all of his drawings on around the house to make his creations more colourful. He then used his pictures to create a cover and we sat together uploading it all online, he was so excited when he saw it all coming together.

On the day it arrived the excitement was too much for him, we still had 2 weeks until Christmas and he was desperate to give it to Mrs M. I couldn't get enough of that look of pride on his face when he took it out of the box. I saw that same look again as he handed it to his special lady on Christmas day.

It's lovely to buy nice gifts at Christmas but for me (and hopefully the boys now too) its all about the effort that we go to for the people we care about the most.

"P for pneumonia, pterodactyl and psychosis"

When we became play patrol agents for Bigjigs Toys one of the wooden toys I really hoped we would be lucky enough to review was the Chunky Alphabet Puzzle as we're teaching Opeie his letters. He's been able to say his alphabet for months but he doesn't understand which letter is which so you can imagine our excitement when we opened our recent mission and found the item inside. We took the Alphabet puzzle with us on our travels yesterday and enlisted the help of an outside agent, auntie Lottie.

I knew that Opeie would like it and its already been played with a lot. I'm really hoping that it will help his understanding of letters over the coming weeks. We've been working on Opeies colours too over the last two weeks so I was pleased to see that Bigjigs Toys had colour coded the wooden blocks to go with the spaces in the alphabet board, on the board they had also included the lower case letters in each slot which I thought was a great touch.

As much as we loved the toy there was one or should I say two issues. Not with the toy on the whole but with the letters 'K' and 'Z', both of these letters only fit one way Round which probably seems like an I significant issue but for a two year old learning his letters via a wooden puzzle it can be quite frustrating when he is expecting each piece to fit. Opeie knew that he had the right letters for the slots but they just wouldn't go in which ended up confusing for him.

Apart from this though the Chunky Alphabet Puzzle is a great toy and I wouldn't let that put me off buying something that I know would benefit Opeie's development. This item is going to become very useful as Opeie is learning and anything that keeps him motivated to learn and entertained at the same time will always be a fantastic toy in our eyes. A definite thumbs up from Gifts From the Pirates.

From bath fear to bath obsessed, the story of one boys battle with being clean.

We've come a long way since Opeie's bath escapades. It's strange to think that he did everything he could to avoid bath time and the mere mention of the word bath or the sound of the taps running used to cause a storm or teary emotions. Strange because at 10am this morning Opeie had already had 2 baths. Mrs M was the first for the bath time company very early this morning and then when Seth had one, Opeie again didn't want to miss out on the fun.

While in the bath the boys and myself from the sideline did our best to make the most of the Nuby bath toys we have after doing the usual teaching Opeie his letters and numbers Seth decided that it would be a good idea to attach the letters and see if we could make boats so we got to it. The boats were happily sailing but then Opeie brought in the evil captain squid and he tipped the boats over (the tinker). 

Luckily super elephant the hero/coast guard was in the area and came to our aid squirting that naughty squid in the face. Needless to say they all became friends at the end and lived peacefully in the bath water. I've got a feeling this isn't Opeie's last bath of the day and I'm sure he will be be keeping me company in there tonight.

"Big R, little r, Rosy Robin Ross. Rosy's going riding on her red rhinoceros"

Opeie's speech has really developed over the last few weeks and he is starting to pick up things very quickly. The week before last he counted to 12 completely out of the blue on his own, myself and Mrs M were speechless, were so proud of him. Opeie is a huge book worm and quite often throughout the day he will come to us saying 'book' and then will happily have 10 books read to him in a row. This morning i read 7 Dr Seuss books and 2 books that we got Mrs M for Mothers day. Everytime you turn a page when reading Opeie will call out all the things on the page that he knows, it's adorable.

We've been working on his alphabet for quite some time and although he can say the letters when copying us he still struggles a little with the dreaded letter 'W'. As he is loving Dr Seuss at the moment the Dr Seuss ABC book has been great for teaching him the letters and it's also one of my favourite of his books.

I didn't really get into Dr Seuss until my late teens but i fell in love the first time i read 'The Grinch' and it's something i wanted to install in the boys, much the same as Mrs M and her Dick Bruna books. I love anything that builds a child's imagination, the illustrations are beautifully done and the rhymes although simple and sometimes made up are perfectly executed...