"He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future."

I've been sneaking in lots of spelling and phonics games into mine and Opeie's afternoons recently and he seems to be picking things up very quickly now. We've started playing a game each morning with Opeie's wooden Bigjigs Chunky Alphabet Puzzle which always has us laughing. I pick a letter from the board and Opeie gives me a word beginning with that letter. Before he gives me the word he's actually thinking of he laughs and gives me a word ending in 'at', he thinks this is hilarious especially when it comes to the words that don't make sense, 'Jat', 'Wat' and 'Zat' etc.

We've had some great words during our games and for a three year old he's come a long way, Dog has been replaced with 'disappointed' (which I thought was great) and words like question, Rhinoserous and Unicorn are becoming more frequent, he seems to have a great vocabulary for his age.

Last week when we were playing I picked up the letter 'N' and after the initial 'Nat' with a giggle Opeie very confidently said 'Nazi'. I was a little shocked but just took it as one of those odd times when kids are experimenting with their words. Like one time when we were driving to Nanny and Grandads, Opeie was sitting in the back saying Rock, sock, dock, Lock... Inevitably it was going to get to two of the words we didn't want him repeating to Grandad, and then "Fock". Stupid me said "don't say that Opeie" which was a bad move as the remainder of the journey to see my lovely in laws included an awkward 10 minutes of "fock, fock, fock" resonating from the back of the car.

Anyway back to our alphabet game and a few days later we reached 'N' again, 'Nat' passed with a chuckle and again I was greeted with an awkward 'Nazi'. I couldn't shake an image of a Hitler youth poster I had seen many years ago that had freaked me out and half expecting 'H for Hitler' or 'G for Goebbels' to be next, I asked Opeie where he had got Nazi from? In an adorable and very innocent way he just smiled and said "you know! Nazi, like in the bake off!" (he loves the bake off). I will get round to telling Opeie all about our history but for now his mispronunciation of 'Nancy' is so much more entertaining.

"BIG M, little m, Many Mumbling Mice. Are making midnight music in themoonlight... Mighty nice"

After the disappointment of not being able to attend Opeie's dance class last week due to illness and not being able to show off our fox masks for the 'f' themed class, we were eager to find out this weeks theme. The letter 'M' (for March) was this weeks theme and as I consulted my partner in crime bringing forward some possible options for the day Opeie made it quite clear (as he does a lot these days) that he would be attending the morning as 'Mario'. I love to get stuck in creating something for a Monday morning but it seemed that we were practically sorted with only a minute craft session needed (which gave us more time to high five each other - Mrs M).

We were missing a moustache so we quickly drew an outline on some black paper, cut it out and attached it to a chopstick, voila! 

Our mini plumber entered Clatterbugs confidently holding his moustache with pride (until someone spoke to him and then he pulled his hat over his face, classic Opeie). Opeie's letter 'M' themed morning was complete. All he needed to do now was save our own beautiful princess peach from work for cuddles and our adventure would be complete...

And daddy??? Well Mario's trusty Mushroom sidekick was as always, by his side and ready for action. "Lets a go".

"Daddy, whats inside a Sprout?"

I don't know where the Christmas holiday went, one minute I was binging on mince pies and the next minute Christmas was a distant memory. Seth went back to school today, that's when you know Christmas is over. After dropping Mrs M off at work it was back to being just me and mini me.

I'm ashamed to say that over the holidays the TV had been on more than I'd like and because the boys got new games for Christmas the consoles were on a little to much too so today was going to be a tv/ipad/ds and laptop free morning, plus I put my phone to one side too as I'm a bugger for checking and replying to blog related emails throughout the day.

First on our morning agenda was drawing and painting. As opeie has become a huge Nintendo fan over Christmas he requested that I draw him Luigi and Toad so that he could paint them which he did a sterling job of.

After painting we picked a few of Opeie's new books from Christmas and sat down for a cuddle and story time. Our friends Sam and Jamie brought him 'Bear's song' which he loves as he get to search for baby bear on each page who is hiding. We also read Hugless Douglas, Zog and Happy Birthday Santa. I was kind of hoping the reading would send him off for a nap but no chance of that.

After reading a few books and my unsuccessful attempt at getting him down, we practiced his alphabet for a bit using his Bigjigs alphabet board, I'm trying my best to get him to remember which letter is which but its taking its time. He definitely knows which is 'A' and which is 'Z'.

Before we knew it it was time for lunch. Since the Opening of Opeie's diner on Christmas day Opeie has been really getting  involved with the food prep at meal times and today was no different. he happily sat with me at his table hacking away at vegetables while i sliced some up to make pasta sauce. The hacking away then led to a very curious Opeie asking 'daddy whats inside a sprout?'. I asked him what he thought, which was interesting and then i explained that there was only one way to find out and handed him a sprout.

Opeie happily sat for about 30 minutes with a look if intense concentration on his face and peeled that sprout until it looked like a tiny bean. "so Opeie whats inside a sprout?".... "More sprout!" he said with a very disappointed look on his face.

Well it kept him occupied while i made lunch (which was delicious) and then it was time to pick the princess up from work and give her all the love and attention she deserves. Opeie finally had his nap although with the time he went to bed this evening i think it may be a good idea to try and phase his daytime naps out. I need to get back in to the swing of finding fun things for me and Opeie to do during the days now because he'll be starting nursery soon (which is filling me with dread).

Now to search the internet for something fun to do tomorrow, Goodnight.

"i can do it myself daddy"

Seth has started his next big craft idea which so far is looking great (even though its only had about 30 minutes work on it). I will write about it when it's finished which could be some time away. As part of his new creation he needed some old fashioned wooden clothes pegs. I thought they were going to be a nightmare to find but luckily I found them in the forth shop I went in to, good old Asda living.

He needed white paint too and before I knew it I had a basket full of craft bits and bobs. It wasn't a great day weather wise so a craft session for me and Opeie was just what we needed. As soon as we got home we set the table up and began creating. Because Mrs M works all week we try and make plenty of cards to say thank you for taking care of us.

Using foam letters and getting them straight with a 2 year old is difficult but we managed it and it looked great. Opeie told me that he wanted to make one for nanny and grandad too so we quickly got to it.

After all the tag team precision foam letter placing, Opeie grabbed himself a new piece of paper and freestyled himself his own creation, which definitely had more character than the ones we created together, proving once more that "i can do it on my own daddy" (his new favourite saying).

"I find the key is to think of a day as units of time, each unit consisting of no more than thirty minutes."

Many of my posts are written about a single event, somewhere we've been, something we've built and sometimes something we are reviewing. Throughout the day though there are a whole bunch of things that we do aside from the boring housework to keep us entertained. Sometimes I feel a little like Hugh Grant's character from 'about a boy' thinking of the day as units of time, each unit lasting no longer than 30 minutes. "Full hours can be a little intimidating and most activities take about half an hour" (before Opeie starts losing interest anyway).

Today was one of those days crammed with mini activities, each as I said lasting no longer than 30 minutes...

Activity 1: a good old fashioned wrestle, all that pent up aggression and anger that builds up as a 2 year old unleashed on to a poor unsuspecting dad.

Activity 2: learning our alphabet. I'm quite sure I've got it down to a T but there's no harm in practising.

Activity 3: working on our creativity, Opeie informed me as soon as we had dropped Seth off that today he wanted to do some painting, which is great. Today's masterpiece was 'the cat in the hat! and the thingamajigger. Which spurred on activity 4.

Activity 4: watching an episode of 'the cat in the hat knows a lot about that', which gave us an idea for a craft activity that we will be doing tomorrow as disorganised daddy doesn't have any glue in the house (oops).

Activity 5: still feeling in a Dr Seuss mood and being quite excited about me finding one of his favourite books that had been missing for a while, Opeie asked if we could read 'Gerald Mcboing boing', while fetching his book though he spotted another of his favourite books, the one I wrote for Mrs M as part of my proposal. This then became half an hour of reading.

Activity 6: bath time, a little paint was spilled and Opeie was sweaty from the wrestling so we had a bath. The super heroes joined us and took it in turns to have their faces and bottoms washed (Opeie is a funny thing).

And all of this before lunch time, just goes to show how much you can do in a few hours. After lunch it was time to pick up Mrs M and then Seth and that brings me to now, sitting in the car waiting to walk up to the playground before starting our 30 minute units of time for this afternoon which so far looks like it is going to consist of blackberry picking, tea, possibly Lego (because we fit it in where we can) and cuddles before bed.

"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.