“Young cat! If you keep Your eyes open enough, Oh, the stuff you will learn! The most wonderful stuff!”

The boys are bookoholics which i love, when Opeie is feeling tired at home and wants to relax he will usually request 'books and bed', this is one of my favourite times of the day. If you are a regular reader then you will know that Dr. Seuss makes an appearance at our house daily.  Today when Opeie requested 'books and bed' i realised just how much Opeie takes in when he is being read to.  This is just part of the reading session we had. While reading a Dora the explorer book Opeie started reading on his own and i had to stop him and get it on camera...

"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.

"Doing science, Doing science, making things and breaking things"

I have written many posts about how amazing charity shops are, sorry this is another one of those posts. last Friday i decided to go on a long walk for a bit of exercise, i try and do this as much as i can to aid my healthy eating. I'm never going to have that hot wedding body otherwise. I power walked a good few miles and then decided to head to an area where there's a few charity shops before i headed home. I always check charity shops for books as the boys plough through them like they are going out of fashion (which of course is great). I walked in to my favourite of the shops in that area and was so glad i had ventured that way. Seth is science mad and his head is like a sponge for information. A few days before a local school had donated a lot of books to the shop and luckily i had gone out for my walk with my backpack on.

  

I managed to get thirteen great science and information books and even found Lemony Snicket's a series of unfortunate events book three as I'm reading book one to Seth at the moment, Cat in the hat (the movie adaptation) and a cute illustrated children's book which i knew Mrs M would adore. How much for i bet your wondering? 16 books for £1.50, and that is why i love charity shops so much, more than enough books to keep the boys entertained over the holiday. Stay tuned for a summer of science experiments.

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”

A few days back I wrote a post about building an indestructible toddler friendly iPhone case out of Lego. After going through a few high end covers (which were not cheap) I decided to give Lego a try, Lego being the answer to all my problems. It turned out great but has received mixed reviews. Negative comments usually being about the bulkyness of it. I obviously love it but decided a couple of nights ago that maybe it just wasn't eccentric enough. That night was one of those nights where I didn't have much to do, so while Mrs M tried to relax after a day of work I subjected her to the sound she hates most, as she put in a Facebook status update that night "Ah.... You know what sound I find most relaxing ? A thirty-something man rummaging through a pile of Lego last thing at night - bliss".

I'm a huge Dr. Seuss fan so building a Seuss themed Lego phone cover seemed like a good idea. I did say eccentric and it did need to fit my obscure personality. The basic shape was easy to build after making the last one so it took a lot less time to build. Mrs M looked puzzled wondering what I was doing but she's used to my evening Lego tinkering by now. I attempted to make the cats face but it didn't look right so I settled for an oversized hat to act as a partial screen protector for my new comical accessory. I added a spinning bow tie to the iphone cable cover which i thought gave a great effect.

Obviously all ports were easily accessible it would have been useless otherwise. I finished it off with a photo using the cat in the hat photo app which i already had on the phone (surprise surprise). If your reading this and you are interested in how the basic shape is made send me a message and i will happily do my best to make a tutorial.

A fitting quote for me and Mrs M.

The Dr. Sums me and Mrs M up perfectly!

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”

To embrace Opeie's new love of Dr Seuss i thought i would splash out on a collection of books that i spotted on eBay to add to the books we already own. Ive always been a huge fan myself so Opeie's big day seemed like the perfect excuse to treat us both to something we love. It's so nice as a parent to have a special something that you do together and sitting together reading Dr Seuss seems to be our thing. Opeie holds my little finger and we say "Best friends" to each other, it's very cute.

Sadly the books didn't turn up in time for his birthday, they arrived the following day so as Opeie can't have chocolate due to allergies the lateness served as a great Easter present for him. He went straight to bed when we got home from out trip to Chris' on Friday so he didn't get to read them when i opened them but i managed to read a few of them relaxing in the bath.

Opeie's favourite so far has been 'wet pet, dry pet, your pet, my pet", but after not reading it before i have fallen in love with 'Thidwick the big-hearted Moose' what a cute story. Ive been so good since Christmas completely reigning in my toy collections but after buying these i can feel a book collection brewing. I think it's really important to have plenty of books at home for your children's development and Opeie is turning in to a real bookworm.

I'm quite sure Opeie's new books will keep us occupied for sometime especially because he loves hearing the same stories over and over. We've read the Lorax seven times in the last few days, i don't mind though as they are great stories and are fun to read. Plus i love seeing the big smile on his little face every time i turn a new page.

There's something really magical about these crazy books with their pages of insanity, it's probably the same way Mrs M feels about Dick Bruna. It'll be nice to have a collection to give Opeie when he's older. Next on my list to buy is 'Dr. Seuss & Mr Geisel and 'The Lorax' pop up book because Opeie is loving the new pop up books we brought Mrs M for mothers day which i will write about very soon.

“Look at me! Look at me! Look at me NOW! It is fun to have fun But you have to know how.”

Seth's been off school today poorly after being sent home early yesterday. Poor little fella has got a cough and has been grumpy with it too. He's been in his PJ's all day and we haven't left the house which has been nice as i really didn't fancy going out in the cold today. Seth and Opeie played with their wooden train track while me and Mrs M blitzed the house, building a huge track that ran through three rooms.

After we had finished off what needed to be done i asked Seth what he wanted to do and he decided he wanted to do some Lego building, "what do you fancy building today Seth?", "Hmmmm.... can we make The cat in the Hat please?". Ive been secretly hoping that Seth would say this at some point as i needed an excuse to build some Dr Seuss characters. 

Seth as always blew me away with his very cute build, They always make me smile. Opeie helped look for coloured bricks for us too, i cant wait till he's a little older and can get stuck in properly it's going to be so much fun. Seth wants to make thing 1 and thing 2 next so don't forget to check in on us again. Until next time...

"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...

You're off to Great Places! Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, So... get on your way!”

So, The last 24 hours have been really good! I'm always grateful for everyday since being ill, but sometimes things start to look even rosier than they did the day before. Yesterday after I published the Mother's day post that I finished off, I got a phone call unexpectedly from a guy who had interviewed me a few weeks before, to say out of 440 people ( I know, loads!) I'd got the job! I was so happy, it is a brilliant job, and I am so happy as it will bring so much more opportunity our way. This morning, with a spring in my step, I headed out to my course I've been doing to gain some extra qualifications for my career. I had a really good few hours with some interesting case studies, and ideas flying around. When I was done I was greeted in the snow ( Yes, snow! ) by Pauly and Opeie, in a steamy car, which was toasty warm and welcoming! Opeie was grasping a new book by Dr. Seuss , and Pauly had Dr Seuss Green Eggs & Ham being sung by Bob Dylan on the iPod & stereo..... an interesting combination I can tell you! 
I think that Dr Seuss can teach children some amazing things, not only how to have an imagination, explore, and how it's important not to take life too seriously, but also how it's important to see the positives.  

When we finally got home after a trip to Holland and Barrett for Dairy/Soya free snacks for Opeie, a trip to Tesco ( eugh) for yummy veg, and a sit in the car whilst I fed Opeie milk til he fell asleep, whilst also car dancing to this song.... we got home, and Opeie decided he wanted to do some colouring in pages from Dr Seuss.

After the boys had been bathed, they did some more colouring in, and then watched Cat in the Hat on TV and also on the Macbook simultaneously.... these crazy boys have a new way of multitasking! They did some more colouring in, played with the Florida Thing 1 and Thing 2 toys, and looked at the books Pauly bought from the charity shop earlier.

All in all, a busy, happy, fun few hours! I've really got into Dr Seuss the last couple of years, especially since we went to Florida, it's such a colourful and happy place. This weekend we watched 'Cat In The Hat' from a few years ago, you know the one with Mike Myers? Well, I fell in love with it! Not so much the actual story, as I know that off by heart ( it's a great story ) but I love the costumes, set and colours!

I've decided our new house when we get round to moving will resemble that house. Maybe I will dress the boys as Thing 1 and Thing 2 .... watch this space!