"As children, we all live in a world of imagination, of fantasy, and for some of us that world of make-believe continues into adulthood."

 

It has been so long since the last time I wrote, for so many reasons. But it feels like the right time to give myself a push to get going again. Like many of us it seems, I have been struggling for motivation with many parts of my life recently, waking up each morning and feeling like we are just repeating the previous day... and many before it. One thing that hasn't been lacking motivation though has been my creative side and I put a lot of that down to that amazing boy of mine and his constant need to be making something new. 

A few weeks back he came to me with his latest idea and I was over the moon as it was something I had tried to get him interested in years ago (with no joy). As with many things with kids though, they initially don't share your motivation for an activity until they see a YouTube video (with completed product) and its all the motivation they need. So Opeie started playing me some vides by a very talented chap called Adam Kreutinger and I was hooked from the get go. I went on a bit of a binge for a week after that watching design videos and learning various creative techniques every evening before buying various supplies to get us creating. 

 Once things started to arrive, I tried not to over think the process and just throw ourselves into it and learn from our mistakes etc, that way of creating has always worked out well for me. There's something really magical about learning new creative skills and it always puts me in a happy place.

The plan was to build puppets of ourselves and we were both very excited. We wanted to create something really playful and not too serious. Making the Foam bodies was super easy and I think contact adhesive is my new favourite thing. Once those were made it was on with the sewing and thankfully we had a few good days of weather in a row so we threw the beanbags outside and sat in the sun chatting while we stitched. It was so much fun watching them come together and really great seeing Opeie so focused on what he was doing. As expected we made a a few mistakes along the way, like cutting the fleece the wrong way round and losing the stretch but that's the great thing about learning this way, that will never happen again.

One of the things that I love about attempting these new projects is realising that actually, craft wise, I can put my hands to most things and come out with something I'm pretty chuffed with. But more importantly, the confidence that it gives Opeie in his ability to create is incredible to watch. I love a creative project but that is massively magnified when the two of us are creating something together.

Making the outfits for the puppets was really satisfying. I made myself some dungarees using the leg of an old pair of Opeie's shorts and although the thought of it seemed quite daunting I managed to pin, cut and restitch an old shirt of Opeie's to fit his puppet nicely. I love being able to use things from around the house, sadly my washing rail is looking a little worse for wear now though as I've pulled lots of the rails of of it to make the army rods, oops!

And now it's time for the real fun to happen. Opeie wants to learn how to make videos about all the things we get up to which I think is going to be lots of fun. So we're setting up a Youtube channel to document that and hopefully have a ton of fun along the way. Check it out HERE.

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart."

It is always great as a parent when your kids take a keen interest in something that you love, or something you loved as a child yourself. I think we are all guilty of introducing our kids to things that we are interested in because we either want a reason to relive them or it can just make your own hobbies a little easier, letting you enjoy them guilt free. Parenting has been one long exploration into my own childhood so far, the boys have always loved hearing stories about what I was getting up to at their age and things like base building, Lego creations and tinkering with bikes are things that have definitely rubbed off.

I loved reading comics when I was a kid and I'd get lost in the trials and tribulations of Peter Parker's complex life, juggling his everyday teen issues, School and of course his secret identity. It was something that I had hoped Seth would have got into but he's not really shown an interest as of yet. Recently though Opeie has discovered the wonders of comic books and has become quite the avid reader.

It all started with the show Teen Titans Go! Opeie loved it so much that I googled it, pretty sure that there was a run of comics to accompany it. Not only did I find that, but I also found Tiny Titans which got me thinking "what else is out there for young comic enthusiasts". So I began my hunt to find some of the best Comics suitable for an 8/9-year-old reader. I'm a firm believer that if you can install a love of reading into your children then that is the best groundwork for their education. We read all sorts of things together and have done for years but what comics have given us now is fun reading time alone for Opeie, which is great as it takes out the 'having to get it right' element and replaces it with extra confidence and more questions. "Dad what does this word mean?" etc.

Since Opeie's new favourite past time started a few weeks back I have found some great titles to add to his collection, including 'itty bitty Hellboy', itty bitty Mask, Li'l battlestar Galactica and Super Hero Squad which have been great as I've been able to get complete runs of the comics for his iPad. Our weekly trips to the library have also given us DC Super Pets (Art Baltazar), Mighty Mighty Monsters (Sean O'Reilly), Monster heroes (Blake Hoena) and the Monsters Like Us series (Steve Barlow/Steve Skidmore). 

When I think back to Seth learning to read at school, Opeies learning has cut out all those boring reading in stages books and has replaced that tedious learning with a real love for the written word.  I have always said that comics have a bad rep in the world of literature but there are so many levels to the stories and they are ongoing (like an intelligent and creative soap opera). Sure, when it comes to the super hero comics there is action and adventure (which is great) but when you start delving into the personal lives of these heroes there is a deep understanding of emotion. For a 6-year-old, Opeie is getting a great start into understanding the complexity of relationships and the way we feel through comics (and all the questions he asks about Country songs that he loves helps too). This to me is so much more important than a lot of the unnecessary academic information that is thrown at Seth.

Home schooling has so far given Opeie the chance to fully explore his imagination and pursue the things that he is passionate about learning, which for a 6-year-old is what they should be doing. This way of learning has taken out the anxiety and the stress of preparing him for standardized testing in mainstream schools, making him a far more well rounded child with a real love of learning. 'Concentrate on the reading an the rest will come organically'  is what I told myself from day one.

"A museum is a place where one should lose one's head."

When I was young if someone had have mentioned the word 'museum' I'd have been filled with dread. Museums from what I remember, were 'the worst!'. I assumed that this was the norm and most people felt the same way but as it turns out I was very wrong. As I spent a lovely evening with Mrs M's family over Christmas, I got chatting to her auntie Jo (who is a lovely woman) about something completely unrelated to museums but during our conversation it clicked why I had those feelings and why I was negative about a lot of things during my childhood.

When I think about it now and as I type this out it makes me feel a little sad that until I met Mrs M (29 years into my life) I had never been inspired by ANYONE! school had given me nothing along those lines and my work life was pretty much the same. Sadly I lacked inspiring parents too so I just bumbled along not aiming for anything. That all changed when I met Mrs M though and she inspired me from day one with her contagious energy and love of life. When she first met me she had her reservations as she thought I was a bit of a joker and didn't take anything seriously, she soon changed that though and set me on a path that continues to make a better person.

Anyway back to museums... I've never wanted the boys to feel the way that I did growing up and I like to think that the way we bring them both up is really inspiring for them. Last week me and Opeie ended up in London and when asked what he wanted to do he replied "can we go to the museums". I love that he is genuinely interested in museums and I think its because myself and Mrs M are so interactive with him when it comes to learning.

Our day of going to 'the museums' ended up with us visiting four back to back and having a pretty amazing day out together, despite the drizzly weather.

First on our list was more for me, but while looking at the images online Opeie had showed quite a lot of interest in visiting a museum that had a brain in a jar of formaldehyde (strange I know but he loves learning about the body). When looking at a '100 things to do in London for free' article  early last year I had stumbled up on the Hunterian museum. Situated in the Royal college of surgeons, the Hunterian museum houses an amazing collection of the macabre. Animals, body parts and oddities. I could have stayed in there for hours but Opeie made his feelings clear early on when he said "daddy, can we go to another museum now please?" "It's a bit scary, I want to look at things with pretty colours". I think that museum may be for when he is a little older.

five minutes walk and we were at our second museum. The British museum is in a very grand building and is full off really interesting items and exhibitions. There was a lot more for Opeie to ask questions about and we spent a lot of our visit chatting about greek mythology, mummification and knights. I was so busy yapping to Opeie that I missed the name of one of the exhibitions that was on but part of it was based around the day of the dead celebrations and all of the pieces were very colourful and interesting, which was exactly what Opeie was looking for after museum number 1.

Time to jump back on the tube and make our way to museum number 3. The V&A museum of childhood is one of our favourite museums to visit in London after our friend Sam took us there a year or so ago. I love seeing many of the toys I had growing up and the boys are always interested in the things that kept me entertained as a child. Its also interesting to see how things have changed when it comes to childrens play things. With games to play and an enormous amount of items for your visual entertainment it really is the perfect place to take your inquisitive little ones.

Museum number 4 and it was clear that Opeie was getting tired (his little legs had done a lot of walking, bless them) he was desperate though to squeeze in his favourite museum before we headed back to the hotel. Usually when we visit the Museum of Natural History it is all about the Dinosaurs but this time round it was the birds taking centre stage. Every time we visit we seem to find another part that we have not seen before and even though we have been quite a few times I could still happily spend an entire day just pottering around there. I find it fascinating and I can see why it is always on the top of Opeie's London to do list.

As sad as it is that I felt the way I did when I was younger, in some ways I am kind of glad. I appreciate this kind of thing a lot more because of it and visiting now as a home schooling parent and learning with Opeie is the most amazing experience and something I will never take for granted.

Ok so he might have had a sneak peek at the dinosaurs!

"London, thou art the flower of cities all!"

I feel exhausted tonight after not getting home this morning till close to 1am. Many years ago strolling in at 1am usually meant something had happened to stop me from partying longer. These days though if we get home that late it has a knock on effect for all of us (not that I'm complaining though, we had an awesome couple of days). Mrs M had some work on in London and i used it as an excuse to get me and the boys down there too by offering to drive. Our good friends Sam and Jamie offered us beds for the night so we were sorted for our London adventures.

The drive down seemed to take so much longer than usual but everyone was in high spirits, looking forward to some vegan pizza (which sadly we cant get in Shropshire). When we finally got there it was great to hang out with Sam and Jamie and scoff great food. I wanted to make sure we made the most of the following day with the boys so Sam helped me out with a strategic plan of trains, stations and times.

In the morning Mrs M headed off to be amazing at what she does and i began our adventure with the boys being awesome at what i do best (being a dad). Our first port of call was the museum of childhood, Sam caught the first train with us to make sure we got off to a good start which was lovely. We got there a little early so we went for a wander looking for food and stumbled on a juice bar which was lush, after masses of pizza the night before we were definitely in need of some greens.

I'm a huge fan of the museum of childhood as many of the things on display there transport me right back to my own toy heavy childhood. The last time we visited, Seth wasn't with us so i was really looking forward to showing him all the toys from my youth as he is always asking about the things that kept me entertained growing up.

Boglins!!!! I didn't remember seeing this the last time we were there but this gruesome rubber hand puppet took me right back to 'bring a toy into school day' at the end of one of our school terms. Being a child at that age was amazing. Seth thought the trolls were really funny and he found it even more entertaining that when i was at school people would take them in to exams to bring them good luck (crazy). One of my favourite toys back then was my 'My pet monster' (remember them?). I took mine everywhere with me, carried by the handcuffs around my neck.

 Although i love seeing all the old toys it does make me a little sad that i sold some of my collections over the last few years. He-man was one of my favourite toy ranges growing up and i had a big crate of the toys until a few years back when i sold them to get Seth something that he wanted. Who knows maybe I'll start a collection again one day.

The boys had a great time pottering about looking at toys and we had a great conversation about what we thought may be on display from Seth's childhood when he's older. Seth said that if school is anything to go by it will just be a huge cabinet of video games and consoles. Its a shame really that that's how he see's it.

Before going in to the museum i said to Opeie that i bet we would find an old looking Paddington bear on display, It was London after all. Ive been looking at these Gabrielle Paddington bears for quite some time as a gift for Opeie so it was lovely to see one on display there.

After a couple of hours walking around it was time to jump back on the tube to get to our next destination on the list, The Tate. More trains meant more chance of taking the wrong one and that's exactly what we did, oops. Good old Seth pointed out mid journey that none of the stops were on our map and we had in fact got on the wrong line, so we jumped off.

We soon turned it in to a positive though when we noticed the following trains destination said 'via Paddington' so we used our unexpected detour for Paddington bear to get another fun photo opportunity. I actually think going to Paddington station made Opeie's day.

at this point the photos stopped for a while, walking around somewhere as busy as London with two children is really hard graft. When i wasn't carrying Opeie on my shoulders, i was holding both of their hands and it felt like i had really heavy weights pulling me down (on top of carrying a weighty backpack too).

By the time i had got the camera out again we were heading over to Hamley's for a spot of toy hunting. It was amazing how much more familiar parts of London were and as soon as we got off the tube at piccadilly circus we knew exactly where we were going for that enormous toy store.

Straight up to the top floor for us, its all about the LEGO. I love all the LEGO creations up there but ill be honest i was a little disappointed with the selection on sale. We were planning to spend some cash but there was actually a better selection in out local Smyths store so they got our money instead the following day. Hamley's is an awesome toy store though, its the way all toy stores should be, staff demonstrating the products, magic shows and people blowing bubbles.

I really wish i had taken more pictures during our day out but i am so much more over protective of the boys while we are in London because of all the people. Its handy when Mrs M is with us as the extra pair of hands really helps. 

The boys were shattered by 5ish so we headed back to Sam and Jamie's and got to hang out with Jamie for a few hours which was great as hes such a great bloke.We are really looking forward to our next London adventure and we're hoping to go with our friend LEGO Steve next time with his family so stay tuned.