Fizzy bath!

Thurston really loves a good splash around which makes bathtime fairly easy for us although I know it can be a nightmare for some Autistic children. Thurston has always needed a lot of sensory feedback and so being let loose in a tub full of water is a dream come true for him! The only thing he’s never been that fond of is bubble bath. I think the bubbly foam gets in the way of the splashing and he likes to watch the way the water moves. Of course, it’s still important to have something in the bath that smells lovely and keeps him clean. Lush Bath Bombs are the answer!

My boys have always enjoyed having a Lush Bath Bomb as a treat and Thurston is just the same. Lush kindly sent me several Ickle Baby Bot Bath Bombs for Thurston to enjoy. After a busy weekend in the sun, a long warm bath was definitely needed. I filled the bath up and sat Thurston in it and handed him the little blue robot to hold in the water. It instantly started fizzing and he loved the sensation of it fizzing up in his hand. It turned the water a lovely blue colour but the water stayed clear so Thurston was still happy to splash about!

The Lush Bath Bombs are made as much as possible from natural products and so there was no reaction to Thurston’s sensitive skin which is always reassuring. The essential oils in the robot bomb included lavender, sandalwood and chamomile which are all known for their soothing properties, and once he was dried off and in his PJs, it wasn’t long until he was fast asleep.

Thanks for reading

Hanj x

Cosy and Cuddly

I am particularly fussy about clothes, blankets and towels for the kids. Having 3 boys does mean that you have to look a little bit harder to find the good stuff as a lot of companies seem to place all their focus on the girly designs. I’m always really excited when I find a new company who make the kind of stuff that I like, so I was really pleased to stumble across piccalilly.co.uk. Piccalilly.co.uk make gorgeous, unusual kids clothes and accessories and they are all made of lovely soft organic fabric. The material that they use if Fair Trade which is important to us as my best friend worked for Fair Trade and has taught us all about it. Even my 8 year old will only eat Fair Trade chocolate!

I was really lucky and got a lovely parcel in the post from Piccalilly.co.uk which contained a beautiful yellow and white striped Wrap Around Hooded Towel. I noticed instantly how soft and cuddly it was and was slightly jealous that it was only big enough for Thurston. Having sat and stroked it on my lap, I decided that I ought to let Thurston use it and once we got the paddling pool out at the weekend, the towel was used constantly. Thurston is incredibly happy in the water and thoroughly enjoyed splashing around in the sunshine. He probably overstayed his welcome in the paddling pool and came out looking like a prune, shivering and looking happily exhausted! I got out the Piccalilly towel and wrapped him up and cuddled him into my lap and he was instantly calmed. The towel was really absorbant and I stayed completely dry while I cuddled him. Thurston seemed to find the wrap around element of the towel really reassuring and it warmed him up straight away.

As we were in the garden with lots of children, the Wrap Around Hooded Towel did get fairly grubby that afternoon. I washed it overnight and it looked good as new again and was ready for another day. That evening, we used the towel at bath time instead of his usual dressing gown and he was much happier to get out of the bath. It was so much simpler to cuddle him dry instead of rubbing him with a normal towel.

We live beside the sea and so Thurston is often in and out of the water or playing in the sand. He loves the new sensory experiences of different textures and I love watching him explore. It’s really lovely to have the big Wrap Around Hooded Towel to scoop him up in at the end of the day and dry him off whilst giving him a squeeze.

Piccalilly.co.uk have a gorgeous range of clothing as well as the lovely towels. I’ve got my eye on a few things, particularly the Dribble Bibs, Little Sailor PJs, and the Festival Bunting T Shirt!

If you want easy-to-wear, comfy, stylish, organic and ethical clothing and accessories for your kids, I’d definitely point you in the direction of www.piccalilly.co.uk, you will love it like we do!

Thanks for reading

Hanj x

P.S. I have only managed to include photos of bathtime as it was quite tricky to take photos at the paddling pool with a wriggly wet toddler. I will edit the post to include more pics ASAP!

Sun, sea, sand and splash

The sun has finally made an appearance in Margate for long enough for us to actually get out and about and enjoy it. This weekend has been a blissful Summery couple of days and I have thoroughly enjoyed catching the sun and spending time watching my kids have fun. It’s felt like a bit of a long week as it often does when it is hot and the kids are at school. It’s definitely more difficult to enjoy the rare nice weather if you are doing the school run and lugging book bags and lunchboxes everywhere you go. So, I really appreciated that the sun lasted into the weekend and let us throw mealtimes and bedtimes out the window for a couple of days.

Thurston has definitely found the heat a bit of a struggle and has been napping and falling asleep regularly, usually in his dinner which has had a terrible knock-on effect to his sleep pattern! However, he has been very determined to make the most of it and seems to have really benefitted from spending more time outside and having a bit more freedom. At the start of the week, I made an effort to try and ‘tidy up’ my overgrown garden. It was in a dreadful state having not been touched since my husband injured his spine in 2010. As he is still recovering from his surgery, I tried to do the majority of the weeding and raking myself which was easier said than done with Thurston around. Being the little diva that he is, if I am in the garden at the same time as Thurston, I must permanently be watching and cheering everything he does. Focussing my attention on the gardening instead was unacceptable, which I found out in no uncertain terms when I was whacked over the head from behind with a baking tray. I have learnt the lesson that gardening is only doable with 2 adults. One to weed, and one to be the audience member for Thurston’s live performance.

Having tidied the garden, it seemed logical to play in it and so I invited over an old friend from my teenage years and her adorable 3 year old and twin toddlers. We blew up a massive paddling pool and got their swimming cossies out, plastered on the SPF50 and were actually able to sit and drink tea and have a catch up whilst the kids splashed and played. It is so unusual for Thurston to take to people that instantly and the 6 kids played beautifully together. Being a little water baby, Thurston wasn’t in the least bit bothered about being splashed or realistically, drenched by the other kids. In fact, he was one of the main offenders!! I made a pick n mix lunch of french stick, grapes, kettle chips, organix and salad, and the kids were all good as gold sharing their lunches. Thurston joined all of the other kids on the sofa to watch Tom & Jerry and he played with a noisy Peppa Pig book with his new buddy. Although every so often he still took time out to lay with his pillow, there was no instance of him snatching or lashing out, or crying even. It was a lovely moment for me to realise how far he has come and the progress he has made with socialising. I’m so so proud of him. It was nice for me too, to spend time with people and not worry about what they would think of Thurston, he was just one kid in the big mix, which was really satisfying.

Of course, as soon as the visitors went home, Thurston spent the rest of the afternoon asleep on his Dinosaur pillow. This gave the boys a window of opportunity to sneak out and buy a laptop with our tax rebate which is very exciting! I now have a computer which will make blogging quite a bit easier! I naturally started to panic at the thought of another sleepless night after he’d had such a long nap, so at 7pm after a lovely dinner, I threw the kids sandals on them and dragged them all off to Margate beach for a sunset beach walk. We drove so that we could get to a beach a bit further away where we were guaranteed there would still be sand as I am notorious for getting the tides timings completely wrong. I’m so pleased we made the effort to go out, even though it was past the kids’ usual bedtime. We spent over an hour playing on the sand. Thurston was so happy jumping in the rock pools or ‘muddy puddles’ as he called them. He ran and ran and laughed the whole time, especially when his trousers fell down! Louis and Zeke were typical boys and spent their time writing insults about each other in the sand “Zeke smells”, “Louis loves Christians” (!!!). The sea and the sky looked incredible at that time of night and it was really refreshing to let the children just be. It is starting to become a regular thing for us now, to take the children to the beach of an evening and let them just run and wear themselves out. There’s a lovely quality about the beach that puts everything into perspective and reminds you just to enjoy each other and be happy.

I even managed an evening out this week which was brilliant. So that the kids weren’t too jealous, we treated them to dinner at Nando’s beforehand with a couple of our friends. It’s nice to do something with the kids after school when we can, so we don’t get too stuck in a rut. Thurston is very impatient when we go out to eat as he doesn’t understand that food needs to be cooked and cooled before he can eat it, so 6 of us sat there frantically blowing on chips while he barked orders at us all. It’s a good job we all love him!! Despite his outrage, he actually ate his entire meal in super quick time and enjoyed the chicken even though it had no breadcrumb coating. Usually he would struggle with ‘naked’ chicken, but I think because we had gone for dinner staright from nursery pick-up, he was too hungry to care! He did amazingly well and went to bed no problem for his babysitters which was a relief. The boys tried their luck of course and stayed up a little late, but that’s what babysitters are for. I went with my husband and our friends to see Simon Amstell’s new show “Numb” and had a fantastic time. It was the perfect mix of comedy and hippy philosophy that I love. I went home with a lovely warm feeling and felt determined to always look for the joy in life as Simon Amstell suggested.

Next week is the Jubilee weekend, and the children have 1-2 weeks off school so I am looking forward to being outside even more and watching what lovely little boys they are becoming, whilst working on my tan of course!

Thanks for reading

Hanj x

Duvet Day!

Ever since Thurston was a baby, we have had to keep a duvet in the lounge. It comes in so handy that I’m always surprised that other people don’t have a lounge duvet! When Thurston keeps us up all night, the lounge duvet is essential for a makeshift bed. We lay it out on the floor for a comfy relaxing spot for Thurston to lie down on. He is also incredibly attached to his favourite pillow and winds down by stroking the label of the pillow in the palm of his hand. The pillow is also used to eat his lunch on his lap watching cartoons between morning outings and nursery.

When he was very small, the lounge duvet was simply a necessity. It was covered in whatever duvet cover was available and changed most days due to reflux incidents! I used mainly cheap duvet covers or other people’s cast offs because we went through so many.

Now that he is older, I’m able to indulge in something more stylish for the lounge duvet which is a relief. There is minimal risk that he will have a reflux episode now, but the duvet is still at risk of Marmite! In our house, we have always been in love with Cath Kidston things. Even my older children have a soft spot for my Cowboy duvet. I’ve got lots of lovely Cath Kidston bits and pieces that I’m really fond of, and recently Cath Kidston opened a lovely shop near me in Canterbury, so now I love browsing as well.

Ver kindly, Cath Kidston offered to send Thurston a Dinosaur bedding set. Thurston has recently become really fascinated by dinosaurs, and despite his Speech and Language Disorder (as a result of his Autism Spectrum Disorder) has learned to say “tyrannosaurus rex, triceratops and brontosaurus”!!  When the bedding arrived, Thurston was thrilled and called it “dino-roar”. He couldn’t wait for me to get it on the lounge duvet (which typically gets a load more use than the one on his bed!) and actually climbed inside it while I was shaking it down. The Cath Kidston bedding is so soft and smooth making it really comfortable, especially for little ones who are hypersensitive to anything even slightly itchy. Thurston immediately jumped on the duvet on the floor and lay watching Peppa Pig, whose little brother George is also dinosaur-crazy! The pattern of the bedding is gorgeous and at 3 adults have already told me that they are jealous! It has a lovely vintage feel which is much nicer to have on show in the lounge than garish cartoon character duvet sets.

It wasn’t long before the first pillowcase fell victim to Marmite but I’m happy to say it washed out no problem and looks just as shiny and new!

Thurston is so happy with his new bedding for the lounge duvet and looks content and comfortable whenever he throws himself on top of it at the end of a tough day at nursery!

Thank you Cath Kidston, it was a really lovely thing to do for Thurston and he really is in love with it. I think a trip to your Canterbury store is coming soon to pick up the matching Dinosaur pyjamas!!

Thanks for reading

Hanj x

Big boy!

A couple of months ago, we decided to get rid of a lot of our ‘baby’ items and encourage Thurston to move along into the next phase of being a toddler. Better late than never! We got rid of the high chair and decided to get a booster seat for the dining table so that Thurston was more involved at mealtimes. The booster seat we bought wasn’t quite right for him however. It was very difficult to attach firmly to the chair and Thurston wanted to get down from the table frequently which was awkward with the seat straps.
BabyBjörn kindly offered me one of their new Booster Chairs for Thurston. It was so much easier to attach to the chair with one thick strap that buckles under the dining chair. You then wind it on using a knob on the back of the booster chair which meant I could position the seat right in the middle of the chair so that his legs are properly supported.
I was a bit dubious at first as the Booster Chair doesn’t have a harness. However, Thurston is never at the table unsupervised and so is very safe in the seat. Also, I think that now he knows he can get in and out of the seat easily and quickly, he is less restless at the table. It seems to reassure him that he isn’t ‘stuck’ at the table!
The Booster Chair has allowed Thurston a little bit of independence and made him seem much more grown up at mealtimes which I am really happy about.
Due to thurston’s autism, I will only be using this Booster Chair at home as I don’t feel he would be safe on a dining chair in a restaurant without straps. However this is only due to his autism.
I’m really happy I gave the Babybjorn Booster Chair a try, it works really well for Thurston and fits perfectly with our furniture. It is a breeze to attach and very easy to keep clean and shiny!
Thanks for reading
Hanj x

Pros and Cons

This week we received the proposed Statement of Educational Needs and although I am very pleased with the result and Thurston will be getting all the help he needs at school, it was a bit of a slap in the face!! Having to apply for a Statement puts you in the unusual and unenviable position of someone sending you paperwork which is basically a critique of your child. Everyone know it’s a bad idea to write a list weighing up the pros and cons of a person, but it is very bad to write a list that only contains cons!! That’s what I got, 85 pages of everything that Thurston can’t do. I can’t imagine any other situation where that would happen, even in school reports, they phrase everything in a positive way. It’s almost unheard of for anyone to send you negative information about your children, and for good reason, because it makes you feel like crap.
Ultimately though, I know that this is what had to be done to get him the help and support that he will need at school. It is just a means to an end, and all the professionals did a really good job of describing Thurston’s problems which I am really grateful for. Even though it was shocking to see a list of skills with a page full of “not at all” ticks, I understand that it is their job to point out all the negatives.
However, I feel it I my job to point out all the positives about Thurston, so here is my very own pros list of skills which he would score highly in!!
-Thurston is brilliant at squeezing people. Proper full on, enthusiastic hugs!
-very talented at spinning round in circles. Has a high threshold for dizziness.
-tidies up his toy cars before we leave the house. Very helpful and neat.
-gives his brothers their coats every morning and their pyjamas every night (this could be interpreted as trying to get rid of them but I am going to assume it is thoughtfulness!)
-eats his dinner every night without any whingeing.
-he is the co-founder of the very funny game “beard attack” and likes to play this with Alex every day, which makes Alex very happy.
-Thurston celebrates every achievement and praises other people when they have achieved something, often telling me “good boy mummy”.
-he is very concerned about other people and doesn’t like to see anyone upset and always asks “what’s the matter?”
-Thurston looks ridiculously adorable in whatever outfits I put him in. He is super cute.
-my little boy knows the name of every single character in Cars, Cars 2 and Cars Toons. There are hundreds of them, he can even group them together according to which scenes they are in.
-After breakfast and lunch, he takes his plate to the kitchen, tips his crusts in the bin and puts his plate in the sink. Again, very helpful and neat.
-the kid’s got rhythm. He sings the tunes of all his favourite songs in perfect time and has very cool taste in music.
-Thurston is an awesome dancer and forces anyone in the house to dance whenever he hears music.
-Thurston can count higher than most 5 year olds. (sadly only a few people can understand his words, but trust me, his number skills are surprisingly good!)
-he is the happiest and most beautiful person I know and makes everybody we know happy just by smiling at them.

So there it is, I’ve done my job and now at least the pros and cons list is evened out!!
Thanks for reading
Hanj x

Keeping Food Fresh

I’ve found lately that there seems to be a lot of situations where we need to transport some food for Thurston and keep it hot, or cool and fresh so that it is safe for him. This is harder than you might think. Here are some of the situations we have been in where some food storage is needed!
1) when we go for dinner at other peoples’ houses, we often take Thurston his own food so that he has something he can eat without worrying about allergies. We usually cook this at home first, and it’s nice if it’s still warm when we eat. We’ve used Tupperware in the past but this just leaves the food soggy and sweaty which isn’t nice.
2) If we are eating at a restaurant or cafe where we know there is nothing on the menu Thurston will eat we will also take his own food from home (we check with the restaurant first so we’re not being cheeky!)
3) If we eat out and we have ordered food for Thurston, sometimes he will fall asleep or get distracted before it arrives. We like to pack it up and take it with us for when he is hungry later on. (providing his dad hasn’t eaten it!)
4) Sometimes we have to take Thurston to an appointment before nursery, so he has to have lunch on the go in between. The food tends to stay in our bag or the car and so needs to be packed safely.
5) We live at the seaside and spend a lot of time outdoors in the summer. Thurston’s lunch or his alternative to BBQ food needs to be kept cool and fresh and safe from sand!
I have found something much much better than Tupperware or cling film/tin foil. It is called a Thermos Foogo food jar and it solves all of the problems listed above. It’s a fantastic, easy to use container which keeps food at the right temperature for up to 5 hours so is perfect for keeping food safe and healthy for little ones. It’s also leak proof which is really reassuring!
Thermos Foogo also make cups in their range which would be great for a hot day out and about to keep drinks cool.
Thermos is obviously a very well known trusted brand and I wish I’d thought of them sooner when we struggle to find something suitable for our changing bag. I would have saved myself a whole cupboard of plastic pots!!

Mini Grazers

We have been getting a Graze box in the post for quite a long time now, and I think more people should! Graze boxes are little selections of natural, healthy snacks that come straight through your letterbox each week. Having a Graze box to look forward to really does prevent me from opening the biscuit tin too often!
When you are sleep deprived, it is easy to grab chocolate or crisps for a quick energy boost. I found that not only did consoling myself with biscuits or replacing sleep with cake not help with my weight, but also that they didn’t really give me the energy I needed. If I eat a chocolate bar, I am quite likely to feel sluggish and bloated which when added to not having been to sleep tends to make me quite grumpy too!!
I used to get my Graze box on a Friday but I have recently had to add an extra Wednesday box because my mini-grazers were nicking everything!! The graze.com website has a rating system so you can ensure that you will only be getting the snacks that you like, so no wastage. Everyone in the family has their favourites:
Zeke likes the tomato dipinetti (cherry tomato relish with rosemary grissini)
Louis is a fan of the vanilla seeds and lemon infused raisins
Thurston likes the apple flapjack
Alex (my partner) loves the fruity ploughmans (apple and pear chutney with roasted poppy seed flatbread)
My favourite is the dark rocky road (chocolate buttons, cranberries and pecan nuts).
There are loads of snacks suitable for any allergy sufferers and all the information is easily available in the packet or online.
This week I got sent a brand new recipe from the Guilt Free High Tea range. There are 4 variations and I got the lemon and poppy seed cake which comes with its own afternoon tea infusion to make the perfect afternoon tea break! The cake doesn’t contain dairy or soya so is perfect for Thurston to try (cakes DO contain EGG so please check for allergens where necessary). It is the nicest lemon cake i have had in ages, really soft and fresh! The little Punnet of cake is only 96 calories which is brilliant for such a satisfying treat!! I can’t wait to try the other 3 cakes, particularly the Super Carrot Cake!
The graze box is £3.79 which is a lot to be spending on snacks I guess (especially considering I get 2 a week), but I save money on ice creams from the van after school or sweets from the shop so it all evens out. Plus, Graze are very generous with their offers and you don’t have to look far to find a half price/freebie code! The money spent is so worth it to watch my kids snacking on natural delights and seeing them excited to see what combinations have arrived.
If you’re hungry after reading this, check out graze.com, they’ll look after you!!

Lovely Plums

When I first started weaning Thurston, it was a challenge to say the least! Between his allergies, reflux and poor oro-motor skills, teaching him to eat was a difficult task. I tried to make pureed food for him myself, but since most of it ended up in the bin, I decided to save myself the heartache and buy some food instead. At first, I went down the typical baby rice and rusk route, but quickly realised that the rusk was too hard and the baby rice (if he even managed to swallow any) made him very gassy and uncomfortable. Thurston preferred to eat simple fruit purees like apple, pear and peach but as he got older, these weren’t enough to keep him full up. I discovered Plum Baby and I’m so pleased I did. Their purees were bulked out with Quinoa flakes which are much kinder to babies’ tummies and keep them full up without being bloated. They also make lovely combinations such as the Blueberry, Banana and Vanilla puree which Thurston used to eat with gusto!

Instead of baby rice, Plum Baby also make a lovely Four Grain Porridge which is made with quinoa, wholegrain rice, millet and amaranth. Since you can make this up to whatever consistency you like, it is ideal as a weaning food for babies with poor oro-motor skills or reflux. The purees move up stages in thickness instead of adding lumps which is very reassuring as a mum whose baby liked to choke on even the tiniest chunk of chicken!

Now that Thurston is older, we have moved on from purees. I do like to let Thurston use a Plum Baby puree as a dip for his biscuits, and he loves the range of Plum Baby finger foods. The multigrain and tomato crispy rings are a great snack, and he often has the spelt and apple munchy fingers after a long session at nursery.

Plum Baby mark their products very clearly for allergens making it easy for people to find the right food for their baby. Weaning Thurston was certainly made easier by Plum Baby!

This Summer, Plum Baby have introduced a new range of foods for babies and toddlers over 10 months called Taste Adventures, which they kindly sent us to try out. The range includes sweet cape curry with beef, chickpea and chicken tagine, aubergine and lamb moussaka and a mediterranean paella with salmon. These little pots are fantastic for encouraging children to try new tastes from all over the world, and hopefully help them to be a bit more adventurous with their foods.

For me, the beest thing about the Plum Baby Taste Adventures range is that they are all gluten, egg and dairy free which makes them fantastic for children who have allergies. None of them even had corn in them so they were all suitable for Thurston to have a go with.

Getting Thurston to eat foods that are not dry is an ongoing battle for us. On the advice of his speech therapist, we try to encourage him through messy play with food. I have put out pots of Plum Baby food for him to dip things in and cover his hands with and he is really making progress with this now. I cannot wait until he can manage to feed himself a little bowlful of Plum Baby.

I served my 5 year old Zeke a portion of the sweet cape curry with beef alongside some rice and he wolfed it down and loved it. He is a big fan of curry already! I had a taste of the salmon paella and it was actually really lovely and fresh tasting, and didn’t taste like baby food at all.

I would really recommend Plum Baby to any parent, they use lovely nutritious ingredients and include lots of fantastic grains such as spelt and quinoa which are ideal for little tummies. They are also brilliant for children with allergies which is so reassuring!

Thanks for reading

Dairy free!!!

My little boy turns 4 next month which means that come September, he will be at proper big boy school! Although he will have lots of support and a 1 to 1 helper because of his Autism, I am still a bit concerned about sending him off into the world without me.

One of the things I worry about is Thurston’s allergies. He is still very small and wouldn’t know what he is and isn’t supposed to eat and I know that the school has a fantastic allergies policy, but I just wanted a little bit more ‘insurance’ to make sure I was covered!!

I found a brilliant website www.tinyme.co.uk which does all sorts of personalised stuff for kids, but most importantly they make lovely personalised labels to plaster all over bottles, lunchboxes, tupperware and anything else that might come into contact with food. I ordered a Super Pack of Vinyl Sticky Labels (through a discount website, so search the net for any codes!). There is loads and loads of choice on there for designs, colours, fonts and sizes. I decided on some brightly coloured robots, Thurston’s name and “Dairy Free” just to be on the safe side! They also have specific allergy designs with little milk carton and nut cartoon characters which is a lovely idea. The labels arrived really quickly and were obviously really easy to use!

I’m so please with them, they look really bright and cheerful but give clear information to anyone that works with Thurston not to give him dairy, which is really reassuring for me!

So if you’re a worry-wart like I am about your kids’ allergies, maybe make a set of stickers just to be safe!