Easter Craft Ideas

I can't believe how quickly this year is going - Easter is just a few days away! This week, I met up with a friend of mine and we did some fun Easter craft together.

First we made some little carrot magnets for Lilly's loved ones! We used orange non-toxic paint to do their little footprints then cut strips of green paper for the carrot tops. Once they had dried, we used a hot glue gun to pop a magnet on the back. I just love how they turned out!

Next we painted two circles onto cardboard - one white for a rabbit face and one yellow for a little chicken. We painted their feet white for bunny ears and their hands yellow for chicken wings. Isn't the rabbit the sweetest!?

Lastly, we did a cute little rabbit with a matching carrot using their little footprints! These will be sent off to Picture Products which will then be turned into a little plate for Lilly to put her Easter Bunny carrots and snacks on next year. It will be awesome to see how much her feet have grown by this time next year! I was so worried about ruining her plate, so Lilly helped me to draw the carrot tops but I think she was more interested in eating my hand.

Lilly's learning corner

As some of you may know, I am a primary school teacher. I taught Prep/Kindergarten for two years before I fell pregnant with Lilly and I always loved making a difference in the lives of our little people. Now that I am a stay at home Mummy, I design and create teaching products which I sell over at Little Lifelong Learners. This has just been a little hobby but I'm thinking of taking the leap and turning it into my very own small business very soon!

I decided to make some cute alphabet posters which I shrunk down and laminated for my home office where I spend a lot of my day. Once they were up, we decided to make a little learning corner for Lilly seeing as though she spends some of her day in here with me.

 

Once the posters were up on the wall, we went to Ikea and got some wooden learning toys. Lilly absolutely loves the abacus and whacks the beads across with a big grin on her face.At Kmart, we got the white bookshelf and the little baskets. I think Lilly actually enjoys playing with the baskets more than she likes the things inside them. They are great for sensory play.

 We are using one of the baskets to keep all her board books and touchy feely books in. It's the perfect size for Lilly to be able to reach in and grab what she wants. Read my Books for Babies post to see what our favourites are at the moment.

The next basket is our sensory play / exploration basket. At the moment, it's full of different balls with different textures. Lilly loves to pick them up and throw them so it's no surprise that some have mysteriously disappeared already!

Last but certainly not least, are my sensory play bottles! The first is just cooking oil and coloured water. When Lilly shakes it, the oil and water starts to mix together then separate again. It's more fun for me to watch and play with but I'm sure Lilly will appreciate it soon! The next is just different coloured rice. You pop some rice in a zip lock bag with some food colouring and a splash of white vinegar and shake it up until the rice is dyed. Then you spread it on some cooking paper out in the sun to dry. So easy and so effective!

The others are my rainbow shakers filled with bits and pieces from my craft cupboard. If you don't have a stash, you can grab some bits and pieces from the $2 or junk shop. I used things like feathers, paddle pop sticks, beads, pebbles, pipe cleaners and coloured pasta. So cheap and so much fun!

So there you go! Lilly now has a little space to play and learn in while Mummy works on her business!

Our Allergy Journey

I've been thinking about writing this post for sometime now but I always worried about how it would make me look as a new mumma. I've decided to go ahead and share our story though because if it helps one new mumma struggling with baby allergies, it will be totally worth it.

As many of you know, Lilly was born 6 weeks early at 34 weeks due to severe pre-eclampsia. I am actually waiting for an appointment meet with my obstetrician to discuss whether I actually had HELLP but that's a whole other blog post.

Lilly was a teeny tiny 1.59kg or 3 pound 8 which meant she was just 90grams shy of being labelled a low birth weight bubba. This label brings with it a whole load of special considerations and a trip to the NICU rather than getting to stay in Special Care where she spent her first 4 and a half weeks of life.

Anway, we've spent Lilly's entire life battling between her real age and her corrected age. We never got any advice on whether to start Lilly on solids when she hit 6 months real age or to wait the extra 6 weeks until she hit 6 months corrected. I watched her closely to see whether she was showing signs of readiness (no tongue reflex, looking for food and trying to grab at it while I ate and sitting quite well with limited support). Once she was meeting most of them, we got started. 

 Looking back now, I wonder whether we should have waited another few weeks. Lilly's first food was some mango smoothie made on just yoghurt and mango. There were no reactions but she certainly didn't enjoy it. I left it a few days then tried some veggies and toast which she actually liked so we continued with baby led weaning. On one occassion, she had a taste of milk froth and a little red dot came up on her lip. I was really unsure so we decided just to watch her closely after her next taste of dairy.

Not long after, I decided to give Lilly some yoghurt to play with. She LOVED it and was covered head to toe. Within minutes, she developed a nasty rash which just got darker and darker. She started to develop welts all around her neck where the yoghurt had been touching her. I sat at the front door and rang Hubby in a panic who was luckily just a minute or two from home. I remember being really unsure whether or not I was overreacting or whether I needed to panic a bit more. Those two minutes felt like a lifetime!

When he walked through the door, he confirmed my fears and we rushed up to the doctors who is also just a few minutes down the road. We didn't even put clothes on her! They squeezed us in to see my GP straight away. The picture below was while we were sitting in the waiting room. It was very red wherever the yoghurt touched her, even up near her eye. I was so scared even though she was quite happy.

The GP came to the conclusion that it was just a skin reaction and to keep offering as much milk as we wanted. We were not happy with this diagnosis so booked in to see another GP (the one my Hubby usually sees). After filling him in on Lilly's past, he agreed that it sounded like a milk protein allergy and sent us for allergy testing.

We continued to avoid dairy but had a few silly slip ups, the worst being mashed potato at a restaurant. The first 6 pictures below were the result of a few spoons of mashed potato. The next few were from soldier eggs and toast. It's only a very light rash but still there. We assumed I had put too much margarine on her toast because she had eaten both egg and margarine on toast many times.

About 2 weeks ago, it was finally time for Lilly to have her allergy testing done! She was very brave while the top allergens were tested (milk, egg yolk, egg white, white fish, shellfish, peanuts, sesame seeds). To our surprise, both egg white AND milk came up positive! 

 

After meeting with the specialist after her test was finished, we came to the conclusion that Lilly is allergic to the uncooked protein in both milk and eggs. This means she can tolerate it in her system when very well cooked (180 degrees for 20 mins). Anything less results in an allergic reaction, which in her case is hives. She is still too small for an epi-pen so we must be very careful. Lilly still loves quiche for dinner on occasion but we are very careful to avoid anything that may not have the proteins cooked out enough. We have been rash free ever since the appointment!

It has been a very stressful and scary few months while trying to determine what was going on. I often wonder whether starting on solids too early may have contributed to her allergies? It's very bizarre because she tolerated milk based formula for about a month as a newborn!

Lilly's first painting experience

As many of you know, I am a big supporter of sensory play for little ones. A friend of mine did some cute little paintings with her bubba which inspired me to paint with Lilly too!

I headed to the $2 shop and grabbed some bright, non-toxic paint (just in case) and some canvases. When we got home, I put an old sheet on the floor and dabbed some paint onto the canvas. Next I wrapped some cling wrap around it and popped Lilly down for some painting fun.

She loved smooshing the paint with her feet and her fingers, but I think Mumma had more fun! This is a great little craft activity and the resulting canvas is now sitting proudly in her Learning Nook.

Books for Babies

Reading is such an important activity to do with your babies and children. It helps to develop vocabulary and speaking skills and also fosters a love of reading from a very young age. As a teacher, it is quite obvious which students have been read to from a young age. 

Even though it feels kind of silly, I believe it's important to start reading to the youngest of babies. I can remember one particular day when Lilly was 8 weeks old. She was fussing and whinging a lot so I sat down and read to her - she instantly cheered up! My husband took a photograph of us together and it is one of my favourite photographs now.

So today I thought I would share some of our favourite books to read together at 9 months old! We started to incorporate books into a bedtime routine but found that normal picture books were a bit tough with Lilly and her busy hands. We now read mostly board books which is what I want to share with you today.

At the moment, Lilly is loving books with a sensory element to them - anything she can feel with her hands is a winner! We absolutely love reading the Hungry Caterpillar playbook and the dinosaur story book. The Hungry Caterpillar book is SO MUCH FUN! Lilly loves feeling the lion's mane.

I looked everywhere for the 'Guess how much I love you?' board book as it was a favourite of mine as a child. I often like to read this one at night time. It has such a sweet storyline and I remember my mum and sister often saying "I love you THIS much!"

The farm animal and ocean animal books were part of a big vocabulary pack that I found at Big W and are perfect for little ones who are learning to talk. 'I went walking' is a repetitive book that is commonly used in Prep and Kindergarten which I absolutely love because it builds animal and colour vocabulary.

So why is it important to read to your children lots and build up their vocabulary? It's a very well known fact that the brain develops most in the first 5 years of a child's life. Exposing babies and children to a wide variety of words in these early years will help develop important literacy skills down the track. Here is a fantastic article about building vocabulary with your little ones.

Spaghetti sensory play

Sometimes I worry that Lilly gets bored of me during the day. We tend to do the same things day in day out when we are hanging out at home together. We have play mats set up in several different rooms of the house with different toys at each. She has a jumperoo which she enjoys playing in while I cook dinner....but I still can't shake the 'bored feeling.'

Now that Lilly is sitting up, we have started some sensory play which is super important for her brain development and her understanding of how the world around her works. As an early childhood educator myself, I have been aching to get started with some fun play experiences. I am trying to set aside one day a week for some new play activities. Our latest play experience was spaghetti and boy did she love it.

I simply boiled a big pot of spaghetti and added a few drops of food dye while it was cooking away. You can definitely skip this step or use natural food dyes such as beetroot or spinach to add some colour.

As you can see, the spaghetti was very well received and Lilly couldn't help having a little taste, an important part of sensory play especially for little babies. I'm not sure who had the most fun though, me or her! I just HAD to help her pop some spaghetti on her head - it was really funny and sweet to watch her try to work out what was going on and how to solve the problem of not being able to see!

A lot of people shy away from sensory play because it can be very messy (as is baby led weaning!) but it really is so much fun! I am so looking forward to trying lots of new sensory play with Lilly as she grows.

Sensory play with homemade paint

Lilly loves playing in her highchair so I often pop her in there with some toys while I do the dishes. Today I decided to whip up some homemade paint for her to play with and she loved it!

You will need:

• 1 cup of plain flour
• 1 cup of water
• 1 squirt of dish-washing liquid
• Food colouring
• Bowls and spoons for mixing
• Ziplock bag
• Tape

First I measured out the flour and slowly added water until I had a nice paint-like consistency. Then I added the squirt of dish-washing liquid and separated the mixture into cups. I decided to make two different colours so I had a lot of mixture left over. Next time I will just make a tiny little bit! Once I had my two sets of paint, I used a spoon to put the blue paint down one side of the ziplock bag and pink down the other but you could use as many different colours as you like!

Next I used ordinary tape to attach the bag to Lilly's highchair. At first she wasn't too sure what to do so I helped her moosh the paint with her hands. She loved kneading the paint with her fist and using her palm to squash the paint.

Next time I must remember to make sure her nails aren't too sharp because she did pierce the bag towards the end. She really enjoyed this little sensory play activity and I can't wait to try a few more with her over the coming weeks!