Welcome to a new monthly feature on our little corner of the internet! At the end of every month I thought it would be fun to give you a ...

Little Loves - January

Sunday, February 04, 2018 BookBairn 7 Comments


Welcome to a new monthly feature on our little corner of the internet! At the end of every month I thought it would be fun to give you a little insight into more than just what we are enjoying reading. A bit more of our toddler and baby lifestyle, sharing our favourite TV programmes, clothing, toys, etc. I've used a wonderful format that I first saw over on MamaMummyMum's blog which is part of a weekly link-up from Coffee Work Sleep Repeat and will be joining in with them but on a monthly round-up basis, and unlike many of the blog posts linked I'm not sharing my favourites (unless you want to see that as well) but will be sharing the little loves of BookBairn and The Wee Page Turner. I've also added a category - played - because for kids play is the foundation of their day so wouldn't be a complete monthly round-up without it!
So enough from me, over to the little loves this month.

You can always find our most recent favourite reads on our 'Favourites Shelf' feature but if we were to pick just one book each the ones that we have read most have been 'Pom Pom Gets the Grumps' by Sophy Henn. BookBairn has rediscovered an old favourite - you may remember I got in trouble with her when she was not quite two years old because I returned them to the library. Big mistake. Anyway, we have our own copies now and we have read this one over and over. Until BookBairn realised that it had been signed and dedicated to her brother. And now we have moved on to 'Pom Pom the Champion' which has her name inside. Sophy Henn has perfectly captured a quintessential toddler in this series and wrapped him up in an adorable panda package. It's no wonder BookBairn loves it so much. 

BookBairn and The Wee Page Turner both enjoying watching a little bit of TV during their chillout time and whilst having their afternoon snacks. BookBairn has consistently asked to watch the animated scenes from Mary Poppins over and over again - she particularly loves the penguins dancing with Dick Van Dyke as well as the horses on the Merry-Go-Round. The pink one is her favourite! Which is probably because she has a pink unicorn ride-on pony of her own.


I am absolutely adoring seeing The Wee Page Turner in a t-shirt given to us by a friend who knows us very well as it's slogan proclaims "leaders will be book fans"!! Could this be anymore perfect for us? Unfortunately he has outgrown it so I'm going to have to see if I can find it and buy it in all the sizes!


It has been a tricky month to choose a favourite toy as we got so many new ones for Christmas (though I have quite a few unopened toys stashed away for a rainy day) but one of the toys that BookBairn has had a lot of joy out of playing with has been her Go Jetters toys that she asked Santa for. For those of you who don't know, Go Jetters is a Cbeebies TV show where a team of characters, the Go Jetters, aided by Ubercorn the Unicorn rescue world monuments from Grandmaster Glitch who always seems to accidentally cause chaos in his wake. So when BookBairn goes for her nap - I 'glitch' things. Messing around with her toys - breaking up jigsaws, stacking her cubes the wrong way, stealing the top of her Eiffel Tower puzzle - and she flies the vroomster to the rescue and 'fixes that glitch'. It's a great game. And we have lots of fun and giggles playing together.


I would love to be someone who was a maker but to be honest I find it hard to be creative in any sort of real artistic way and I don't have much patience for baking. But I do like to do papercrafts - journals, scrapbooks etc. And mostly my daily planner. So I gave BookBairn an old spiralbound notebook of her own and she just loves to draw in it and pretend to be mummy. It's also a great place for her to stick all those stickers that used to get stuck all over the house and now she can look back at them over and over again. It's not a clever make but it works for us!


This is an interesting one for me to think about as I sometimes feel we don't listen to enough music but we do listen to audiobooks a lot. During one slightly fraught teatime - BookBairn can be a challenge when she is tired and I'm giving my attention to The Wee Page Turner to feed him his tea - I decided to pop on to the Nosy Crow Podcast and play one of the stories we have been reading a lot - Neon Leon by Jane Clarke and Britta Teckentrup. Because she is so familiar with the story already she really enjoyed listening to it again and again and as she listening she absent-mindedly ate all her dinner. And now we do this quite a lot at tea time. If you haven't checked out the Nosy Crow podcasts you should - they are a great way to read with your kiddos when you don't have your hands free.


One of the things I have really enjoyed doing over the last week is @afriendlyaffair 'look up challenge' that has encouraged my to put my phone away and look up at my kids, to meet their gaze, to show them I am available to them and that I am interested in what they are doing. It's been a challenge, I'll admit, I love surfing social media, especially Instagram, but I realise the benefits my kids get of me being there. I've been bored at the park, I've spent more time playing on the floor until my knees ache, I've got FOMO (is that still a thing?) but I've also seen my children do things I didn't know they could, I've spent more time getting to know them. And I've chilled out more. And do you know what, I'm happier. Honestly, they are happier, I am happier. (And it may be a huge coincidence but less media for all of us + more time together = both my kids are sleeping all night in their own beds. This is a miracle. But maybe they don't need me at night anymore because maybe they have my attention all day. Or maybe they are just exhausted by bedtime.) But lastly, it's made me happier. Once you finish reading this, I encourage you to pop your phone away, or off, and go play. Enjoy a happy moment. Look Up!


I hope you enjoyed reading a bit more about the things we loved this month, I'm going to try and stop and take stock at the end of each month and share with you our 'Little Loves'. 

Hope you had a lovely January - where did the month go?
Mummy and the bairns xx


Little Loves Coffee Work Sleep Repeat

7 comments:

  1. What a lovely blog post! I agree less social media and more time for people as well as trusting others to do more is one my New Year resolutions list. I look forward to more posts x

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    1. Thank you! We can both put our phones away next time you come to play!

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  2. The Nosy Crow podcast sounds great. Definitely going to check that out.x

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  3. I love the way the blog keeps evolving and this format was fascinating.

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    1. Thanks - our life is a little more than just books! And this lets me share some other loves.

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  4. So lovely to have you joining in with LittleLoves, your blog is super cute. The slogan on that tshirt is simply perfect! They should make them in all sizes. x

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    1. Thank you very much! It's a lovely concept - and I hope you don't mind that I added 'played'. It felt appropriate for my blog!

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