Here is my recipe to prepare and make salt dough for salt dough ornament creations. We use salt dough a lot to capture Ollies hand and footprints to compare how much he has grown!

Another sensory play that we tried was moon sand, it was so simple to make and very fun to play with. You can easily make shapes out of it and is better to mould and make sand castles than actual sand! All the fun of playing in sand without the uncomfortable gritty texture.

Ollie loved this and really enjoyed the texture. You can make it with just 2 ingredients: Flour and Oil (you can use vegetable if you are worried about baby putting it in his/her mouth). I chose to use baby oil. It gave it a silky texture. 

You need one 1/4 of a cup of baby oil for every 2 cups of flour you use. Its easiest to use 1 cup of oil to 8 cups of flour. Just add the ingredients together and mix very well to combine. 

The added benefit is you can keep this in an air tight container to play again another day! We found that the only problem is that it goes everywhere but if you are happy to get a little messy then its one your little one will enjoy! 

There aren't many art and craft activities that you can do with your baby, but one of the things you can do, that makes really cute works of art are baby foot and hand print pictures. Over the past few months, I have experimented with a few different ideas for Ollie’s hand and foot prints.

This type of art is great as it captures how small your little one was - its true you really do forget how small they were and they grow so fast that it can be hard to remember just how little they were. Its so much nicer than a boring ink print and is a lovely way to spend time with your little one. The hardest part is getting a good print from your baby, footprints are the easiest as babies tend to close their hands up. However as baby grows older you will find that the hand-prints are easier to get.  You need a certain amount of patience and it is worth remembering that some children will not like the feel of the paint and will not be happy to do this activity.

TIPS

- Make sure you have everything prepared before you start, you need to have all your paint and paper and clean up crew on standby as the last thing you want is to find  is that you don’t have something you need when you have a baby covered in paint. This includes having mixed up the colours you want.

- Make sure you protect everything, its amazing how far paint travels and gets on everything. You can use newspaper to protect your table and floor or a wipe clean mat or tuff tray.

- Make sure baby is wearing old clothes or is just in nappy/vest before going anywhere near paint.

-If possible have someone there to help, with Ollie we have one of us holding him and the other applying the paint and getting the print. It is possible to do on your own but you might want to put baby in a high-chair or bumbo so you don’t have to hold your baby as well as get the print.

-We also used found it easy to use a cotton make up pad or cotton wool to apply the paint to his feet/hands, it covered more surface area than a paint brush and gives a fairly even coating of paint on the foot/hand -Before we started with the paint we made sure we had a warm, bubble bath ready and waiting so that when finished we could pop Ollie into the bath for a clean up.  One of us would bathe him and the other would clean up the amazing amount of mess left behind.

- I will warn you that a lot of mess is generated for very short time of doing this activity.

-Allow the paint to dry fully before drawing on any detail to the print.

-Always write the date or age your baby was when you created your picture that way you can really see the change in the size of your baby’s prints as he/she grows. Maybe even stick on a picture of your baby. 

-On days that Ollie isn't as co-operative as he could be, we distract him with nursery rhymes to give his focus on something other than his hand/ foot being held

-I tend to make a few prints rather than just one and then choose which one has come out best as you may find that some smudge or don’t work as well. -Enjoy making memories with your little one and let your creative juices run free!!  Foot and hand print art is a great way to bond with your baby and a great way to make home made cards/gifts for family and friends.  Generally this activity goes down really well and your little one will hopefully love the feel of the paint. We let Ollie play with it and get right in despite the mess it makes. He really enjoys these messy activities. Do make sure that the paint is non-toxic and watch to make sure your little one doesn't try and put the paint in their mouths. This is an example of one of our hand and footprint art works. We used the theme of Monsters Inc. We wanted to include a picture of Ollie in this picture so made him into a character from the movie. 

Yesterday we tried a new baby sensory play idea with Ollie - Rainbow Spaghetti! Ollie really enjoyed playing with the spaghetti and pulling it apart and moving it around. His siblings also gave him some spaghetti hair, which he found very amusing! You can choose to use food colouring to dye the spaghetti or if you don’t have any then leave it plain, your baby/child will still enjoy the textures.

Its a simple activity that doesn’t need many things to create, just spaghetti, we used a whole pack, a container to play in (we used Ollie’s wipe clean ball pit, but a lot of people use a plastic tub) and food colouring (optional)

 To Make:

- First cook up your spaghetti as if you were cooking it to eat - When your spaghetti is soft, drain off the water. Run under cool water to prevent the spaghetti from sticking or clumping together. - Once cooled add a tiny amount of oil and combine well, this will allow the spaghetti to glide over each other and prevent it sticking and clumping, making it easier to play with. - Add a few drops of your chosen food colouring dyes, for stronger, more vibrant colours add more drops or just a couple of drops will give a pastel colour depending on your preference. (TIP: if making multiple colours, separate out your spaghetti into separate bowls and dye individually to prevent the food colours blending together. Mix well or you will have streaky colours -Separate out your spaghetti onto a non-stick surface like baking paper and allow to dry for at least an hour. Do not allow different coloured, wet spaghetti to touch each other, otherwise the colours may mix. - Now you are ready to play, Enjoy!!

To enhance this activity or if you have older children add some toys. You could give a dolly or teddy some spaghetti hair for example. Or you could use coloured tubs/containers, and get your child to sort the spaghetti into its correct coloured tub (ie blue spaghetti in a blue tub). I really like this activity because it can combine learning with play, teaching your child textures and colours. I also like the fact that it is a cheap, inexpensive activity. Such a simple concept providing ages of fun. It is an activity that isnt as messy as some of the baby sensory activities. Some disadvantages are that you have to prepare in advance before you can play, its not a spur of the moment activity. It can also go clumpy quite easily, getting it right can be trial and error. It also is a one off and cannot be kept otherwise the spaghetti goes mouldy so must be thrown away after play is over. Overall a fun activity, Ollie enjoyed this, we hope you do too!

Introduction

I'm Michelle, the people closest to me also know me as Pookie, I’m 33 years old and a married mum of 3. I have a 13 year old daughter, an 11 year old son and a baby son born in June 2020 (nearly 9 months old). We live in our happy (and hectic) home just outside of Brighton.

 I decided to make this blog for several reasons, one of those was to share some of my ideas with baby arts and crafts, the other was to share my story with the sinister pregnancy condition Hyperemesis Gravidarum and the last reason was as a kind of diary, a small snapshot in to our lives. I have been diagnosed with several different chronic health conditions which make my journey as a mum that much more difficult. This blog may give its readers a snap shot into the life of a mum struggling with disabilities. If it can give even one person hope or make someone smile then it is worth it.

 A brief history of my health

From the age of 11, I have had 2 different mental health conditions that run along side each other; they are depression and anxiety. And at the age of 13 I suffered with regular back pain, which after x-rays showed to be scoliosis. It caused pain but as it was not discovered until adulthood there was very little that could be done. At the age of 17 I lost my son at about 20-22 weeks gestation after a shock discovery of pregnancy. Things starting getting bad from there, later that year I ended up with glandular fever but did make a good but slow recovery. I started university but after my loss I was not particularly careful at preventing another pregnancy; I fell pregnant with my daughter at the end of 2006. I had a mild HG pregnancy with her that resolved at about 14 weeks. After delivery in 2007 things were ok however I became quite depressed and routine blood test showed I had hypothyroidism, despite not having symptoms.

 In 2009 I became pregnant again with my son; his pregnancy was difficult with HG and obstetric cholestasis. I was originally carrying twins but was so unwell that sadly lost one of my babies. I was so ill I went into early liver failure and had to have an emergency induction at 35 weeks. I never really recovered from that pregnancy; we originally thought I was depressed and withdrawing but found that I was so tired I would not be able to get out of bed. It got worse and worse, and after what seemed like a long period of investigations I was finally diagnosed with M.E. A few years later I was also diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and Sleep Apnoea (by this point my weight had increased spectacularly).

 I will go into these conditions in future posts, but to this date these are the conditions I live with. By the very nature of M.E and Fibromyalgia they are very unpredictable and hard to live with. But they do NOT define me, I am not my diagnosis, I just live with them.

 Things can be hard - there are times when we have to put our plans on hold - but generally our family function like every other family; we just have to adjust to mummy needing extra time and support. This blog will highlight some of those difficulties and hopefully bring hope to others with chronic conditions, showing that you can shine and have a happy family life even with disabilities.

 Me as a Person

My biggest passion in life is animals. I love animals and always dreamed of becoming a veterinary nurse. Some of the other things I enjoy are arts and crafts, digital art, watching horror movies, gaming, reading and I love spending time with friends and family.

 I am looking forward to this new challenge of becoming a blogger. Please do reach out and say  hello, I love to make new friends and have a chat!

 I do hope you enjoy my blog posts, please message me to give advice or how I can improve it or if you would like us to try any ideas.