It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Ahh the smell of Christmas is almost upon us. I've been super organised this year and already done most of the Christmas Shopping. My little bubby is all sorted and Mr P-T and I have just sat together and wrapped most of them! *exciting!* I can't wait to see his little face on Christmas morning!

I had some trouble this year though. I couldn't think of a gift that Father Christmas could bring him. See in our house, FC brings one present to each child and all the other presents one recieves are from people that love us very much. I finally settled on a treasure box, so he can fill it with his special things. He currently has a box he stole from his papi at the moment(still full of Mr P-T runes) and he loves it. I looked everywhere for a reasonably priced one and just couldn't find what I was looking for!

So I eventually decided to take the plunge and make him one. One box, several coats of paint, lots of fiddling with Fimo and a glue gun and we have this:

I'm actually quite proud of it, the fimo is glow in the dark so should look amazing in his bedroom when the lights go out :o) I just need to fill it with some little treasures for him ready for the big day!

Whilst I'm on the subject of Christmas and Fimo, I also made this years tree decoration. Here at Pixie Towers we get a new decoration for the tree every year, it's something we've done for each Christmas we've been married. I like the idea of putting the tree up when we're old(er) and having a lots of different decorations on there telling the story of our lives. This is what I made:

Three baubles, three family members

How are your Christmas plans coming on? Are you a last minute shopper or super organised?
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Family Wellbeing

I recently started a family wellbeing course at my local sure start centre. At the start it was mainly to have some adult time without Kal-El if I'm honest! But now I go because I genuinely find it interesting. It's run by a tutor from the local adult college who guides the topic of conversation gently, but other than that it's about different mamas coming together, sharing their stories about parenting and offering advice to others if they need it.

At the beginning we were asked 'what one thing would you change with your child?' After quite some time pondering this question I finally settled on something. As it was meant to be something relatively small that we could tackle over time, I chose to tackle holding hands whilst out. I didn't want to be too strict about it as I'm not a very strict person (Mr P-T and I often talk about how we breed 'free range' babies) and we also live in a place where there is no traffic going through the streets, so it's pretty safe. I decided with the guidance of my tutor to explain to Kal-El that whilst walking through the square's "it's ok not to hold hands as there is no traffic, but once we get to the end of the lane you must hold my hand as it's a busy road and very dangerous." Explaining that he had two options(depending on what we were doing). If we HAD to be somewhere then he either held my hand or had to go back in his pram. If we were walking to the park for example, I simply explained that he either held my hand or we would go straight back home.

This may sound like a simple thing to some, but it's one thing I've never got round to tackling as he's never been much of a walker, I mean he loves walking and is good at it, but he's been more of a 'walk a short distance, then want in the pram' kinda boy. That coupled with the fact that anytime I tried to get him to hold my hand was followed by a blood curdling scream whilst he recoiled away in horror that I would DARE try to hold his hand!

So I decided on my plan of action and started putting it into play. At first he was not happy about the choices I placed before him. But I followed through on the consequences that I set out for him and he soon began to understand. We had a breakthrough one day when we got to the end of the lane. I asked him to stop(as usual), came down to his level(as usual) and explained(as usual) That he could hold mamas hand or go in the pram. He looked very sullen at this, so I repeated it to him. He looked at the ground, then at me, then the pram and made his decision "Pram mummy". He knew he didn't want to hold my hand, so didn't even try to see if he could get away with it. Since then it just got better, to the point where he would hold my hand in places where he didn't 'need' to!

So I tackled my first task and achieved my goal with a happy son.

Since then we have had a few more tasks set(that we always have to decide on for ourselves). The most fun one I have done was the most recent. Whilst I 'm in class, my son is down the hall in the creche(which he ADORES!). The task this week was to make a memory box together, so off we went for the last 30 mins of creche to make our boxes. We had soo much fun decorating it together and working as a team to decide what colours to use and where to place things. It was fab, especially as both myself and Kal-El enjoy crafting.

And here is the finished product:

If you have a sure start centre near you I would definitely recommend popping down and seeing what courses they have available for you. The don't cost a thing, though I do believe they are starting to charge for the creche from January. But I believe it's only going to be £2.50 per session, which is fantastic value when you consider how much nursery costs! And the creche groups are much smaller so they get more attention.

My course should finish at the begining of December and I'm already looking forward to starting another in January. I'm thinking of doing the empowering parents course, which teaches about curriculum vitaes for those looking to get back into work, I believe it's also got first aid in there as well as other things. At the end of which will mean I will be qualified to become a volunteer at my Sure Start centre(including working in the creche). Thus meaning they can then give me a reference for when I eventually apply to a school to be a Teaching Assistant.


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