Our day out in Buxton

We've had a girl's day out today - me, my mum and Monkey. We've been over to Buxton where we had a lovely day this time last year when Monkey was still a brand new baby.

The day was similar in lots of ways. We visited the same places but Monkey was much more involved this year and had lots of fun.

It's about an hours drive from  our home in Manchester to Buxton so we were all ready for a drink when we got there. We headed straight for Number 6 tea rooms. Now Monkey has decided she's too grown up for breast milk I can eat what I want again so I treated myself to a cheese scone and hot chocolate with all the trimmings. I felt really guilty though, we shared the restricted diet for so long I feel awful for leaving her behind.

There wasn't much that Monkey could eat but that was more down to the combination of her allergies than them not catering. They had a good selection of gluten/wheat free options and seemed to be quite allergy aware. It was no problem for them to cook a slice of bacon for Monkey - and they didn't even charge us for it!

Once we were all refuelled it was time for the park, or Pavilion Gardens to give it it's proper name. We had a bit of a walk through the gardens but really we were just on our way to the swings. Monkey loves them. Walking towards the play area it looked quite busy but it wasn't too bad and she was able to get on the swings straight away.

The play area is designed so the toddler section is seperate from the bigger kids so even though it was busy I still felt safe letting Monkey explore. The swings are definitely her favourite but she enjoyed the slide, bouncers and roundabout too.

After the play area we headed for the mini train. It's only £1 to go round twice and it's free for kids under 3! I wasn't too sure what Monkey would make of it but she had a big grin all the way round and her giggles as we went through the tunnel were amazing.

We were hungry after all that fun and I could tell Monkey wanted to be off and stomping about. I can't really put her down outside as I can't get shoes for her anywhere ( that's a whole different post...) so we went to the cafe in the gardens which has a toddlers soft play area.

I'm going to go into rant mode here - why when something is very clearly called a TODDLERS play area do people let their 7,8,9 year olds play in there. They seemed like nice kids but they were big and boisterous and I was slightly worried about Monkey being trampled.

Monkey didn't seem bothered though. She's really sociable and honestly has no idea she's tiny. She was straight off, climbing to go and join in with the big kids.

By the time we'd finished eating and playing our parking had run out and it was time to head home. We had a really lovely day.

Chocolate for Monkey

When I first found out about Monkey's allergies I was really upset. I felt like I'd been poisoning her and had no idea how to keep her safe. I had no idea how serious it was but having a room to ourselves at hospital for a week made me think it wasn't something to be messed with.

After we came home from hospital I did lots of reading up. At this point we were only avoiding dairy and soya. It meant a big change in my diet but as long as we both avoided the foods, Monkey should be safe.

As things settled down and Monkey became less poorly my feelings changed from panic to sadness. Obviously I'd do whatever I could to keep her safe but I began to be upset about all the things she'd never taste - yoghurt, ice-cream, CHOCOLATE!!!

I was never going to be a mum who fed my baby loads of chocolate but thinking that she would never have any really upset me. It really started to bother me as we got closer to Easter. By this time Monkey was well into weaning and loving her food. I didn't want her to sit and eat a full easter egg but I wanted to get her a treat.

I was really excited to discover lots of dairy free easter eggs in my local supermarket. The excitement didn't last long though, they were all made from soya which is another of Monkey's allergies. I was back to feeling sad.

And then I discovered Moo free!

Moo free make award winning chocolate that is dairy free, soya free and wheat free making it ideal for Monkey. Even better, they make easter eggs so she was able to have one for her first Easter after all.

Once we'd discovered Moo Free we found that they had a good range of chocs for Monkey to try. And she loved them all! Something I moan about quite often is the price of free from foods. Whilst Moo Free is not as ridiculously priced as some, it's still not cheap. A 100g bar is usually priced at £2.50 and the mini moos (24g bars) are around £1 each. I was really chuffed to find some great offers on Amazon today though.



It's a real bargain so we've stocked up!

As well as making yummy chocolate the people at Moo Free are lovely and help to support people with allergies. They sent us this fab raffle prize for our Free from feast.

Why we 'dig' our city

Me and Monkey are lucky to live in a great city.

Today has been a really lovely day - full of fun, all free and a reminder of just how great Manchester really is. There aren't many places where you could fit so much into your day without it costing you a penny.

It started off simply enough, meeting our friends The Smiley Minion and Minion Mummy. We spend a lot of time at the park and fancied a bit of a change today so went to the park known in our bunch of friends (for reasons that are too long and boring to go into here) as 'the nowhere near the motorway park'.

Monkey loves the swings. Her giggle is fab and she's just learning to swing herself. There isn't a roundabout at our usual park though so she tried it out for the first time today. It seemed to be a hit.

After the park it was a short tram ride into town for the main event of the day - Dig the city!

Dig the City is Manchester's summer garden festival. Gardening is not really my thing, I'm not green-fingered at all, but I found it by accident last year and had a lovely chilled out time with a tiny Monkey so thought we would both enjoy it now she is older. I wasn't wrong, we had lots of fun :-)

We enjoyed looking round all the show gardens. Monkey made friends with some lovely ladies from Sow the City who gave her some spinach to grow at home. We had fun playing (and eating mud!) at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital garden and made sure Monkey put some pennies in their tin to say thank you for taking such good care of her.

The National Trust were there promoting their 50 things to do before you're 11 and 3/4. Monkey was still a bit young for some of the activities and after the earlier mud eating incident I didn't think mud pies were a great idea! The barefoot trail wasn't all Monkey friendly but she enjoyed exploring the bits that were.

When we'd finished on the trail we went to see Friends of the Earth and learn all about bees. Monkey did some colouring in and dancing as there was a singer right next to the stall.

Manchester is a fab city but it's not known for it's great weather. We'd not had any rain but by this time it was getting a bit chilly so we headed over to the National Football Museum.

Growing up with me as her mum and my dad as her Grandad, it's safe to say that football will be a big part of her life. She'll be brought up as a FC United fan but just like my dad did with me I'll make sure she knows her red history. She's already been part of FC history by being mascot at the first game at Broadhurst Park and the education continued today.

So there we have it - a fun filled day and all it cost us was the £3 tram fare. The fun wasn't over for us though. We went to meet Daddy Monkey from work and treated ourselves to a cheeky Nandos. It's been a lovely day.

Monkey and the Mega Bloks

One of the toys we bought Monkey for her birthday was the Mega Bloks table. It's definitely been a hit. She spends loads if time playing with it when we're at home.

It's a great toy for Monkey especially now she wants to be standing up all the time. We've found with her being so little that although she can stand, a lot of toys are too high for her. The Mega Blocks table is the perfect height!

That's not to say it's no good if you're taller. Most of Monkey's friends are taller than her and they've enjoyed it too. It even makes a good climbing frame if you're as determined as one little friend!

It was a nice bonus to me to find that bricks were included as I thought we were just getting the table. There's plenty of storage in it for all the bricks too. It folds flat too if you can get your monkeys away from it for long enough.

I would definitely recommend this table and it's half price on Amazon at the moment. Go check it out!

 

Baby Book Club

Me and Monkey love to read. And we love to spend time with our friends. So when the idea of a baby book club was mentioned at our Free From Feast we were all over it! It sounded like just our kind of thing.

I contacted a few of our friends to see if they would be interested. It sounded like they were so I started planning.

There was never any question about the first book we would read. It's my favourite - and Monkey quite likes it too!

The Gruffalo!

Everybody knows about The Gruffalo (if you don't where have you been?) so I'm not going to explain the story. I'm just going to share what we did at our very first baby book club today.

We had six babies at book club and we started by reading the story. We then had pictures of the Gruffalo to colour in before designing a scary creature of our own.

We almost had an issue with one of the activities as I'd stupidly bought play-doh without checking the packet. It has wheat in it which means it's not suitable for my little allergic Monkey. Luckily we have fab friends and one of the other mums appeared with home made edible play dough, complete with glitter and sparkle! The dough was used with play dough mats to add features to the animals from the story. That was the idea anyway - Monkey just ate it all!

The next activity was a Monkey favourite as it was all about food. Mouse talks about lots of favourite foods in the story so the babies tried some of them out. Roasted fox seemed to be the most popular!

I was quite nervous about hosting the first baby book club but it seemed to go well and I think everybody enjoyed it. I know Monkey did. We're already looking forward to the next one - We're going on a bear hunt!

Swimming with Aqua Babies

I love swimming.

I started lessons when I was three years old which was young back in the olden days of the early 80s. I was pretty good at it too and soon worked through all my badges. I didn't keep it up to any kind of decent standard as I got older but it was always something I enjoyed and tried to do when I could. I even did the Great Manchester Swim in 2013.

So when I found out I was expecting Monkey, swimming lessons were the one baby group I knew I wanted to do with her. We visited a baby show while I was pregnant and got her signed up to start at Aqua Babies in the September after she was born.

Aqua Babies have lessons at pools all over Manchester. We're really lucky that our lessons are within walking distance of our house. We use a small hydrotherapy pool for our lessons. I'm a confident swimmer but even if you weren't you would be fine there. I can stand up easily and I'm short - very short! The water is lovely and warm so the babies don't get cold.  They keep it between 33 and 35 degrees.

Monkey was 10 weeks old when she went to her first lesson. I wasn't sure how she'd be especially as this was probably the time when her allergies were at their worst - she was admitted to hospital three weeks later. She seemed to love it from the start though, a proper little water baby! I think the water helped ease her tummy while she was in so much pain.

Those early lessons were all about getting Monkey used to the water. She's learnt so much since then though! The first time I actually let go of her in the water was terrifying but she was absolutely fine. Now she can swim through hoops, hold onto the side, splash in from the side (she's not always sure about that one) and is up to five second swims. 

This morning was our last session before the summer holidays. We're both going to miss it although I'm hoping we'll get lots of swimming in while I'm off work. It was also our last ever session with our lovely teacher Sue. Me and Monkey are really going to miss her. She's been great with Monkey, especially when she was really tiny. We love our swimming lessons!

Library fun

Monday is library day in the Monkey household.

Well actually it's ballet day but as we get off the bus right outside the library on the way home we quite often pop in.

When I was little I loved getting new books from the library but I hated actually going to the library. Everybody seemed so cross and miserable. Talking was out, even if it was about the books.

Luckily it's not like that anymore. The libraries near me are fun places to visit. There is always something going on. They're full of fun and kids are actually encouraged to talk about their books and get excited to them.

When I was on maternity leave I used to spend whole days at the library doing baby yoga, baby massage, playing with lego, meeting friends in the cafe and of course looking at books! We can't do that now I'm back at work but we still enjoy our visits.

Today we met friends in the library cafe for dinner. Although I'm still very upset that our breastfeeding journey has come to an end, it is lovely to be able to eat whatever I want. I treated myself to a ham and cheese toastie and lemon drizzle cake. Monkey had bacon - she loves a bit of bacon!

Us mummies had a nice chat while we had dinner and then we took the babies upstairs to play.

First she did some climbing.

And then she played with some toys.

Next a bit of colouring.

And then finally we chose some books. Today we picked

• Baby Sparkle Farm
• Spot loves Sport by Eric Hill
• Peepo by Janet & Allan Ahlberg
• Rhyming Stories by Axel Schleffer
• The Usborne Book of Baby Animal Stories
• The Littlest Bear by Gillian Shields

We spent a good couple of hours at the library and had lots of fun. Monkey is already enjoying the books we borrowed. Here she is enjoying the glitter in Baby Sparkle Farm.