Poxy Chickens… The joy of chickenpox

Spots, Spts, EVERYWHERE!

Our house is currently a pox ridden environment!
Little man has the chicken pox and isn’t a happy bunny at all.

Luckily (at the moment) he doesn’t seem to have it as badly as some children can get it, but new crops of those horrible little red spots keep appearing, causing him to burst into tears and generally be a grumpy little monkey.

We’ve stocked up on all the usual lotions and potions and have found that out of the lot, Aqueous Calamine cream is working a treat. Other things that are working brilliantly to ease that awful itching are a small dose of Piriton, oatmeal baths and our own colloidal oatmeal cream.

To make it, what I’ve done is grind up oats in a coffee bean grinder (obviously perfectly clean with no coffee in it!) until I have a fine powder.

Now, this powder can be put straight into the bath for a lovely soothing soak (or you can just put the oats into a muslin, tie it up at the top and plonk that in the bath as well)

To make the cream, I’ve then mixed the powder with some hot water until you get a paste and pushed it through a sieve to get rid of any scratchy bits of oats.

Then I’ve added it to a normal skin cream that we use on him all the time. It’s really made a massive difference and he seems so much more comfortable afterwards.

I know that Aveeno uses colloidal oatmeal within its ingredients, so that could be a good option if you don’t want to make your own.

Have you got any other natural remedies for chicken pox that have helped you or your little ones? I’ve heard good things about bicarbonate of soda in the bath so I’m off to get some today!

Keep an eye on the blog over the next week or so – I have a little surprise up my sleeve that will make one of you very happy indeed!

Messy Play for Matilda Mae: Homemade Playdough

I appear to have misplaced my wireless keyboard, so this post is going to be short and sweet.

We’ve had a lovely morning! I decided to make my own playdough.
Now, I’ve done it many times before but always used salt as a base, which I didn’t want to do with Monkey.

This version has 1 cup of flour, 1/2 a cup of water and 3 tablespoons of olive oil.

It initially didn’t mix together too well so I carefully dribbled a bit more water into the mix until I was happy with it. I then wanted to get some colour into it but my food colourings are very strong and I knew they’d stain dreadfully.

So, I improvised and used a packet of jelly crystals. It worked really well and we got a lovely, slightly mottled and spotted pinky/purple dough.

Then….

I just let Monkey have fun!

I put out -

A rolling pin
Various cookie cutters
Dried pasta of various kinds
Clay tools to make marks with
Feathers
A plastic fork
Trains and cars
People/animals
Plastic eggs that open up and have lovely serrated edges.

He has had so much fun!

Making marks
Squishing
Squashing
Rolling
Stretching
Pulling pieces off and making small balls
Putting the pasta and feather into the dough
Moving everything from one container…to another…to another!

He been playing for well over half an hour and is utterly entranced!

There is a linky badge for linking up to the wonderful Jennie at Edspire, who is linking up lots of messy play blogs in memory of her gorgeous daughter, Matilda Mae, who very sadly passed away from SIDS a few months ago. I don’t seem to be able to get the badge to work at the moment but please head over to her blog to see what an inspiration she is.

My reasons in a nutshell…

I found this as picture on a cloth nappy group. I have no idea where it’s come from, but I felt the need to share. This says it all, really!

daisytheclothbummum did not create this poster. It belongs to an unknown source and has just been shared for information purposes.

Smile! It’s Saturday. No. 1 – The Bird…

There are moments in life where you look at something you’ve done and think…

Ah…

Yes…

I’m a little bit daft, aren’t I?

This is one of them.

Picture the scene, if you will…

We decided that Little Master Monkey Clothbum’s room was a tad on the boring side. Ok, it wasn’t too bad – plain soft green walls, white curtains, beige carpet and decorated with The Very Hungry Caterpillar sticker and canvases that I’d made. It was nice, but we were getting bored of it.

So, we went shopping and found these wonderful stickers at Jojo Maman Bebe. The pack was their Giraffe height chart one and came with two gorgeous giraffe stickers, some branches/leaves and some very cute little birds.

Mr Clothbum kept Monkey busy whilst I got sticking. Stickers are so fab as they not only brighten up a room, but they cover a multitude of sins.

Those pesky holes where you started to try and put up shelves…it’s now a pretty tree!
That dent where the toddler keeps slamming the door handle into the wall – covered up by a giraffe’s head!

That strange black mark that just appeared one day and you haven’t got a damn clue where it came from – suddenly transformed into…

Well, into this…

Yeah. I didn’t really register the white mark. That white drip of paint that was very near the black mark.

So…

So now we have a bird having a poo in the nursery.

Well – I suppose it’s original and a talking point.
And aren’t the stickers gorgeous?!

Yep. I’m a bit daft sometimes

daisytheclothbummum bought these stickers herself (well, hubby did!) and all words, thoughts and opinions are my own.

Letting children be!

I’ve just seen this article in The Guardian Online and felt I should share as I found myself very vocal in my agreement to a lot of what is written.

It’s definitely food for thought!

Ecover: Message in a Bottle Campaign

Whenever someone finds out that I use cloth nappies on my little Monkey, I usually get asked why. Now, whilst part of me wants to rail against that (I doubt many disposable nappy users get asked why…) I will quite happily list off the reasons that led me to using these amazing nappies.

My three main answers are:

I always wanted to
They are so much cheaper (I can’t see the point of throwing hundreds of pounds into the bin)
The environmental impact is so much less (Ugh to putting all that plastic into the ground)

So, when Ecover contacted me about their ‘Message in a Bottle’ campaign, it really caught my attention. I’ve always used Ecover products around the house (not exclusively, but I do love them) and as someone who has ridiculously sensitive skin, their natural plant-based ingredients really do make a difference to how itchy I can get when using products.

But what I particularly love about Ecover is the way in which they package their products. They have come up with a really clever way to turn raw sugarcane into a 100% recyclable, renewable and reusable petrol-free green plastic, which is rather damn amazing stuff. It makes me shudder to think about just how many plastic bottles, containers and bits of packaging I throw away every week so having products that can help to reduce that impact on the environment is a great thing, in my opinion.

I’m one of those people who do the whole recycling thing. We have our main bin and then all the other boxes and bags. But there are so many people out there that just can’t be bothered. Whether it’s due to lack of education or just not actually stopping, thinking or caring, I was quite shocked to learn that only about 30% of plastic bottles actually go to UK recycling plants and only 50% of all bottles used are actually collected for recycling in the first place. Shouldn’t the bottles be made of a plastic that can actually be recycled? You’d think so, wouldn’t you – but that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Have a look at the ‘Message in a Bottle’ Campaign to find out more. It’s such a great idea and something that I hope more manufacturers will take onboard in the future to help lessen the impact of their products on our world. Thank you, Ecover, for making such a great and inspiring start!

Cleaning the seas, one bottle at a time. Visit The-Splash for more information and to read our pledge.

daisytheclothbummum was not paid for this blogpost. All thoughts, words and opinions are my own.

And the winner is …(Real Nappy Week 2013)

I think I’ve kept you all waiting long enough…
The time has finally arrived…

Mr Monkey Clothbum has picked a winner!

As you can see – he had lot of fun!

I wrote out all the names of people whose lovely friends/family had nominated them via the blog, Twitter and Facebook. There was a LOT of you! Then I folded them up and Mr Monkey had great fun picking a name out of his sorting toy.

Well done, Beverley Graham! You were nominated by the lovely Katie and I’ll be contacting her to get your details so that I can post you out your prizes!

Thank you so much to everyone who entered. I really hope you all had a wonderful Real Nappy Week 2013!

Thank you also, again, to the lovely Eve at Baba+Boo who has donated one of the lovely nappies that our winner will be receiving!

Giveaway update!

A very quick apology but I’m currently stuck as my car has massively broken down, so all plans for everything, including doing the giveaway draw are on hold until tomorrow when I can let Monkey pick a winner.

I have a funny feeling that if we do it later he’ll just rip the names up as he’ll be too tired…

Apologies . At least it draws out the suspense for a tad longer!

Giveaway Closed!

Just a quick message to let you all know that the giveaway closed at 5pm so Monkey and I will be doing the draw ASAP.
The winner will be announced over the next couple of days, so keep an eye on the blog.

Thank you so much to everyone who has nominated someone.

Sussed it Sunday: The Great British Nappy Hunt

Just a little quickie to say that if you haven’t already signed up for The Great British Nappy Hunt, you really really should get on with it today. There’s not one, not two, but three hunts going on today with some fabulous prize bundles to be won. They’d make someone a brilliant starter pack or would be a fantastic addition to any cloth nappy stash or nappy library stock!

Go on! Get out there and get hunting for that naughty little Billy!