He is just a normal boy, right?

My boy is coming up to 18 months now and is really coming into his own. When I say coming into his own he is becoming a "proper" little boy.

I seem to spend my time apologising when he runs at full pace through the park, whilst chasing a squirrel or goes head first down the slide at Gymboree.

Climbing up the slide, who needs stairs?' 

But when I sat down and thought about it, I realized he is just a boy, a very boisterous boy, but nevertheless, a boy.

I’m hoping as he grows up and understands more, I can teach him to be calm and to sit still ( haha I know, pipe dream). But for now I think I will just let him be, let him explore the world at 100mph and just feel proud that he wants to explore the world and learn more and hope we don't end up in A&E!! 

Strep A awareness

II'm running the Birmingham half marathon in October to raise money for Birmingham Women's Hospital. 

Why? I was very ill after having my son and spent three weeks there on the high decency unit. 

I has a rare form of Strep A. Below is my story. 

If you'd like to sponsor me please visit: 

http://www.justgiving.com/Laura-Bowker

 What is Strep A?

Streptococcus is an infection caused by bacteria, is can range from a throat infection to pneumonia. They then fall into two groups, A & B.

Strep A often found on the surface of the skin and inside the throat and a common cause of infection in adults and children.

After having my son in 2013 I had Strep A. It started when I was on the post natal ward when my feet continued to swell, I was told this was completely normal so ignored it. After a couple of days of being at home I had developed flu like symptoms which my GP provided me antibiotics for. But then a red/purple rash began to appear on my feet and legs. My GP didn't have a clue what was wrong with me and actually said " I don't really know what is wrong, call me tomorrow if you are no better".

My parents then rushed me back in to the womens hospital as they were so worried and they were right to be. The doctors checked my infection level and were shocked with the results, normal range in about 1-15 and mine had hit 600! My body had start to shut down and major organs were starting to fail, my body was going into septic shock.

I won't go into all the details but I ended up spending 3 weeks in intensive care. I missed the first 3 weeks of my sons life, time I will never see again.

I had countless tests and scans and it took doctors about 10 days until they narrowed it down to Strep A. The  infection had settled itself in my womb and the only way to treat it was a full hysterectomy at 23. I was devastated at the time, although now I find myself fortunate as the surgeon only had to remove one ovary in the end.

This could all have been avoided if my GP had noticed my symptoms, but the infection is so rare and so not many health professionals know much about it.

If you'd like to find out more visit http://www.sepsistrust.org

Gymboree

Gymboree Play & Music offer music and sensory classes for babies and pre-school toddlers in the UK. Classes involve parent or carer teaching with fun and interesting activities.

Boy and I have been going to Gymboree since he was 4 months old. We started off in the baby sensory class. Going to be honest, when we started he didn't seem that engaged or bothered, don't know what I was expecting from a 4 month old!! But as time went on he became more and more interested. The classes are a mix of songs, movement, singing, puppets, fibre optics and musical instruments.


Each session is themed, the beach, trains or Christmas (see below)

Each class starts off with mat time. Each child has there own mat with a couple of pieces of equipment such as pom pom, scarves, rain maker, tambourine, maraca or fibre optic glow stick. Babies are encouraged to have tummy time on mirrors which is fab as they are not just staring at the floor, it also a great social activity as all the babies are facing each other and interacting.

The rest of the class is smaller activities that children can visit such as balls, music mat, or light tent. All with the aim to engage babies.

Just after Christmas, once my boy starting "walking", we moved up to the next class. This was a huge jump as its more apparatus based but now he is settled he loves it. We still have group activity at the beginning, but this is more rhymes with the aim to help learning, for instance my head, my shoulders, my knees, my toes.

Then we move onto the chance for the children to explore the activities and start to climb or go through tunnel or post shapes. The activities are left very open and give children the chance to move at their own pace and make of it what they will.

All sessions finish with bubbles, something my boy loves (it was one of his first words!!). Then there is the goodbye song, which is catered for the age group and there is actions for the children to follow 

With your membership you are able to access their open gym sessions, which run normally once or twice a day. These are totally unstructured and just a chance to use the facilities.

The theme running through the whole thing is Gymbo, he is a colourful clown who demonstrates the activities with the session leader. Boy LOVES Gymbo, and his face lights up when he sees him.

I can't recommend this enough, my boy seems to have come on leaps and bounds in his development and personally I think this is because of going to Gymboree. If you want to find out more visit: http://gymboree-uk.com/

Cbeebies Land - My Review

James and I were so overly excited when we heard this was opening, my boy loves cbeebies and although he doesn’t watch much TV Mr Tumble has become some kind of toddler god in our house!

So from the moment we heard about it we decided we would take him. Now I was not overly keen on forking out over £70 for one part of a huge theme park so I decided to collect the sun tokens way back in March/April time. We were lucky enough to get two adult tickets and as my boy in under 4 he got free entry.

If I’m honest I thought we would be there about an hour, hour and half tops as he would be far too young for it. As it happens we were there all day and I was really pleasantly surprised. 

The weather was not on our side when we got there and being a novice mom and I was not fully prepared (no wellies, no rain coat for dad) but it soon brightened up to a beautiful day.

We started off with the Postman Pat ride. As we went on a wet Monday in June, it wasn’t too busy and we only had to queue for about 30 mins. It was a great ride. Loads of interatcition opportunities. As you drove past various stops with well-known characters, you could deliver whatever is was they were missing. OQ was a bit young for this but he enjoyed pressing the buttons and beeping the horn!

Next was the Numtums ride, which was essentially a merry go round. Didn’t have to queue for more than about 10 mins and my boy loved it. Only criticism was that the music stopped way before the ride ended, so the novelty kind of wore off pretty quickly after that!

 

Please excuse my hair, I was soaked!

 

Charlie and Lola house was fab. It was more of a play area than a ride but it gave boy chance to run around safely (and out of the rain).

Mr Bloom was up next. This was more of a show than a ride. Tiddlers had the chance to explore the garden to find food to feed Compo which gave a great interaction and learning side to it. Once they had fed Compo we went inside to meet the Veggies. The cast of this were great, they interacted with the children so well and kept there ( and mine) attention really well.

In the Night Garden was the best of the day. They had just introduced a timed ticket system for this, and after hearing stories of 90 minute queues I was really pleased about this. We still had to queue, but only for 10 mins or so. Really good thinking from Alton Towers, saving lots of screaming toddlers.  You go on a little boat ride around the night garden and visit all the characters. My boys face lit up and he loved waving to all the characters. I imagine if I had queued for over an hour like a lot of parents had previously I wouldn’t have been as impressed but the ticket system makes it worthwhile.

 

 

Mr Tumbles Garden was also brilliant. Lots of plants and flowers to touch and smell and spotty bags to look inside. Boy loved this ( mainly because he could wave and dance with Mr Tumble, see video).

 I would highly recommend this to any family with children 1+  Such a good family day out. There are lots of interactive aspects to give children the chance to learn and explore.  Although I think out of everything my boy enjoyed the monorail ride over to the park the most!!!!

Few other things to note:

Queuing entertainment:  In all the queues they have small games etc to keep the children entertained. Such a good idea but I though there could be a few more.

 

 

Buggy parks:  Throughout the land there are places to leave your buggy. Now I was really nervous about this as they are not secure. However it works really well. Don’t think you won’t need your buggy…you will!!!! Just take it!

Picnic:  As you can imagine the food there is horrendously overpriced. So take picnic with you. If it is a nice day there loads of places inside and outside the land to eat and even if it is a bit rainy there are paces to stop an eat inside.

Weekend/holidays: I don’t want to put any one off now but I can imagine that at the weekend or during the holidays it would be bedlam and the queues would be unbearable with small children. So take things to keep them entertained whilst waiting (smarties, iphone games, anything!!!)

Height restrictions:  Just note there are height restrictions on a couple of rides ( Justin’s house and Tree fu Tom)

Admission:  There is no getting away from the fact it is a lot of money to get it. I’d recommend finding a 241 voucher. I really hope Alton Towers introduce a way of just having admission for Cebeebies land, I think they would attract more return visits that way!