A toddler's life is full of fun, and hopefully the life of their mother and father can be equally as full of fun if we take the time to relax and enjoy.
We've just completed a census in Australia, and it was interesting and slightly scary, just how many hours I spend on housework every week. This included cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, washing etc. Realising that it is nearly equivalent to a full time job explains why I do seriously get so sick of it! I just can't imagine how mothers used to handle it in the days before automated washing machines, microwaves, dish washers and late night shopping! I still can't imagine those mums who use cloth nappies either, but that's for another post. Sorry, I didn't mean to allienate some of you super conscientious mums.
Being a mum of a child with life-threatening food allergies means a slightly increased load of washing since any splash of milk or sauce that I get on my clothes means it has to go into the wash. Perhaps I need to eat more carefully and not just shovel food into my mouth?? But sometimes mums have to eat very fast indeed!
Anyway, so this post is dedicated to the fun we have, in the midst of life-threatening food allergies.
I just borrowed a book called Look and Find Tigger. It's gorgeous and similar to the Where's Wally series, except it features Tigger, Winnie the Pooh and friends. Most kids will already be familiar with these characters so the aim is to find them in the midst of all the crazy pictures. The pictures are quite detailed, so the book can amuse them for quite some time. Once you find the characters, there are lots of other little things to look for. The uniqueness is in the attention to detail.
The reason I mention this book is because of the importance of a child being able to read food labels in the future. Words can be quickly recognised, but I didn't really want our son's first reading words to be all the foods he can't eat. Talk about demoralising! Plus, even when he can recognise the word milk, egg or nut. What if the labels says Milk-free or Egg-free? What if he reads that, but then the food isn't Nut-free? So reading labels will be important but obviously not yet.
It is actually the ability to scan and recognise characters in different forms that is being developed by these books or games. For mums who have to read food labels, being able to quickly scan very wordy labels is definitely an advantage. For those who are interested, this ability features in your standard IQ test, so check out this book if you want your child to score well in this sort of test. Or, if you just like Tigger and want to snuggle up with a good book and lovely child, this book is for you too.
