The A-Z Blogging Challenge for April 2014 - BRING IT!

As I have been positively slack with my blogging for quite a while now, I have decided to take on the "Blogging from A to Z April Challenge". I will probably start whining part way through when I run out of ideas, so be warned!

 

Basically every day, except for Sundays, you produce a blog posting that begins with the letter for that day. ie April 1st, your blog might be April Fools Day, 2nd April, Brilliant Baby, 3rd April begins with a C and so on. Remember you don't blog on Sundays so you get your 26 days and letters.

The blogs can be on anything but, you can also be specific and write on a certain theme if you want. I am going to be trying to write on things related to my family and home education in our home.

Each day you try and visit five or more bloggers who are also taking part in the challenge and in turn you'll have new visitors to you. There are already 1675 bloggers who have signed on, so there are a few mad people out there apparently!

If you'd like to take the challenge with me (you can start prewriting posts now) then go through to the sign up list here.

Give your Kids a Massage!

My two precious ladies love to give their mama neck and back rubs and even foot massages. I lap these up like a cat at a bowl of milk. I unfortunately do not really like giving massages as much as receiving them, I know I am so selfish!

So in appreciation of all those neck and back rubs I surprised my daughters earlier in the year with vouchers for a massage each at a local business, Body Synergy Massage. Body Synergy Massage is a beautiful little business in the centre of our town and the owner / operator Rachel Ferregel is very professional, yet warm and welcoming. She is a mother herself, and she treated the girls beautifully. She had them fill in their own patient forms, which makes a child feel so good and builds their confidence, and explained things to them as she would anyone having a massage. Despite them being young, she even left the room to let them slip out of their clothes so they were left feeling comfortable, respected and safe at all times.
 

They were a little nervous going in, "you go first, no you go first" but coming out ... well I think you can tell from the smile on The Fashionista's face that it was rather enjoyable. I see elbowing each other out of the way to get there first on the cards for their next visit!

After each child's massage Rachel, commented on different things about the children and commented that AS had a very, very tight neck, funnily enough AS had been getting headaches, so yes do try and get a professional who knows what they are doing, it's so worth it as that massage actually eased the frequency of them. She's probably only had one in the last month and she was probably start to get them weekly.

Whilst I did it simply as a thank you after reading up on the benefits of massage and children, and seeing their own reactions first hand, I am going to see if I can arrange a professional massage for them once a term. Babies and young children can be just as stressed and anxious as adults and the benefits of massage therapy is a reduction in stress and thus stress hormone levels. It has been said that the benefits are a happier, calmer (Agent Smelly briefly dozed off on the table) and you will even have a healthier child with the lower stress hormone levels. That's got to be a good thing, especially if you have a wriggly, hyper kid or even a worrier.

And we all know how children like to imitate life so last week I was invited into the guest bedroom where Agent Smelly had set up a massage bed, the CD player, some oils, etc. I had to fill in a patient form and then they left the room for me to strip and get under the towel, just like they had. It was awfully funny but really good actually!

Drawing Success

Agent Smelly eats, breathes and lives mermaids. So today for art I pulled up this You Tube tutorial How to Draw a Mermaid and set the girls to work. They absolutely LOVED doing this.
 
  

 

First they were taken through the step by step drawing in pencil.

 

 

 

Then they used markers to outline the final picture

 

 

 

Then they got to colour them in.

 

 
They enjoyed this so much so that they ended up doing another one on drawing a cartoon whale.

 
The Fashionista was happy with her pictures but it was pretty amazing to hear Agent Smelly so excited over hers. She usually complains that she can't draw. She told me when showing me her pictures, "Mama I am so proud of myself". Obviously a pretty awesome homeschooling moment.