Sorry E was such a handful today deb. S was like that on Sat, bedtime was such a relief!

Any tips for sponge painting Deb?

Another printing tip is to lay a thin sponge in the bottom of a tray, pour/squeeze the paint on that and then press the potato,hand,foot,whatever onto the sponge, then onto the paper. It means you don't get too much paint on the object and stops them squidging rather than printing.I'm fine with a class of 3 and 4 year olds, 17 month olds are another matter!!!

My 17 month old has driven me mad today, I couldn't do anything right for him, I'm sure you all know what I mean. I was very happy when bedtime came round.Nigel is very busy on some music work at the moment so even though he's still at home he's working all the time and I was running out of things to amuse Ethan today. Sometimes he'll happily play alone for a while but not today!

Hello to everyone, hope the house moves have gone well for Amber and Whinegums, Puree and tpie - how are you 2 doing? Neenz - you're quiet at the moment, Good luck to Penguin for the big move. Sorry to the big list of people I haven't mentioned personally.

Spider, I had seen the pirate ship, but the happy land village was already a little world type set already so I'm going to be good!

BDQ more temptation is coming your way here

Gawd, I hadn't realised I had become resident potato printing guru . TBH I just used the paint that the toddler group has, which I assume is bog standard poster paint. A tip though from my Mum (former reception teacher) is for fruit printing (not potatoes this time) water the paint down a bit so that the grain and pattern of the fruit shows up. Works especially well if using citrus fruit. Can I just reassure you all that I am not doing painting at home, only on other peoples'
property.

Sybil the speakers are certainly taller than P. I have been out for lunch and forgotten about the speaker until I read your post. Groan...

Also Sybil, sorry to hear that you are having such a hard week. Can you get a break over the weekend at all? Almost impossible with 3 I suppose.

Sorry J is still poorly sybil. I hope he's on the mend soon (for both your sakes!).

I was in town today and couldn't resist popping into debenhams, just 'for a wee browse'... Didn't get past the entrance to the shop - happyland village set bought and sitting under my desk at work . DH could see that it was a bargain but not too keen I think. I'm under strict instructions to put it away till next year sometime.

ktpie I wouldn't feel bad about the present at all! That's brilliant getting such a great present. He wont know the difference at all. I'd quite happily give S stuff second hand as presents if we got any handed down to us. No-one's offered though (although most people I know have just one child or much older children so are hanging on to things to use them again or have long ago cleared out the toddler stuff).

Loved the article spider - I did think of deb and her 3 boys!!! I thought it a shame the writer talked about being 'horrified' when a girl seemed so much more advanced than her son. Worried I could understand but horrified seemed more about her than her DS.

Spider what kind of paint did you use for the potato printing? Is any one kind better?

I'm here, but J is still very vomity and grizzly. Its all very hard work here at the moment. He can't eat/sleep properly because of the coughing and I have bags I could put my tesco shop in.

Maybe P is trying to tell you something Spider, maybe he thinks the speakers are a little ott too!

Good point Essie

Yes you're the first - it's so quiet these days!
Beware of the microwave, Spider - you might want to ensure it makes it onto the worktop before P gets his hands on it...