The end of living lagom?

So, here we are. Six months down the line from making our Live Lagom New Years resolutions. It's been an interesting six months, our shopping trip, the changes we've made with the items we purchased from Ikea, the changes we've made in other ways.

We wanted to live more comfortably, which involved replacing the curtains or blinds we had in most of the house and draught proofing the windows and doors. We also wanted to reassess our food storage options and to make good use of the rechargeable batteries and charger we bought. I pledged that I wouldn't buy a single normal AA or AAA battery for the duration of the Live Lagom project.

We had completely underestimated how cold and uncomfortable our poor choice in curtains and blinds was making the house. For the first winter in four years our thermostat sat at a constant 21º, no turning it up to 23-25º and no sitting around the house in half a dozen layers. We were hoping this would be reflected in our gas bill, but unfortunately, it arrived using estimated readings instead of the readings we submitted. Once I have a revised bill I will update with numbers.

We bought various sizes of Ikea 365+ dry food jars and Korken glass jars, all of which have actually been used for their intended purpose instead of sitting there gathering dust. It's allowed us to start buying rice, pasta, flour, cereal and other basic food items in bulk as we know the damp won't affect them.

We returned to Ikea two months ago to purchase more packs of Ladda rechargeable batteries, which means that we have actually made it to the end of the project without purchasing a single standard AA or AAA battery.

One thing we have started doing when we take batteries out of the charger is to write on a piece of paper what item they were going into. We found ourselves trying to work out where all the original batteries we had purchased had gone (controls, toys, wii remotes, etc) as when you've lots of toys in the house it's hard to remember which ones do or don't take batteries. We've now accounted for all 40 of the batteries we've purchased, so know that if we need to buy more of them, we're buying them because we need them instead of having lost all the originals.

Out of the things we purchased the storhögen battery charger, the Ladda batteries and the stabil saucepan inserts have been our favourites. They are the items I've raved about and recommended to friends, the things that we've purchased more of since our initial shopping trip and the things we will replace as the originals

We've really enjoyed taking part in the whole project, researching what we wanted to get out of it, using the items we purchased and being part of the Live Lagom facebook group means I've picked up a lot of hints and tips over the last few months than mean we've been able to make changes elsewhere. However, my favourite part has been the opportunity it's given me to show my children that even small changes can make a difference.

It's that that we will carry on in the future, taking part in the project introduced us to a concept we'd never heard of before, but it's given us the chance to not only change our current living circumstances but to hopefully make a difference to the impact our children have on the world.

Live Lagom - mid project blog

Four months since our Ikea shopping trip and the time seems to have flown by! The curtains and blinds are all up, for the first winter in four years our heating thermostat has sat at a constant temperature instead of being turned up a degree or two to try and keep the house warm. The only difference between this year and last is the draught-proofing on the back door and the new blinds and curtains. Having a nice cosy home has been lovely and we're hoping not having to turn the heating up will have cut our gas bill a little.

We've made another trip to Ikea recently to buy some more Ladda rechargeable batteries. We underestimated just how many batteries childrens' toys use! The storhögen battery charger is brilliant, it's made it so easy to switch from using non-rechargeable batteries to rechargeable batteries.

We're still loving our oumbärlig 5l pan and stabil inserts. Not just because it has has worked in the way we intended it to work (in that we could cook more things in one pan, so didn't need to use three different hobs) but because we've all been eating at the same time it's also encouraged the children to try foods they normally wouldn't have tried. We intend on purchasing a couple of the other stabil inserts on our next Ikea trip.

The knock on effects of taking part in the Lagom project have been huge. We're working our way around the house sorting out problem areas, the spare room of doom has been emptied and turned into a useable bedroom (complete with Ikea Kallax storage units and the tardis like Drona boxes), the porch has been emptied and is now used for bikes and tools. Thanks to seeing all the garden projects other Lagom participants have shared in the facebook group we've drawn up plans to completely redesign our garden.

Still plenty of room for the children to play, but moving things around will give us space to add three raised beds for growing vegetables. We've already purchased potato growing bags, we planted the seed potatoes a couple of weeks ago and we're hoping to have potatoes to harvest in a few months time.

We're also growing tree seeds thanks to a Woodland Trust project and we have three planters of wildflower seeds growing in the hopes of encouraging bees to our garden.

Our plans have also piqued the interest of friends, one of them has already turned half of her garden into a vegetable plot and plans on adding raised beds to grow other things. Two other friends are in the process of having plans drawn up so they can do the same. It's things we'd all previously talked about, but didn't think was possible in the limited spaced each of us had. Seeing what other people have been able to achieve has been really eye opening.

We're really looking forward to seeing how our garden plans work out and what else we can achieve in the future.

Unanswerable questions.

We've all been hit by a stomach bug so the TV has been on more than normal this week. As well as leaving me irrational angry at times, kids TV always leaves me asking so many questions. Most of which don't seem to have an answer. Yes. I have googled most of them.

We started the morning with Bing:

• Why are the children bigger than the adults? 
• Who is flop? 
• Why does Pando take his trousers off so often? 

Peppa Pig is always a favourite with B2:

• Why is Miss Rabbit in charge of the Mummy's fire engine service?
• If Miss Rabbit has children will she become Mummy Rabbit too or has she lost out because her sister got there first?
• What is so special about George Pig that he's not called Phillip, Peter, Paul, Percy or some other name beginning with P?
• Where are Daddy Pigs parents? 
• What is this good cause everyone is raising money for? A £10 dinosaur balloon, a £1 ride on the helter skelter, it's all raising money for some sort of good cause, but no one ever says what the good cause is!

Postman Pat came next:

• Why hasn't Postman Pat been fired for being an idiot? Sure he always comes out the other side of it smelling of roses, but he caused the trouble in the first place by being completely incompetent. 
• Why does he need a Helicopter? 

We're currently on to Paw Patrol:

• Why do all the adults call for help from a child?
• Where are Ryder's parents? He's running around Adventure Bay doing all sorts of dangerous things and no one is keeping an eye on him. This seems to be a common thing in children's TV programmes, Sarah and Duck, Ruby and Max, Abney and Teal. Where have all the parents gone? 
• Why hasn't someone turned Chickaletta into chicken nuggets? Contemplating this one hopefully means I'm starting to feel a little better.

B2 on the other hand is currently watching episodes of Pokemon on her tablet. Again, where are the parents? Apparently he is 10 years, 10 months and 10 days old when he begins his adventures, B1 is still 3 years and 9 months off that age, but I don't imagine that between now and then I'm suddenly going to decide it's ok for her to wander off to distant lands to fight birds and other random creatures. 

Ikea Live Lagom project - our shopping trip!

After a bit of toing and froing trying to sort out a date and time that worked for everyone, we finally settled on the 21st December. Shopping a few days before Christmas, especially in a shop that is always busy was a rather daunting thought, but having plied the children with Ikea hotdogs and chocolate doughnuts before heading off to meet our Live Lagom leader Nadine it was actually a really enjoyable visit.

Maybe it's because we're a bit geeky, or maybe it's because we've two small children and spare time is rather limited, but we turned up to the store with a rather (too) organised list and knew exactly what we were looking for.

Whilst sorting out our list (putting together this list caused such a debate over sizes, colours, quantity, etc, that we lost complete track of time and it was suddenly 2:30am) we decided we decided that instead of purchasing a lot of the same time of storage jars and containers, we were going to buy one or two of a few, bring them home and try them to see what worked best for us. Once we've decided which ones suit our needs, fit into our cupboards and drawers, etc, we plan on returning to store and purchasing more of them.

Nadine was fantastic, helped find the items on the list, roped in colleagues in a couple of departments to hunt down some of the items we couldn't find, tolerated our rather giddy four year old very well and took the time to go through some of the projects and practices Ikea have in place to not only make the stores more sustainable, but to make a difference to the day to day lives of people around the world. One of the things we'd not heard of prior to the shopping trip was the Play to Change project, it's not only been responsible for a number of thought provoking conversations with our children recently (which was one of the reasons we were so interested in taking part in the Live Lagom project in the first place), but we found out about it in time to go back into store and take a few soft toys home with us.

We were also really surprised to discover how much of the food Ikea sells in it's Swedish food market is classed as sustainable. We now have chicken and vegetable meatballs in our freezer (they are both absolutely delicious) and the Korken jar we purchased during our shopping trip is full of PATAR coffee beans.

All in all it was a fantastic visit, we learned a lot, not just about the items we'd chosen to purchse, but about other items that at some point will be working their way into our home. We're really looking forward to using the things we bought and seeing what difference they make to our home or way of thinking.

Ikea live lagom project

It's not a concept I had heard of prior to the email inviting Ikea friends and family members to apply to be part of the live lagom project landed in my inbox, but reading about it I realised that it is something that is already important to me and it's something I try to be mindful of, I just didn't have the word to describe it.

It is important to us that our children grow up knowing that whilst them doing or not doing something seems like a tiny drop in a very large ocean, when added to the changes other people are making to make their own lives more lagom, it can have a huge impact. We recycle everything that can be recycled, we walk instead of taking the car when we're going somewhere nearby, we're mindful of packaging when we're buying something, we don't own a dryer, we make sure not to leave the tap running and we've been working our way around the house replacing all the old light bulbs with energy-efficient LED light bulbs.

We try to do what we can to live in a sustainable way, but I'm aware there are changes we can make that would make us even more so. I also hadn't considered whether there were areas of our lives where the scales weren't tipped in the direction of us taking more than we need, but in the direction of us taking less than we need.

We live in a Victorian terraced house, as with most terraced housing from this era, it's not very well insulated and prone to damp issues, so we need to leave windows open to ventilate the house. Our thermostat is set at 21º, we wear extra layers of clothes to keep us warm, yet we still regularly find ourselves having to turn the heating up a couple of extra degrees to make the house a comfortable temperature. We'd accepted that this was part and parcel of living in a poorly insulated house, but whilst reading through the Ikea Lagom information and looking at the products available in the Ikea hidden gems book, we realised that actually our choice in window blinds and curtains is compounding the issue. 

Through sheer ignorance, we've gone for the easy option. What do you need blinds and curtains for? To stop people walking past the house looking in, to cool the house down a little during summer, to make the bedrooms darker on summer mornings in the vague hope that the early-rising child in the house may sleep a little longer without the sun streaming through, It works with the first two, the latter is a lost cause and we'd given no consideration to the fact that around 20% of the heat in your house is lost to poorly dressed windows and doors. 

Another area we can improve on is our use of standard batteries. With two small children and lots of toys in the house, clocks, remote controls and all the other things that need a battery and we use a lot of batteries. We've tried rechargeable batteries in the past, but we found that only being able to charge 2-4 batteries at a time wasn't adequate and needing to remove the batteries from the charger once they were charged meant they would disappear before we actually needed them. 

A third is our food storage. We do what we can to combat the damp, but it means that things such as rice, pasta, cereal, etc, all need to be used within a couple of weeks of opening them or the damp makes them unusable. Better storage, jars with lids, tubs that seal properly, etc, would not only mean we can keep things for longer, but we'd be able to bulk buy some things to save money. 

Our plans for 2017 are:

1. To be more comfortable. 
2. To use the knowledge of the Ikea Lagom leaders and other Ikea staff members to replace the blinds and curtains on all of our windows. In some rooms it will mean simply putting a blind on the currently bare windows, in others rooms we'll look at layering up blinds and curtains. 
3. To draught-proof the doors at the rear of our house. Both not only allow a lot of cold air in, but also let the heat straight out. 
4. To not buy a non-rechargeable AA or AAA battery for the duration of the live lagom project. We will purchase and use a Storhögen battery charger and Ladda batteries. 
5. To reassess our food storage system. 

Well, that was better than expected!

To be fair to myself (and the kids too I suppose seeing as they did most of it) the half-hearted attempts at elf mischief and craft planning last night wasn't actually too bad.


1. The cards turned out brilliantly to say a rather giddy B2 was involved in the process:

The idea for these was destined to be one of the random Pinterest things I pin and think oh that is fabulous, but then I never actually do. I actually did a Pinterest thing! Reverse fingerprint Christmas card from rhythmsofplay.com


2. The Aldi Christmas activity books are pretty fabulous, Though, none of these things featured on B1's original Christmas list, so I'm hoping she forgets all about them between now and Christmas Day.

3. Mr Elf makes a rather spectacular creeper:

Start your own family traditions - it will be fun!

That's what the blog I remember reading in the lead up to B1's first Christmas said. Apparently, they will be the silly little things your children look back on and smile at, that they'll continue if or when they have their own children.

It all sounded rather quaint at the time, but no one mentioned that at some point in the future you'd be loaded with a random viral infection, feeling incredibly sorry for yourself and you'll be stuck with an elf who needs to get up to some sort of mischief, an advent calendar that needs some sort of do this random Christmas craft note stuck in it and a load of Christmas trees to cut out so you can catch up with the random Christmas craft your kids should have done the day before, but you'd underestimated the amount of preparation it would take.

The elf found himself dressed as a Creeper, the hastily scribbled note in the craft advent calendar told the kids to do a page of their activity book (cheating, but thank you, Aldi. It may turn out to be the best £1.99 I've spent this year) and half the trees for the Christmas cards have wonky stars.

I then scarpered up the stairs to bed. An empty bed. In a hastily thought out plan I'd agreed to B1 and B2 having a peepover (I probably should correct B2, but it is rather sweet) in B1's room and their dad was out for the night. It all worked out rather well in the end!

B2 could have started school in September. It's been very weird to see a lot of his peers who did start school having their first parent-teacher meetings recently. If B2 was in school, he'd be behind with literacy, but way ahead in maths. Yet the focus would still be on him being behind in literacy things.

In the three weeks since signing B2 up for a Mathseeds account, he's managed to make it to level 41. Levels 0-50 are reception year lessons, so the same things he'd have been learning in school between September 2016 and July 2017. When B1 is doing her maths work (she'd be in year two if she was in school) I have to keep him away from her because he annoys her by answering the questions before she can.

His Reading Eggs account is sitting at level 13. When he decides he wants to do a little Reading Eggs he's quite confident at doing it (and last week read one of the books on there independently for the first time) but for the most part he has very little interest in phonics, reading or writing.

I have no issues with any of that. He's summer born, still not yet four and a half, right now playing is more important than anything and that is exactly what he spends most of his time doing. Yet, some of the children who were born at the same time as he was are being given extra homework or placed on learning pathways to try and help them catch up with the other children in their class. Some of those children will have been five since September, they are 10-11 months older than B2 and his peers. That's not a huge difference to adults or older children, but it's a huge difference to four and five-year-olds.

Printable dot to dot alphabet

I'm not sure how I originally found them, but a few months ago I purchased the printable dot to do alphabet charts from learning4kids. It's very rare I pay to buy anything like this, I either make my own, download something from Twinkl or find a free alternative, but I was drawn in by how bright and simple these look and I've not been disappointed.

We printed them out and laminated them so they can be cleaned and reused. Thanks to B2's sudden new found love of 'doing learning' they've been cleaned and reused a lot over the last few weeks.

One of the things I struggled with when trying to teach B1 how to write letters was getting her to understand when she needed to write the letters all in one go and when she needed to lift her pencil. The brilliant don't lift or do lift information in the corner of each of these has made teaching B2 how to do them has been an absolute breeze in comparison.

Having had so much success with these I intend on purchasing the printable dot to dot numbers charts at some point. The clean and simple looking pages are so much easier than the workbook versions we've been using recently.

Things people say.

"Well, that's a bit ridiculous, how will she ever be ready for real life? What about friends?"

This morning we:

• Used google and Pinterest to look at bread and cake recipes.
• Researched how to convert grams of water to millilitres of water.
• Researched how to convert pounds to grams.
• Wrote the recipes we wanted to us out on word pad so we only had the information we really needed.
• Discussed the differences between teaspoons, dessert spoons and tablespoons.
• Understood and followed two recipes.
• Discussed why the bread dough was growing.
• Discussed why we used warm water instead of hot or cold water.
• Discussed how that reminded her of volcanoes and how volcanoes work.
• Experimented by cooking bread in the slow cooker instead of the oven.
• Set the oven for the cake - discussed why there are different temperates for fan ovens and non-fan ovens. 
• Discussed 12 and 24-hour clocks, quarter past, half past and quarter too. 
• Used a ruler to measure all the cake pans.
• Lined the cake tins - drawing around the pan, cutting the liner.
• Returned the kitchen to a tidy state. 
• Discussed and looked at how oven gloves work, insulation and why some materials wouldn't be good for making oven gloves. 
• Looked at the different knives and discussed why one is better for cutting bread than another. 
• Looked at the things in the fridge, planned a meal for S and me, prepped it and put it in the slow cooker.
• Discussed first aid, signs of concussion and the importance of shutting cupboard doors so you don't stand up and rattle your head off them. My head is fine. 

But, all we did was make bread, a chocolate came and a meal for tonight? Not quite. Research skills, maths, how to summarise, how to read a recipe, science, geography, cooking, IT, gross motor skills, setting a timer, meal planning, first aid, life skills and how to make tidying up fun by throwing bubbles at mum. The last one is very important. We may have opted for a different route, but I'm pretty darn sure my kids aren't going to be missing on any 'ready for real life skills'. What the heck is that anyway? 

"Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself." ~ John Dewey

As for friends, she's currently digging through her drawers to find something to wear to Beavers tonight. She's mentioned the rainbows cake sale her Rainbows group are having on Thursday at least five times already today and she has a birthday party to go to on Saturday. I think she's doing ok in the friends department too.