Cheerio!

In one of the many books I bought about raising children, when I was still naive enough to believe that books about child-rearing might actually be useful (!), there was a paragraph about threading beads. It said something like, 'Threading is a life-skill which should be encouraged in toddlers because it develops eye-hand co-ordination and concentration.' I read it and obediently trotted off to buy toddler H a few beads and a piece of cord. When presented with this treasure, toddler H looked at me like he thought I needed my bumps read and carried on playing with his Brio. Over the following months I made several unsuccessful attempts to teach H to thread beads and then gave up and popped the kit into a drawer and the book into recycling.

Fast forward a few years and I'm having a clear out. I came across the little kit and put it out for charity. Ten minutes later and Noah was sitting happily creating a string of beads...SUCCESS...it wasn't the book that was defective, it was H...I knew it! ;-)

Buoyed by the success of his bead project Noah now threads pretty much anything with a hole in the middle. He particularly likes threading Cheerios (well...the Waitrose equivalent anyway) on to a small chopstick...then munching them.

Here he is, completely absorbed in his new hobby of creating Cheerio shish-kebabs.