Pavlova Smash...

Just because Tom is not able to eat food orally, it doesn't mean that he is unable to enjoy food. Tom explores food as a sensory play activity, this can often be more fun than eating it, what child doesn't enjoy playing with their food?

Tom and I explore lots of different types of food together, both sweet and savoury. Today we opted for the sweet option.

I wanted to do something a little different with Tom so I decided to do a pavlova smash. I have seen lots of these baby photoshoots where babies play with cake whilst having their picture taken. I thought I would do the same for Tom but using meringue and cream instead!

First I helped Tom explore the meringue plain and dry. It was a lot of fun crunching them with our hands, we observed that they made the sound of snow crunching under foot (a great activity to keep in mind for Christmas time). Tom seemed to like it when they were crunched up because they became powdery and we could make a lot of mess.

Meringue is surprisingly smelly! Tom was able to really use all of his senses whilst playing with this activity. The great thing with meringue is that it is soft enough that Tom is able to crunch it with very little assistance from me.

Then it was time to get messy!! I whipped up some double cream to add on top of the crushed meringue. The cream had come straight from the fridge so had a nice chill to it. I poured it on to Tom's hands and he found this very funny. The chill was enough to engage him with the activity. We started to explore the pavlova mix. As the cream stared to warm up Tom stared to drift off, it was so relaxing.

As you play with the pavlova mix the meringue starts to dissolve into the cream and it gives the cream a really smooth silky texture. This change it texture is really nice because it adds another element to the activity. We went from crunchy meringue, to sticky mess, to silky smooth cream.

Tom enjoyed a nice hand massage with the silky smooth cream. Once Tom had enjoyed the cream I added some more crushed meringue. As Tom's hands were covered in cream all of the little bits of the meringue stuck to his hands, we then played with this mixture until all of the little bits had disappeared.

Tom seemed to really enjoy this activity. Next time I would add something extra into the mix like fresh strawberries to add another texture. Our activities seem pretty wacky but it is so important to think outside the box to keep all of the children we are hanging out with entertained!