My 1950s lad

Twice a week Albug goes to an after school club in the village. The owner collects Trouble Monkey and his classmates, sticks them in her minibus and they head off to the nursery-cum-holiday club. The staff are great. Friendly and welcoming but also real. They love the kids and their job but they also know little people can be monsters and need to be told when misbehaving. There are days when I turn up and they seem even more exhausted with the world than I do and considering they spend 12 hours a day with toddlers and primary school children I have no problem with that. The nursery club is a child's dream. Toys are everywhere. Literally everywhere. Mark's OCD side can't quite cope with it and you know that if he has to do pick up he will be in and out as quick as is humanly possible. As can clearly be seen with the state of my study, I'm not so particular. The children are happy, healthy and safe and that's all either of us are after.

Anyway, that was a lot of scene setting for a very short story. When I turned up today the manager greeted me with "hello, your son made me laugh so much today." An ominous start to any story. It turns out that today another one of Albug's classmates was going to the after school club. Normally it's just him and one other boy but today the manager was treated to an extra 5 year old. When Albs realised this boy would be joining them he beckoned the manger over and had her crouching in front of him so he could whisper in his ear. And what did he say? "That boy's quite bothersome."

Bothersome?? Where does this lad get his vocabulary? He keeps insisting I'm raising a ninja but turns out I've got a 1950s public school boy in the house.

Truth be told when I saw who he was referring to I thought he'd actually been quite generous in his description. Master Bothersome being engaged in tug of war with a book against a little boy known for his delicate nature at pick up time. What a charmer. But still, Albs, bothersome. Who knows who he got that word from but long may the excellent vocabulary continue

My huggle bubble

In the past few weeks George has learnt to hug. Not just to curl into a ball against you or to tuck in his arms and snuggle against your shoulder but to really hug. To put both arms around your neck and grip tight like you imagine a monkey doing.

As his language continues to grow, "huggle" has also been added to the list of words we are treated to daily. "Mummy huggle, mummy huggle, up" followed by a huge hug from my little man is the best feeling in the world. Perfect food for the soul. And, lucky for us, one he is sharing with Mark and I on a daily basis.

The world seems full of posts about how hard parenting is. Parenthood and challenge seem to be interchangeable words. Yes, it has its moments but hugs with your baby more than tips the balance. Life is good.

Telling Alby

Whilst the title might suggest this will be a post on educating Alby the reality is the opposite. Alby is really in his element when he is telling us. Sometimes we have great discussions - he can be really chatty about his day at school and I'm delighted he has yet to reach the "nothing" response I'm sure he I started doling out by age six. At other times it can be amusing, like when he tells us about how bikes work or what type of hungry he is feeling, an act usually accompanied by much "you see mummy" and "well, daddy" alongside rapidly twirling hands. Then there's the patronising telling. When we are all a bit tired and in need of a break. Albug gives his support to such situations by contradicting everything we say. For us, such situations are the ultimate test in parenting patience and tolerance. And let's be honest, it's a test we rarely pass with flying colours.

And finally we have the cute tellings. The ones where, to me, he is being genuinely gorgeous but to an outsider he likely appears as the biggest suck up. Like when he tells me I'm the prettiest, or when he hugs his daddy and tells him what best buddies they are. Or the other day when he was getting ready for school and we had the following chat:
Me: it's PE today Albs. Is that your favourite.
Albug: it's one of my favourites. It's not my most favourite.
Me: what's your most favourite.
Albs: when we sit still on the carpet.
Me: like you used to do in circle time at nursery?
Albs (arms now gesturing): yes mummy, because i am just so interested in learning things.

I love this boy.

"Dabbit dabbit"

George is increasingly embracing the world of words. Since moving house in the summer his babbles have turned to words, words to simple sentences. As such, Alby's tellings have now been joined with George's and Mark and I are enjoying instructions in stereo from morning til night.

When I say "words" I mean George's take on the English language which has a definite bias to the 'd' sound. So rabbit becomes 'dabbit', tractor becomes 'dactor' and, following logic only he understands, postman pat becomes "daddy dat."
Last week's new phrase was "stop it" or rather "dop it". A little influence from Alby and I and we quickly progressed it to "dop it daddy". Sadly he's too smart for us though and within 24 hours we've had "dop it mummy" and "dop it Alby". Alby thinks it is hilarious.
Typically the language follows his favourite or most needed things: digdig (for digger), dolly, dink, more, Alby, where are ooo, dout (shout), bye bye ev-i-one. In fact, everything gets the bye bye treatment: bye bye wet car, bye bye Nee nah, bye bye toot toot, bye bye bed or even bye bye boing bed.
Words are still mixed with an awful lot of signing. Thanks to the brilliant Mr Tumble he now knows more signs than us which leads to some cryptic, drawn out interpretations but has definitely helped with his manners and he is quick to say sorry, thank you and share. Understanding what share means however is still a work in progress...

*disclaimer - I wrote this post two weeks ago and it's taken me an age to upload it. In that time George's vocabulary has doubled and his mimicry is worrying. Anyone coming into contact with him please watch your words. I've done the swearing toddler thing once already, am hoping history doesn't repeat itself on this occasion.

**I've been updating the blog through my mobile which, annoyingly, won't upload photos or videos.  I don't have footage of the "dabbit dabbit" days but I do have this film from November showing Smalley when he is first working his way around words...

''Tis the season...

"Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more!"
Dr Seuss. 

Alby in the maze

I am loving this Christmas. 
Celebrations started early this year with a trip to the Longleat Festival of Lights with my boys. Cue country drive, Trouble Monkey conquering his first real maze (taking the lead from the start the boy did good considering we were warned the average time to get around is 45mins), seeing cold animals and then walking past the most incredible, magical Chinese lanterns I've ever seen. It was breathtaking. This was followed by an outdoor light display and short film, projected against the walls of the house complete with musical Christmas tree and laser light display. Yes, Little Man got tired, cold and restless at the end but being the good parents we are we stuck him in the house pushchair, told him to be patient and then ignored him. A little bit. 

After a cosy night in a pretty little cottage we set off on a very muddy walk where Albs baffled us with his eye spy genius (sh for shadows and st for stinging nettles leaving us particularly baffled and putting Daddy's P for Percy and b for bulldog to shame). Once we'd slipped and skidded in the mud and spotted the olde man made hill we hugged a few ancient randomly placed stones and headed off for some pub grub. It was brilliant. Yes, Monkey's hunger and general tiredness meant we had a few grumbly moments which required the normal child - parent negotiations, but they were short lived and in fact magically disappeared the minute the packet of chips and glass of water (with straw) got placed in front of him. 

Oohhh look what the ancients made!

Muddy country walk

The traditional Thomas and Santa!

Next of the Christmas fun came one freezing Thursday night when. Father Christmas, riding on the back of Thomas the tank engine no less, did the rounds of our neighbourhood. I cannot explain how much a double win this is to my two boys, Goblin still saying "bye bye toot toot" an hour after he'd gone. The event was organised by the local rotary club and Albs was delighted at getting a chocolate after dropping his coins in their collection bucket.the fun was repeated the following night when he came straight past our house. The boys ran out in their fleece onesie pyjamas to wave and claim a second chocolate.


This was followed by the children's Christmas party held in one of the Mess' on Sunday afternoon. Whilst a full afternoon of fun had been laid on with kids supper, children's entertainer and Santa grotto. Monkry was so tired he only just made it to get his gift from Father Christmas before heading home for a rest. Smalley didn't even manage that. He fell asleep in the back carrier five minutes after we arrived and didn't wake up until it was time to clear at the end. 

Our next day of Christmas fun kicked off last Saturday when we headed into Reading for our first family panto. It was amazing. So amazing I was still living the laughter days in and even now I can't stop smiling at the memory. Star of the show was Justin Fletcher, a superstar of CBeebies and a favourite of Smalley. In fact I wouldn't have dared take our littlest one to a panto if Mr Tumble hadn't been there as I suspect he would have squirmed like crazy. As it was he was transfixed for almost the whole show (helped also by his flashing wand - compulsory panto merchandise). The panto was of Smow a white and the Seven Dwarves, but like all good pantos it was the Dame, Dolly Mixture and her son, jingles the juggling jester who stole the show, in large part due to the fantastic rapport they had on stage especially at the times they went off script (caused by too much silliness). They were professionally unprofessional and it had me in hysterics. (One up side of sleep deprivation is that it keeps hysteria close to the surface). 

School has also kept us feeling festive with Trouble Monkeys school play oopsie Daisy angel, where he did very well with his one line, "all of the other angels did very special jobs". There was also much singer and despite looking as though he'd like to fall asleep in his seat Albs belted out all the songs ensuring we heard him from across the hall. More school silliness came on the Friday afternoon with the chaos of the Christmas fair. Cue lots of simple games, children filled up on chocolate, cake and soft drinks and Local stall holders hoping to entice last minute shoppers with their posh, pricey goods. 

Finally, today we headed out to Blenheim palace for a family outing. After a little wander in the gardens we took the miniature train over to the yew tree maze and adventure playground. If I hadn't explained properly in the Longleat section, Albug loves mazes having discovered them in his magazines last year. Since then he has made his way though a number of osbourne maze books. His delight at real mazes is something that just has to be witnessed. We were informed very quickly that he was the leader and we had to line up behind him, no overtaking. It quickly turned out that Mark and I weren't taking his leadership seriously enough and so were informed that he now went by the name of 'captain sir' and we had to seek his permission before speaking. We aren't idiots and so we obeyed. It was a great maze. And a great miniature train ride complete with trip through a fairy light adorned tunnel with Father Christmas statues! What more could a little/big person need? We had lunch in the cafe, soup for the big people, sandwich and Christmas cookie for Albug, bread roll in ketchup for Goblin, before heading back (via the train) to the car. (Yes, you read that right. The boy has a rotten cold combined with never ending teething and has gone almost completely off food. His diet for the past few days being cookies, popcorn, fruit and ice pops. Bread today was regarded by us as a cause for celebration even if it was covered in ketchup!) One Christmas TV session later shortly followed by the traditional setting up of carrots (5 from us), mince pie and whisky for Father Christmas and co and the boys are asleep. Truth be told I'm just a little bit excited for tomorrow...! 

Credit where credits due

I appreciate I am completely biased, but Alby is turning into an awesome little chap. It's so easy to get lost amongst work, chores and errands let alone dog walks and the demands placed by George that we can lose sight of what a little star we have. When busy weekends lead to afternoon meltdowns or long days result in mild daddy bullying ("No daddy, want mummy") or bouts of hyper/unhinged hysterical laughing it can be too easy to focus on how we as parents need to address issues rather than take stock of what a great five year old we have. We will say "he's really really tired" and "we've asked a lot of him today" almost as a standard precursor to our great parenting chats but we don't really probe further. We don't take stock that we've got a five year old who is just trying to do his best. A little boy who has no say in how his day is going to unfold. Who gets told what to do constantly, who gets delegated responsibility for his brother constantly ("Alby, go follow George", "Alby, can you get this for your brother"...) who is always having to either share or wait as we sort out George/ourselves/Percy. If that was me I'd spend my life stomping about in such a huff. In fact, what am I saying? I regularly stomp about the kitchen telling my learned cautious husband that I just need to be left alone.

When we say we've asked a lot of him it's a blanket statement, rarely do we really appreciate the full depth of such. A couple of weeks ago Alby was ill and had to have the day off school. I had an appointment and for the first time ever Daddy came home to look after Alby.  And for almost the whole day it was just the three of us and it was so easy! Despite having a sick little boy at home who needed a lot of attention it was just so easy. And since then I've tried to really remember and appreciate how much we put on him as well as to treat and respect him as an individual and not just as a big brother.

And what an individual I have. He's doing brilliantly with his phonics and now has a handful of words he can read. Not bad for one term of school. I'm not claiming he's a genius by any stretch, he is completely average in regards to ability but where credit is due is how eager he is to learn. He is so interested in words, he wants to practice and show his knowledge.
Almost every week - and actually three times just in the past week, he has come home having won house points for school. He's got them for being kind to a classmate who was crying, for singing nicely in their Christmas concert rehearsals, for sitting still and quietly. Proud mummy moment came the very first week of school when he came home with a certificate for settling in so well - only one of two children out of thirty to get one.

At rugby tots he engages with the activities, runs like anything and, when concentrating, is a pretty good kick too. He has started Ninja Tots which he absolutely loves and has jumped in feet first, no looking back.

At home he makes his bed, pretty much makes his own breakfast, gets dressed and tidies up every morning. He loves telly and he loves racing cars and playing ninja turtles but he also loves his arts and crafts, making stories, baking and generally being involved with whatever we do.

Credit where credit's due, Alby is a little superstar. I'm so lucky to have him in my life.

Joke time

Alby: Mummy, would you like to hear an alien joke?
Me: Yes please Alby
Alby: Blurp blurp bing bop bop blurp.

Alby makes up a lot of his own jokes. This is the first I found genius.