I want to ride my bicycle..

LM has had a pathological fear of riding his bike without stabilisers. Many tears & tantrums have ensued when we tried to coax him away from them.  But this week has seen a breakthrough.  And all because Daddy believes you can find the answer to anything on YouTube.  Quite why he thought to look up how to teach your child to ride their bike, I don't know (probably he had run out of lives on Candy Crush & was bored), but look it up he did and found the answer we needed.

Basically we had to remove the pedals (& the stabilisers).  Sounds wrong but it meant LM had to learn to balance (why he couldn't transfer his balancing skills from his balance bike to his actual bike I'm not sure).  You needed a slope which our garden is ideal for so that LM could freewheel down with his feet off the ground.

The first few times he had Daddy holding the back of the bike.  He quite liked the speed he could get up but wasn't too confident about stopping.

The next few times Daddy let go & he was off on his own - although he didn't actually know that.

We practised this for a couple of days until he was confident doing it & had realised that he could just put his foot down to stop himself tumbling when he failed to pull the brakes hard enough.

Then yesterday we moved on to the next stage - putting the pedals back on.  LM was not sure at first but Daddy explained how much faster he would go if he was pedaling so he agreed to give it a try.

And it worked!  He may not have gone more than a few metres, but LM has officially ridden his bike without stabilisers & without anyone holding on.  All we need to do now his persuade him to stop looking behind to check if someone is holding him or he might end up in the bushes.

I feel I should point out that Daddy was also using the Jelly Bean Technique - LM got a jelly bean every time he tried and this incentive may have been what clinched it.

Tricky Mother

Well the summer holidays are still ongoing but I can't believe how quickly they are passing (apart from last week, when LM was away with grandparents, which was the longest week EVER).  But school is once more looming and to make sure LM didn't lapse in his reading & writing skills I have had to come up with stuff over the course of the summer to trick him into learning without it all being a bit of a chore - for either of us.

Firstly, the library made it easy with their summer reading scheme - there's not much LM won't do for a sticker or two - and the added bonus was that this year he actually got to read the books he chose himself.

As I knew he needed to work on his handwriting I came up with the idea of a holiday journal where he could draw pictures, stick in bits & bobs and, most importantly, write about what he has been up to.  On this one there has been some compromise as LM can't be persuaded to write more than one sentence on each activity, and he looks askance at any word he deems too long but on the whole he has enjoyed doing it as he has the incentive of taking it in for Show & Tell back at school.  (I wonder if I should provide a translation service for some pages?)

And today's 'fun' learning has been the Shopping List Treasure Hunt game (a bit of a mouthful I know but I'm still working on the title).  It involved me hiding various bits of plastic food around the garden then giving him a list which he had to read then find the relevant item.  He giggled with glee at the thought of getting one over on me when he spotted something he hadn't yet come to on his list but he should be grateful I wasn't so mean as to put aubergine on his list or the strange looking 'veg' that even I struggle to identify, and I'm a vegetarian!

I did make him add up simple numbers to come to his bill total though.  If only the weekly shop really came to just 25p!

Pirates Ahoy!

The one thing LM really wanted to do this holiday was build a pirate ship. One to rival his Playmobil one.

Oh dear! I am not naturally gifted in the creative arts.  I know what I want it to look like but rarely get the required results (especially when my assistant is an attention-lite LM).

So I trawled the internet for inspiration and came across Red Ted Art's brilliant blog and used her easy to follow instructions to get LM to create the ship he so desperately wanted to make.  OK so I may have had to do much of the paper mache myself as his attention span really didn't stretch to covering more than one side, and there were a couple of days of incessant "Is it dry yet?" but overall the result was much better than expected.

The good ship 'Wonky Crossbones'

Of course, whilst being pleased with his new ship, LM was not  content just to play with it quietly  and declared on completion "Now we can make one for me to sit in!"

It took me a few days to pluck up the courage to face up to this challenge (and I really, really couldn't take any more paper mache) but I have of course pandered to LM's demands & created him said ship - complete with crow's nest & cannon.

Obviously, this time I learnt my lesson & it's not so good he will demand a full-size one next.

And so it begins...

...the long (long) holiday.

Today is the first 'proper' day - those 2 days at the end of last week don't really count.  Even I can't run out of things to do in 2 days.

So far we have made an owl (a simple sewing kit that took about an hour while the sun made up its mind  whether to bother today or not), started LM's holiday journal (after all we saw the Red Arrows on Friday so had an exciting first entry - subsequent entries may not live up to it) and played football.  

About the football.  LM is very keen.  I am slightly less so.  Also, my skills leave much to be desired.  Even by someone of LM's forgiving nature. Hence the patient explaining of how I had to aim at the goal and the slightly patronizing:  "Just take your time".  Do I hear echoes of a teacher there?  And when I, eventually, scored, "See, I told you to take your time". He has promised me football lessons, his own being the reason why he is so much better than me*.  By the end of the holidays I might be able to play at a level that doesn't make LM cringe with embarrassment.

*Sadly rain has stopped play for today so we have had to postpone for now.

It's been a while

I haven't blogged for a while, not because LM hasn't done or said anything funny, because he has, but because there just seems to be so much that's been going on.

Since I last blogged LM has broken his arm - once the shock of having a cast had gone (that awful first night when he screamed at me "Mummy get it off!") he was extremely proud of his arm & wore it like a badge of honour, going round saying "Hit my arm, go on!  No! Doesn't hurt!"  I think maybe he was a little disappointed when it came off, although it did mean he could play in the sand.

The cast coming off also meant LM could finally jump in the boat with Daddy & start sailing.  Being small & light (offset slightly by Daddy) he can't go out on windy days - a gentle breeze that would leave most sailors shore bound is perfect for LM's first forays into the nautical world.

And with this perfect summer weather we have lots of sea & sand to look forward to.

Total Recall

LM has started taking an interest in his life as a baby.  He asks a lot of questions & often starts a conversation with "When I was a baby, I..."  

I must say I have been very impressed with all the things he remembers liking & doing when he was tiny even if they do not exactly coincide with my own recollections.

Today, we sat down with the photo album of his first year (a  rather hefty tome, subsequent years have got  a little bit slimmer) and took a stroll down memory lane.  While I may have got a bit misty-eyed over my gorgeous baby boy, LM took great delight in telling me what he was thinking & doing in each picture. 

In one of the earlier pictures he said "I look very excited because I was so happy to be out of that tummy" - I wasn't quite sure how to take that & my ego didn't dare enquire further.

A few months down the line & at one of the standard baby in bath photos he said "That was my first bath", ignoring the countless other baby in bath snaps we had gone past.  Now I know he screamed a lot at bathtime when he was tiny, but I swear I did persevere & definitely did not leave him to get dirty for 6 months.  In this instance I had to insist my memory was the right one

Perceived insults aside, it was nice to reminisce with him even if only one of us has any real recall  of what was the start of an  amazing adventure

Salesman of the Year

We have started a new business selling sailing & watersports gear (http://www.coastwatersports.com/ if you're interested) and during the Easter holidays LM has had to spend a couple of hours in the office 'helping' out.* 

I didn't realise how fully on board he was with the family business until I picked him up from his football course today when I was informed that he had told a friend's mum to buy a boat as we had a sailing shop now.  She said she didn't have a boat but did have a canoe to which, being the perfectly on-the-ball salesman, he replied "But have you got wheels for it?"   Top marks for remembering that we sell kayak carts!

However, any commission he earns has already been spent as he filched a sailing cap when he last visited the office.

*He does actually help but only if it involves using the barcode scanner

Natural Gas

Daddy has a habit of singing "Pardon me, it was not me, it was my food..." whenever he burps.  LM has taken this a step further.

Tonight he was parping more frequently than is polite and sang, "Pardon me, it was not me, it was...ME!" every time.  It would have been mildly amusing if I hadn't had to cover my nose.

However, he excelled himself when he ran in to his Daddy crying "Do you want me to parp in your face?"  (I would say 'definitely his father's son' if that didn't imply I had a less than ideal romantic life).

Pity me.  Please.

Strangers in the bath

I was a little alarmed this evening when LM said to me: "Did you know I'm a different person?"  

I did a a double-take but, apart from being squeaky clean, the LM in the bath looked pretty much the same to me.

The conversation got even more bizarre.

Me:  "Who are you then?"

LM:  "I'm John Radison"

Me:  "Who?"

LM:  "You know!  John Radison."

Me:  "No, no I don't know John Radison"

LM:  "You do!  John!  He's an Italian speaker who does Olympics at home"

I was very confused particularly as we don't know anyone of that name (unless there's a new CBeebies character I'm not aware of).

Anyway, you'll know if you see John Radison out & about....he's the one with the bubbly beard.

Crepe Chase

It's Pancake Day and of course we will be partaking later but I had to make an early start because today was race day at school.  LM had to go armed with a frying pan & pancake ready to race in the playground.

Well, I had my reservations about this, not least that the pancake would never make it to the start line.  And have you seen a mob of school children brandishing pans at the school gate?  It looked like a revolution to me.  I had visions of comedy cartoon frying pan battles (with less laughs & more tears).  Not to mention, as I think I have touched on before, LM's despair if he doesn't win.

I am happy to report that LM was beaming when we picked him up as he had won his race (Hooray!) and my pan has no head shaped dents in it.

The pancake, however, is no more.

Vote of no confidence

In an attempt to counteract the over-indulgence of the festive season I have taken to exercise (I know,  I know, but desperate times call for desperate measures).  So as not to lose interest within mins days I am mixing it up a bit and using Nike + on the kinect.

For someone as unfit as me, I thought I wasn't doing too badly with the old star jumps, burpees & ski hops so imagine my dismay when I heard LM pronounce "Oh my word! You're going to hurt yourself!" this morning.  (I had thought I was alone but unfortunately our living room is now configured with a convenient viewing gallery from which my every humiliation can be observed without my knowing - until, that is, the observer decides to comment on my skill or lack thereof).

I must not let this lack of confidence in my athletic skills put me off.

Instead I just need to rig up some sort of alarm system so I'm warned when I'm being watched.

Eating by Numbers

When LM is eating slowly (mainly because he is too busy chatting) it takes all our parental cunning to get him focussed back on finishing his food.

Today we invented a new game courtesy of a cracker prize ... a big silver die.  After each mouthful Daddy or I  would throw said die twice & LM added up the numbers, announcing the answer with glee.

Making it into a game meant all of his curry disappeared although admittedly it didn't actually speed the process up.