Wreaths, bands and fire alarms.

I hardly know where to start. Life moves at such pace!

Something gentle (and perhaps a little sad?) to start with. Having an abundance of garden, and a BBC Gardeners' World magazine for inspiration, I figured I'd make a Christmas wreath. "How hard can it be?", I thought to myself. Turns out it's not hard at all. Time-consuming, yes, but not particularly difficult. So here's a picture of the finished wreath. For those of you who are interested, here's the recipe:
Lots of willow,
Some holly,
Some evergreen branches.
Some baubles.
Some ivy.

Take the willow and twist it into a circle. Add more willow. Add more willow. Keep adding willow until you have lots of willow in a big twisted circle thing.
Jam some little bits of evergreen (nordman fir, in my case) into the willow. Add some more, because it doesn't look very good. Take half of them out, to see if that looks any better. Conclude the evergreen isn't really working out, remove it all and discard.
Hang some baubles on the willow.
Decide the baubles look naff and discard.
Twist the ivy around the willow.
Go and steal some holly from a neighbour (I know I said we have loads of garden, but our holly's not as nice as theirs, and we know them, so it's not really stealing)
Jam the holly into the willow and twist it round a bit. (Similar to the evergreen, but it's in longer bits, so is twistier-able)
Look at your creation and declare it to be fit for display.
Show everyone who's interested (not many, in my case) what a clever person you are.
Hang it on the door.
Take photos to put on your blog, and show friends on the underground (though my sister-in-law was lacking the appropriate level of awe at my genius)
Await compliments from all those who behold its loveliness.
Still waiting ...



Then there was the concert. Fabulous. Delirious (the band, not a description of my mood).
Hammersmith Apollo. The last ever (short of any comebacks...) concert they will do. It was kinda poignant to be fair. And loud, really loud. Great fun too - they've had a great ministry over the last 17 years, and are clearly greatly appreciated. The audience was good too. I guess you're gonna get a fair number of die-hards at a thing like that! The guys were really grateful to God and to all those who'd supported them. I'm guessing the feeling's pretty mutual. Not sure who's going to step up the the plate now that Delirious are leaving the scene, but I hope they're good and well-focused, whoever they are.

The only downside was getting into bed at half two this morning, which is really a little late. Especially when the fire alarm then goes off at 6.20. About as far from ideal as you can get :(

Our swim this morning was a no-show, so Joshua was a bit disappointed with that. But when I then took him to school for the nativity rehearsal, he sort of dismissed me with a kiss - I guess he's settling in! I was going to hang around an wait for him, but his teacher and I decided I may as well come home again and pick him up later, given how settled he was. I'm sure there will be more to say about the nativity in future.

Practical Dad almost won.

It was a bit of a close contest. Joshua asked for a house to be built in the lounge. I listened and weighed up the pros and cons. Fun Dad was happy to launch straight in, but Practical Dad thought back to the previous house-building episode. It had undeniably been an enjoyable experience for all concerned, but the state in which the room was left was something approaching apocalyptic. It also occurred to Practical Dad that the floor was in a bit of a mess, and the sofa had needed some hoover-attention last time round. With the balance of power firmly on his side, Practical Dad launched into action. With the (somewhat dubious) support of Joshua, the toys were tidied away to the edge of the room, where they were piled on top of each other to maximise the effectiveness of the epic hoovering that was about to take place. Unfortunately, once the floor was clear, Practical Dad was tipped over the edge and turned, Jekyll&Hyde-like, into Desire-For-Cleanliness-Verging-On-The-Completely-Sterile-Environment Dad. The hoover was emptied first (due to a somewhat sad wish to see just how much dirt could be sucked from the carpet) and then put to work. All three attachments were used in the ensuing assault, which lasted somewhere in the region of an hour. Sofas were moved for the first time since we moved in (1 1/2 years ago...) and every corner and crevice was duly cleansed. Thankfully, the moving of sofas kept Joshua entertained for most of the process, as he enjoyed jumping back and forth between them. By the end of it, the carpet was looking spic and span and the hoover was over half full (ick!).

To everyone's relief, at some point during our elevenses break (I think it may have the the third choc chip cookie that did it), Fun Dad was rediscovered and ready for action. The housebuilding was almost as fun as the hoovering was fulfilling (?!) and probably took almost as much time. Sadly, Over-Exuberant Dad did sustain an injury in the process of vaulting from one sofa to the other, but the less said about that, the better.

Thanks ... but ...

Just a short comment today. Background for those who aren't aware - we run a boarding house, and Joshua and I usually eat with the girls at breakfast and tea, but never weekday lunches, as they're formal meals.
Yesterday lunch, Joshua wanted to eat with the girls, but wasn't allowed. We got our lunch, and sat at the table in our kitchen. In his thank you prayer for the food, he said, "thank you Jesus for our lovely dinner, but I wanted to eat with the girls, Amen."

Classic. Honest, and perhaps the mind of a Psalmist.

Battered and Bruised

It's bad enough taking a battering, but having it before 7 in the morning is just crushing. I was woken by the boy at about six, and he then started engaging me in conversation. Thankfully, I was sufficiently with it to notice the 'I need the toilet' bit of the sentence, and so swept into action with the potty. He was right (always a relief, for both of us!). However, I figured while he was sat on the potty, I'd nick his bed. So I curled up nice and warm under the duvet. A great idea, until he was done on the potty, at which point he came to join me ... and wanted to play. I wish he were a little more co-ordinated, because over the course of the next quarter of an hour, I sustained a number of injuries (thankfully none of them life-threatening) as a direct result of his haphazard movement. First, he sort of fell on top of me, which is usually fine, but this time, it was his elbow that came first, and my eye that met it. (He kissed me better). Then he sort of jumped on my little finger (again, fixed with a swift kiss). I was headbutted (twice), kicked, smothered, assaulted with the help of a couple of bears, squished, and generally mistreated. I have to admit, though, that the vast majority was simply a result of overeagerness. I was wondering how he managed to be so eager so early, and concluded that going to bed at 8, having had a two hour nap in the day, would probably do it for me as well.

At lunch, he did sustain an injury himself, again as a result of overeager misadventure. We were heading to the kitchen when he started wailing. I hadn't heard any sound to suggest he'd just taken a tumble, but it turned out he'd fallen over and bashed his chins (yes, he said chins, not chin - a little self-deprecating, I feel). His classic line was, "I didn't want to fall over and bash my chins". Obviously true, but seemed kinda funny, in a matter-of-fact sort of way.

He's now gone for a nap, so I'm off to lick my wounds and prepare myself for the next assault.

Staying in bed.

Now, it's probably not what you think, from the title (though I have to confess I've had two lie-ins this week - didn't get up until 7.15 two days running!).
The question actually is, 'how long can you play 'house' in a bed with a two-year-old before it begins to wear a little thin?' (the game - not the bed or the two-year-old...). I managed a good few minutes this morning, and in the process discovered a number of very important things.
1) Duvets don't make very good roofing material: they don't quite stretch far enough from the head to the foot of the bed; they don't tie to the bed very easily, and they're too heavy to stay up in the middle.
2) Large flat sheets don't quite stretch far enough either - they're too wide and not quite long enough to tie.
3) Feather pillows are rubbish when it comes to needing 'props' in the centre of the bed to hold the roof up. What you need are some reasonably new pillows that will stand on their end and retain their shape.
4) The perfect roof is made using a fitted sheet pulled tight (very tight!) over the head and foot of the bed, with 'props' as mentioned above to hold it up. Linked to this, the ideal bed is ...
5) a bed with a reasonably high headboard and footboard. Our headboard reaches about a foot above the mattress, while the footboard is about 7 or 8 inches. This is enough to provide sufficient space, assuming the use of props.
6) The aforementioned fitted sheet, if your bed is anything like ours, will occasionally ping off the footboard (obvious, when you take into account the laws of physics, and the relative heights of the head and foot) but this is a far-from-catastrophic roof collapse. Fixable in seconds (and good fun to roll around 'trapped' under for a while - all adds to the amusement value).
7) You can consume an astonishing number of (pretend) cups of tea and coffee in a very short space of time. I think we were up to about eight before the final roof collapse.
8) If you're sharing a pillow in the 'sleeping' section of the 'house', you're liable to get headbutted fairly frequently, with varying degrees of ensuing pain.
9) If you want an excuse to leave the 'house' for a bit, tell your playmate that you're going to water the 'garden' outside, and wander around the room making splashy noises and tipping an imaginary watering can up. (Be careful though - I made the basic error of watering a patch he'd apparently already done)
10) The two-year-old wants the game to go on for longer than I can muster energy for.
Other points that may be worth mentioning:
11) If you're the sort of person who likes their sheets ironed (personally, I'm not fussed) you may want to play this game before the ironing.
12) Probably not an ideal game to play if you're at the start of the 'potty training' stage. (No, we didn't have any accidents, I just think it's a game to save for when they're 'trained')
13) Having written a 12 point guide on this subject, I could probably be considered something of an authority...

Brainwashing.

We got into the car and headed off down the drive, as classic fm kicked in on the radio (maybe classic fm glides in, rather than kicks...). "I don't want that song on", says Joshua. Ok, so he hasn't developed my taste in music, but I was surprised by his answer to my next question. "What do you want on sweetheart?", I asked. "The Hallelujah one", he replied. I honestly don't know which precise song he was referring to, but I was impressed that he knew the word (though pronunciation was a little questionable) and pleased that he enjoyed the genre of Christian music enough to put in a request. So we whacked on the CD of Soul Survivor songs (which tend to kick, rather than glide) and he was satisfied.

And it all got me thinking. When people talk about children being 'brainwashed', what exactly do they mean? Because it occurs to me that what they mean is likely to be something along the lines of, "I can't believe you'd stoop so long as to indoctrinate your child into something that I don't believe in". Maybe that's unfair, but it seems to me that that is at the heart of the 'brainwashing' accusation. The fact is, why would I not teach my child what I believe and know to be true? Surely it would demonstrate a lack of certainty if I did anything else. If you remember the classic film 'Short Circuit', you'll remember the robot thing (number 5, or 'Johnny Five', as he was later known) buzzing around saying, 'need input, need input'. And surely kids are a bit like that (further comparisons between kids and Johnny Five could be drawn, but perhaps that's for another blog, or for the comments section below!). They need input. And as a parent, I want to make sure that I'm fulfilling my responsibility of being a key provider of such input. I don't want him growing up citing everything and everyone else as the major influences on his life, because that's not their role - it's mine. And as a Christian parent, it's also my responsibility to provide the majority (at least for the first decade or two!) of his Christian teaching. So I'll stick with it :)

Anyway, that's enough of a ramble for me. I'm being beckoned by a book and a cup of tea.

And to those of you who care about such things, apologies for the very haphazard mishmash of tenses in the first paragraph.

Staring down the barrel of an uneventful week.

But having said that, an uneventful week isn't all bad. In fact, sometimes it's preferable to an eventful one. And there are always life's little surprises to keep me on my toes - like Joshua's Saturday night...

I was happily watching yet another 'Extreme makeover: Home edition', when I heard wails of distress coming from upstairs. Not ideal, a full two hours after his bedtime. As soon as I got to the door, I was hit by a wall of smell (is that possible?) and knew instantly that I was about to move into 'pick up sick' mode. I hit the light switch, the only response was a small 'pop' and a distinct lack of light. Corridor light didn't work either, as the circuit breaker had tripped. Got my bedside light and went in (trying not to breathe) only to remember that his sockets are behind the foot of his bed, and I didn't want to be roaming around too much, as I didn't want to find myself standing in a sick slick. Had to go downstairs, flip circuit breaker ('don't worry sweetheart, I'll be back in a second') run back up, turn on corridor light, plug in bedside light and find, to my relative relief, that the containment was reasonably good, and only required a full bed change (well, not quite, Tigger was also in need of a quick spin in the machine!). Cursed the fact that I'd changed his sheets that morning, and the fact that we haven't got around to buying a backup duvet cover for his new grown-up-size duvet. Still, it all worked out in the end, though it was with some trepidation that I returned him to his bed, knowing that the mattress was now vulnerable to any further assaults, as the waterproof (and sickproof) mattress cover had needed a wash. Woke up bright and breezy the next morning (he did, anyway; I haven't done that for a while!) and had a good lark around and a play before breakfast. Gave him a nice breakfast, which went down a treat ... briefly ... and then required a good amount of muscle power to extract it from the carpet.
Thankfully, that was the last of the return-of-the-meal events, and his toast at lunch and beans for tea managed to stay where they belonged.

But the week ahead remains, as I say, gloriously uneventful. I fully intend to do some more in the garden, having ordered a bunch of raspberry plants (though they seem to be called raspberry canes) and done a bit of flowerbed clearing on Sunday in anticipation of their arrival. Aiming to save a fortune on future raspberry purchase, though it occurs to me that we very rarely buy raspberries (and it can't just be because of the extortionate cost) so perhaps forking out on a bunch of plants is a false economy. But hey, it's a fun thing to do for now, and might keep me out of mischief for a couple of hours.

I also intend to get back to some writing (proper writing, that is, not just blogging (apologies to all those who consider blogging to be proper writing...)) this week, which means that I need to do some more reading for research, which is what I'm off to do now.

Bother.

Well, got the crumble count to 78 (well, 79 actually, but one had to be tested...) and then took them along today. Sadly, no-one on the stall thought to put to one side enough to cover the pre-ordered numbers, and they sold very well indeed, with the result that it's back to the chopping board for me. Thankfully, I noticed the problem when we'd only gone three crumbles over our limit, so the situation can be recovered relatively easily.

And if you've ever wondered what a fridge would look like with 78 apple crumbles in it, here's an illustration... Thankfully, we're not in the habit of buying food, so don't have a great deal of fridge-space-requirement. I'm now going to head downstairs to finish cleaning the kitchen, having observed that the cleaning pixies seem to have died.

Maybe I'll start the process off with a nice cup of tea.

Time flies.

He's all grown up, and we trotted off to school this morning. Ok, so it's only for a day a week, but it's the start of something that'll last for quite some time!

So the question for me is, 'now what?' As it happens, my 'freed' time today was taken over by continued preparation for tomorrow's charity event, with more buying of things to be done (you've got to spend money to make money...). But I can well see why parents (yes - usually mums!) find it difficult when the kids start school. I suspect (though maybe this is just my sexist take on it) that I found it harder to adjust to being a 'SAHD' (stay at home dad - cheers for the terminology Sophie) than mums would, because it's still, in our culture, not the norm. And therefore I wonder if all the effort I've put, and am still putting, into making this my role will make it even harder to adjust to it not being my role. It's only a day a week though, so I've still got loads of time with him, but it has certainly been a big adjustment moving from full-time work to full-time home over this last year and a bit. Maybe that's something for another day and another blog though... I don't want to take over the excitement of today's morning-at-school with ponderings about the state of life.

And you'll be glad to know that he had a wonderful time. They do 'forest mornings' every Friday, where they head off into the forest near the school for a bit of adventure and fun. Sure, he cried when I left, though I'm assured that it was only brief. He made a fantastic rocket (of the paper variety - fireworks theme) and had a great time by all accounts. And from a father's point of view, one of the best things was that he had a 'dry' morning. A requirement of this particular nursery, but not quite a cast-iron guarantee where he's concerned :)

Crumbling. (Or 'eating humble crumble'.)

I think I may have seen enough apples for now. I made 14 apple crumbles this morning (as you do) which went in the fridge with the other 26 I made with some of the girls yesterday. To these 40, a further 20 were added tonight. Yes, it's well and truly crumble season again. It's a tradition that dates back a year now(?!). We arrived eager and fresh-faced in our new job, to be told of the annual 'Sale of Work' charity event. 'What fun', we said to ourselves. As we've got an orchard (it must count as some sort of benefit in kind) we figured our contribution as a house could be to make apple crumbles. So we did. 59 last year, all of which were sold and greatly appreciated. Having set the bar high last year (when will we learn to be sensibly average?) the pressure was on for this year's event. So an email was pinged out inviting orders for apple crumble before the charity day on Saturday. Within ten minutes, we had four orders, and the number had passed 20 by teatime. Oh dear. But it's a good way of getting the lower sixth to make a real contribution to the 'Sale of Work', and they seem to enjoy it. The crumbles don't seem to be as crumbly this year (oops, but maybe it will discourage people for next year!) but taste ok nonetheless.

But the reason I'm actually writing about this is it all got me thinking. We're putting on a big charity day in order to raise money for those who are less 'fortunate'. But it struck me that maybe there's not much point (hear me out here). You see, the reason they're all 'less fortunate' is because I'm more fortunate. I mean, if there was no-one above them in the 'fortunate' stakes, they wouldn't be less fortunate at all would they? But there is someone above them, and it's me. And the fact of the matter is, I like it just the way it is. I'd rather be 'more fortunate' than 'less fortunate'. And surely however many charity days we have, it won't make a permanent difference, because I (and people like me) would rather be in the position of being able to help 'less fortunate' people, than being one of them myself. And so that's what I'm thinking needs to change. And that's a pretty humbling thought.

The joys of fatherhood.

"Have you had a small chinese lady handed in? She was stuck in the freezer". Perhaps it's not surprising that the lady at customer services looked a little perturbed by my question. But then, when you have a two-year-old, maybe you get a little immune to some of life's weirder moments. We'd been shopping in Tesco, strolling down the freezer aisle, when I realised that the little 'Happyland' toy that Joshua had had moments before had vanished. 'She fell in', he told me. I wasn't too worried, knowing that she wouldn't mind getting cold (what with being plastic). However, it was only on returning to the site of the incident that I realised quite how grave the situation really was. She hadn't just fallen into the freezer; she'd fallen (or perhaps was pushed) into a very small gap at the front of the freezer - she was still in sight, but very much out of reach. 'Oh dear', I thought to myself - 'she's a goner'. We wandered around and managed to find a very friendly member of staff, who came with us to have a look. He agreed that this was indeed a most unfortunate event, but said he thought the freezer engineer was in, so he'd see if he could be persuaded to rescue her. A few minutes later he came back, and I could tell from the look on his face that the news was not good. 'I'm afraid the engineer's not in until Monday', we were told. 'If we can get her out of the freezer, we'll leave her at customer services for you'. It was left to me to explain to Joshua the danger of dropping your toys where they can't be reached. I also had to prepare him for the fact that we would be leaving without her. The next time we were in Tesco, we returned to the scene (right next to Aunt Bessie's yorkshire puddings, if you're wondering) and saw, to our horror, that she was still there. We revisited the dropping-your-toys-where-they-can't-be-reached theme, and carried on shopping. But imagine our delight when, the next time we were in the shop, we discovered that Chinese lady had indeed met her blue-sweatshirt-wearing equivalent of a knight in shining armour. The spot she had occupied next to Aunt Bessie was now vacant, precipitating the fateful question at customer services.
The story does have a happy ending - after a slightly fuller explanation to the lady at customer services, she fished a box of property (I can only assume it was general lost property, not just items they'd rescued from the freezer) from the cupboard behind her, and after a brief search, we were reunited with our little lady, who seemed entirely unfazed by her prolonged stay in the freezer.
Yesterday, when Joshua was playing with her and her fellow Happyland characters, he turned to me, held her up and said, with the most enormous grin on his face, 'she was rescued from the freezer!'.

Tonight I prayed with Mr Potatohead

I've been thinking about blogging for a while. Every now and again, something comes up and I think to myself, 'that would make fair blogging-fodder'. Tonight was one of those nights. I prayed with Mr Potatohead.
Joshua specifically asked if Mr Potatohead could join us for prayers, and I really couldn't see much reason to exclude him, so he sat on the bed with us. Joshua even laid hands on him at one point, but I think that was just a coincidence. So what's it mean? Have I completely lost it? Is it the final nail in the coffin of my sanity. Well I hope not. I thought maybe praying with Mr Potatohead was a reminder that prayer is a part of life, not something to tag on. And it's something we can do in the most ordinary of situations. That's not to take away from the awesome nature of prayer, but a reminder that prayer is with us through the most mundane of times too.
As it happens, tonight's prayer time was also the first time that Joshua prayed specifically for someone. I asked him what he'd like to pray (it tends to be of the 'thank you' variety - he's not yet three) and he prayed for Granny and Pops and Defa (their dog...).

And while I'm at it, I guess maybe I should explain my thinking behind blogging. (I'm assuming that this isn't the first and only blog - a testament to another failed 'that would be a great idea' moment) Well, I guess maybe it's a way of thinking almost out loud, but without needing people to be with you when it happens. I guess some of what I say will be for amusement, some to challenge (mainly myself, I would think!) some to nudge, share, and so on and so on. At some point, I'll probably explain more about me, but for now, the spotlight's on Mr P.