A Christmas prayer.

We had a fab Christmas, which I may or may not get around to blogging about. But before I do, I thought I'd share the events of Christmas evening. Specifically, Joshua's bedtime.
I felt that, given he'd received vast quantities of presents, he should be a grateful little boy, and so at bedtime prayers, I suggested he might like to say thank you to Jesus for some things from the day.
This is (roughly) how it went:
Joshua: Thank you Jesus for me and being good and quiet in church and not talking too much, but I did go in and out a lot (that is, although he was quiet, he didn't sit still, and was in and out of the pews constantly) didn't I daddy?
Me: Yes sweetheart
Joshua: and thank you for my pudding which I've had just now, and for the crackers which went 'pop' and I heard my cracker go pop didn't I daddy?
Me: yup sweetheart
Joshua: and everybody's cracker went 'pop' and my cracker I got ...
Me: (after a long pause waiting to see if he remembered his cracker gift) an egg cup sweetheart
Joshua: Yeah and a crown for mummy
Me: (slightly hopefully) Amen
Joshua: but mummy didn't want to wear her crown, and thank you for ...
Me: (wondering about how long this commentary on the day will last) Amen?
Joshua: (He went on to list a random array of events from the day which he'd clearly found memorable, but which seemed to get funnier and funnier as it went on, and after a while it was -
Me: (now laughing quite hard but ever the optimist) AMEN?
Thankfully at this point, he agreed and called it a day, rounding off his prayer with an amen.

I love how he's thankful for so many things in the day. Why do we limit ourselves when we're being grateful?

Morocco

Just thought I'd blog some likes and dislikes about Morocco, but will blog further and with more photos when I've got some more time.
We went to Marrakech for four days this last week.

Likes:
The traffic - absolute chaos
The orange trees that grew 'wild' along the pavements.
The smells - some unfamiliar, some all too recognisable :)
The fact that you could shop after 5.30
The people
The bartering
The weather (though it did rain a fair amount on our first day)
The architecture
The mint tea
The call to prayer
The snake charmers
The monkeys in the marketplace
The couscous royale (mmm tasty)
The airport (seriously stylish)
Having to hold the torch for the guy who came to fix the electrics in our hotel room
The mini taxi we travelled in that leaked rain onto us

Dislikes:
The dishonesty of some people (like the guy who said he didn't want money for having his photo taken with us, and then gave us serious grief when we didn't give him any)
The olive trees that grew 'wild' along the pavements (I'm not an olive fan!) (nah, they were cool in concept to be fair)
People manhandling Joshua (ruffling hair is fine, but grabbing is pushing it...)

There were more of both - I'll probably add to this post from time to time, as they come to me.

Quick post...

Just thought I'd include this, given that it's now been given away.
Mum said she wanted one of those plastic bag holder things, now they've got a new sink (?!) (It actually makes sense, once you've seen their kitchen)
So I figured I'd make one (or try at least) and this is what happened. I haven't yet had a 'product test report' on it, but I'll get one after a couple of weeks and let you know how it's gone down :)

Birthday boy.

He's only three, and yet the preparations for his party were on a par with preparations for a royal visit. We also had as many guests as you might expect to a royal banquet. Thankfully, some of the guests were very helpful indeed, or our survival would have been in real jeopardy.

The second parent who arrived asked whether we wanted parents to stay or not. I assured her that parents were MORE than welcome to stay (please!). I was on the fast track to cardiac arrest with that comment! Thankfully, all parents stayed, and were very well behaved (on the whole).

The hired inflatable ball pool (indoors, given the weather) was a real hit. Thankfully, the only actual hit that took place (and it was accidental) was sibling-on-sibling, so there was less explaining to do to parents. It was great fun watching the kids throwing themselves into it ... literally. (And great fun testing it out in advance of the party, too!) Sadly, the balls were all wet when it arrived, so Joshua's aunt and I had to crawl around in it with a couple of towels, but that was quite entertaining anyway... You'll be pleased to know that Joshua was unharmed in the making of this photograph - this is him having fun ...

Another highlight of the day was when one of the guests arrived and, on being told who was already there, announced that he didn't like one of the other guests. Oh dear. They all seemed to have fun anyway. We played the classic pass-the-parcel. A timeless game that takes as long to prepare as to play, and is bound to leave some people disappointed. Pin the tail on the donkey was also popular, though I think may have been beyond some of our younger guests... Joshua got it somewhere near the poor creature's head. Not likely to make a very good vet I'm afraid. (Though maybe the present of a vet's practice from his godmother will assist with that...)

The cake was a pirate ship (well sort of ...) on request of birthday boy himself. Sadly, the only writing icing we had was Barbie glitter icing, which didn't really seem to be quite right for a pirate cake, but I used it anyway! As soon as he'd blown out the candles, he said, "I want cake first". What a gracious host he's turning out to be! Unfortunately, it was as I was holding the cake in front of him, and we were all singing, that I realised I didn't have a camera (not that I could have taken a photo with the cake in my hands!) and therefore we were liable to miss out on the classic "blowing out the candles" (a.k.a. "spitting at the cake") shot. To my relief, I saw a flash go off during the blowing/spitting process and managed to nab the friend who'd taken the shot, so we didn't go without after all.

We had a craft table to welcome the children (so to speak) which was nice for a chance to calm them down a bit after the ball pool. Notice the concentration on Joshua's face as he works on his masterpiece, with snowman looking on. This was before he got hold of the fancy wiggly scissors and cut his paper into lots and lots of little pieces (with very pretty edges!). We will, of course, be hoovering glitter up from the entrance hall for weeks to come, but that's life.
We had cupcake decorating (a good way of clearing out that Barbie glitter writing icing), which seemed popular too. More popular than the craft, but then it's nicer to eat a cupcake than a drawing, so maybe that's why...

All-in-all, a largely successful party, and our guests seemed to go away happy. Joshua was so tired that he was falling asleep as granny was reading him his bedtime story. Granny and Pops get a special mention, as do Tammie and Ben. They all worked their socks off to help provide a fantastic day for the boy, and to look after our hordes of parents. (Hordes in number, that is, not in temperament...)

Today has been somewhat quieter (though it's actually today that's his birthday). We popped into mini carols this morning (though were so late we actually missed the carols altogether) and then provided lunch for the staff in the house. 10 grown-ups are much easier to cater for than 18 children! We're spreading the present opening over a period of time, so that he doesn't get overwhelmed.

and another thing...

A couple more of Joshua's finest.

Last night, we were having a House Supper, so had a babysitter looking after Joshua. I popped up to say goodnight to him at ten (he was still awake...) I said to him, "it's time to go to sleep." To which he responded, "the curtain said it was time to wake up." I swear he's bonkers. :)
His babysitter then told me that she'd heard a thump earlier and had gone to see what he'd done. She found him in his doorway. When she asked what he was doing out of bed, he replied, "my bed chucked me out."

It's official.

No, I'm not talking about the transfer of Sol Campbell to Man U (like anyone cares!). I'm talking about the results of a recent poll. They're in, but there are no surprises. Admittedly, the poll may have been conducted on a limited field (me) but I would have to argue that the conclusion is nevertheless no less valid. Joshua is, in fact, indisputably, the most gorgeous boy in the world.

There are so many times in a day when I think, 'that would make for amusing blogging'. But if I took the time to write it all down, I wouldn't actually end up having time to spend with him to get more material! Today, we went to Normanton Road in Derby. Basically it could be called 'Pakistan Road', with its Pak Superstore, 'Ideal Sweets', Sandal store, iqbal books and so on and so on. We popped into one of the shops to pick up a couple of Christmas pressies (can't go into details - the walls have ears...). Joshua spotted the sweets by the till, and took advantage of this fine piece of product placement to suggest we indulge in a little sample. So we bought a pack. As we were wandering back up the road (yes, we did pay before leaving!), I asked if I could have one of his sweets. 'No' was his response. (Ok, I confess, I may have sneaked a couple when I was opening the packet for him, but he didn't know that!). He kept munching his way through them, I kept asking for one and getting the same response. We finished our shopping and got back in the car. At which point he held one of them up (the last one, no less) and said, 'this one's for mummy.'
"WHAT?! I bought you the sweets, and you're saving one for mummy, when you didn't give me one?!"
"Yes" (A little triumphantly, I felt).
Mind you, my time came. About a minute down the road, there was a sort of slurping noise from the back seat, and he proudly told me, "I licked it for mummy". To be honest, I'd have been sufficiently amused if he'd left it at that. But about another minute later, the sweet seemed to have vanished. "What happened to mummy's sweet?", I asked.
His response? "I ate it. I thought it was mummy's, but it wasn't, it was mine".

Absolutely priceless. That one line made the sweets worth every penny, and my loss at not having any of them (well, not being given any, at least) suddenly seemed to fade away.

Have a look at a book.

I'm going to start blogging on books. I've read about a zillion as I'm trying to write my own, and I figure if I blog about it:
a) I might learn something
b) I can point other people to the blog, if my book ever gets written,
c) It just seems like a good idea...

The question is, should it be a different blog altogether, or just woven into this one (in a beautiful, tapestry-like fashion). Tough call...


And my rant for the day - why on earth can't I buy replacement bulbs for my Christmas lights?! "Sorry sir, everyone's switched to LED" really isn't good enough. I haven't switched to LED. WHAT ABOUT ME?! (Thankfully, I resisted the temptation to shout this and stamp my feet, I just hung my head and left, dejected.)

Humanist Shmumanist

Have just read about the new 'campaign' from the Humanists...
Billboards with pictures of little kids saying 'please don't label me, let me grow up and choose for myself'.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. How silly. What they seem to be saying is that everyone should start with a 'I don't believe in anything to do with God' and go from there. What a hypocritical (and in my slightly ranty view, stupid) thing to say. Surely that's just saying, "humanists are right, the rest of you are wrong, so teach kids what we believe and if they want to believe something else when they grow up, so be it." How's that any different from a Christian saying "I'm right, you're wrong, my kids going to be brought up as a Christian because that's the truth". The only difference is that the truth is the Truth! Humanists are just saying they don't want kids (that's ALL kids, not just theirs) to believe in anything other than what Humanists believe...

(Quote from British Humanist Association) "Labelling children as if they innately "belong" to a particular religion ... can only serve as an obstacle to understanding between children around the world." What?! Rubbish. Failing to teach them about others' beliefs might serve as an obstacle to understanding. Or teaching them to ridicule (and I mean ridicule, I don't mean disagree with or argue against) others' beliefs might have the same effect. But teaching them properly about religion, particularly the religion to which they belong, can only serve to improve understanding.

I don't want my son to 'innately belong' (their words) to a religion. I want him to be a Christian by his own choosing. But that doesn't mean I'm going to wait until he's 18 before I start teaching him about it. How absurd. Why on earth would I stop teaching my child the truth just because someone else says it's not true. Bizarre. Is it just me or is this campaign really odd...?

And at this time of year, I'm going to have to mention Santa (warning - spoiler!!!)
I'm assuming that Humanists would avoid any reference to Santa/Father Christmas, because he's not true. If any humanists read this (which I doubt, given that my 'followers' list is only half way to double figures...) I'd love to know your views on this. Because surely if you don't want kids to believe in Jesus, you certainly wouldn't want them believing in Santa... After all, the evidence for Jesus is solid, the evidence for Santa is somewhat shaky...

I have to apologise for the fact that this is a rant. But the campaign is so ridiculous I'm struggling to muster up enough energy to question it particularly logically. Feel free to comment. I'm aware that some things I haven't really explained very well...

Check out the wreath by the way. I've only have a 20% response rate to it.

Do Humanists celebrate Christmas? Surely not... They're missing out.