Happy Fathers' Day.

If Joshua and I had had a conversation at six o'clock this morning, it might have started a little like this:
J:  Hello Father.  Allow me to wish you the happiest of days on this auspicious occasion - Fathers day is a day which I celebrate with immense gratitude.  Indeed, look:  as a small token of my undying love for you, father, I have chosen to wake you with the sounds of me depositing the contents of my stomach all over my bed.
Me:  The mere sight of you, my darling son, brightens my morning.  I love you more and more each day, and even now I am relishing the prospect of stripping the bed, putting everything in the washing machine, remaking the bed and wiping down the wall.  I live to serve you.
As it happens, there wasn't much talk at all.  Just me waking to the sounds of coughing, followed by wretching, followed by crying [his tears, not mine!]  On the plus side, he didn't get up (again) until his light-that-comes-on-to-signify-the-time-for-rising came on.  And when he did get up, he went straight to the lounge to play, allowing me to drift back to sleep again.  So, if you forget about the 5.30, 'my tummy hurts' and the 6.00 'oh look, that's what I had for dinner'(and accompanying cleanup operation), you could almost say that I had a lie-in this morning :)
Thankfully, the first time he puked today was also the only time (I say that with some caution, looking at the clock on my computer and recognising there's still time...).  He's been a bit 'off-colour' today, and even had an afternoon nap, which hasn't happened for yonks, but generally he seems to have mainly recovered.  He even played a bit of footy at lunch time (though avoided eating any lunch). 
Yesterday, however, was the other side of Fathering.  'Daddy, can I do some craft?  I want to make you another card for Fathers' Day' (there was already one in his book bag from school).  Whilst picking things from his craft box, he found a heart and said, 'I'm sticking this on the card, because I love you.'  Wow.  Life doesn't get much better than that, does it?
So, thank you to my son and my wife for giving me the joy of Fatherhood.  Thank you to dad for being an amazing father.  And thank you God for being my son's father, my father and my dad's father. 

What do you smell with?

Late to pre-school today, as Joshua was still asleep when pre-school started. He did wake eventually, and we got up, ate and got in the car. On the way there, we had this conversation:
Joshua: Daddy, look how many fingers I have in my seatbelt.
Me: (turning round to look) two.
J: Daddy, look how many fingers I have in now
Me: Sweetheart, I can't keep turning around to look at you - I'm trying to drive and don't want to have a crash.
J: Daddy, look at me, and I'll look at the road to see if any cars are coming.

Needless to say, I didn't think his advice was great...

Then at pre-school, we got out the car and:
Joshua: do we have anything to take in today?
Me: We've got loads of stuff in your bag.
Joshua: No, I mean toys. (there's a 'letter of the week' and if you take in something that starts with that letter, you get a sticker)
Me: The letter this week is 'N', what starts with 'N'?
Joshua: (I can't remember what he said, but it didn't start with N!)
Me: No sweetheart, think of a word that starts with 'N'. What do you smell with?
Joshua: Uh, pooh?

Oh dear. Still lots of learning to do.

His favourite 'starting with' letter is 'P'. Not really sure why, but it is. This means that lots of things apparently start with P (rarely accurate!). We were recently discussing Fireman Sam's vehicles, and Joshua said. 'Venus, that starts with P'.
Oops :)

Something of substance.

I feel like I'm not writing a great deal here, partly because I'm blogging here, here and here. Actually, ignore that last one. Have been lazy there too!
So I'll fill in a bit of the gap. Today was 'moving-up day' at Joshua's school. He's not normally there on a Monday, but given that toddler group today was a day trip to a farm, which we couldn't make, it turned out rather well. We were invited to take him along to school at 11.45 and join the children for lunch. Of course, the seats were breathtakingly small, having been designed for 3-6 year-olds, but thankfully they did bring the grown-ups bigger plates than the children had! It was quite entertaining. Joshua managed to get a vast amount of pasta down his shirt (which was still line-damp!) and the child next to Joshua baptised himself in almost an entire cup of juice. As I was trying to rescue the situation and ascertain the best course of action for the poor boy (his parents weren't there), one of the staff said to me, 'would you like me to change him dad?'. I said that, given he wasn't in fact my son, that would probably be best! He was actually dripping as he left. The other amusing sight at lunch was the two boys on the next table, one of whom was feeding the other his banana custard. Well, 'feeding', is perhaps too strong a word... Suffice to say not much was consumed, as such.

When I went to pick Joshua up at the end of the day, we had to spend about 1/2 hour in the playground at school. Then, on the drive home, we passed the playground in our road, and he said, 'can I go to the park now?'. So we did. Another 45 minutes there, then tea, Bob the Builder and bed. At prayers, his offering was, 'Thank you lord Jesus for our lovely day and I hope mummy and daddy can come to lunch at school again, Amen.'

Did manage to get some useful stuff done during the school gap though, and we're now pretty much up-to-date with our accounts. Always handy!

Anyways, I'm on duty tonight, and it's almost time for the next bell, so I'm off.

*** Brief Break ***

Just went outside to get the washing in (it's raining) and was reminded of what else I meant to say.
This weekend in the garden was notable for the birdlife. I already texted about the bold robin and its nest. Well, this weekend saw me having to go slowly around the garden for fear of treading on a baby bird somewhere. The whole place seemed to be swarming with the little fellas. Robins were darting this way and that, and the sounds of feeding babies were coming from most of the hedges (and we've got a fair few). On closer inspection, I found that there were zillions (ok, slight exaggeration) of babies all over the place. They were mainly pre-flight, but post-nest. Seriously cute little things with dumpy little bodies and wings that seemed unlikely to allow flight. They sort of hopped their way around the garden. I was really tempted to go and stroke 'em, but figured they'd either die of heart failure or be abandoned by parents because they smelt of person. But the sound was just extraordinary. I've never been so keenly aware of the transition from nest to sky. And what a terrifying time it must be for the parents. Four babies all going off in different directions, utterly at the mercy of predators (and yes, I had seen a bird of prey just past the back hedge last week). Ok, so they don't 'think' in the same way we do, but what fragility of life and relationship.
And then again, there are people in the world who do have to think like that. Where should their priorities lie? Which child is the most important? As I wrote in my chapter on 'simplicity' this week, I had a bit of a failure on the carrots front. What did I do? I laughed it off and planted more seeds. But what if I had no more seeds? What if the carrots were the only thing I had to feed my family. Suddenly it wouldn't be something to laugh off. What if losing some of my crop meant having to chose which child to feed...

Father's Day and needles.

Well, once again, Fathers Day coincided with having a whole cohort of new pupils descending on our house for tea :) But there we go!
Joshua and I headed off to church in the morning, where I played guitar for the first time (first time there, that is, not first time ever...) - whoop whoop. Sadly, having tonsillitis did prevent any vocal leading, so we'll save that for another time. It was great to be able to do some music and it may be something that's growing soon.
On our return home, there was much to do in preparation for the arrival of multiple guests, not least the mowing of the lawns. Thankfully, we have a drive-on mower at our disposal, and Joshua and I even did some of the orchard together, which was quality father-son time :) I think I enjoyed the mower more than he did - he's strangely nervous about mowers. About two hours of mowing later (drive-on mowers are not good at tight corners) I was done. Sadly, I had to 'modify' the garden gate slightly, as the ride-on wouldn't fit into our garden (it's not normally used in our bit - the regular push-along petrol mowers are).

Joshua's classic comment from the day was 'daddy, can I have some of the chocolates from your present'. To which I had to respond, 'Sweetheart, you haven't given me my present yet!'

And today, we went for his latest round of injections. I felt really bad. He had no recollection of injections, so I told him that we were going to the doctors for injections, which were to make him healthy and strong. He believed me. On the way there, I told him that they'd pop something into his arm and that it might hurt a bit. When we got there, we took rabbit and monkey in with us and the lady was very nice and explained what was going to happen. I sat him on my knee and held firmly onto his arms, as instructed. The first one was in the left arm, and the nurse told him to look at something in the other direction. He dutifully turned his head away, I felt really bad, she put the needle in, injected him, took the needle out again and he didn't even flinch. Not so much as a whimper. The second one was slightly trickier - he happened to turn around just as the needle was approaching his arm, so tried to move away (can't blame him really) with the result that some of the juice didn't make it in, but he didn't make a noise then either. I think he was just a bit confused by someone wanting to poke something into him.
I swear needles must be thinner these days - when I was a little boy, I'm sure it really hurt... Or maybe I just made a fuss anyway.
Anyways, even the nurse was impressed. He got his sticker and we headed straight for the sweet shop around the corner. What a brave boy!
On the way home, he piped up from the back of the car, "Man doctors are better than lady doctors."
"Why?", I asked.
"Because lady doctors give me things I don't like. When we went to the man doctor, he made me better."
I had to reassure him that lady doctors were, in fact, just as good as man doctors (I didn't bother pointing out that it was a nurse that injected him!)

Happy Easter.

A couple of weeks ago, I was talking with Joshua about Easter. Figuring it was a good time to discuss the whole question of what Easter's about, I asked him, "Why did Jesus die, sweetheart?". His response? "Uh, was he eaten by a shark?". Uh... no sweety :o) Now, to be fair to Joshua, we had spent the previous weekend away with a bunch of friends from church and we'd been looking at the story of Jonah, so I'm kinda guessing that he was getting a little confused!

The next week in church, we heard about a kid who asked their mum this question: "Mummy, why did Jesus have to die? Why couldn't we just say sorry?" What a great question! Wouldn't it be easier that way? But then that doesn't take into account how serious it is when we ignore God's way. And that's what's so amazing about Easter. I think about what it means to me to be a Father, and then multiply that by about a kazillion and you're probably getting close to imagining the feeling of closeness between God the Father and God the Son, and from that, you can consider the burden of seperation that the cross was for them.
Wow.

He is risen.

Channel 4 needs me.

Ok, first, apologies for the lack of blogs. I'm sure life has begun to lose meaning for my faithful band of 8 followers (is it really that many?!) without the random musings of an almost-certainly-criminally-insane friend. Time flies.
The end of term was pretty ... uh ... perhaps the best word would be manic. But I don't mean, 'oh it's been a bit manic here', I mean, when you're actually on the verge of mania due to the state of your own little world. I won't go into details, as it's not really my story to tell, but suffice it to say that it's all calmed down a bit now.
The other reason I'm writing this is because my blog has been the topic of conversation at more than one point in the last 24 hours (we've got friends staying who, for some reason, read it!) and I thought it was therefore time to give them something more up-to-date to look at.

And so to the point of the blog post title. I happened to mention that I've always quite fancied the idea of having a documentary TV crew follow me around. (No, I'm not really sure what the documentary would be on, but more of that in a minute!). This comment was met with some derision from my wife, and amusement from the rest of the gathering. The main reason I gave (other than vanity I suppose) is that I often think things that would be amusing to share with someone, or do things that I think are in some way worthy of being seen, but they never are (shared or seen...) and it seems such a waste. Of course, there are times, like when I was doing the washing up this afternoon having finished making the chicken pie for dinner, when I actually really like being alone without the need to talk to anyone, but even so, surely that's good TV in some way...
And then people started considering what the documentary could focus on (those of you who were there may wish to add things I've forgotten, and those who weren't there may have some suggestions too...) The documentary could be on being a stay-at-home-dad, or having to live with 74 of the 'fairer sex', or things to make with children (this was also suggested as a book I could publish, so that's another idea), or any number of other things.
So, if anyone knows any desperate Channel 4 bods who are fresh out of ideas, tell 'em to get in touch!
And it's not just me, is it? Surely other people must want their own TV crews...

And now to Joshua, who's been up to some great things recently. He's recently getting more keen on his drawing. A few days ago, this branched out into body art. I have photos, but unfortunately the carphone warehouse weren't entirely honest about what was going to be included with my 'phone, so I don't have a cable to connect it to the computer... I'm also set to download his first picture that's almost discernibly a human face. It appeared a couple of weeks back, but I haven't yet scanned it in. (I can't blame the carphone warehouse for that though...)

His latest phrases are, 'of course' (usually said in such a way as to make you feel like a right muppet), 'it's not fair', (didn't get that one from home, I can assure you!)

Last week we had a fab housegroup weekend away. Really good time, and a nice chance to spend a bit more time with people. We were able to go as a family too, as term had (just) finished, so that was brilliant. (Though tiring, for reasons mentioned above!). We looked at Jonah, and concluded it should really be called 'the story of Jonah and God' not 'and the whale', as the whale was only really a bit part, and wasn't there entirely voluntarily. Great book and good challenge. Unfortunately, the house was a bit falling-downish. We were in a three storey bit. The bottom floor had a whacking great metal prop in the middle of the room, holding up the ceiling. The second floor had a big sign on the door saying 'danger, do not enter', and we were on the third floor, with a floor so sunken that the single bed was about an inch off the floor in the middle of the room! I guess at least if the house had collapsed we'd have been near the top of the pile...

Anyways, I'm back off to spend some more time with our guests, before an early night (clocks change tonight!)

Doing my duty.

I feel that, given it's been another week since a blog, I should get sorted and do another blog. Not really sure what to blog about, so I'll just sort of splurge about the week just gone.

It's been a bit of a manic one. We went to Worthing this week for Granny's funeral. She died a week and a half earlier, at the age of 94. Though it's always sad to have someone close to you die, I'm sure Granny has no objections (other than that she had in mind that it would happen ages ago!) and I'm completely confident that we'll meet again :) I'd also had the chance to see her and pray with her a week and a half before she died, which was lovely. The funeral itself was ok, and it was also a chance to see family who we'd not seen in months, which was good. It does mean I'm now on the hunt for a prayer warrior to take up where Granny left off. It's funny to think that, despite her diminutive stature, she was a sort of Bruce Lee/Arnold Schwarzenegger of prayer.
Unfortunately, Anna was sick the night before the funeral, and I was sick the night after. Probably due in no small part to the level of tiredness that we'd both reached.
There was, however, a sense of catharsis in the being ill, and I ended up feeling sort of renewed by it (though it was a grim experience that I'm in no hurry to repeat!)

Had a great time this morning moving a bush in the garden. It was taking up valuable space in the veg patch, so had to go elsewhere. Hopefully I haven't killed it off in the process... Must now set about planting some seeds indoors in preparation for this year's bumper crops!

And tomorrow, among other things, Joshua and I are going to go and buy some self-adhesive blackboard stuff (by the makers of sticky-back plastic) and stick it around the house to have loads of fun chalking all over. Wednesday is Daddy day, and it's gonna be a riot this week :) Might even buy some tester pots at B&Q so we can paint Charlie and Lola onto his bedroom wall ... but that might be a project for another day!

Still working on the book, but finding it pushed out by other things all the time. Oh dear.

And now I'm going to bed, because it's well past my bedtime.

Long time...

Well, I haven't blogged for over a week, which breaks my 'at-least-weekly' blog rule, and one day I might explain why, but for now, I just thought I'd share this...

----------------SPOILER----------------
Warning, this (very short) story may compromise your appreciation of the song 'Alleluia', so if you really really like it, you may wish to stop reading now...

I was just singing 'Alleluia' to Joshua while he was in the bath. I got to the 'Worthy is the Lamb' bit, and he turned and looked at me slightly puzzled and said, 'Woolly is the lamb?'.

Thought you might like that.

:o)

Fresh start.

Had a lovely birthday on Monday down in Worthing (thanks to everyone who helped make it a great day!). Great time catching up with friends too - here are a couple of pics from our trip to the beach with some friends ... The first one is the classic 'sun in the background over the crashing waves' shot. And believe it or not, this is not very long after Joshua's had his haircut. That's as short as it's been for ages!



The second is a wonderful picture of my brave little boy (!) running away from the waves. I know it's a fun game to play, but he's clearly a little less hardy than his mate, who's still ten foot closer to the sea than he is and hasn't even started running yet. Having said that, if you look closer at the photo, you'll see that Joshua's already failed dismally in a previous attempt - absolutely drenched trousers! His mate's mummy wasn't overly impressed with me either ... I was taking photos of them (as you can tell!) and saw a wave coming in. I legged it up the beach, staying perfectly dry, but leaving them to get wet. Oops.

Great to catch up with people at Worthing High too! Lots of new faces though ... weird. I now don't recognise half the school!

Then we got back home and I discovered this:


Yes, a tree fell over in our garden while we were away. Well, there's a bit of a 'did it fall or was it pushed?' debate, but the less said about that the better. It's funny, I was stood there thinking, 'oh no, that's our best cropping plum' (ok, call me sad if you like). And then I looked up at the sky, saw what a great spot the tree had been planted in and immediately started thinking, 'I wonder what else we could plant here instead'. If only all loss was so easily dealt with! And of course, there's the other advantage that we've now got more wood to burn!

I'm also now trying to work out what things need to be planted in the next couple of weeks. Our new fruit trees are on the way, so they'll go in. But I've got serious amounts of seed to go in, with what is currently quite limited planting space. I think more stuff may have to come out... Oh dear. Joshua and I planted some more tulip bulbs (WAY too late!) and some dogwood cuttings today too, so hopefully they'll make it... If not, it doesn't really matter, they'll just compost down over time!

And last but not least, we had a lovely lunch today with friends here. They introduced us to a game called 'chairs'. There are 24 little (like, two inches tall) plastic chairs that have to be stacked in a tower, with only one touching the ground. It's more fun than it probably sounds (think Jenga, but building from scratch, with plastic chairs...) and I spent some time crafting the amazing tower below ...

Little things please little minds ... as they say.

Beaten by a draft excluder.

Yes, that does read 'by' and not 'with'.
Joshua's loving the game 'Shhh, don't wake dad' at the moment. It was given to him for Christmas by one of the girls. He's now beginning to get the hang of the rules (though still ignores them...). However, at the outset, it was a case of talking him through the entire game. It's mercifully quite a quick game though. I have to point out that I did win the first game (yes, I was playing fair!). However it was downhill from there. The second game was won by Joshua, who only just beat me to the finishing line (which in this game is a fridge). It got worse though. He decided that Mole and Teddy needed to join in the action. So I was taking charge of making sure Mole didn't cheat, and Joshua was keeping an eye on Teddy. Mole is a draught (draft) excluder, Teddy is ... uh ... a teddy. Of course, we had to spin the spinner for them, but they did help move their pieces around the board. The inevitable happened though. Mole won. I could see it coming too, and was almost overcome by the temptation to cheat to enable one of the non-stuffed-toy players to win, but managed to resist and instead accept defeat at the hands (?!) of Mole.
Ah the joys and burden of responsibility!

Just a couple of quick ones from Joshua.

I'm aiming to write a blog in all three of my blogs today - rash, I know, and quite unlikely too, given that I'm running out of hours. I'll also need to find my phone, to take a photo, otherwise there will be no addition to the 'Manmade' blog...

As avid readers will know, I'm in the middle of tax returns. It's now the turn of Anna's, and once again the guest room/study looks like the aftermath of a bomb in a filing cabinet. There's more paper than carpet. Joshua walked in earlier, examined the floor and said, "can you tidy this messy up please - it's not very clean in here."

And then just now, bedtime prayers (what is it that makes bedtime prayers such a rich source of humour?!) I asked what things we could thank Jesus for today. He was a bit flummoxed, and the conversation went on:
Me: We went to the p p p p p p p
Joshua: POST OFFICE
Me: yes, and sent presents to people. Who came to visit us too?
Joshua: ELSIE! (Yes, he was shouting all his answers)
Me: yes, and what other things happened today that we can say thank you for.
Joshua: I peed my pants.
Me: Uh ... yes sweetheart, but we're not going to be very thankful for that!

Ok, so the Bible does tell us to be thankful in all circumstances, but really ... that?!

I almost died of boredom.

Yes, it's true. In fact, three days running I almost kicked the bucket due to extreme (almost unprecedented) levels of boredom.

Why?
Two words - Tax Return.

However, I was dead chuffed with myself when I submitted my self-assessment online last night. I felt all grown up (it's the first one I've ever done, and I think my brain was trying to justify the time taken by injecting a burst of pride into the equation). However, I didn't feel so great this morning when I realised that I'd done my sums a bit wrong. I halved something part way through an equation (which was fine, because it's a joint asset) and then I halved it at the end of the equation (which would have been fine if I hadn't already done the halving earlier) with the result that I had a figure that was too small. (Remember we're speaking financially here!).

The good news was that it meant I would end up paying less tax (by about £175) the bad news was that I had to resubmit in order to change the figures. So I went back to the drawing board (well, the computer, strictly speaking) and totted it all up again. It was part way through doing this that I realised I'd got some other figures wrong - I'd merrily added up all the months for the tax year, when I should have only included those where we weren't residing in our own house. D'oh. This changed the figures again and meant that I wasn't saving about £175, I was saving about £13. Unlucky for some, as they say! I can now understand why people pay other people good money to have their tax returns done for them. Oh well, just another reason to count down to retirement. My next job is to do Anna's return :(

But through it all, there are three reasons why I'm more than happy to pay my taxes:
1) Joshua
2) Mum
3) My old job


On an altogether lighter note. Another point of amusement (I don't think I've mentioned this one yet - forgive me if I have and I hope you find it amusing a second time...)
For some time now, I have had this conversation with Joshua every night:
Me: I love you,
Joshua: I love you too,
Me: I love you lots,
Joshua: I love you once.

He seems dead pleased with himself for saying it too. I like to think that he believes it to be a 'trumping' of my loving him lots, but I always go away wondering if I should be pleased or slightly offended :o) Sometimes he even holds up one finger, I guess to drive the point home. (Don't worry, I love it really, but it does amuse me every time)

Apologies for the lack of photos here - I could have one of the study floor as I was doing the tax return (well, more the paper on the floor than the floor itself, which was pretty well hidden), but then some criminal mastermind will read my post, see the photo, zoom in, get all my bank details and steal all my money. And I wouldn't want that to happen.
I could also have a photo of Joshua during his nap today - he'd left the siren on his Fireman Sam book running, opened his curtains, and then gone to sleep with a pair of trousers on his head. I could have a photo of that, if I'd taken one, which I didn't. But having said that, maybe I'll put a couple of others of him in bed... (and no, they're not set up - it's just some of the weird stuff he does when left by himself for more than about 12 seconds).

Happy not-so-New Year

Thankfully, I didn't make any rash New Year's Resolutions about blogging daily. In fact, I haven't really made any NYRs at all. My thinking is that I'll get around to making them when the dust of the holiday has settled somewhat. That way I can make some that are a bit more carefully planned than, 'Argh, seven-and-a-half minutes 'til the New Year, what should I promise myself?!'.

Had a lovely New Year though. I'm currently having a facebook conversation with a friend who refers to his New Year as 'insane'. I told him that I would have been most upset if my New Year had been insane (perhaps it's linked to the fact that I'm twice his age...)! Thankfully ours was very calm and orderly. So calm, in fact, that we forgot to set off the fireworks. Oops. A civilised roast dinner, followed by a few games of 'Snatch'. Rounded off with a nice bit of fireworks-on-the-telly and a glass of champagne. Even cracked open the bottle of Chateauneuf du pape. Very nice stuff. Silky smooth, in fact!

That was preceded by a couple of really nice visits to see old friends, (old in the long-standing sense, not in the long-in-the-tooth sense). North Wales was, as expected, grey, cold and somewhat wet, but brightened immeasurably by the renewal of friendship, occasional cup of tea, and roaring (well, more flickering actually) fire. Birmingham was also cold, but likewise was uplifted by the friendship and tea motifs.

And before that, of course, came Christmas. A Lewis spectacular: fantastic food, and a wonderful family Christmas. A highlight for me was the suckling pig (sorry if you're reading this Clare M...). In particular, Joshua wandering into the kitchen, seeing said pig in a tray about to go in the oven, and announcing, "I want to eat his nose!". No sign of vegetarianism breaking into his lifestyle! He was also taken by the disappearance of the sherry, mince pie and carrot left for Santa and co., and by the appearance of footprints in the ash by the fireplace. Ok, so the footprints were barely discernible despite being the work of a number of people and a fair amount of time, but the rest was good! Joshua was a huge fan of his new kitchen that mummy and daddy and granny and pops gave him. As you can see, he's cooking up a storm already.



And yesterday (apologies for the topsy-turvy chronology of this post) we did this:
I say, "we", but I have to say I'm the only one who saw the project through from start to finish. It was the (very well chosen!) gift of one of our girls. Anna and Joshua initiated the construction, but then abandoned ship on me. I think perhaps I was being a little over-enthusiastic about getting it 'just right' (though you might well question whether I actually succeeded...). A prize for the person who can spot the five differences between the two otherwise identical pictures...






Anyway, it's now a long long time since I actually started writing this (it's 20.42 now...) so I'm going to stop there. Joshua is now in bed, and I'm thinking of going out for a spot of sport :) Happy New Year to all of you. (All five of you, that is. I was hoping I might have hit 10 followers (not literally, you understand!) by 2010, but maybe I'll have to wait until 2011 for that)

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.