Boys will be… boys!

There’s no denying it, boys is troubles.

If they’re not fighting over some silly toy or which TV programme to watch, they’re arguing with us, the wife and I.

It doesn’t necessarily matter what I’m actually talking about, as you, the reader, can simply pick an element of ‘life’, and use that in the imagination part of this blog post. For instance, they’ll argue and scream blue-murder about something as trivial as whether there’s too much water in their cup, or the food is too hot/cold, or whether there’s too much or too little on their plate to eat.

Ignoring the fact that whatever they are actually arguing about, the ‘problem’ itself could be rectified immediately, but they insist on dragging things out, as tired little boys do.

All of this arguing, to’ing and fro’ing, has made me remember-back to how things were when I was their ages, and how life was different in some ways.  It’s difficult to stop one’s self from this, and I’m sure I’m only remembering the bits I want to remember, but nonetheless, I’m still dragging myself back all those year, for the simple sake of comparison.

Yes, we all argued, me and my brother, Russell, or my and my sister, Emma. Or Emma and Russell, or any other combination of the three of us against each other.  We fought, screamed and argued our way through the foundation years of our lives, which has inadvertently become the Brett Rigby Benchmark, used for the comparisons of life mentioned above.

We were probably no different to how Jack and Oliver are now, in that we, too, were very spoilt little children who had almost EVERYTHING we could dream for and more, and had no idea about the values of things… as children don’t.

Our parents worked. They bought us lots of things, and we didn’t go without.  They’re in the same boat.

But the other thing I keep reminding myself about, is that we’ve not done this whole ‘parenting’ thing before, and there’s no manual that helps.  As an IT geek, there are rules for making things work; but life ain’t that easy. And so, we’re trying to find out how to do this for ourselves. 

By and large, we’re doing ok with it – not amazingly, like people dream and envisage whilst the lady is still carrying, but ok.  We have our good days, but we’re probably outweighed with our days of late, in shouting at an angry, argumentative (spoilt) child. 

Of course, we want to do the best we can, and Claire and I are always talking about something that’s recently happened, and what we can do as parents to fix it, or make sure it doesn’t happen again, etc. We spend nights awake talking about this stuff, but sometimes I think it’s also a little of Jack/Oliver learning for themselves, too.  They’re learning the same boundaries that I did as a child; they’re learning that bad things mean good things are sent away for a bit; they’re learning who they are too, just as I did.

So, maybe boys will be boys, but we’re trying to help them learn from the mistakes we made in the past too, and sometimes, they need to make mistakes for themselves in the first place.

The boy can RIDE!

Lack of context there, admittedly, so I’ll try to explain myself.

The boy, (Oliver), can RIDE (his bike without stabilisers)!

During the summer holidays, I’ve been determined to get Oli onto his bike and ride like Jack and the other bigger boys do, namely, without his stabilisers. He’s been fairly reluctant to begin with, but when I told him that his friend Charlie (from down our road) can ride his bike “like a big boy”, I could see that I had caught his attention.

I’ve been holding the rear of the seat and holding him up-right, but I think he’s been over-relying on my being there, to the point of not bothering to try and balance in the middle of the bike, but then as the feeling of loss of control happened, he’d let go of the handlebars and reach out for me, making the whole bike unsteady. Not really the best thing to do, but it worked for him, as I’d soon grab him and come to an abrupt stop.

But Sunday this week, we tried again, same as we have been, and this time, he just seemed to get it and understood the idea of peddling hard and staying upright, and was going quick enough to make me break out into a swift jog alongside him.

Giggling all the way, he obviously enjoyed it, we did lots more ‘lengths’ of our part of the road and he loved it. We only stopped as he’d seen that Jack was playing on a ride-on truck, and then jealousy set in. But then, and after I had put the bike back in the garage, did he go back in and ask to go again. Also, in a completely un-related topic, it was also bloomin’ hot that weekend, and so it was me that was dripping with sweat, from running alongside him.

The next trick, is for him to learn to:

look forward pay attention to what he’s about to crash into…

Madness. but very funny.

"Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies"

So, I’ve got two boys. ‘Chalk’ Rigby and ‘Cheese’ Rigby.

Jack…
Simply. Cannot. Lie.

He tries; once he's thought about it for a moment, but then messes it up. We even got thrown off of a water slide at Center Parcs because Jack ‘fessed up at the wrong moment, after I told the slide-man at the top that he’d been on it before, despite being under the funny minimum height-measuring stick by a smidgeon.  So, it was the swimming pool walk of shame, right down past all the others, each then doubting their own ability to ride.

Master Oliver, however, has definitely got the 'little boy gene' for telling porkies. Sometimes it's just over embellishment, which as adults normally happens with your mates having a pint in the pub. But this kid's certainly a ‘live wire’.

Outright and not bothered, I'll see him do something, whether it's whack Jack or throw something, and then flat-out lie about it, to my face. Then, later, he'll then believe his version of events, fictitious of course, and then we'll have a repeat argument/discussion about it. 

I always had a good imagination, and this probably helped/hindered me and my lying ability as a child (don’t check this my folks!) and this is probably just what Oli is doing. It’s just the blatant-ness of it all which is amusing, but not helpful if you need to tell him off at the same time!!  Little snot.

Teeth (or lack of!)

So, Jack is (finally!) at that age where his teeth are starting to fall out.

Not because of them being gammy or manky or anything like that, but thanks for thinking it, all the same.

No, but instead, his teeth are being muscled-out by other bigger, newer, stronger teeth; ones that might last for his entire life, instead of these mamby-pamby baby ones that have only managed about 7 years. Pfft.

In the past couple of weeks, his fourth tooth has finally come out. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, except the third and fourth teeth were buddies and were the ones that usually greeted you during a smile; yes, I am badly referring to the two front teeth, at the top. These bad-boys are no more. (Well, unless you're the tooth fairy!!)

Whistling and lisp'ing is common place at the moment, and I'm sure that he'll just get used to them not being there, and the new ones will show up late to the party.

Of course, Oliver is a little jealous and can't understand why his teeth aren't yet falling out. He'll say something, pronounce it incorrectly, and when I correct him, he immediately blames his loose teeth, that he doesn't have.

General catch-up

The boys are both growing and growing, both physically and mentally. That sounds like an obvious thing for anyone to say, especially being as I live in the same house as them, but sometimes when you see micro-changes in something, it's hard to see the longer-term changes.

Jack is getting taller. He's still bony thin, but I always was right up until... I got married, I think! He eats all of his food and then some, but he just seems to have the same 'shape' about him that I always had.

Oliver is racing ahead at the moment. He's getting much heavier as the months pass, as he's changed from having a small kid shape to having a little-big-boy look. You know the one I mean, he's certainly not fat, although he does eat almost EVERYTHING we have that's edible, but he's a lot more thick-set than Jack is.

To put paint on that picture, if I hold Jack's arm, my finger touches my thumb as it closes around him. Master Oliver, however, my fingers area noticeable distance apart, where the meat on his arm is.

Oliver has been carrying on with his reading, both with Claire and I, but also on the Reading Eggs website, which he's absolutely racing through. And I don't mean that in the sense that he's whizzing through but not actually understanding what the letters or words mean. What I mean, is that he's shown the letters or words in the lesson and then he's tested on it such that it proves (or not!) that he understood what's going on. And the fact that we can sit there watching him do all of this and understand what he's meant to be doing without us helping a great deal, sort of solidifies it for me really. But Claire is still spending a lot more time with him and his reading than I am with him, and she's putting the same fantastic amount of effort in that she did do with Jack, and it's definitely paying off. We couldn't get out of the car the other day at Tescos, as Oliver was still reading the letters and words from the builders van parked next to us in the car park.

Everything seems to be 'opened up' to him, now that he's able to read - it's sort of magical watching the learning process happen, and is very hard to explain. Yes, I want to big-him-up as his dad, but he's grasped the idea of what reading is all about and that's not something you can make him do, it's something that has clicked in his head.

When I was at university, and I might have mentioned this before, but one of the threads of the geeky computers course I was doing, was on Artificial Intelligence. The lecturer at the time, Anton something or other, made a point about AI, and about how very difficult it was to make a machine or computer application actually understand, and how much more difficult it was for them to learn. He said something along the lines of "if you want to *see* learning take place, have children", but I'd guess that being around them would work too. Basically, looking back now, I can see what he was getting at, as at the time, having children was not on my radar. He's right, and watching them both learn, adapt and understand new things that get thrown at the every single day is very... cool. Not in a 15-year old 'that's cool', but a gentle rocking/nodding action of the head, coupled with a slight up-turned lips-into-a-smile agreeance whilst hum-muttering a single voweled word 'huhm' sort of cool.

Having said all this wonderful stuff about them, I think it's fair to say that there's no chance that we'd have any more of the little monsters. If they're not waking up at 2:30am and banging about en-route to the bathroom for a poo, and announcing their success, they're arguing about which tv program to watch or which character they are in their imaginary/make-belief games.

Little darlings. Must start counting the days until they're old enough to start university...

Parents' Evenings

So, we've just had our first (ever) school parents' evening for young Oliver - I booked half a day of holiday from work to come home early, to go to see Oli's teacher about his progress.

It's amazing, as all the things that she said about Oliver are exactly what we would like to hear from the teacher… but see so very rarely at home.

"Oh, he's a pleasure to teach"

"He plays so nicely with other chidren"

"He gets on and does, whatever we're doing and doesn't kick up a fuss"

Pfft. Yeah, right.

Maybe at school, but at home, he can be right little handful, that one. Maybe at home, he's able to let down his hair (metaphorically-speaking, as we clipper it quite short!) and that's perhaps when he learns to be around Jack. Granted, that being around Jack might be a bit stressful for him, but that's what brothers are for, is to tease and play with.

But she did comment on his vocabulary and his ability to read, given his age, which was great, as Claire has been spending lots of time with him, either on the readingeggs.co.uk website or through getting him to read short books and pick words out using flash-cards.

Reading Eggs has played a big part in his read, and I'm sure I might have mentioned it in an earlier post, but it's WELL worth noting again. It teaches children words and encourages them to learn it mostly through repetition, but also through games and tasks, all with short exercises but frequent rewards; with these rewards, he is then able to 'spend' them on upgrading his avatar or other things in the game. He also gets to print out a real-life certificate too, which he is most proud of. So, yes, cannot say a bad word about Reading Eggs - a fantastic website, aimed at teaching children how to read, showing them the wonders that it brings too.

Going back to Oli, and his teacher, she said that he's quite laid back and will do as they ask (!!) and will also join in with lots of different people, irrespective of differences. For instance, if he wants to play in the sand, which he can do, there may already be people in there, but he's not put off by playing in there if, say, there's someone he doesn't like or doesn't get on with, or… heaven-forbid… a girl is in there. Remember, he’s at ‘that age’ whereby they’ve just realised that there are boys and the other ones, (namely GIRLS – and yes, you have to say it like GiiiiiiiiRRLS), and that boys are great and girls… well, they're not. This is obviously a little ‘virus’ that must spread around the school, particularly easily when some children have3 older siblings to help introduce new 'things' to them. Either way, it is certainly not something that we'd say at home.

But my badly-illustrated point, is that he's a generally happy little lad with no fears, but no concerns either. And just gets on and does it. Obviously, very much like myself. Except I'm not so little height-wise anymore!!

Oliver can READ!

Claire has been painstakingly taking Oliver through the Reading Eggs programme on the computer, which are web-based lessons that are designed and aimed at nippers that want to read.

He started a little while back and has been doing absolutely brilliantly at it, learning about each letter in turn and, through repetition, playing games to make the lesson stick.

A game might introduce a letter, such a ‘B’, pronounced ‘buh’ in the phonetic-world, and then might have to burst the balloons that have the letter ‘b’ on it. Then, it progresses onto pictures of objects that start with the same sound, like ‘ball’, ‘balloon’ and so on, and then later, to later join them up so that there’s a ball and the better ‘b’ on it, to tie them both together.

The lessons are really fantastic, and we’re both absolutely amazed as to how well he’s done, earning lots of certificates from the lessons at set stages, so he’s got small challenges to work to, and a physical printed reward for doing so. Besides, he thinks he’s playing games and we know that he’s learning probably THE best thing in the world – if he struggles to read, then he’s going to carry that baggage around with him forever, so we’re investing in his future-self.

Claire’s also bought some of the books in the same range, so we’ve got some ‘grown-up’ style books for him to read to us at bed-time – he’s used to seeing Jack read his school story book to us, then as a reward for doing so, he gets either Claire or I to read to him. So, wanting to copy Jack and have what Jack’s got and be able to do what Jack does, Oli doesn’t put up a fight about doing so, as this is what he knows to be ‘normal’, which is great.

Oli and I have been working through the same Thomas the Tank Engine books that Jack and I went through a few years ago, and we’re almost done already. To begin with, he didn’t want to listen to the 5-10 minute stories, but now, it’s just part of going to bed. In fact, when we’re back late from anywhere, when it’s already late enough, trying to get him to go to bed without a story is a nightmare!! It’s quicker to read the book and get him off to sleep in a relatively happy mood, as opposed to spending the next half hour arguing with him and putting him back to bed endlessly. Again, as I said in an earlier post some time ago, it’s simply picking the battles.

Whilst he’s reading, there’s still plenty of words that he doesn’t yet know, but he’s getting to grips with a load already – to the point whereby he doesn’t need to sound-out each letter (phonetically) and try to join the sounds together, but he’s getting better at simply READING them and moving onto the next one.

I know this sounds like an obvious thing to say, as this is how children read – namely parents spending time with them, and helping them and teaching them new words, etc etc etc. But I say this simply because Oliver has only just turned four years old in the past couple of weeks. We thought Jack did well to pick up the ability to read quite early, but Oli seems to have a head start!

His pre-school teacher even took him out of his class and into another, for their teacher to asses Oli and his reading – they showed him various flashcards with single words on, no pictures, and Oli had to read the letters, form the words and pronounce them… which he did brilliantly. They were so happy, they gave him a sticker as a reward and was excited enough to tell Claire as she picked the boys up from school that day.

Good lad, Oli Riggs! My little star.

I blinked.

I blinked, and it's November. The time has disappeared and again, I feel bad about the number of blog posts that I've made this summer.

So, I'm currently sitting in the car waiting for Jack, who is having a piano lesson. He's been learning for a couple of months now and seems to be enjoying it, mostly because I think he's learning something new each time he comes here. It's half an hour a week, and then he practises at home. 'Practises'.  He's getting good at playing 'Mary Had a Little Lamb', which he's getting better at, but this song only requires three keys, from three fingers on one hand. He *should* be playing some of the more challenging songs in the book, as they require more effort, namely multiple keys, over two hands.

He can read the music notes as he's playing them straight from the book, which is absolutely brilliant.

Oliver is at home with his mum, and they're probably going to be learning some letters, or short words, as she's been spending quite a lot of time with him going through it, as we did before for Jack.  Oli has picked these up brilliantly, and not through us forcing them down his throat, but more him asking, or observing Jack and his reading.

Oli is now at pre-school, but only doing half days until September, which is the way that the school like to run things. My sister's twins, Callum and Aaron, are in the opposing half of the day, and then, come September, they should be in the same class, but that seems like a lifetime off just yet!

Oliver has grown up massively recently - physically and mentally.  He's a totally different little boy to how Jack was at the same age; Oliver is just as confident and bullet-proof as all snotty-nose kids are at that age, but he's different in that, for one, he's got a little temper on him, and he stamps his feet, and blows raspberries when he gets annoyed. I can't help but smile when he does, but it doesn't help to resolve a situation by smiling or giggling.

They've both learnt to get on with each quite a lot, not through us doing anything very differently, but they've been enjoying each other's company and play toys or games co-operatively, which is a relief.  Don't get me wrong, they can still have their moments, then Oli gets in a strop, and usually Jack ends up worse-off, due to being smacked on the head by a blunt Oli-powered instrument.

School for both of them is going well - Oliver is getting on very well in his class, and making friends and all that. I would say I know what he gets up, but I think children must leave all memories of being at school… at school!

Jack had a bit of a wobbly time at school, which I'll go into another time, but I think he's been getting a bit more fun out of being there.  Something that has lifted his spirits, is that he was given an award for 'Best Academic Achievement' at the end of the last school year, in Summer - this was completely unexpected on all of our parts, and he was quite made up, once he understood what it was that he had been given.  He's definitely my boy there! Ahem.

Oliver has been getting certificates himself, for doing his work on the Reading Eggs website - it's an educational website that makes learning to read a lot more fun, and makes the children WANT to do more chasing certificates and so on.  Again, I'll probably expand on this is in a separate blog post, but in summary, he's doing very well for his age. Again, mine. Ahem.

Oooh - swimming! Oliver is a fish - officially! He's catching Jack up in terms of swimming classes, which isn't a big deal, as the classes get harder as they progress, but both my children can (honestly) swim better than I can.  This is obviously something that makes me proud and happy for them, but then disappointed in myself for not making more of an effort as a child, and for being too clever for dodging swimming lesson at school. My parents are obviously to blame, too, and I think I/we are over-compensating for this, and making sure that they can swim, as it's a brilliant thing to be able to do, as the alternative is to be good at blagging it like I do, which I don't want for them.  Again, more on this too.

So, this has almost turned out into being a summary/catch-up blog post, as a reminder setting for the next blogs, but that’s ok. I can manage that!

Back to basics

Originally, just before Claire went into hospital expecting the pending arrival of young Master Jack, I wanted the blog to be about me and my experiences with regards to babies; it’s sort of drifted off-course a little of late and it’s ended up being a log of their activities and so on, and I want to get back to basics on that.

I think that why the blog ‘drifted’ into notes of their funny moments, is that Jack and subsequently Oliver, have since gone and developed their own characters, attitudes, personalities and so forth, and I guess at the time before Jack was born, I wasn’t expecting a ‘person’ to coming back home from hospital and was focusing on the fact that it was a ‘baby’… a generic, non-descript baby, that we happened to have named. 

You have to bear in mind, here, that as stated in blog post 1, I hadn’t had close family members with children, nor did I get that involved with those of good friends, which I could have done I suppose, but will leave that for another blog-day.  My point being, that I had no real appreciation of babies and the effort that they demand of a parent. (Pretty good job, too, as it might well have put me off!)

Looking back, it’s kind of difficult/weird for a to-be/first-time dad, as these babies almost just appear, yet take 9 months to do so. It’s not so much of a surprise when they do, but for the women with it growing inside of her, there’s a presence all day every day, (and although they let it be known!!) but for the men, it’s just someone else’s belly that gets fatter and fatter.  And then woomph, there’s a baby, that then cries and poos all the time at silly o’clock at night.

At the time of both Jack and Oli being born, it was pretty much “there-and-then” with it all, namely, understanding and managing a baby, on a day-to-day basis. Trying to imagine how they’d look, act, behave as a toddler, 4 year old, 6 year old, etc, was just out of the question, but looking back at photos and videos, their development is abundantly clear - the photos almost map-out the transition stages from generic same-as-everyone-else’s wrinkly, crying, poo-machine to now, being my two boys.

Maybe, because Oliver is becoming more and more independent (as a child) that we’ve been used to with Jack, that Claire and I have had more time to chill out and relax a little. For a while now, Oli has been toilet-trained, such that he can take himself to the toilet and not wear nappies and all that, going places is a billion times easier. There’s no nappy bag, twelve changes of clothes to lug around. As we’re able to do this and get real-time verbal feedback from them as to their state, we can plan things, as opposed to re-act, if you get my drift.  Being given advance notice that we need to stop the car for a wee is much more civilised than either Claire or I having to grope the crotch of our children periodically to check if they’re ‘packing’. Or worse, getting that waft of poo drift through-out the car, and then almost smelling it for hours later.

More fascinating insights from Brett’s brain next time, but this is almost like the line in the proverbial sand, so to speak.

Growing up!

Jack is almost six and Oliver’s just had his third birthday.

Seems like they should both be older than they are, as they seem like we’ve never had a life previous to having children. Which is odd, as the time has just flown by, and sometimes I think, ‘Crikey, my YOUNGEST lad is three years old!’, making me feel older than I ought to!

There was a period of time, although I hadn’t blogged about it, that Jack and Oli weren’t getting on too well, probably about a year ago. Oliver would have just found the ability to manipulate people (as all two year olds do!) and Jack hadn’t got out properly from the jealously stage, as we would (undoubtedly) have been giving Oliver the attention that he rightly deserves as a small child, but now we’re cutting down on Jack’s time to ‘service’ Oli. So, I can well see how jealousy sets in, and I probably would have been there myself when I was that age, as we (that had younger siblings) all were.

Nowadays, they’re getting on a bit better, and it’s not so hard to see why. Oli’' has pretty much grown out of any/all of the baby-related paraphernalia and his toys are such that Jack isn’t too old for, and actually wants to play with them too. The sort of thing I’m talking about, is the action figures and castle, with horses, catapults, dragons and all that. (To be honest, it’s really good and it’s easy to play along with them, as a parent!)

Other interests that Jack has, Oli is trying to copy and that helps bring the gap between them in a little. Jack will sit and draw or colour pictures in, or even make some monstrosity of a robot from about 20,000 cardboard boxes and about 17 rolls of sellotape to hold this ‘thing’ together. Whilst he’s doing all of this, Oliver obviously wants to copy and to join in, and so is learning to hold the pens/pencils/crayons/etc and so there’s common ground forming.

The age gap between Jack and Oliver is about the same between me and my older brother, but I guess (simply as I cannot remember but my blogging abilities back then were about as good/frequent as they are now!!) that at the time of being 3 years old that’s how it is and where the fun’s at, so I suppose I would have done the same.

In terms of … patterns … and interest and …. abilities, I can see a little of how Oliver will progress and grow, through seeing how Jack has. The whole point to this blog-thing was because I had zero experience of being around young children, to see what they do, how they learn, and all that. So, taking Jack how he is now, which is to say that he’s genuinely a very bright and intelligent young lad with lots of thoughts and ideas, and then taking Oliver, who is starting to show signs these traits, too… it’s quite rewarding/exciting/interesting/amazing all at once.

What I mean, is that we’ve ALWAYS spent a lot of time with Jack, whether it’s reading, talking to him and explaining things that he’s asked about (sometimes in a little too much detail!). From this invested time and effort, you don’t see day-to-day the differences made or the huge leaps forward in Jack’s growth and development. But when you see that Oliver is pretty much where Jack was three years ago, we know that all of the time that we have spent, and will continue to spend, with Oliver is so very worth it.

Just to expand on that a little, I can’t stress enough the difference it has made to Jack’s reading and writing because of the breadth of his speaking vocabulary, as words that he’s come across in reading and/or writing, he knows and doesn’t give them a second thought, and more importantly, we’re not bogged down each time we pick up a book and have to explain every other word in a sentence. But that’s not to say he’s a big-head and knows everything, but he knows that when we come across something new, he’ll ask what it is and we’ll explain to the point of being able to comprehend it to a certain degree.

I find the best time to talk to either Jack or Oliver is when we’re in the car alone together, going somewhere. We’re both strapped to the seat and not going anywhere without the other, and seeing the same things, to bring the same conversation. So, it’s easy to talk about buses and trucks and lorries and clouds and trees and so on.

Anyway, I think I’ve gone off-piste a little, but there’s some reality behind my idle ramblings, hopefully.

“I’ve got something to tell you”

I wanted to make note of this, as it made me really smile and don’t want to forget it. Ever.

I was just walking out of the front door to get into the car, and Claire and Oliver were in the hallway, and just as I crossed the threshold, Oli says “Dad, I’ve got something to tell you.”

Intrigued, I looked at Claire, expecting some form of a ‘play-along’ look from her, but instead she had no idea of what he was about to say either.

Oli came towards me, and held offered his hands out, as if to draw me closer and whisper something.

I went along with it. I bend down, lent forward, offered up my right ear, half expecting either a soft little kiss, or a shout/scream in my lug-hole. But instead, I got this, (AND BEARING IN MIND HE’S STILL TWO YEARS OLD!):

“It’s nearly Christmas time.”

I don’t know where it came from, why he said it, or why it needed to have been said just then, like that. But there it was. And do you know what? He ain’t daft - it is nearly Christmas time, and all!

Give with one hand… and snatches back with the other!

This is in reference to my youngest lad, Oliver.

Delightful little chap, he is.

Funny, polite and quite imaginative, despite not being three years old yet.

Out of the blue (and yes, totally unprompted) he cuddled me and told me: “You’re the best, dad.”  (Not “you’re the best dad”, but more “Dad – you’re the best”.

And this was a lovely thing to hear from your child. Made me feel really appreciated, wanted, loved and blah blah blah.

Except, LITERALLY two minutes later, he wanted to get something that he knew he wasn’t allowed and when I said he couldn’t have it, he ripped me. Broke me in two, with the following:

“You’re not the best anymore”.

He gives. And then he snatches it all back again.

Jack’s reading

I dread to think how many books this little man has read already in his life.

He gets through his school reading books either the same night he gets it, or the following morning before school.

He will also get through at least one other book at night, that he reads to either one of us. 

We also read to him, as even though he’s not reading it, he loves the stories that we read to him. And he pays very close attention too, despite my trying to take the stories off at tangents when I think he’s not listening.

We’ve read 4 or 5 Roald Dahl books already, namely:

• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• The Witches
• Georges Marvellous Medicine
• Danny, the Champion of the World
• The Magic Finger
• and probably a few more now that I think about it.

If he wakes up early in the morning, and it’s very obvious that there’s no-one downstairs, after banging around in the toilet, he’ll go back to his room and turn the light on, to sit and read one of the many millions of books that he’s lucky enough to have.

At school, he’s currently on the ‘O’ band, which means that as he works alphabetically through the bands, they get progressively harder, using bigger word or more complicated sentences. I know he’s ahead of his school friends in reading, and I think he’s doing a great job, and full credit goes to his mum, although I think technically own Amazon as a result.

I think Oli is a fish.

Claire has been taking Oli to swimming lessons from about the same age as Jack, probably at about 15-20 weeks old.

They go to the Calm-A-Baby pool in Peterborough, where the heated pool is absolutely baking hot whilst you’re sitting on the side waiting, but lovely once you’re in.  The children love it, and best of all, they don’t go blue due to the coldness!

Anyway, there seems to have been a turning point in Oliver’s swimming, as he is like a little fish! He can hold his breathe and kick like mad under water, which actually gives him forward propulsion! He can get things from the bottom of the pool, providing you give him that fatherly shove, of course.

He likes to jump in, and splash around like any 2 year old little monster, but it always makes me laugh to see him when we’re both underwater; when he realises that you’re looking at him, he looks straight back with the biggest, cheesiest grin ever.

He just loves it.

Until you want to get out. Then it’s a nightmare.

Progress Update

Jack is almost 6yrs old and Oliver almost 3.

Each of The Rigby Boys have their own unique take on life and, despite it sounding like an obvious thing to say, they are SO very different from each other, it’s unreal.

Problem is, I can’t remember without watching videos, exactly how Jack was at the age that Oli is now, so it could be that they’re quite similar. But when we do see photos or videos of Jack at this age, there are still similarities!

Jack is doing very well at trying to understand the entire world before lunch, and Oliver’s vocabulary is growing massively each day, along with big improvements in his pronunciation too.

We’re finding with Jack that he more appreciates the company of older children, but more so the company of an adult. Will come back to this particular topic another day, as there’s a bit more to say on it.

Oli is just a barrel of laughs – there’s always a reason to tickle him and there’s always a giggle waiting in response.  He’s been sleeping through the night for the past 5/6 months now, and it’s made the world of difference to Claire and I, as we’re both able to sleep, which is amazing.

Summary: in all, they’re both great boys. Different in many ways, but both good fun to be around.

Fighting, then friends

Sometimes it’s a job to work these two out.

First they're going out of their way to annoy each other (mostly Jack though, to be fair to Oliver!) and then the next minute, they're cuddling and confessing their undying love.

A few weeks ago, it seemed a bit of a stretch to imagine that they'd play nicely together. And now, they're getting on much better, which is great. When they're quiet sometimes, it can be a bit of a worry and Claire and I would find ourselves sneaking up on them to see what they're doing, expecting to catch them in the act of some form of wrong-doings. To be honest, it's a bit disconcerting to find them playing with the Batman action-figures!

“I’ll take the iPad away!”

Yes. 

I was the one that said it.

And yes, as it happens, it worked.

Roll back a bit, and I’ll explain.

Since Oliver has been sitting up the table, we [stupidly] started to use the iPad to distract the boys at the breakfast/dinner/tea table, as a means to shove more food into them, as they’d otherwise run away.  I’ve blogged about this before, so won’t rehash old hashes. But we used it.

Then, it got worse.

We bought another one, as the little monsters were arguing about it, and I feared for the safety of my iPad. (In fact, I should have let it break, as this would’ve fixed the problem, nipping it in the bud.) But, nonetheless, we did.  Nectar points, that I had previously deemed worthless, seemed to have amounted to some value, namely two-thirds of an iPad, hence, we sprung for another.

Worth pointing out, that my boys don’t have “an iPad each” – admittedly, the number-count of my children does equal the number-count of iPad devices in our house, but this is purely an accident. They are allowed to utilise the iPads for their education, information and entertainment purposes *only*, but they are not ‘pre-allocated’ to a particular child.  (They simply haven’t signed out the mobile/tablet under the Brett Rigby IT Policy… joke.)

Anyway, I digress.

Jack occasionally over-boils. He’s allowed at times, I guess, when the weight of the world is on his shoulders, he sometimes pops his lid, and mostly in the direction of Claire and myself.  He seems to do this when he’s had time in the company of someone who can direct all of their attention at him (my parents, or at the in-laws, for example) and then when he comes home, the stark reality of normal life is a bit overwhelming. Pop.

The ONLY thing that I’ve found that appears to hurt him (so to speak) is the threat of me taking the iPad away to work with me. I kid you not, although I wish it were a joke. I’ve threatened to stop him from going to his weekly Karate lessons, stop him from riding his bike and/or scooter, stop him from doing ANYTHING that I had previously thought that he loved doing, but to no success.

Me: “I’ll take the iPad away”
Him:  <silence>

It’s not like the little monster even uses it a great deal anyway. But this really does the job, and I’m not sure how I feel about that yet.  He and Oliver are far from “the Geek’s children” and affixed to a phone/tablet/computer at any given opportunity. Far from it. But it’s odd that he’s like this about it. 

However. On the flip-side, the iPad is THE best treat/reward for doing something, such as homework (yes, he’s five and gets homework!).  Ten minutes on the iPad for doing some ‘boring’ handwriting and reading a book? Pfft. No problem.

Will see how this pans out.

“That’s booorring!”

So, young Master Oliver can talk, and it quite obviously expressing his disinterest in… well, lots of things!  It’s past his bedtime, on a school night (Sunday), and Oliver is shouting things about the room by himself, aimed mostly at me.

“Bedtime’s boring!”

He seems to wind himself up into a little state, making his face go all red – the contrast between his rosy-red face and his blonde hair, coupled with those little blue eyes, makes him look  quite funny.

I don’t remember Jack every saying that something was boring, especially in the tone that Oli is throwing about at the moment.  But then, I think that Jack didn’t have an older brother to bring new words home from school.

Right now, I’ve put him into bed a couple of times already, and I know he’s tired – shattered, actually, as he’s not been allowed to sleep today – but he’s still chuntering away to himself about how “Daddy’s naughty” and “I don’t want my daddy”.  His latest thing, is that he’s threatening to put me in the stingy nettles in the garden. Pleasant, I’m sure.

< two minutes later />

He’s just asked for a drink and a tissue, so I’ve changed from being the ‘baddie’ to being the ‘goodie’, as he’s had a drink, wiped his nose (sort of) and then given me a little kiss on my cheek before laying down to go to sleep.

And then there was silence.

Better go and get rid of those nettles before he wakes up…

iPads and digital tech

I've mentioned about my concerns with this before, but am fully aware that I am apportioned my fair share of blame for it. I am referring to the use of tech equipment with our boys.

A while back, we had a nursery report about Jack saying that his hand-to-eye co-ordination was poor, meaning that his ability to control a mouse on a PC was rubbish. And yes, this was slapping me in the face with a wet fish as, being the resident IT geek, his tech skills were non-existent, mainly due to my deliberate efforts to steer him away from computers and stuff as I spend all day working on them, instead favouring to encourage him to play with non-geek toys ad games.

Since then, I've stepped up efforts to align his hand-to-eye coordination, and he now has (limited) access to a desktop PC and his typing is getting better. At this point, probably on-par with my dad's typing speeds! (Sorry Pa!)

So. Yes, iPads, and the term being plural.

My iPad seemed to be taken over by Oliver during meal times, as it is actually difficult to distract two boys in hitting and kicking proximity from each other - we know how important it is for the boys eat properly and eat good meals, which is why Claire spends an amazing amount of time cooking in bulk for them, and why we've got about 25 fridges and freezers running, in order to store them. By distracting them with TV and/or tablet-based motion, we're able to shovel food into them, and this being the good food described above, there's a lot less wastage than without them.

So, either way, good or bad, we've sort of painted ourselves into this corner of them liking to watch something whilst dining. They’re kids anyway, so conversation is quite limited at meal times. But, on the flip side, they eat great meals, with a large portion of fruit within their breakfasts and desserts, so, whatever.

Previously, Oliver would have CBeebies-based TV shows on the iPad, whilst Jack watched CITV or CBBC on the TV, as these were aimed at an older audience. Not so much of a problem.

But as Oliver has very recently taken an interest in Jack's content of choice, it's become a little more difficult. As Oli is watching something that Jack would normally, Jack's attention would be caught and subsequently, he'd frequently reach across and 'assist' Oliver in his choice of viewing material. Obviously, Oliver is delighted at this and gladly lets him… NOT.

Arguments would kick off and our normally peaceful meal times are turned into a slapping match for two young nippers.

So, we decided that we'd keep an eye out for a bargain deal on iPads, such that we'd get another one to ease the tension, but a keen-eyed-Claire spotted a considerable pile of Nectar points sitting idle, as to be honest, I've seen these as pointless in the past, and noticed that we could use them as part payment towards one. So, a pile of now-not-useless Nectar points and £100 later, and we've got a second iPads. As you do.

The iPads are not ownership of the boys - they are reminded that it's not "Jack's iPad", or "Oliver's iPad", but each is customised accordingly.

So, back to my original point after a longer than anticipated description of how we got here: Kids and tech.

What are our children (collectively, not just mine, but in general) going to be like when they're older? They have never not had a time in their lives without the ability to go online to watch videos instantly online of pretty much whatever they want, and even to be able to choose from a wide range of digital videos streamed in-house from my NAS (Network Attached Storage) as and when they want to. In fact, during a recent car trip, we had to explain why the Wi-Fi wasn't available!!

Will they ever need to sit in a communal room in the same house, and watch something together like we did when we were young? We were lucky enough to have a variety of VHS-based movies to watch as kids, and we'd have to settle arguments as to which one we watched, due to having only one VHS machine. Now, there are TVs, phones, tablets, laptops and desktops in my house that can get online.

There's even an internet connected PC in my car!

I know we're not helping this, and me being a geek at work and at home is compounding the problem. But at least I am aware of what the problem is, and that I know I need to understand the situation fully in order to come up with a solution, as opposed to being ignorant and carrying on regardless.

And not that I feel I need to explain myself to anyone, but for the record, the boys aren't allowed full and unfettered access to any of these devices - they are allowed to use them when we let them, but each is taken away to encourage proper children's playtime.

Jack thinks he's 'Bad'

A while back, Jack had a liking of Elvis Presley's music, particularly the Suspicious Minds song. In an attempt to divert him away from the crooner's tunes, I told Jack about Michael Jackson, thinking that I must have an album laying around somewhere.

Or at least I thought I did. Turns out, the 'Bad' album I thought I had probably perished ages ago when the cassette tape dried up or something, as we'd expect in the age of digital downloads.

Anyway, a couple of quid and a day's delivery later, and a CD of Michael Jackson's Bad album was delivered by those delightful chums at eBay. Since then, it's been the number one CD in the mini-CD player in Jack's bedroom.

The track of choice was 'Bad', as we had watched the YouTube video whilst waiting for delivery, but had soon introduced him to the 'Smooth Criminal' track too, as well as its video, as I remember watching that as a child too.

He likes it so much, that he even danced to them during a recent street party, where the karaoke man was presented with the CD by Jack!