"Hello, Cousin!"

I don't know where it came from, but for weeks now, young Oliver has been repeating this actually-quite-pleasant phrase, in relation to his cousins, my sisters' boys.

He raises his hand in very delicate way, as if to say hello, but waves it in a semi-circular motion, whilst saying 'hello, cousins' in a silly-yet-still-lovingly way.

Probably couldn't describe it as well as he does it, but it makes us all smile and giggle when he does it, so I wanted to make a note here to remember it when he's a monstrous teenager and throwing his weight around!

First contact…

It’s bothered me for a while about how the boys are going to respond to the fact that I’ve been writing a blog, with them as the core topic.  Would they be intrigued, bothered or embarrassed about it being about them?

Well, tonight, unexpectedly, I found out, with Master Jack as the one asking questions.

He’s been reading a book about a 14 year old that has circumnavigated the globe, which was a fascinating book in itself, but there were references within the book about ‘blogging’, as he’d kept his notes and memoirs online.  Claire had to explain to Jack what a blog is, understandably, but also then mentioned that he geek-o dad had been keeping notes himself.

So tonight, instead of the now-traditional bedtimes stories as written by Charles Dickens, we picked out and read a handful of Brett Rigby Blog Posts. Hardly comparable, but made me proud/happy that someone was interested to ask about it!

We started with the very first blog post, introducing the world to my inner-brain, set the scene a little, explained a few Brett-devised things, such as his project codename, and then skipped some of the boring pre-birth stuff, as this seemed a little dreary to him. And to me, by now!

Obviously, being a boy and now fie years old at that, he bored quite quickly of the occasional blog post I picked out, as they were interesting to me, but not him.  Unless of course they happened to mention the words ‘wee’ or ‘poo’ and the like, as (being me) I obviously wrote them with some sarcastic humour… to which he loved.

We read the first post that I had written in 2014, where at this point, Oliver was well and truly in our little lives for sure, but this particular post was about Jack and how I’d forgotten how young he still was at that age, and I suppose still is, relatively-speaking. Despite it being written six months ago, though, nothing’s changed in terms of Jack’s sleeping abilities and is always awake before 6am and fighting with us as to why he’s not allowed to go downstairs by himself.

Very conveniently for Claire and I, I read the ‘Amazon-Jack’ blog post to him, as this sort of re-iterated what we’ve been trying to get across to Jack about his fantastic reading abilities, and that it comes as a result of some hard work on Claire’s part, as well as some very heavy credit-card spending, I might add!! I suppose that as he’s not know any different and is probably too young to be interested in comparisons between himself and his peers, he thinks that it’s ‘normal’, which I know it is, but he’s able to read signs on shops now, ‘help’ me navigate when driving by reading directions on roadsigns and so on.  What I am trying to say (badly) is that I feel he and his reading is a product of invested time and hard work on our part, which I know that we are both very proud of, knowing that whatever he does in life, where-ever he goes, he’s always going to read something, and that we did that for him, as opposed to ignore him and let him watch TV until 10pm. 

Anyway, I digress, he read in that blog post about how his reading bands jumped from one to the next, and again and again and it sort of looked for a moment that he might have twigged that reading is probably the best thing in the world, and the smile on his little face might have suggested that he liked it – which I know he does. 

Showing this blogging-lark to him for the first time also highlighted to Claire, Jack and I as to how much I had initially written, but had subsequently slowed right down on since then. Obviously, I have my reasons for not being able to write as much as I could have done, but it also reminded me that I do actually like doing this, and that maybe I ought to write more. Especially given that Oliver will discover this one day and will also want to know about things related to him as well as all of us, so had better get writing, thus adding to the mental weight of being a blogger!!

Bubble Guns

Oliver is now two, and is perfectly aged for potty training.

Or so we thought.

He’s had and understood the idea about weeing into a potty or toilet for a little while now, but we’ve been struggling to convince him about the poos.  He even ask for a nappy, such that he’d then toddle-off into a quiet corner somewhere to think. And to squeeze one out. And just for kicks at seeing his mum or dad having to clear it up, I’m sure the little monster squashes it in a little by sitting down a bit, such that’s stuck to his bum cheeks and smeared all over.

So, of course, we reverted to what any self-respecting parent would do.

Bribery.

Oh yes. And if you’re a parent that’s never bribed your child, then I call you liar.  Except, clever parents these days put a positive spin on it, and call it “positive reinforcement”, or something like that. Bribery, plain and simple, and it works.

Claire bought a (cheap) battery-powered, bubble-blowing gun from the supermarket. Quiet clever, that you screw a bottle of bubble mixture to the butt of the gun and theoretically, pull the trigger to find bubbles galore.

Well, as this was the bribery device, it sat on the high shelf in it’s packaging and out of reach, and when Oliver was sitting on the toilet, we’d tell him about this gun, teasing and taunting. Erm, I mean, positively reinforcing the notion of a child-friendly bubble-producing firearm.  And he’d respond, asking for it, because we’re grown ups and are really good at describing toys in a carrot/stick manner and he’d be convinced that he needed it, sometimes to the point of tears.

But there’d always be a little sadness when he wouldn’t ‘produce’, so to speak, and we’d end up with the phrase of ‘no poo, no gun’. Heck, I’d buy him five more if he’d have just poo’d a little chip out. But no. Stubborn-minded, just like… his mum. Or his Grandad Garry.

Each time, every 30 or so minutes we’d take him to the toilet and dangle him over it so that he wouldn’t fall in (again - ha ha haaaaa!), asking nicely and politely for a poo, but producing a wee, and so we’d keep up with the taunts. And reinforcements.  Or whatever.

But then when my mum was about to go, after having them whilst we were both at work, Oli came running into me, with the removable insert to the potty from the lounge (yes, lounge – they’re *everywhere*) saying “dad – look!”.

Obviously, seeing what you know to be an important piece from a potty-jigsaw being carried by a small child, you have to assume the worst and panic. Like, headless-chicken almost, thinking it’s brimming full of child-wee and probably already sloshed over the sofa and half of the dog. Panic.

I took this off like he had handed me an unexploded grenade or something, only to find its contents were not that liquid and runny, but full of what I can only describe as ‘curly man-poo’, and from that phrase alone, I’m sure you’ll already have a perfect picture sewn neatly into your brain as to what I’ll remember for years to come.

Yes. Indeed. The boy had poo’d and poo’d like a trooper.

And what did he say next?

“Bubble gun!”

I rest my case.

Amazon-Jack

Jack has been reading quite a lot recently, and mostly with his mum. She’s been a star with him, putting in lots of time teaching him, researching and buying more and more books. to the point that Amazon are considering a closer distribution warehouse to cut costs!

At school, they grade children’s reading alphabetical bands – I don’t honestly know what constitutes each band, or what abilities are needed to move from band to the next, but they’re there!

At school, the children are encouraged to change their reading books daily, providing that the child can go at that pace. As Claire and/or I are reading with him before bed each night, he’s certainly getting through the books. Where we’re not able to get the book read of an evening, we do try and get it ‘nailed’ before he has his breakfast in the morning, as the little monster wakes at the crack of dawn!  With his daily reading book, he’s also got a little writing book that is completed each time he reads – if either a teacher or ourselves reads a book with him, the book title is noted, dated and then his reading is summarised in a short sentence.  As you can imagine, he’s going to need a new writing book soon, due to the vast amount of mini-books he’s read!

So – onto the bands and where he’s at.

In his writing book, his teachers would assess him and make notes and comments in there, along with their summary of his reading, as mentioned above. He’d come home from school being moved from a band E to an F, then to a G, and then a week or two later H and now an I..!  His reading is becoming more and more fluent and he seems to even try to read poems in books in time with the verses!

Claire and I are both amazed at how well he’s doing. His spoken vocabulary has always been good, as we’ve always tried and tried to talk to him, and explain things to him, or look this up with him. I can only imagine that this has massively helped his reading, as he’s already aware of the words and so isn’t getting bogged down with ‘what’ he’s reading.

In addition, we read to him too, when he’s been behaved!!  Due to his Amazon-worthy stock levels of books, I’ve been reading some children’s versions of some ‘big’ books, namely Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, A Tale of Two Cities, and a whole lot more. We’ve read books about the Titanic, World War I and II, the Olympics and many many more. Sometimes we pause and explain something that he might not understand, but mostly, we chip-on through and he loves them. Last night, for instance, we were reading the Tale of Two Cities, where I had to explain the concept of a guillotine, which he was a little surprised about, but then thought was ‘cool’ later.

Oli… the boss??

What a little man!

He’s running the house almost, he’s such a confident little Rigby, it’s hard to believe that he’s the same little money that I’d get home from work to see, but instead he’d scream until he slept each night!

He’s talking quite a lot too – admittedly, there’s still a level of pronunciation to learn, but his vocabulary is already quite large.

Oli is simply not bothered by bigger brother Jack either – Jack wants to be near Oliver and show signs of big-brotherly love (namely teasing) but Oli just doesn’t bat an eyelid, until he’s interested. Bit like Cats and Dogs really.

Much thicker-set than Jack is or ever was, I think Oli will grow and grow and end up being physically bigger than Jack, but it’s actually quite hard to tell Jack that at the moment!!

We’ve been taking him to nursery twice a week, to get him socially interacting with other children. This is something that we probably did too late with Jack, hence his defiance in going, whereas Oli was being taken prior to being able to vocalise those opinions!  To begin with, he’d cry at the idea of being left somewhere, but the repetition of attending, coupled with the same faces at the nursery has meant that he’s now going in really well, sometimes even forgetting to say goodbye to us! As he’s able to talk, he refers to nursery as playing at ‘Nickies house’, which is good, as at in my mind, that means that he’s found a more affectionate or personalised way of thinking about it.  He goes in, wearing his Thomas the Tank Engine bag, which is probably larger in appearance that is proportional to his body, making him look like a little Ghostbuster as we walk down the street!

Little Oli isn’t so… little!

He’s growing ever so much, its crazy.

It was Oliver’s two year old birthday at the beginning of January. TWO YEARS OLD!

He’s not only walking and talking, he’s singing, dancing and running circles around us all. He’s fixated with Mr Tumble and loves his ‘spotty bag’ and his Tumble Tap (an electronic game similar to that which Justin Fletcher uses on the Something Special TV programme on Cbeebies).

Oliver is much more interested in the sign language from the Something Special TV programme, joining in as or when it comes on telly. 

Physically, he’s made of a lot thicker stuff than Jack ever was – I don’t mean that horribly at all, but he’s got a lot more meat on him. And taking cues from Jack, he’s ever so confident too. But as he’s still quite young, he loves to be ticked and rolled about, or jumping all over the bed.

Little monster.

But as I said in the last blog post, he’s not as good at sleeping as Jack (and their mum!!) is.  We’ve taken to sleeping on the floor beside his cot, to keep him in his bed at night time, which is not the most comfortable but needs must, I guess.  We have been sleeping on triple-folder duvets to pad-out the floor, but last night was quite bad, especially as he started waking at 23:00 and then peaked at 01:30 this morning when singing along to the Mr Tumble teddy in his cot. (Not a good idea that one!)

But when he’s awake, he’s so funny – he takes no stick from Jack or the dog, or from Claire and I, come to think about it!!  He can talk enough to tell us exactly what he wants to do, and when he wants it.

Little monster.

He’s FOUR years old!

\An obvious thing to say, but yes, I’m starting to comprehend this.

I think I have been comparing Jack to Oliver, and have probably been expecting a little too much of Jack.

Maybe it was around when Oliver was born, I think that we started to treat Jack like he was a bit older than he was, as you could converse with him, play games with him and get him to do the odd menial task, too.

As Oliver hasn’t really mastered the art of sleeping yet, the wife and I are sort of struggling to survive of late. I, certainly, have been probably putting a little too much on Jack, expecting him to understand the problems that we’re dealing with, and then get disappointed with Jack when he acts… like a four year old.

This morning was pretty bad. I had little sleep, and was fairly grumpy to Jack when he comes into the spare room where I had been sleeping, saying that his Lego-man torch had strangely had an arm amputation in the night. It wasn’t that he came in and woke me, as I’m a fairly light sleeper and heard him clamber out of bed. It was more that it was 05:30 in the morning and we had agreed just the other night that he wouldn’t get out of bed before 06:10.

Again, I must have assuming that Jack had a) remembered our conversation, b) thought to check the time before leaving his room and c) joined the dots together enough to think about what I had been doing during the night.  Never going to happen really, was it?

Because…. he’s four.

And being four, he didn’t respond in the most positive reaction to my miserable state of mind. We ended up arguing, resulting in me threatening to stop Jack from going to swimming or to his beloved Karate lessons.

Again, I was reminded that he is just four years old,by my conscience (Claire), leaving me feeling quite bad about it all. And yes, I was the bigger man and apologised to him as best I could.

I’ve spent the day thinking about it and made sure that he was in a happy mood this evening before going to bed, as he doesn’t need to care about anything other than being a four year old boy.

Because he’s four.