“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!

"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.