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!