"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.