We Three Kings

Next week Callum has his school nativity play. This year his class is just singing carols and tonight Callum came home from school with print outs of some of the songs to practice. Here he is doing his rendition of We Three Kings. Tomorrow night is Silent Night.

Save the Panda... the Tiger...the Polar Bear...

We're in a recession, Christmas is coming and endangered animals need help. So what do we get? TV adverts for WWF asking for help, which is nothing wrong in itself. Where the problem comes is when your six year old son sees said adverts. The first time it was the Panda's.

Callum: "Mummy! Mummy! We have to save them!"

Me: "Save who?"

Callum: "The pandas! They are all dying, they are endangered. I need your money, quickly and you have to phone this number... now!"

He then recites the telephone number... correctly.

Next it is the tigers and then it is the polar bears. Oh and then you have the TV adverts about the dog that needs a new home.

Callum: "Can we put Dash up for sale on eBay?"

Me: "Why?"

Callum: "So we can get some money to give that dog on the TV a new home."

Me: "Erm..."

Hubby: "You'd be lucky to get £1 for the dog."

I was told last week by Callum that all he wanted for Christmas now was money. Why? Well then he could help save all the animals that are endangered... and give that dog a new home. It does make me proud that he has this huge heart. I even asked him wouldn't he be upset if all he got was money to donate for Christmas and he replied by telling me that of course he wouldn't as helping others is more important and anyway if you pay WWF money you get a cuddly toy of an endangered animal.

Which brings me on to today's photos. The other while hubby and I were having a tidy up I spotted something in one of our plants. Can you see it? Yep a panda. One of Callums toy pandas. He'd been building it a Lego house a few days before and left it on the floor. Suddenly Dash was in the room and about to make extinct another animal. Luckily we saved it! We then told Callum to put the panda somewhere safe. This was obviously the safest place he could find. Hubby and I haven't told him that we've seen it, we're waiting to see how long Callum leaves it there. Adds a whole new meaning to "Save the Panda". lol.

Half Term, Speech Therapy, Little Big Planet and Art Day

Life with a Callum monkey always has you busy in one form or another. This week has been non-stop! Firstly we had daily appointments (well were meant to) for Callum with a speech therapist. Back in July he had been assessed again on his speech and they informed us that he just had a few sounds he had trouble with ("f'" and "v") but as therapists are fully booked that we would just have to wait and see if and when one became available and was sent home with worksheets to get started on with Callum and to help him. Then a few weeks ago we got a letter offering us a daily one hour group session for the half term week. Obviously knowing how hard to get something like this offered to you is we took up the opportunity. Turns out that Callum's speech has come on tremendously since July and that the sounds he had problems with weren't big problems now. He went from having a group session to a one on one session and we are now being sent worksheets to work on different sounds with him. As mentioned we were meant to be going for the whole week but yesterday Callum woke up in the most grumpy un-cooperative mood ever and said that he didn't want to go, he was feeling tired and his teeth hurt (oh yeah this week he has gotten two new wobbly teeth and the sounds he has to practice now ("th" and "f") sounds are sounds you use your top row of teeth to help pronounce the sounds and he was worried it would make his teeth more wobbly), thankfully his speech therapist was superb and totally understood and said that she would forward us the worksheets by post and do a follow up phone call in 2-3 weeks to see how we are getting on but not to hesitate to contact her if we had questions. She did tell us that in all honesty after this week that Callum wouldn't really need any speech therapy which is something Daz and I are so proud of Callum for.

So yesterday we went from having a week of nothing planned because of speech therapy (it had been in the middle of the day for one hour) to the rest of the week with free days. What did we decide to do?

Well yesterday was spent playing Little Big Planet and doing colouring in and watching Top Gear which is a pretty cool way to spend a day with your son. I do have to say I am a little tired of Little Big Planet now though and Daz and I told Callum we would be having a no Little Big Planet day today. It's been heaven. lol.

As for today, we've had Mummy and Callum Art Time and as Callum said earlier "It's been a brilliant day of all arty things Mum, best day this week." I couldn't have said it better. This morning I found a box of modelling clay so we made people and monsters/creatures which we now having drying out and setting before we paint, colour in, decorate them. After that we did some drawing and colouring and gluing and started decorating a make your own rocket kit (hopefully we'll try the rocket out this weekend but first I need to find a bicycle pump!) which I'd found under Daz and mines bed (that's also where I found the modelling clay, I have a couple of wicker baskets under there full of art stuff... that I'd forgotten about. lol). Then we had lunch and then we made a Robot out of old boxes and used toilet rolls. Then... yes there is more... we painted some clay flower pots which I had been given as a birthday present and we hadn't gotten around to painting them yet.

Now we're all cleared up and Callum is watching tv in the front room while I have five minutes to myself. Tomorrow Callum and I are hoping our clay models have dried out and we can decorate them, otherwise I don't know what we'll be doing.

As always there are photos here and below are a few selected ones.

Today I saw a little worm.

This week at school Callum's year are learning poetry and how to write a basic poem. Yesterday they were given the first line to start with and had to come up with a short poem from it. Here is Callum's.

Today I saw a little worm
He was sad and he looked sad
Perhaps he would come inside
Come inside and was mad

Simple and cute.

The Eye of the Tiger

There is no denying it our son is a complete rock monster. Don't believe me? Well here you go!





Of course it isn't just rock music that he loves in fact he will happily sing along to Bob Marley or a bit of Scouting For Girls or even Take That's Rule the World, but if you put Eye of the Tiger on or his other current favourite song Sex on Fire he just goes mad and does his little rock out moment and his Freddie Mercury dance, not that he has ever seen any Queen videos... boy we have to introduce him to those!

I couldn't love him any more than what I do but when I watch these clips, apart from laughing myself silly my heart bursts with love and pride and joy that this little fella is mine and something I helped to create and those moments when he completely drives me insane and I want to scream I just think of the moments like in this clip and the others and it reminds me of what a fun loving cool dude he is.

Superheroes eaten by giant sweet dog

I do wonder what goes on in that head of that little monkey monster of mine. Last night he started back at Beavers and one of the things they did was to create a piece of artwork using sweets. Here is what Callum created:


Now I could tell that basically it was an animal and that animal being a dog but well the rest...

The small round marshmellows on the left hand side are apparently Batman and Robin.
The dog only has eyes and a nose as there wasn't enough room to fit a mouth on.
BUT the dog has got a mouth because... well it's eating Batman and Robin up.
And please don't ask me why the lollipop is sticking out of the dogs bum, the lollipop is the dogs tail but it got shooved in there. As for the three M&M's by the tail... well they are certainly something our dog Dash doesn't have any longer and I have no idea what Callum thinks they are.

Still it's Callum's creation and it sums him up pretty well, he loves our dog Dash and he is a total geek.

Amazed we made it through the maize

Yesterday Callum, my sister Katie and I headed out to The Great Maze near Braintree, Essex. We'd decided that it was something different to do and would burn off some of Callum's never-ending energy supply and walk off some of our booze drinking and sweet eating from the weekend (notice the booze drinking was by Katie not me!!! LOL).

Getting there was meant to be easy, gets on the M11 and then when you get to the A120 (I think that was the one) it'll be sign posted. Yeah right! We ended up having to back-track on ourselves on the A120 and just guess which turning we needed to take. Needless to say we thankfully found a garage where the helpful assistant gave us better instructions and we were properly on our way.

We were lucky to arrive nice and early (even given our little detour on the roads) and the sun was shining brightly and there was a nice cool breeze. On their website they boasted of having 10 acres of maize maze which they change each year, this being their tenth anniversary. Also added bonus you can buy a map but it's in a sealed envelope and if you don't open it you get the money back for it. We lasted 30 minutes before Callum begged us to open it, we'd had quite a lot of "which way now Callum?" moments.




As well as making our way through the maze there was a competition going on where they had placed imitation caged animals around the maze for you to find and on top of the cages were what their names were and you wrote these down on the entry form and first prize is £100! We found all but two of them but the kind ladies at the kiosk desk gave Callum the names of the two we couldn't find. Here is one we did find though!

Mike the Magpie

At the beginning of the maze Callum had volunteered himself as our leader and we had to follow him which was fun and he made good choices when it came to which way now as crossroads.





Although he did on occasion try to leave us behind:




But we did make it to the middle of the maze and the "tower" to view the whole maze.



And eventually to the end.



All in all it took us I think 1 hour 23 minutes but 30 minutes of that was before we opened the map and don't forget we made sure we tried our best to find all of the caged animals. I don't think that's too bad going. Thank you Katie for a wonderful day out.

Say "Cheese!"

The other month Daz asked if I could get a more recent (and nicer) photo of Callum and I together for him to have at work on his computer. You'd think this would be a simple task wouldn't you? Well it isn't!




Firstly I can't find my remote control for my camera so I have to either rely on the in-camera timer which in all honesty doesn't give you much time or I have to try and work out an angle that fits both Callum and I in together in the frame while I myself am holding the camera, as you know not necessarily the easiest of tasks. Also add to this that doing the second method Callum then sees his reflection in the lens and so keeps moving to getting just all of his face in the frame. But apart from all of this it's been fun! I think we're still hunting for the "perfect" photo but we've sure got some funny ones and as our friend Cindy said: "You can tell how much fun you two had taking these."




So for your eyes here are a select few of the shots taken. Currently we've had to "shoots" and no doubt there will be plenty more to come BUT I am determined to get this photo and get it by taking the photo myself.

All photos can be seen here.

The Lady With the Lamp

Seems one of the ways to get Callum to pay an interest in some things is by reading his blog entries so I'm trying out a new idea. Yesterday we got home a table of his schools Summer Term lessons plan, there is the usual English and Maths etc but there was also History and this term they will be covering Florence Nightingale and Mary Seacole. Now Florence Nightingale I know about but I'd not really heard about Mary Seacole. Having had a brief look this morning I now understand where they are going to go on this, first learning about Florence Nightingale and then about Mary Seacole and the differences between these two amazing women and how one of them became a heroine and the other sadly not mentioned about much. I like it.

So seeing as how Florence is going to be talked about first I thought I'd start off in that order too and write a bit down here and hopefully it'll make Callum want to read and learn about these two inspiring women.

Florence Nightingale was born 12th May 1820 in Florence, Italy and was thus named after her place of birth. She came from a wealthy background and was what was considered in those days to be a rich girl who spent her summers living in Derbyshire and her winters living in Hampshire (that's what the rich did in the olden days). Rich girls were also expected to do almost nothing, something Florence found boring but she was lucky in the fact that even though at this time in History girls did not receive any form of education her father believed all women should receive an education and so he taught Florence and her sister a variety of subjects ranging from Science and Maths to History and Philosophy.

While growing up Florence developed an interest in helping others and cared for the sick pets and servants when the time allowed her to do so. Then aged 17 years old Florence believed she was called into service by God to become a Nurse "to do something toward lifting the load of suffering from the helpless and miserable." Her parents at first refused to allow her to become a Nurse as it was not considered to be a suitable job for a well educated woman but Florence did not give up and eventually her father gave permission and allowed Florence to do so and she went to Germany to train to become a Nurse.

In 1853 the Crimean War Broke Out and Florence who had studied and become a Superintendent of the Hospital for Gentlewomen in London was asked in to go to Turkey to manage the nursing of the British soldiers wounded and ill. She travelled to Scutari where the soldiers were being taken care of and was shocked to see the poor condition of the hospital with many wounded and ill unwashed and sleeping in over-crowded and dirty conditions with no blankets and decent food. These conditions made diseases (typhus, cholera and dysentery) spread quickly and there was a high death rate (only 1 in 6 died from their wounds where 5 in 6 died from infection and diseases).

Florence and her nurses changed this. They set up a kitchen and fed the wounded from their own supplies, they dug a latrine for sanitation (that's kind of a toilet Callum) and enlisted the help of the wounded soldiers wives. Now they could properly care for the ill and wounded and not so many died. Because of her dedication to her job and how she would often visit soldiers at night when everyone else was asleep to make sure they were alright and because she hardly slept herself Florence earned the name Lady With The Lamp. She was a true heroine to the soldiers and everyone back home in England and she changed the face of nursing from an untrained professional to a highly skilled and well respected medical profession with important responsibilities.

Florence died in 1910 aged 90 years old.

Conversation

Earlier today while tidying up Callum's bedroom.

Callum: I really love you Mummy.

Me: Aww thanks, I love you too.

Callum: I know, you always tell me. Will you marry me Mummy?

Me: Oh I'm too old to marry you.

Callum: But I love you lots and you always say that's important when you marry someone. I'm going to attempt to marry you.

Me: You know how you're not meant to marry certain people? Well Mummy's kinda count too.

Callum: Oh. OK... I still love you lots though.

Callum White - Tomb Raider Extraodinaire

So it's a brand New Year. Happy New Year everyone! I am in the middle (well I have been composing the post since last week) of doing a Looking Back at 2008 post but I need to transfer some photos over from the laptop to the computer. In the meantime I had to mention this. For Christmas Darren and Callum bought me (that's Sarah, Callum's Mummy) the new Tomb Raider game. Now Callum has never really seen the awesomeness of these games before so it was like seeing it through a newcomer's eyes. So what have Darren (Daz) and I been subjected to?

Well firstly there was Callum pretending to be like Lara Croft earlier today. I was in the kitchen fixing him his dinner while Daz was sorting out something for us to watch on dvd that evening. We both walked into the hallway at pretty much the same time to find Callum bouncing back and forth between the hallway wall, the radiator and the outside of the staircase a la Lara Croft. See... PHOTOS!!!






Not content with the climbing he then embarks upon making a map to which only Daz is lucky enough to view and join in on the adventure. After a while we are allowed to persuade our intrepid Tomb Raider, Questor of fine Arts, Explorer to rest while we watch a film (Transformers). But alas half way through the film he decides he needs to pack his trusty back-pack. What does the modern day (boy) Tomb Raider need? Well now that he is asleep I can tell you, having rumaged through the back-pack.

OK in order from back to front:

The Big Book of Top Gear
Corgi Toys
Transformers Spotlight Revelation Part Two Cover A
JETIX magazine talking about Batman Lego
The Official Highway Code (which is his own book that he has had for about a year and knows most of the signs to)
Transformers Beast Wars #1
A clear pocket packet containing Transformers Spotlight:Blaster, Tiny Titans #7 and Transformers Best of UK)
World War Hulk After Smash
The New Avengers Transformers tpb
Mr Snow (Mr Men book)
Top Gear The Challenges Best Bits
A wind-up watch
Pair of grey school socks
A clean doggy poop bag containing pencils and a paint brush


Not that I ever need reminding why I love that little monkey monster but this is one of those moments that make me realise just how much and why.

Happy 70th Birthday Joyce!

Today is my MIL Joyce's 70th Birthday, or as Callum calls her Nanny Joyce. As we are seeing them Christmas Eve and Christmas Day we had a special seperate celebration on Sunday for her. Just close family went out to Harvester for lunch and then it was back to our house for birthday cake and fun on the Wii. I think it shows what a fantastic idea they have come up with at Nintendo with the Wii console as it keeps a family from a five year old boy to a 70 year old Nan happy. I didn't get a huge amount of photos taken but the ones I did can be found here.

All that is left to say is "Happy Birthday Joyce!"

Putting the Spring into Dash

Yesterday morning.

Callum: Mummy Mummy! Quick! You need to come rescue Dash!
Me: Where is he?
Callum: Up on the window! Quick Mummy, it's really funny.
Me: The window? Tell him to get down.
Callum: He can't.

I then come downstairs to find this:




And yes the daft Dashy dog couldn't get down.

Piranha Panic (NaBloPoMo)

Look into those eyes, do they look like the eyes of someone that would have you playing Piranha Panic before 8am on a Thursday? Well they are!! And they are eyes that cheat at the game too! LOL! But do you know what it was fun, all cosied up on the bed while Daz was getting ready for work, even though a few of the marbles (not just the ones in my head) were missing, even though the rain was hammering down on the window panes... and even through the major cheating going on. I suppose there will be no surprises when I say that Callum won but I'll beat him next time. I love playing family games, they give you that chance to just shut the rest of the world out and enjoy the company of those that are near and dear to you. Sure sometimes Callum makes you play, play and play until you never want to play that game again, I'm looking at you Top Trumps, or Daz makes you get out the Monopoly Board so he can own more hotels than you, but you know what you always end up giving in and getting on with yet another round of whatever game it is you're fed up of playing and that's because at the end of the day you're spending precious moments with those loved ones....and you know just one day you will own all of those pretty sapphire blue properties on the board, bwahahahah they will be mine... oh ermm... who took over the typing then???

Each year Daz and I try to add to our collection of board/family games, some times it's a success and others a big huge mess that gets hidden in the back of the wardrobe. This year I've been looking around to see what looks fun and here are a few suggestions I've come up with:


Articulate

This is a game that we've played a good few times with family members but is a game that we haven't as of yet bought. The idea is for each team to make their way round the board by describing what is on the card for the other member of your team to guess, within 30 seconds. You can not say it sounds like or rhymes with to help them out. At the end of the allotted time however many your team mate/s guessed that's how many spaces you can move on. The winner is the person who makes it round the board first. It's a little bit like that game show that Joey plays on in Friends. It's great loud fun and gets your brain thinking and also in a way tests how well you know the people you play with.


Pictureka

This is the new game out from the same people who make Articulate and looks more like something we could play with Callum. It's like hide and seek but as a board game and you have to find the item on the card that is picked, first to find it wins the card and then the one with the most cards at the end is the winner. Sounds fun although I'm not sure what kind of longevity this might have because if you have a child like mine who is brilliant at remembering where things are he'll have that board memorised in no time. Still it's one to maybe consider.


Trivial Pursuits

In my opinion you can never go wrong with good old Trivial Pursuits, maybe that's why they have brought out so many different versions of it. The latest that I've seen is the Girls vs Boys one. As it says on Amazon "Boys questions cover boy toys, action films, blokey sports and hot babes. Girls questions cover chick flicks, chick lit, fashion, girly music and hot hunks". Now this seems like it could be fun. Sure ok it's not really for the kids but I have noticed today on Amazon that they have Disney Pixar Bitesize one. We'll see how this one goes.

I'm sure there are going to be plenty more board games that grab my attention and I'll be sure to let you all know what we end up getting and if it is a hit, miss or maybe.

Thank You For the Music (NaBloPoMo)

Music plays a big part in most peoples lives and it certainly does in ours. From when I was pregnant with Callum to today he has loved music and mostly it seems rock. Today while cooped up in bed (again!) I decided to look through the various online photo/video sites I have and came across some gems (well in my opinion) of Callum dancing.

First up we have Callum singing and dancing along to The Barenaked Ladies' rendition of Jingle Bells, this was in December 2006 so Callum would have been 3 and a half years old nearly. Even through the crappy recording no matter how many times I watch this it still makes me laugh and smile, it is so typical of Callum and his love of life and the energy he has an abundance of.



Now fast forward to November 2007 and we once again have Callum singing and "dancing" to Jingle Bells but this time on his musical keyboard. I never realised before the coincidence of these, nearly one year apart and in a way the same song. I'm now thinking I will have to do a yearly capture of Callum singing and dancing to Jingle Bells and I look forward to seeing how in a year he changes and grows up so much. It's sad to see but also wonderful, he is maturing and learning at such a fast rate that it is wonderful to have these moments on video to look back on. For that I am thankful.

NaBloPoMo

No this isn't the next stage of my insanity but instead a challenge I am taking up. Somewhere on the wonderful internet today I came across NaBloPoMo and the strange amalgamation of letters caught my interest so I found the official site and read about it. It sounded fun and maybe a way to lessen my boredom. So here goes. It seems as though for the month of December the topic is Thanks and I think that's a pretty good topic to discuss and talk about.

These last few days have made me realise even more than ever how thankful I am in having such wonderful, loving, kind, handsome, funny men/boys in my life. Yes I'm talking about my extremely handsome husband Daz and my dazzlingly beautiful boy Callum, or otherwise known as My Boys. These last few days I have been bed bound with a poorly leg (goodness knows what I've done but painful isn't as strong a word to use) and they have been a godsend. Daz has run around doing all mannes of chores, getting Callum to and from school, making me little food parcels, helping me to the bathroom and back and so on and so on. He even this morning before setting off on the school run for Callum before then making his journey into work brought me up a plethora of material to keep me occupied all day and not starving hungry or gasping for a drink, he even remembered my favourite dvd boxset (the Good Life). I've always known how lucky I was to meet Daz and marry him but I'm even more thankful today for that. As for Callum he has been his usual mischievious self. This morning after he was dressed ready for school he came into the bedroom, crept into bed with me and then brought out his Top Gear Cool Wall book and stickers, "This will help you feel better Mummy, which cars do you want as yours?" We spent the next 15 minutes discussing why the cars should go on the cool wall or the uncool wall. Top Gear I salute you (once again!) in your wiseness in bein able to keep a five year old and a thirty-five year old entertained, I am indeed thankful to you for that!

This entry is probably a bit random and bizarre, I'm tired and can't think too well but hopefully over the next few days I will be able to be more cohesive... and be able to type and spell better.

For now I'll leave you with my little thank you photo, My Boys! I love you with all my heart and more.

My Own Modern Day Robin Hood

Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen 
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, with his band of men 
Feared by the bad, loved by the good 
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Robin Hood

Children have amazing imagination and with Callum we are constantly seeing this imagination put into action. This morning when I went into Callum's bedroom he was sitting in bed with his drawing pad, pens and pencils strewn around him drawing in his book. He then proceeded to tell me what he was drawing about. He was telling me about his new imaginary friend, well this time it's a pet dog, his name is Mocky, he's a mucky puppy who is green and blue, has black human ears and a red tail and he is helping Callum and his other best imaginary friend Touson (I'm having to guess at the spelling as Callum won't tell me the correct spelling) and a bunch of even more imaginary friends on a bank job. Yes you read that right. Apparently they have been having meetings about how to rob cash machines. They can't rob these until they are eighteen years old but they want to make sure they have it all perfect for that day. When I asked Callum why they wanted to rob the cash machines his answer was plain and simple but showed me just how good a heart that he has. The reason? Well he has heard on the news about how there isn't much money around at the moment and he worried that people wouldn't be able to afford food and Christmas presents. His solution is that the banks have all the money and that's not fair and that they need to share that money with all of the people in the whole world. So that is his mission. So far the plan involves pumping lots of electricity into all the cash machines but he said they aren't sure if this will work and so are coming up with other ideas too. Kids! LOL

Faster Than A Speeding Train

Cuddles and Sleep

That's how quick this year is going. It seemed like only yesterday that it was the beginning of the school summer holidays and I had high hopes of doing a weekly post update of what we were doing. Yeah that kind of didn't work did it? Next it'll be Christmas and New Year and we'll all be wondering where the year went.

So what has been happening lately in the White House? Well...

We had a pretty good six weeks summer holiday, sure the weather wasn't brilliant but we got time out in the garden, managed to have a few BBQ's and some visits out.

We also got a puppy! Yes you read that right. My parents bought me back a cross springer spaniel/border collie puppy from Ireland as a birthday present for me and a play friend for Callum. He's a complete monster but so adorably cute you can't stay angry with him for long. We've called him Dash which seems very suitable as him and Callum do dash all over the place. We've had a few jealously problems with Callum but they mostly seem smoothed over now I no longer have Callum telling me I don't love him as much as the dog. Hello buddy the dog comes lower down the pecking list than the fish, bottom of the pile he is! It's cute to watch the two of them out in the garden playing, Dash loves Callum to go down the slide and then he can jump on Callum. I don't know if my flowers are enjoying Dash though a few of those have been dug up and flung around in a mad frenzy. I think over the years Callum and Dash will become the best of friends, they are already teaming up on me when it's time to come in from the garden the little so and so's.

What else has been happening then? Well Callum went back to school the beginning of September (actually it was on Daz and mines 9th Wedding anniversary). The new school building had been finished so they were all set up for starting them in there. Of course there were a few hiccups, actually quite a few but over the weeks it seems to be settling down. All the kids seem to love the new building and they have a much bigger and better playground now so I no longer have Callum coming home with wripped knees in his trousers every day, heck I even managed to have him last a whole week in the same pair of trousers as he kept them immaculately clean. To go with the new school building Callum also has a new teacher, he name is Alexandra (Alex for short) and seems very nice. He has gone up to Year 1 now so they are more about learning their numbers and to read and write than playing but it still seems like they get plenty of playtime in. Also the added bonus is that this year he is in the same class as his best friends Aman and Laila which they all seem to like.

But alas this brand new school is all going to change on Monday. Why? Well last week we got a letter offering Callum a place at a school that is just round the corner from us which means just a five mintue walk to school rather than the 2 bus journey route we currently have to do. Daz and I looked at the school on Monday and are really happy with it so we've accepted the place and they want to start Callum on Monday, it's all a huge rush and yet another new uniform to buy Callum (not cheap either!) but we feel that in the long run this is the best option. We love our house we live in now and want to stay here for as long as we can so a school within walking distance will be ideal it'll fit in with the future plans we have involving our life. Callum seemed more than happy to change schools and we've promised him that we are going to make this his last change of school until he goes to secondary school. He's a child that easily makes friends and seems most of the time to take well to change so we're hoping he'll take those traits along with him to his next school. It's all very nerve wracking and exciting at the same time. Fingers crossed it goes well.

Anyway I should go and check on the new family member Dash and see if he has dried off from his play in the garden and that he isn't muddy from any digging. But first I'll post some photos.

Vet Callum checking patient Dash for any paw injuries.

The Terrible Two Playing Cars.

Summer Begins! - Week One

School has broken up and so begins Summer Time! Over the next six weeks (and maybe probably longer!) I'll be posting photos of Callum and his summer holidays. Hopefully I'll also get time to do some full blog entries too.

The first week of Callum's summer holidays was a very busy one, it was his Fifth Birthday so we had parties, trips to the seaside, lazy days at home playing with new presents and friends coming round for paddling pool fun.






Birthday Cake Surprise! Callum looking shocked that all the other kids didn't sing Happy Birthday to him but instead blew out his candles.

















Nevermind second time round was more successful.




















On the Sunday we had family round for another party, here's everyone bar my brother Joe who left early to go drinking over the park with his buddies. Teenagers!







Then Monday Keith (Daz' brother) and his fiancee took Daz, Callum and I to Southend. It was our first trip ever to the Seaside and lots of fun was had, well until the end when I slipped down the concrete steps but we won't talk about that too much.




















Then last but not least we eventually reach Callum's birthday the 22nd July. Our little boy is Five years old, my where did the time go? Here he is opening presents.







For Callum's birthday Daz and I bought him a bike, a big boys grown up bike. Callum's finding it a littler harder to ride than his trike but it's mostly down to size and that our garden is the flatest garden there is. Still he'll get there. Here he is on a little practice.

And well some monkeys are just too cheeky!

Tune if for the next entry which involves Down on Foxburrows Farm, South Park and lots more.

What the Teachers had to say.

Today I had a meeting with Callum's school teachers. It was just the end of year parent meeting but this time round they had daytime appointments which is a much easier way to do things.

I got to read a copy of Callum's school report (of which I'll get the original at the end of the week) and from that I learned that he has settled in well and is on the recommended level of learning for all subjects. There was a little concern about his emotional side which the school are dealing with I think they called it "action" where they are trying to teach him how to deal with things such as if someone is playing with something he wants to play with how he should go about not crying to get his own way but either talking to the person currently playing with said item or playing with something else until said item is free. They aren't overly concerned it's just something they want him to learn and said as he is an only child it's not an unusual thing for him to be doing. They also mentioned about his maths and said that he needs to practice more with his bond numbers. This had Daz and I a little confused. By bond numbers they mean just adding up sums that make say 5 or 1o, so for example 2 = 8 = 10. Now at home Callum is constantly going round doing sums like this but it turns out that at school he isn't. We're not quite sure why but his teacher just suggested we keep up with him doing it at home and see if it carries over to at school. Children are strange that way, the things he'll do at school he won't do at home and vice versa.

At the end of the day though for someone who has only been at the school 68 days, has moved from one London Borough to another and had no friends at the new school or even in the area we now live in he is doing remarkable well. His teachers told me it is like he started back in September with everyone else and has made some good friendships and is eager to learn. Lets hope he keeps it up.