Christmas 2009

The build-up to Christmas this year has been quite lovely. Linus is well and truly at an age to be rather excitable and interested in the whole thing. He loved his advent calendar, he loved the decorations and lights (oh, it looks soooo beautiful Mummy) and he has spent much time telling me all about Father Christmas (woe betide anyone who refers to him as Santa!).

He very sweetly told me one day that he had decided what to get his brothers for Christmas, a dinosaur for Gabriel because he loves dinosaurs, and a cuddly toy for Asa- an owl, to be specific. So on an afternoon shopping trip we managed to sneak away from Daddy and the other boys and go and buy our gifts, then wrap them once we got home. So cute!!

Linus didn't have a specific Christmas with-list because he apparently likes "everything", so we got him his first proper big boy's bike. He was rather underwhelmed with it when he came down in the morning- or maybe so overwhelmed with the whole thing that it just didn't show? Either way he'd have been happy enough just with his stocking I think.

We toyed with the idea of not putting stabilisers on his bike, and letting him just learn how to ride it, but the general icy-ness outside and his natural catiousness meant that they're on for the moment, but watch this space for proper bike-riding announcements!!

Here he is eating his candy cane, which I ended up with because "I don't really know why it has to be so hard"

Looking a bit worried, but getting the hang of it!

School Nativity

Linus did rather well and didn't embarrass either us or himself today when he featured as 'generic angelic being #34' in the school nativity (for classes R, 1 and 2)

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Starting school

Well, over the last 4.5 years there have been times when i've wished today would come quicker. Over the last few weeks though I've been wishing it would never come. It seems like hardly any time has gone by since I was cradling a tiny little bundle in my arms, and now I can't help but think that I haven't had him to myself for nearly long enough. I have to admit that the thought of home educating the children has flickered through my mind more than once in the last few weeks. There is a strange panicky feeling as your first child starts school, that you just haven't made the most of your time and that there is so much more you want to do with them. Looks like we'll just have to do it in the school holidays now along with everyone else!

But fast-forward to today and Linus was so excited to be going to school. It's the first morning in a long time where I haven't struggled to get him dressed. There was nothing going to stop that boy getting to his school on time, in uniform. We did, of course, stop for the obligatory first day photo shoot before leaving the house. On getting outside Linus announced that he was so excited he was going to run all the way to school. And he did!

We arrived and he went straight in, we found his peg and he asked the teacher where to put his drink. And then he was off, without a backward glance. When hometime came it ws so lovely, at nursery LInus never used to tell us what he'd been up to, but he came out of school absolutely full of it. He dragged me back into the classroom to meet the stick insects, and then talked non-stop about school all the way home. The only bit he didn't like was when he wanted to sit by himself and someone came and talked to him. They apparently knew his name, but he doesn't want to be friends with them because he doesn't know theirs! So Linus!

Hair

This week some good things have happened. And some not so good things.

Good things were mainly pancakes. Vegan pancakes to be precise. Bearing in mind pancakes are usually made mainly from milk and egg this may seem a little bizarre. Trust me though, these are GOOD! It's the thing we have when we get up in the morning and remember that oh yeh, we ate the last of the bread yesterday and oops, that's the last of the milk gone into Bob's tea. Anyway it turns out that Linus can fit a rather amazing amount of pancake in him of a morning. More than Bob even. That's a lot of pancake. I think he may be having a growth spurt because all of a sudden he doesn't wake up until 8am, and he then proceeds to spend most of his day telling me how desperately hungry he is.

The bad thing that happened is that we somehow lost most of Linus's beautiful hair. I decided he might look quite cute with a shorter haircut so I sounded him out and he thought that yes, he might like that. So, off we go to the barber shop. I say "classic boys cut please, shortish round the back and sides and longer on top". Sadly the barber interpreted this as meaning "please make my child look like the average Crawley thug". Actually, I think Linus pulls it off rather well and he looks bizarrely grown up yet also exactly the same as he did when he was a bald baby!

Growing Up

It would appear that somehow, in some strange way Linus has been secretly growing up right under our very noses! No longer am I allowed to call him my baby, which is a bit sad I think. I have to do it in secret, or pretend I forgot and then say "i mean, my big boy/cat/dog/iguana"

Now he is virtually grown up he can do all sorts of things like do buttons up, wear a proper shirt, go to Starbucks for coffee and erm, oh yeh, start school. Actually, I am lying slightly, because we've always gone to Starbucks for coffee. But what's that? school?? yes, come September my little baby will be off to big school. I am totally unprepared for this due to previously mentioned "secret" growing up. hmph.

Yesterday afternoon we had our first afternoon visit to the school he'll be attending. He was rather apprehensive and told me just before we left that actually he thought that maybe we just shouldn't bother. Let's just watch "man a gas store" (that's Madagascar for the uninitiated) instead. Parents were welcome to stay if the children wanted them to and on the walk down we discussed this and he was adamant that I should stay with him. We arrived and went to his classroom and he was in his element! I am so glad that he has been at nursery since last August because he clearly made big connections between there and school and felt really comfortable in the environment. He was the first to go and sit on the carpet when the teacher asked (albeit the oppposite way round to everyone else and with his legs stretched out as far as possible), and he even asked if anyone would like to sit next to him! awwwwwww! He then informed me that I could go. Hmmm, nothing like being needed eh?

I picked him up at 3 to discover he'd had a great time. He had fed the class guinea pig, fallen over in the playground and spent a reasonable amount of time showing the teaching assistant his special necklace to wear when you're riding on a horse and cart. For anyone interested this necklace comprises a piece of string (black and white, from the abel and cole box) cut into many smaller pieces, and tied together in all sorts of ways to create a beautiful necklace. He had to have it in his pocket, on account of not being on a horse and cart. That's my boy.