I've been naughty

Callum and Declan were just playing with the trains in the other room. There was the sound of a train hitting flesh, then a cry from Callum, followed a moment later by the patter of little feet as Declan took himself to the naughty stair.

Accidents happen... now and again

We've got a new Thomas DVD, and it has a few songs on it. Callum is particularly taken with one - accidents happen. It's a very banal song, with a video clip of pretty much every accident that has ever been shown in a Thomas story. Callum looooves it. It combines two of his favourite things - trains and slapstick (if trains are capable of slapstick).

He's been singing the song pretty much non stop ever since we got the DVD, and for the first time ever, will request that particular episode/song, rather than asking us to play the whole thing.

I doubt if it will ever make the top 40.

Acceleration dilemma

For a variety of reasons I've avoided writing about the dilemma we've been wrestling with for some time: whether to accelerate Callum to start school next year, a year early. This started from conversations with his pre-school teachers and has gone through a great deal of thinking. We reached an impasse in our thinking which lead to our deciding the only way forward was to have him tested by an educational psychologist.

We made the booking weeks ago and in the intervening period had come to the conclusion we didn't want to accelerate him, but would go through with the testing so we could have an objective view to support a conversation with the school about what would happen when he did start in 2007. We'd talked ourselves into thinking, happily, that he was a bright kid but that might be as far as it went.

That's how we went in. After a whole morning of testing we came out with the educational psychologist saying absolutely glowing things about Callum's aptitude (he's enormously above average across the board and hit the testing ceiling in a number of areas) and saying that there was absolutely no way we could not accelerate him. His view was, given Cal's physical size, that we should either start him in Kindergarten mid-way through next year or if he is to start in 2007 start him directly into year 1.

So we've gone from simple back to a whole gamut of questions about what to do next.

Dammum

Is how Declan says Callum. We all now understand it, so it seems quite clear. But on seeing it written, you can see why it took us a while to realise that Declan knew Callum's name.

Learning differences

The interesting thing in watching Declan learn how to count is that he understands the concept of counting (i.e. if he counts to three, its to find out that he's got three of something). He can't reliably count any further than this, because he doesn't remember the sequence of numbers properly.

Callum, on the other hand, learned to rote count to about ten reasonably reliably before he "got" the idea that counting was to tell you how many of something there were. (I'm sure there's a very technical neurological term for this, but hopefully you know what I mean)

Counting

As avid readers will know, I'm very tough when it comes to our children's accomplishments. Jennifer and Jean have both, for some time, been insisting that Declan is counting but I've been denying it is real. However, yesterday and today confirmed that he can coun to three with full understanding - ie he can count up to three objects.

Thank goodness for the vasectomy

If I hadn't already had the snip, today would have had me in the emergency room demanding someone take a pair of scissors to me. We've been looking after Archie and Stan since 9am and still counting at 7pm. Four kids and a damp day. Enough said, really enough said.

Seperates

I habitually divide the washing into whites and colours. I've now got a third less obvious category: things found in Callum's pockets. Today, for example, the drier revealed a large quantity of lovely clean sand (as usual), a small barge, and a large piece of wonderfully washed coal.

The tell

I don't think Cal's going to be a great poker player. Whenever he does something he thinks has been, or will be, naughty he folds his tongue out of his mouth. Apart from looking bad it's a complete give-away.

Reading

This Monday (as every Monday) I had the boys to myself for the evening. It ended up being a mostly reading evening, as Callum and Declan took turns finding new books for me to read to them.

Declan has decided this week that Maisy is once again his favourite book character. He knows the names of all her friends and most of the story lines of the Maisy books we own.

Callum switches between wanting a simple book he can read to me, and wanting a book that I will read to him, because the story line is more exciting and he is feeling too lazy to do his own reading.

A range of train reactions

We went up to the Mountains today and visited a train museum, much to the delight of everyone under the age of four (and Chris and me).

The centre-piece of the museum is a chance to ride on the boilerplate of a real steam train. Aiden refused to consider it having tired once before and been traumatised by the noise. Callum was very excited until he got near the engine; then he too balked on the basis of noise. Tommy refused to even leave the model train building. Declan not only rode but happily pulled the whistle. Either brave or perhaps we should have his hearing tested again...

Three word sentences

Declan is definitely using three word sentences now. Today he said "I touched it" (about a car in a shopping centre) and yesterday he said "(the) milk (is) spilt (on the) floor". And there are more, but unless I make an effort, I don't remember them. I thought he was all better today, but this evening, when he was tired, he was in a very bad mood - worse than normal, so there could have been some residual illness effects.

Sick again

Today it's Declan's turn to be sick. He's very grumpy and feverish. After having Panadol and Nurofen just before going to bed, he seemed much happier before going to bed, and hopefully it'll last him the night through.

The cost of being four

In economic terms, turning four makes you half an adult. I just got the renewal for our zoo membership and for the first time we have to pay for Callum. We'll also have to start paying for him on public transport and in assorted other venues.

Sue was telling me on the weekend about a friend of hers who took his duaghter on the bus soon after she turned four. The driver asked how old the little girl was and the father, in a bid to save on a fare, said she was only three; only to have his indignant daughter loudly insist she was four and had had her birthday the previous week. Blushes all round.

More illness

Callum has a cold, cough and temperature. He's being remarkably bright for someone who's quite clearly miserable. No kindy for him today.

Party

I took Callum and Declan to a (semi) grown up party yesterday - Alan was turning 40, but had an afternoon party so all the kids could come. They didn't really know anyone there, - we don't see Al often enough for them to remember their two children (who are each a bit older than Callum and Declan) but they had a wonderful time anyway with the gaggle of children around (who ranged from 2 months to about 10).

It was quite astonishing to me how little time they needed to spend with me. Every now and again Declan would come and show me something, but most of the time they were quite happy sampling the new range of toys, joining in other kids games, and just generally enjoying a party.

Um... Yikes!

Declan's latest verbal habit is to say "um..." when asked a question. I'm sure he could have got it from any number of people. One day I'm sure I'll find it annoying, but right now I still find it incredibly cute. His other new interesting word is "Yikes!" said as a repeated exclamation when racing trains around the track upstairs.

Ohhhhhh....

We were walking through the mall in Chatswod this morning and I picked Declan up to give his legs a rest. He put his arms around me and said "I love you Daddy."

French

Yesterday, with Mia's encouragement, Callum counted to ten in French. He's been able to do that by rote for some time but the good thing yesterday was he was actually counting things.

When I expressed my delight, Mia told me he'd been able to do it for a couple of weeks. Perhaps he's spending too much time with his babysitter...

(Although, seriously, it is only the fact that the boys adore Mia looking after them which makes my late afternoon / early evening Council duties possible. They actually look forward to their time with her, which is so reassuring.)

I swam

I got to swim laps for the first time in memory this afternoon. It was great.

The kids did really well at their lessons too.

Declan and sentences

In the last week or so Declan's talking has improved. He's moved from single words to two and three word sentences and his mimicking of things others say has become much more accurate.

In lockstep with these developments, though, his frustration levels when he's not understood or agreed with have also jumped up. And when Declan gets frustrated he can make it felt: he's extaordinarily stubborn. The other day he pushed Stan over in the playground and got sent to the bench. He spent the next 20 or 30 minutes there refusing again and again to say he was sorry (he did finally give in).

All better

Having now gone 48-hours without incident I'll venture my arm and state that everyone seems better.

Health update 2

Jennifer now back at work. I'm definitely feeling not so good. Callum seems fine and is at school. Declan vommed the minute he walked through the door of school this morning and is now sleeping happily on the couch.

Health update

Declan seems fine today. Well enough in fact that's he's at school.

We've kept Callum home as he is demonstrably still unwell.

Jennifer is also home still not right but less demonstrably so.

I'm beginning to feel unwell and can't tell if it's the onslaught of the same thing or just my brain causing my body to rebel after spending so much time surrounded by my family's outpourings.