A new reader

For his final Year 6 assignment, Callum is writing his autobiography. Which means he has discovered this blog and is rereading his early years with great interest and attention (he was particularly taken with the post with his first ever typing in it). So we will have to be a bit careful what we say about him from now on!

Dessert

Callum has decided that our Saturday afternoon activity should be cooking dessert, so that we can eat it together while all four of us watch a movie together. So far we've made chocolate brownies and spiral shortbread biscuits; I'm trying to decide how far to up the ante - maybe a raspberry souffle?

Team Fortress 2

The boys are addicted to a game called Team Fortress 2. They're both trying to persuade me to play it. So whenever they are allowed to have a computer gaming conversation with me, they spend the time quizzing me in detail on exactly what kind of character I like to be in first person shooter games.

The consensus from both of them is that I should be a sniper or medic, although when I showed him this blog post, Callum showed every sign of running through every possibility again.

Declan OC offer

Declan got an offer for the Neutral Bay Opportunity Class yesterday with a great overall mark. He's very chuffed, and rightly so.

When he sat the exam earlier in the year, he and some of his friends agreed on a one-in, all-in policy: They'd only go if they all go. So now on top of the other considerations there're already emails going around amongst the parents trying to sound out positions. Should make for an interesting decision.

50km on a bike

We did the Spring Cycle Ride on the weekend from North Sydney to Olympic Park. Callum's GPS, which  now never leaves him for things like this, confirmed the distance as just over 50km.

The boys did it without a murmur even though Callum was beginning to suffer from the saddle and poor Declan had to pedal more than the rest of us as he still has a child-sized bike.

Overall it was a lovely day out and quite a sense of achievement in getting to the end.

Lost tooth and generally growing

After a long hiatus, Callum has resumed tooth loss, patiently working out another tooth on Thursday night. He agreed with Evan that the tooth fairy process of putting a tooth under the pillow was not necessary, and graciously accepted a gold coin directly.

In other growth news, we took the boys shoe shopping on the weekend, as Declan was complaining of tight runners. It turned out that Declan needed to go up one size, but Callum (who had not complained at all) needed to go up two sizes! We are hoping that their school shoes will last the term, but the chances aren't great.

Six foot track

Regular readers of our other blog will know that we did the six foot track during the school holidays. We were very impressed with the boys (and they were impressed with themselves) for walking 45km in three days. Apart from a meltdown from cold on morning 2 (Callum) and morning 3 (Declan) the adults around them were also impressed at their good cheer and superior fitness to most of the group.

Nerf warfare

Nerf wars are a regular feature of the boys' lives; short sharp affairs where every effort is made to shoot each other (and often parents). Declan has recently made himself an ammunition belt. He took one of my old belts, and sticky taped six carefully crafted paper nerf dart holders to it. He's very taken with it, and is looking forward to adding another twelve so that his armoury will be outstanding.