Everyone names their iPhone right?

Emily and I have been together now for 4 whole Days. I am not normally the kind to kiss-and-tell but I figured I would let you know how we are getting on. While I would love to claim that we have fitted together like hand and glove in a symbiotic merging of man and machine, it is more like a reasonable first date, where we are still doing that getting to know you type dance. The good news, seeing as I am now committed to 18 months with Emily, is that she really is good fun!

I will now do the Ross and Rachel faux-pas of listing my likes and dislikes.

Being that she has a girls name, Emily knows everything . I therefore now have the benifit of google-assisted-intelligence, and can give “definitive” answers to questions in a trice (Joe Hart is goalkeeper for Man City).

She also allows me to access Twitter (My bothersome employer seems to thing it would reduce productivity and thus blocked it). Emily also checked FaceBook where there was a message booking me for a wedding next year … so she is actually making me money, I am not sure Mrs Geek is buying that one though.

And as shallow as it may sound Emily is gorgeous. The bubble interface to texting is so good I can’t believe nobody thought of it before. How did text messages become popular before bubbles. Video playback is AWESOME. I now have a mobile platform on which to keep up with my episodes of diggnation and TikiBar TV

Also after a day of negotiation (don’t believe the Macs are effortless hype), Emily syncs wirelessly with my Mac at home through the magic of MobileMe so it is just possible that Emily may actually be able to keep me organised in terms of appointments etc … A job Mrs Geek has had the burden of for way too long and I am sure that this is one thing she will be glad to offload.

However, in an attempt to appease RC, it is not all roses and buttercups though.

First, I think Mrs Geek is getting a little jealous… not of me having an iPhone you understand… but of Emily monopolising my time (You know giving it a name and writing about our “relationship” may not help with this either)

Also Emily seems to run out of energy sooner that I had expected and I now have a whole bunch of accessories that I need to buy for her.

Also, I noticed that when hi-jacking someone’s wifi and answering a question with the iPhone instead of my iPaq, instead of looking at me and my super human powers of Geekyness as was the old way … I get a look of distain as if to say “Poser” … I defiantly think I preferred being a Geek!

Emily’s biggest problem however, is that in the UK she is tied to O₂. I don’t want to be premature in writing them off, but their 3G coverage it would seem is a little patchy… but they promise this is due to get better, and to be honest Orange’s 3G was not exactly ubiquitous.

In my last post I talked of how proud I was of Lisa in her nursery leavers’ awards ceremony and the joy it gave me to see her win her award. This ignores however the pain it gave me to see her stood on stage welling up yet bravely holding back her tears on every mention of the “Leavers”. Again I failed my “Bloke” test as I was significantly less stoic than she was. Why does growing up have to be painful and why can I not protect my children from “Life’s Lessons”?

I know it is all part of growing up, but why does their growing up have to hurt me so much?

This led Mrs Geek and I to a discussion of the difference in parental attitudes to first child and subsequent children. With Bart everything was about how well he was doing. Each milestone passed was an amazing, pride inducing accomplishment. Now every milestone seems to be reached with reluctance. Maggie is now far more alert and putting on weight … both of which is good news, yet it signifies a reduction in newborn-ness that again, I really dread.

It is like going on a luxury cruise, stopping at many destinations, each one absolutely wonderful, breathtaking, but due to the tight schedule you are continually being moved on to the next location, ready or not. Some times I want to just say “Wait a minute … I like it here … can we just stay a little bit longer?” Alas, as much as I would like to pretend otherwise, I do not seem to be captain of this ship, it carries on sailing regardless how much I want to apply the brakes.

Maggie is planned to be our last child, and while nothing is set in stone, it is unlikely that we are going to change our mind. So every step forward is again like saying goodbye to the previous stage. At 31 am I ready to say goodbye to these things?

I know the solution is simply to enjoy it while you have it, and this whole post is rather self indulgent, but hey … it is my blog and to be honest that is what it is for

Saturday was Lisa’s Sports Day, leavers’ show and awards ceremony, with her nursery.

Thankfully they managed to avoid the rain, so the Sports Day was not cancelled for the second time running. She was incredibly cute concentrating extremely hard and desperate not to cheat (thus she got beaten by the ruthless child with no ethics. I mean going on the “B” of the Bang is one thing but that little cheat deserved a good spanking… obviously I’m not bitter … honest )

As for the show and awards ceremony … it was emotional! We got a whole bunch of 4 year olds enacting various nursery rhymes and fairy stories. Lisa was a Swan in the story of the Ugly Duckling … a masterful rendition, the absolute embodiment of the role.

Then it was the awards ceremony. They gave out the swimming certificates and coasters with the children’s photos etc and Lisa won the Millennium award for being the all-round “best” pupil. Well if pride is one of the deadly sins … I could have a problem. I almost burst with joy.

Well iPhone day is here!

And after a rather convoluted 4 hour process I am now in possession of a 3G iPhone.

I will leave you with my unboxing photos to show you that I really am a geek. (It also achieves the effect of mocking my best mate Guy who failed to pick one up)

As you may have guessed, this post was written on my new iPhone.

Today was Lisa’s last day in Nursery (Kindergarten) quite an emotional day for everyone. It seems like yesterday that we were taking her in at 3 days old to have her photo taken with her older brother. So these people have been like family right from when she was incredibly little.

When Bart left we consoled him by telling him that he would stay in touch because his little sister would still be there, and this is the same line we have used with Lisa. However we will have to come up with an alternative consolation for Maggie, as we are not having more children just to keep the nursery in business.

The thing is that this is only one of a few earth shaking changes going on in Lisa’s life right now.

1. She has go a new little sister, and although we have not witnessed too much resentment it would be foolish to overlook such a momentous change in her world
2. From being a wee tot Mrs Geek’s mum has been Lisa’s main source of childcare, and although we have increased the amount of time she has been receiving at nursery, it is a very recent thing that she is no longer getting her “Grandma Days”
3. As mentioned above, the realisation that she is leaving nursery, and thus she is going loose contact with many of her friends is all too apparent
4. Then we have the prospect of “Big School” looming on the not so distant horizon

All in all it is possibly not all that surprising that she has been a little more “challenging” lately, but there is no denying that she has been somewhat more “Wilful” lately. We are working on the theory that once things settle down again, she will be back to her regular happy-go-lucky self.

We just have the sports day and the leavers play to get through now, but to be honest I think I might be the one most in danger of crying at that one

You may or may not have noticed that I have attempted to keep my blog semi-anonymous. Don’t go thinking that I am some privacy junkie or that I am paranoid (because we all know it is not paranoia if they REALLY ARE OUT TO GET YOU … right?

It is simply that this is my blog, and I want to be able to say what I want to say without it reflecting on either Mrs Geek or my children. For example, I have very different views on many things to those of my wife who teaches in a Catholic Highschool. Now I don’t believe that I have said anything particularly controversial, but I reserve the right to do so in the future, without the fear of it being used against her. I therefore do not want my blog to show up when someone types either my name or indeed Mrs Geek’s or any of our children’s names into google.

So until now I have used the generic terms “My Son” and “My Daughter” to distinguish between them, but as you know I now have another little one to add to the mix! It would not take many lines of typing before I got fed-up of typing “My Eldest Daughter” or “My Baby Girl” (Not to mention the jealousy that it would cause my Eldest Daughter to think that she no longer fit that role).

So I have been racking my brains for a suitable set of pseudonyms. I read other blogs with children with pseudonyms Tendrils’ has Punky (On reflection I am only guessing that is a pseudonym as it would be somewhat unusual in this country, but who knows what you yanks are like (Tendrils - Please for give me if I am wrong)), RC has her Little Dude, Book Mama had Book Boy (formerly known as Big Brother and Little Sister, Alias Mother has the Buddha Baby and Twisted Cinderella has her Princess… but I did not feel that any of these fit for our specific mix of personalities. After much head scratching on my part, my son unwittingly (and probably much to the chagrin of Mrs Geek) gave me the inspiration for the rechristening of our little cast of characters.

As I may have pointed out, my son was really hoping that our youngest would be a boy, so we were worried that he may be a little disappointed if (as was the case) the baby turned out to be a little girl, to which he informed us that it would be “ok because that would make us the same as the Simpsons!”.

And much to our amazement it fits all too well.

My son henceforth to be known as Bart is high energy, quite rebellious, not exactly adverse to breaking the odd rule and he has developed skateboarding skills that I can only dream of.

My eldest daughter is obviously Lisa. While being far less in your face than her brother, she still seems to have a well formed sense of quite self belief. Hopefully she will grow up with a better self image than her fictional counterpart, and stay away from all the Millhouse’s of the world.

As for my youngest, she has yet to shoot anyone, but she has the dummy (Pacifier) thing sorted.

Not Mr Geek!

I do however have a wife that is way too good for me so I will leave any other comparisons to Marge lest that ceases to be the case!

I’m back… again

I know it has been 10 days now, but it’s better late than never and all that, so … I would like to say a big thankyou to everyone that has sent kind comments and gifts to the latest addition to the Geek household.

Mother and baby are both doing well (that phrase is so quaint), and life is slowly approaching normality. Well at least with respect to the whole new baby thing. My older two are having quite a busy time at school, with sports days, concerts, award ceremonies etc. They do not seem to realise that if I am going to carry on paying for them to go to this school, I will have to actually show up at work at some stage.

Having said that, the last few weeks have showed what a wonderful family feel their school has. Everyone has been so wonderful and friendly, with cards from teachers and staff, gifts from other parents.

So once again to all those that have been kind to us over the past couple of weeks, be it presents, cards or kind wishes, Thankyou.

Well … I don’t know what all the fuss is about … I hardly felt a thing!

In all seriousness everything is well and we are the proud parents of a healthy baby girl. She was born at 10:43 (after 3 hours of labour) and weighed in at 7lb 8oz.

Mummy and baby are both doing well, and are hopefully sleeping for now.

I’ll leave you with some photos to be going on with.

Must be quick … looks like things are beginning to start moving … wish us (Well Mrs Geek) luck!

I read a post on Tendrils’ blog yesterday and it got me thinking.

I think that teaching is possibly the most under appreciated profession in our society. Now I’ll declare my hand in that Mrs Geek is in fact a teacher, so I have a vested interest, but I will counter that with the fact that it gives me an insight into the Herculean efforts put in, often above and beyond the call of duty.

For a while, it was seen as the fall back profession for those that get to the end of their degree and fail to get any other meaningful employment, certainly when I finished University that was how it was viewed. But since then significant investment has been put in to make it a desirable job once again. At least that is one thing this government has got right.

But to the general populous in this country, the teacher is seen as little more than glorified childcare. You leave your children with these teachers, and hopefully they return them with a little bit more inside their heads.

Now I am going to sound like an old fellow with a cane and spectacles when I say that the problem with young folks today is that they have no respect for authority.

I don’t actually believe that to be true in general, most kids are good kids that when push comes to shove, know their boundaries. But there is that small slice of the pie that don’t. This in itself is not new, there were the “bad kids” when I went to school. What seems to have changed is that there is often very little parental support. If I was naughty at school, the thought of my parents being called in would have brought me into line pretty fast. This seems to no longer be the deterrent that it used to be. Worse, many parents actively undermine the authority of teachers by coming in and declaring that little Jonny is an angel and so any misbehaviour has been the fault of the teacher in question.

What people don’t see is the emotional investment that teachers put into their pupils. From the headache cases to heartbreak cases.

A good teacher is like a candle - it consumes itself to light the way for others. ~Author Unknown

There was a great advert on TV a while back, stating that everyone can one teacher that made a difference to them. This is certainly true for me. I had a number of good teachers, but I would like to go on record and say John Carr was not only a great teacher, but was also possibly one of the most inspirational and influential people in my time growing up. I owe a lot of who I am today to that man.

Thankyou Mr Carr