A Wonderful Teacher

As mentioned in my last post, Bart and Lisa finished school for the summer on Wednesday and thus ends Lisa’s first year of school! Where did that go! I don’t know if anyone else had the misfortune of watching the Adam Sandler film Click (Good concept, poorly executed, not recommended), but if feels like somebody is pressing fast forward and I really want them to stop!

I know that Lisa had a slight pang of hesitancy at moving on from the reception class, but her teacher had done such a good job at coaching them that moving on was the next natural step and that it was particularly exciting she really did not seem to find it very hard at all. I wish I found it quite so easy.

I was not quite so keen to let go of the past year. I loved taking my little girl in to class, slowly unpacking her stuff, big cuddles and goodbyes … but I’ll deal with it. The biggest pain for me was that she had been lucky enough to have best teacher in the world!

I know a number of people that read this blog (or at least that read it before my prolonged absence [tendrils and Mrs V] not to mention Mrs Geek) are teachers, but I hope they will forgive my bias. Even the great Mr Carr now has to settle for second place. Miss F (I think that remains anonymous enough) is to teachers what Mary Poppins is to Nannies … Practically perfect 🙂

I have tried and failed three times now to elaborate on how wonderful she has been. My trite offerings barley scratch the surface of how lucky Mrs Geek and I feel to have had someone we trusted so completely with our precious child’s transition from nursery to school life. A wonderful lady that clearly loves what she does. Who’s love for the children in her care was returned in bucket loads. Who understood the finer points of every child that she taught.

Having been through the same transition year with Bart, and a teacher that fought his character rather than attempted to engage him. Who tried to force him to comply rather than harnessing his enthusiasm. Thankfully he is thriving in his new school, and he has since re-found some of that enjoyment in learning that was so nearly lost, but I would give anything to have saved him that time, to have that time again so that he too could have had Miss F get the best out of him.

I just hope that she has no plans to move on before she gets to do her magic with Maggie!

Half Term

This week has been half-term … Well at least it is for my kids. Mrs Geek’s school has taken the alternative approach of starting half term on Good Friday. This meant that we had to arrange childcare for Bart and Lisa for the week. This is where my parents came to the rescue.

My parents have been looking after them down in Bristol (~200 miles from here), and it sounds like they have had quite some week, with day-trips to all the fancy places that we never take them.

It has been rather novel for us too. We have become so used to the chaos of three children that just having Maggie seems to be like coasting. I am sure it was far more difficult when we had just Bart! So for us this week has been all about productivity. After sending them on their way (Thanks to Guy [Bart’s Godfather] for taking them back with him), we spent a couple of hours in the garden, mowing and raking the lawn, rounding up the multitude of outdoor toys from every corner of the garden, and an overall tidy-up. A job that under normal circumstances would have taken a whole Sunday in the garden.

My next task was to clear the loft… 😦

Our loft hatch is 10ft from the floor and so narrow that I have to climb trough it sideways. In the loft is what can only be described as filth. Dirt, dust and debris that has accumulated over the past century (well almost, our house is 98 years old). I came back down looking like an old fashioned chimney sweep.

Tonight Mrs Geeks dad and I will be taking the first steps to install a sensibly size loft hatch.

On the positive side, it has allowed me to invest some serious time listening to audio books, and I may actually end up being able to remove all of the Christmas decorations, spare electronics, cables etc that are currently causing me claustrophobia every time I go into my office.

All in all, I think Bart and Lisa’s week may have been somewhat more exciting, but we did get to go to the early bird special at one of the local restaurants, which was a rare treat. Maggie really like the garlic bread!

Tomorrow Mrs Geek and I will be going down to see my parents and rescue them from our kids, but I fear the kids may not want to come home! We are banking on Maggie being cute enough to tempt them to come back with us 🙂

P.S. I appologise for the quality of these pictures, the iPhone camera sucks!

Merry Christmas

For those of you that did not get a physical card through the door, I now send it out in electronic form.

(Click for larger version)

Have a very Merry Christmas, and I hope to update you before the new year, but lets face it, I may well fail in this one, so just in case, I wish you all a Happy 2009 also!

P.S. If RC thought she humiliated her cat … try getting an 8 year old to pose with a tea towel on his head.

Little Angel

This week was Lisa’s school nativity play. I was asked to be the “Official Photographer” type person, and put together a slideshow for the parents, as in the past they had got a company in to video it, but it ended costing too much money. This meant that I got to go to every performance including the dress rehearsal and have pretty much unrestricted access to wander around taking photo’s. I also got access to the sound desk to record a track to put the music to the slideshow.

I was in heaven… I have mentioned before that I am a sucker for Christmas, mix Christmas with one of my children on stage and I am one very proud and happy Geek, allow me to take my camera and I might just burst!

Not so long ago I would have totally bought in to the little angel thing, but recently she has become significantly more naughty disobedient rebellious … lets say “wilful”. But speaking to her teacher, you get the impression that butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth.

So why the Jackal and Hyde, is she reserving her good behaviour for in school? I’ll admit it’s better than vice versa, but she really does seem to be testing where the boundaries are. I suppose to be honest, I don’t blame her. She gets away with far too much, but who could stay grumpy with this little angel?

B’Day

No, it was not a poor spelling for a follow up to Wat Da Daddy’s post on cleaning ones bottom, today I turned 32.

They say that you are only as old as you feel, but I think that could be the problem. My back aches, I am tired, I am forgetful (I lost my wallet, which since been found by the wonderful Mrs Geek), and my previous post was an “In my day”! I promise I am really only 32!

So in time honoured fashion of people feeling too old, I am going to ignore my birthday and tell you about Bart’s birthday which was on Saturday.

It started way too early for a Saturday. Most weekends he is up with the birds, and we tell him to read until his sister wakes … an arrangement that suits everyone. This Saturday, this was not an option. You could see the excitement oozing out of him.

He had been wanting to take guitar lessons for the past year, and the teacher finally got a opening, so we got him a guitar, and having had him “play” for us, after all of one lesson, I can say it is not nearly as bad as we had anticipated. There is something quite relaxing about an acoustic guitar, even when played badly.

After opening his other presents, it was time to get ready for his party at the local bowling alley, who it turned out had 5 children’s parties on and 3 members of staff. 2 hours of chasing around after 10 eight year old boys, given soft drinks, cake and balloon swords, I felt like a sheep dog on overtime. I fear this may have aged me 5 years on its own. Still I think they all enjoyed it and Bart certainly did, which is what counts 🙂

Maggie’s Beautiful Day

As I have previously mentioned, Sunday was little Maggie’s baptism, and it was truly wonderful. Friends and family gathered from near and far!

OK that makes it sound a little more grand an occasion than it really was, but it was a gathering of around about 40 people that we hold nearest and dearest to our hearts, and surprisingly the rain held off to allow us all to have what I know Mrs Geek and I found to be a most enjoyable day.

The event was made all the more amusing (to the guests, anyway) by the fact that I was hobbling around like a octogenarian, whilst trying to act as if nothing were wrong so as not to fuel the flames of Mrs Geek’s anger at me for playing rugby! I have nice friends like that.

The ceremony was beautiful and we truly are grateful to all who attended. Here are a couple of photos of the day (Please don’t draw attention to the fact that I have the posture of Igor from the old Frankenstein movies).

Entrusting the world with another of my offspring

I know she has been going to nursery, and I know she has been ready to go to school for the past year, but it my logic deserted me when Lisa got ready for her first day at “Big School”.

And for once there was very little protest at my need to photograph everything

So off we trotted to school only to find that, even after all the planning we were half an hour late.

Now I’m naming no names, **cough**Mrs Geek**cough**, but it would appear that we misread the instructions. But my brave little trooper just marched on in to her classroom and joined the rest of her class mates on the mat for a story.

Two and a half hours later, she was released from class. I asked how it was and if she enjoyed it, the answer I got was “It was fine”. There she goes again getting over excited 🙂 !?!

I can not tell you how proud I was of this little girl today … it does remind me of a song that I heard on the radio, which totally took me off balance as Paul Simon was totally not on my musical Radar … but I think it is possibly the most beautiful song I have ever heard (I know not exactly showing my masculine side today again)

I just would love to know if there was anything quite as wonderful about boys too.

I Do Not Like Them, Sam I Am

Not exactly green eggs and ham…

Bart Turns Bookworm

Well they do say that you can take a horse to water…

This is what instantly springs to mind when throughout the summer so far I keep turning around and there is Bart reading.

Don’t get me wrong he has always been a very capable reader, it is just that he gets a book every week during term time, and it is only through sheer force of effort (mostly expended by Mrs Geek) that he reads what he has to. It’s not that he can’t it is more that he can’t be bothered.

But in the past few weeks he has cleared the first two stacks of books the he got from the library progressing through the next.

I suspected that maybe he was missing school already, a claim I expected him to staunchly deny, but yesterday he told me that he wished he was back in school because he has to tidy his room while he is on holiday… I think he is missing his friends. (Not to mention all the love letters secret correspondence he keeps getting from a girl in his class)

What ever the reason it really is good to see him so enthusiastic about reading.

I’ll stop now before I jinx it.

Third Baby Syndrome

I think we may have a touch of TBS (Third Baby Syndrome) … let me explain

With Bart everything was new, so we tried to take everyone’s advice. Even mutually contradictory advice. Even though he was breastfed we sterilised everything. We used non-bio washing powder, no wet-wipes just cotton wool and water. They don’t tell you of the paranoia a new baby induces.

And then there is the single worst piece of advice that we were given by anyone. “Breast fed babies don’t need winding” … now in retrospect that seems ludicrous … but we were young and stupid, so we believed what we had been told, and this by a mid-wife too.

They say that dogs can “Smell fear”, well I think babies can too. Hence Bart was a somewhat unsettled baby.

Having learnt from the mistakes we made at Bart’s expense, Lisa had a far smoother ride, and maybe unsurprisingly she was a far more contented baby. She still got to have all new things, being that she was a girl and you can’t put blue on a girl!?!

Now we are at baby number 3. We have almost everything from before (not to mention the things Mrs Geeks sister has now accumulated for us), so she gets some of the luxuries that we couldn’t afford for the other two (It sound so unfair when you put it like that).

The theory was that we are now experts in this field, still making mistakes, but they are far less frequent (although I am booked on a course away for 4 days this week … That was seriously unwise, I’ll get to that in another post). But all in all Maggie seems the most calm and happy of our babies so far.

We were discussing this and other musings this morning, in a moment of mutual self satisfaction and “Aren’t we such good parents” refection, when it occurred to Mrs Geek that we have been so relaxed about the whole thing, that we had not registered the birth! We are not quiet at the stage where this is criminal, but it was close.

So she might not have wind or a sore bottom, but legally so far she does not even exist!

That good parenting halo might need a little polish 😉