Hiawatha

Ages since I've posted (as usual!).

We've been doing lots of camping, and our Vango Orchy 400 has done us good (appalling grammar!). At only 11.5kg it means that we can carry it around on an Ikea trolley and we haven't needed a car (apart from perhaps for the campsite that was 30 mins walk from the train station up a steep dirt track!)

A little bit of EC has been done, and I have moved M up to Maths Reception level as he just about finished the Nursery level, and he wasn't that taken with it. He's had several birthday cards to write in recently and we're at the stage where if I say the letter he will write it down. I was completely shocked the first time I tried this, as we've done no writing practice.

Pirates are beginning to get on my nerves. M's vocabulary has moved on to the uglier side of pirating (if there is a nicer side!) and I have to explain that its not so nice to talk about being stabbed and using knives and swords around his friends because they don't understand. To which he replied, "But Mummy, I'll just explain it to them and they will understand and then it will be okay."

Yesterday, M found another of the Daily Mail DVDs that MIL sent us; Hiawatha. Since yesterday we have watched it about 6 times. Never say that my son doesn't have obsessions!
I've ordered the children's Penguin version of the poem and a book about Native American crafts for us to do.
Its opened up a few good discussions already. One of which I'm stuck on. How do you explain what belief is to a 4 year old? I'm trying to explain why the Native Americans believe that the comet will bring a great calamity, but that its what they believe, rather than the comet actually bringing starvation......

All of M's friends start school this week, even though legally they don't have to go for another couple of years :rolleyes
I've had my usual start of school year jitters, mainly revolving around trying to work out who is doing what when so that I can plan when we can get together with M's friends to play. Luckily this year he has some friends schooling in the morning, some in the afternoon and some all day, so we have all bases free at some point.

M will go back to atelier again starting when we come back from our holiday in mid September, but going 2 afternoons now. I've also signed him up for football again, and I'm looking for some sort of gymnastics class as he's said that he would like to do that, but its proving very difficult. Most of the classes are for babies (I don't need any more reminders that I am sans bébé, thank you!) so I think I'll try the commune office and see what they suggest.

I probably should do a birthday post, seeing as my little boy turned 4 two weeks ago. Apparently we are officially now allowed to call him a big boy!

My big boy turns 34 tomorrow, so we are off into town this morning to get him a present. M wants to get him some chocolate biscuits, and A has requested a pillow. Note the personalities of the pair of them coming through here..........