Maturity

Got home from Font around midnight on Saturday night (Halloween) to see a single carved pumpkin at home with a light inside. In the morning it transpired that someone that evening had taken Connor's pumpkin and smashed it just around the corner. I was taken with his reaction - very laissez-faire and musing on how he had the enjoyment from making the pumpkin. He was just a bit disappointed that I didn't get to see it. He's almost human sometimes!

Indoctrination

So it begins. Took the boys climbing today, of sorts. I thought Callum was ready for it; Connor less so, but organisational issues being how they are, I had the big two while Al was off with the little one.

The venue was Brant Fell. I'd gone there the previous day and done pretty much everything apart from the traverse and a fingery eliminate at about Font 7b (similar to Perfect Day direct at Gardoms, but smaller holds. Failed with a bad split tip, same as the last time I tried Perfect Day! I think that's related to Callum's steroid cream thinning my finger-tip skin). Callum was pretty happy, romped up 3 short things. Connor, not so happy. He tied on, but then didn't like it so bailed. He then tried to solo stuff instead. That boy!

Body Swerve

Cameron making us laugh again. I picked him up from nursery the other day and got home. Al was in the kitchen with open arms looking for a hug. He started off towards her, then dropped his shoulder, sold a beautiful dummy and went straight for the drawer with the pans to get some out and start banging! Not bad considering he's only been walking properly for less than a month.

Environmental influences

Thinking back to leaving Yorkshire also popped into my head how we learn things. I left Yorkshire just before I was 10. When I left, I said "Ow" when I fell over. Within a couple of months of living in Warwickshire, I said "Aie-Yah". WTF? Call it mirroring, blending, whatever. I had changed my behaviour from what was previously defined to suit my new environment.

We've recently had cause to consider how the kids are being raised, after being exposed to some new ideas and rejecting them. That's not what I want to directly talk about now though. It's more how things are learned. We think Connor has a very high tolerance to pain. Obviously, this isn't a boundary that most people want to find the limits of, so I say that based on watching him when he was smaller, and how he'd happily fall over when learning to walk, and had no fear. When I say fall, face-plant would be more accurate. He never seemed to learn to put his hands out, because nothing hurt him, therefore he never used to cry. But he's learned. Callum is much more vocal when he's upset, even if it's just a flesh wound. I think Connor has learned to cry from Callum even though he's not hurt, or in pain to the level where it causes him discomfort. But if he falls over, he's learned that he should cry. Interesting.

Crystal tones

Al's been pointing out a few occasions when I lapse into Northern; e.g. "Look at them cars, boys!". Not the greatest grammar in the world, and the kids have started to pick up on it. It reminded me of my own childhood, when my folks used to find mine and my brother's habit of dropping our H's quite painful. I often wonder if a contributing factor to leaving Yorkshire was to correct our speaking before it became an insurmountable problem. "'Ow do Fred, what's tha 'aving fer t' tea?". Whereas personally I find it problematic that our kids are currently growing up saying 'glarse' rather than glas. Oh well, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

Cameron

Something happened earlier this year and I'm only now comfortable enough to able to talk about it. It happened on 22nd June. At the time, it was terrifying, but it has a good ending.

Al had gone away for the weekend and I was at home playing single parent. Sunday morning, not quite woken from my reverie by Cameron crying softly, I got up, changed his nappy then put him on the floor in his room to play. Connor started calling to get me to come help him on the toilet. I left Cameron's room, pulled the stairgate shut and went to the bathroom to help Connor, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. About 10 seconds later I heard the worst sound that I've ever heard. A soft thudding as the boy went down the stairs, followed by immediate screaming. Fuck. I raced down to find a scene from a Tarantino film. I don't know whether the detachment comes from my (long expired) medical training, or that's just what people naturally do in these situations. I noted the pools of blood on the Mediterranean-tiled floor. Then the bump on his forehead where the blood was coming from, as I cradled him. "That's a strange looking bump, more of an indentation. Oh, that's his skull." Reaching for a muslin to try to apply pressure to the wound. It was too wide really anyway to allow effective compression, so I tried to pack the wound while talking to the emergency services operator. It was very hard to hear them with my own state and Cameron either in pain or understandably upset. Got the other two to dress themselves while the ambulance came and I got some clothes on and mopped up the blood. A big part of me even at that point was worrying Al'll kill me if she sees this, and I didn't want his brothers to see all the blood.

Nee-nah

The ambulance came and we all piled in. Callum and Connor were thrilled to be in the van with the sirens going off. I was probably white as and trying to speak calmly to Cameron as they strapped me on the bed and we moved swiftly to Frimley Park. The ambulance crew were great and we got there, Cameron having thrown up on the journey and coming close to closing his eyes a few times.

A&E was very quiet. Lots of fabulous nursing staff were there, and able to take some of the load in terms of getting out toys for the other two boys and Cameron showed an interest as well. Then I could phone Al at her hotel on the hen-weekend and relay the bad news. She took it as well as could be expected and we had lots of crying phone calls as she was driven from Bath to get to the hospital. Due to the lack of urgency in how we were being treated, I was getting more confident at this point that it wasn't life-threatening. By this time, it was the boy's nap time and the nursing staff were happy enough that he could go to sleep. Al arrived maybe 15 minutes after he went to sleep and came into the ward to see him sleeping with his eyes open, head lolling back in my arms and a cut wider maybe a centimetre wide and 6 centimetres long on his forehead, with the bone showing through. It looked ghastly and we were both crying again. We had some fraught communication with the Reg / SHO about where the best place for treatment was. Doubtless that wasn't helped by our frame of mind, and the language issue with the guy. But we were immensely happy with the level of treatment and service that the emergency services provide. You only really miss something when you don't have it anymore; I don't ever want to experience that loss with our primary medical care.

Support

Due to the nature of the head injury, Cameron was kept in overnight for observation. Our friends Alan and Alison provided invaluable help in taking the two older boys with them to a rowing regatta where they got spoiled on BBQ and ice-creams until I went to pick them up later. As an indicator of where my head was, I picked them up and promptly drove the wrong way around a roundabout. Fortunately the guy coming the other way was going fairly slowly, then my brain kicked in and I recognised where I was. Al phoned later with the results of the CT scan (she's very persuasive!).

Cameron and Al were transferred to St George's Tooting to go to the Maxillo Facial surgical unit, where Dr Singh did an amazing job of closing him up. We got to take him home the same day.

Retro

We examined the stairgate. It is a retractable one, which clips onto the opposing wall at the top and the bottom. The top clip was on a block screwed into the wall. I had placed the block 4 years earlier, which had then been removed and replaced by the painter, and endured some abuse from the other two swinging on it. We saw that it was fairly easy to just clip the gate on the top alone, without clipping the attachment on the skirting board as well. When set like this, effectively it acted like a catflap and Cameron would have had hardly any resistance to crawling against it. Not ensuring that this was properly attached was completely my fault. We were so lucky with how this turned out; from the blood pattern it looked like he'd surfed on his stomach down the first 5 steps and hit the skirting board with his head. From there, he'd rolled down the rest of the stairs to the tiled floor below, but somehow not done further damage to himself when he got to the tiles. Then the first order was shooting some video so that both sets of grandparents could see the extent of the damage and be assuaged that they didn't need to travel down to see him straight away.

So lucky, and so blessed.

Mouse in your hair is nothing

Just finished Russell Brand's Booky Wook, which is what the title references. Interesting in terms of the honest coverage, but it did feel a little rushed (zeitgeist is everything, darling). At one point he talks about when a mouse lived in his hair (I think it was referenced in the Jonathan Ross interview as well). We can top that. Callum has a nit comb from school; apparently part of the national curriculum to inform hygiene issues. Connor was using it on Al the other night and kept lifting her hair.

Al

Connor, what are you doing?

Connor

Looking for bees, Mummy.

Al

Not nits, Connor?

Connor

No Mummy, BEES!

Clever!!!

Cooking pancakes with the boys today, and Connor was getting a bit impatient waiting for a pancake to cool.

Connor

Can I have it?

Me

No Connor, it's too hot.

Cue the boy going into the cooking draw to get the oven gloves to pick up his pancake. Clever!

Development updates

Just logging the early signs. Connor was walking to nursery with Al the other day, and kicked a cat. There is a history there, the cat had previously scratched him, but even so! The other sign to be aware of is from when the boys recently watched the middle Star Wars trilogy. Afterwards, Callum wanted to role play and be Luke. Connor wanted to be Darth Vader. Enough said.

How to remove a key when a 2 year old has snapped the key off in the lock

Google to the rescue again. In case this helps anyone else avoid locksmith callout charges on a Saturday, I started off here and here, and was sufficiently enlightened as to solve it myself. Try checking that the key is in the correct orientation to be removed, twisting using a screwdriver where necessary. Then you should hopefully be able to use another key to push it out from the other side, and use tweezers to coax it out the rest of the way. The suggested superglue method wasn't necessary, but is a nice trick.

Connor responding to discipline

We were out in a restaurant for Al's birthday meal and Connor was playing with the door where we were sitting. We warned him not to do that or the waitress would come over and tell him off. Five minutes later, the waitress came over and the boy's first reaction?

"I'm not touching it!"

Hello Cameron

There we go, another smasher has arrived. I think there were various events and conversations that I wanted to record today, but it's late and I'm knackered. Blog more with photos tomorrow or the weekend.

The Hustler

There was a bag of sweets up on the kitchen top. Connor spotted these and was after them, but I told him "Not for breakfast". After I'd gone to work, he asked Al the same and got the same response. His reaction?

Connor:

OK Mummy, me just hold it, OK?

Al:

OK Connor.

(Al continues ironing. Some time passes)

Connor: (Coming back into the kitchen)

Look Mummy, me just hold it, OK?

Al:

Well done Connor.

(More time passes)

Connor: (Comes back into the kitchen again)

Look Mummy, me still hold it

Al:

Good boy, Connor!

After an hour, the ironing is done and Al's about to phone me to say how well-disciplined the boy's been, just holding the sweets. So she takes the ironing upstairs and comes back down to see Connor doing his Muttley laugh and just shy of shovelling all of the sweets into his mouth! Gamed by a 2 year old.

The Graduate

The Bash had his nursery graduation a couple of weeks ago (must put the photos up on Flickr) and then his last day in nursery was yesterday. He didn't seem too bothered; more excited about going on holiday and spending the summer with Al. But that 4 years has gone by fast!

Our little philosopher

Me

Callum, we don't need to take your toys into Legoland since there's enough things in there to keep you busy. How does playing with your toys make you feel versus going on a ride?

Callum

Happy.

Me

So what's a ride like then...like playing with toys.

Callum

So Daddy, when you're on the ride, it's like the ride is playing with you. You're the toy!

Me (slightly shocked)

Yes, that's right Callum. Good analogy.

Me

So Callum, your homework is to write an essay on the inside of a brick.

Callum

Silly Daddy, that's just pretend!

He's sharp, that one.

The Negotiator

A breakfast discussion with Connor:

Me

What would you like, Golden Nuggets?

Connor

Schweetie.

Me

No Connor, no sweetie for breakfast. Crispies?

Connor

OK Daddy.

Connor

Wee schweetie (holding his thumb and middle finger to indicate the size).

Seasonal Suffering

I took the boys to the park yesterday and Callum was very chatty. He noticed that I was quite snottery* and talked about how I had B-fever, rather than hayfever. Clever!

* I must have been married to a Scot for too long to corrupt the English language so.

Happy Birthday!

Had a party for both the boys at the weekend. Knackering!

Connor PeePee

Connor used his potty today for the first time.

Cheeky Mouse

The boys had both been given a chocolate log and some sweets. Connor troughed his as normal and was watching CBeebies when Callum came to tell me about his day. We spotted Connor going for Callum's chocolate log in his bowl on the couch and told him to leave it. He grabbed it and did it in one with a chuckle!