Reading with Rover

There is a local charity here called Reading with Rover. Their mission is "to inspire children to discover the joy of reading while developing literacy skills and confidence in a safe environment using Reading with Rover Dogs." If you want to read more about it you can look at their webpage at http://readingwithrover.org/

Yesterday, our local second-hand bookshop had a Meet the Author with a children's author. We took the kids along to listen to her read her book "Don't Lick the Dog", which is about how to approach a dog. Afterwards the kids were able to read to two Reading with Rover dogs. Isaac insisted on reading to both dogs and read the book by the featured author. Lizzy was hesitant about reading to start with - but then we found a second-hand book called "Olive My Love". It's a book about a dog called Olive (you might know her from Olive the Other Reindeer) and it just so happened that one of the Reading with Rover dogs was called Olive. This tickled her fancy, so she happily read to Olive. Kai was Kai. He ran all around the bookshop and happily patted the reading dogs. Who cares about authors at this age.

All over it was a fun experience, and I was very impressed with the Reading with Rover program.

What does a bird say?

If you ask this of most people, they would tell you that a bird says "tweet, tweet" or something to that effect. However, in our household, if you ask Kai what a bird says (or if he sees a bird) he says "caw, caw".

I think this might be a good indication to you about how many crows we have around us.

House Extention

Yesterday, Isaac and I had an interesting conversation in the kitchen.

"Mum, are you going to have another baby?"

"No" Pause. "Do you think we need 4 kids instead of 3?"

"Yes."

"But Isaac, we don't have room for another baby".

"We could get a house extention."

"And where would this house extention go?"

"We could get a 3rd floor. Nathaniel & Jonathan have a 3rd floor."

Yes I suppose there is a solution for anything. However, I think we'll skip this one.

Dare Devil

I think I have a little dare devil on my hands.

For a while now, Kai's been trying to climb up on my small (but tall) round footstool. Yesterday he suceeded. He then stood on the footstool, huge grin on his face and arms out wide.

The other thing he loves to do is stand on our bed and do a free fall forward onto the matress. Usually he'll stand up with his feet under my legs and then throw himself forward, keeping his body straight. It's worth lots of giggles.

Ben & I have been debating whether our first broken bone will come from Lizzy or Kai.

Growing Up

It's a bitter sweet day when you are folding your washing and suddenly realise that you have sorted one of your sons shirts in with one of your husbands. He's getting bigger every day.

Math Helper

Lizzy came home with a worksheet which she completed during math time. It was all about greater, between and less. I looked at it, rolled my eyes and asked "Was that easy, hard or just right?"

"It was easy, Mummy. But I finished first and then I got to help other kids in the class."
"Did anyone else help?"
"Just Mrs Lenderman."

The next day she bought home another. This time I simply asked whether she helped anyone in her class. The answer was yes.

I do hope she's going to get something a little more challenging than helping others with their math.

Daddy Preference

It has started. Kai is going through his daddy preference stage. I knew it would happen sooner or later, as all my kids have done it. I'm still good for food, but he'd much rather Ben do everything else for him.

The cutest one is each night after dinner. Kai gets down off his chair and I tell him it's time for a bath. He walks over to Ben and pulls on Ben's leg. He often will head off towards the bath but if Ben doesn't get up straight away he goes back and pulls on his leg again. The funniest thing is that once he's in the bath, it's OK for Ben to leave. I wonder for how long though. If Isaac is any indication the amount of daddy preference is only going to grow over the next month or two.

Bob

Kai has a new love in his life. It is Bob the Builder - otherwise known as Ba Ba Baa. However, there is an episode where Pilchard (the cat) gets stuck in a tree over a pond. Without fail, Kai will sob because Pilchard is in trouble. Unless Ben & I are sitting down holding him, we no longer let him watch Pets in a Pickle. It's just too upsetting.

I've got to think it's because he loves our cat so much (much to Cleo's dismay).

Family History

While Kai is napping, I'm spending my time on a volunteer family history project called "FreeReg". I am helping transcribe historical parish registers, and right now I am transcribing records from the 1700's in Rochester, Kent, England.

I wish my ancestors died in Rochester. The vicar is a rare man for his times, and he records lots of interesting information on his parishioners. I know who was an Alderman (obviously you had to be pretty old to be an alderman because quite a few of them are dying), I know who committed suicide, who was accidently killed, and I even know the ship on which someone captained. I know who died in the workhouse, and who had a higher social status, as they are recorded as Mr or Mrs. Even better, every entry has whether they lived in Rochester or somewhere else. This is a historical gem field. Most registers at this time usually only had a name and date - if you are really unlucky a widowed woman is recorded as Widow Smith.

I am enjoying this project, despite the fact that Ben laughs and tells me he couldn't think of anything more boring.

Ouch!

Ben commented that my blog makes it seem like we lead an idealic life with a happy family, which has nothing go wrong. Well just to proove a point, I'm letting you know that I slammed my finger in the car door on Wednesday. Oh how it hurt! I actually looked at it and my first thought was "I think I've broken it" thanks to the indent the door left. Luckily it wasn't but now I have a pinky which is slowly turning purple.

Ben was on his way home from New Zealand, so I was so thankful that I have friends whom I can call and say "I need to go to ER. Can I drop my kids over at your place?" And I was especially thankful that Kai has been to Kristina's house often enough that he didn't scream when I left - which is what he does at church nursery each week.