My Poor Baby

My poor baby has been ill today. He woke me at 12 :50am this morning, and he was sick at 1:00am, 2:15am, 3:30am, 4:15am and 6:30am.

By 7:00am he was asking for cornflakes (no, he didn't have them, he was allowed small sips of water), by 8:00am he was asking for spaghetti (he didn't have that either, just more sips of water).

At 10:00am I allowed him 3 chocolate buttons, at 11:00am he had another 3. At 3:30pm, 9 hours after he was last sick, he was finally allowed the spaghetti. He ate it and asked what was next. Errm, nothing?

He was so good, didn't make a fuss about being sick, and I'm proud of him. He has been a bit whingy and clingy today, but he's only 4 after all and we had very little sleep last night. The bit that upset me was that even though George's daddy has been away since the 7th of June and is thousands of miles away, this morning was the first time that my brave little man cried and said he needed a snuggle off his daddy. Just about the only thing I couldn't fetch for him.

Old fish, Goodbye fish, new fish

George's two goldfish died this week. One of them was eating less than the other, and the healthy one was growing noticably larger. On Monday morning, the smallest fish died. We buried it in the garden (at 6:45am), with due ceremony.

Once I had removed the smallest fish, the biggest fish just stopped swimming. We have had them for three years, and for most of that time, they have been swimming side by side, constantly touching each other. Twelve hours after I removed his friend, the biggest fish was also dead.

Luckily, George is quite accepting of death and dying. We had a new tank, so it was cleaned and the water set up and ready. Twenty four hours later, with the water ready, neither of us could wait until Thursday (our first day off) for new fish, so we went to the shop tonight and came home with two tiny goldfish. I now realise exactly how much the others had grown! I'd like to show you the new fish, but they're a bit too fast moving just yet. Thay have also taken up opposite ends of the tank. I hope they make friends soon!

In memory of Bill and Suzy (whose name changed from Ben when she/he died), here is a picture of little George, many, many moons ago, and his first pets.

While I was looking for a "fish of the past" photo, I also found a very funny picture of George from when he was small which I thought you may like to see. Luckily, I have managed to teach him that standing on the table is a bad idea. It must have seemed like a good idea at the time.....the expression on his face says that he is up to no good.

Reading and writing

George sometimes gets annoyed that he can't read or write. I have been trying to teach him to write his name, but so far he has refused to let me show him how. On Thursday he finally let me hold his hand and guide him to show him what the letters should look like. He already knows what the letters are called, and could write some of them. Here is his second attempt at writing his name, made on his own this morning. I think we're getting somewhere at last.

Moral support

George is an enthusiastic supporter of me, his elderly mother, lol. In his eyes I am capable of who knows what.

Today he asked me to scan and copy a picture for him, so that we could cut out some characters for him to play with, but without ruining the original picture.

I have a new printer which I haven't used to scan and copy pictures with until today (I've had it less than a week). I told the boy that I would do my best to do as he'd asked.

"Give it all you've got mum" was his response. Four going on........forty?

Earthsong

Really this story starts with my ipod - George wants one too. On Wednesday I bought myself a cd player for my bedroom as there are some cds that I wanted to listen to. As I also have an ipod, I bought an inexpensive player with an ipod docking station. George couldn't resist having a play with it, and Michael Jackson's "Earthsong" came on (the only MJ song that I have).

George asked who was singing and I told him. "But mum, you said Michael Jackson was dead" he replied (which was a relief as contrary to appearances it means he can actually hear what I'm saying). I explained about recording, and he started listening to the song.....which then led to a discussion on pollution, global warming, the melting of polar ice caps, no homes for polar bears etc.

He wants to go litter picking on the beach this weekend. He also asked what people were doing to save our planet so I mentioned "Friends of the Earth". He wants to join.....he is 4 years and 8 months old. I don't know if I should feel proud or just plain worried!

Everything is growing

Everything is growing well here. This is a picture of George, with the results of his pumpkin and lettuce seed planting. All of them, including George seem to be growing just as they should.

The "moobarb" had a bit of a problem though. We had to remove twelve caterpillars from it. George was very indignant that they had the cheek to be eating his moobarb leaves!

We've also had the start date for George's infant school. As from the 9th of September, he will be a big school boy. He came into school with me last week to hand over his information book that we had to fill in, and was charming and lovely to the school secretary. He is keen to go back for another look around on the 16th of July. I just hope he is as keen to go back once he has completed his first whole day.