Building up

December can be a very long month, as the boys get increasingly excited about Christmas. I suppose it's hard for us to remember that mounting festive excitement as the month turns from November, the advent calendars are bought, the Christmas lists mulled over and the toy shops browsed, the late afternoon and evening darkness gradually brightened by lights and decorations both public and private and the promise of presents growing day by day.

We do have to be patient though, realise the excitement leads to wayward behaviour, late nights through not being able to get to sleep, which in turn leads to tiredness and more fractious behaviour. Patience and a little indulgence too, as we'd like to enjoy Christmas with the boys when they're still young enough to appreciate the magic of it all.

I took the big three into town on Saturday afternoon, for want of anything better to do and to get them outdoors. We parked in the Sheraton car park and took a short cut through the hotel which was very festive inside with a spectacular gingerbread village display. There was no sign of the reindeer in Princes St Gardens so we made our way along Rose St instead, stopping in at Jenners to see the tree then nipping round to the Dome in all its festive gllory. It must be about fifteen years since it opened but it has since become a centrepiece of Christmas decoration in Edinburgh.

The boys were fortified by pancakes and juice from Greggs ("I love Greggs" - Sean) and delighted to get a run at the American Candy store. To give them their due, they know not to pester to get their purchases all at once and are quite happy for their bounty to be rationed over a period of days or longer, often forgetting they have sweets (except for Sweet Tooth Sean, of course). I picked up Angus from Sharon on the way home. She brought him in on the bus on her way to a "bag party" for her team at Ocean Jewellry in Lothian Road and then a meal at the Edinburgh Larder in Alva St.

On Sunday we had the St. Johns over for tea, Sharon cooking a splendid pot roast. Alex and Louie had a great time with Sean and Finn with Rowan doing his best to get involved too, although Rowan's attempts at involvement generally mean he is diving or jumping on people. Such is the lot of the wee brother trying to get attention. He's been a wee bit sensitive of late, short on confidence. His reading is fantastic however, and I bought him a bedside spotlight so he can read in the evenings and mornings without disturbing Angus. He's currently getting stuck into the Enid Blyton "Mystery" series, discovering the delights of Fatty and the Five Find-Outers. Sean re-read the whole series that I bought for Rowan's birthday. It's nice to hear them discuss books they've read.

Rowan Rowan Redbreist

Rowan was picked as one of the three representatives of his class to recite the J.K.Annand poen "Robin Robin Redbreist" but didn't quite make the final cut. That didn't matter to us though because it was great to see him confidently deliver the short poem in the Scots tongue, despite him still being a little unclear in his enunciation of "r". He was taking every opportunity to recite it in front of any gathering in the house, bringing a tear to the eye of several Pampered Chef ladies! It was good to see him concentrate on something. He does have good memory, that is evident in the speed with which he is taking to reading, but his inability to stay still and give you attention and appear to have understood what you are saying and act upon it, is a cause for concern, especially if he continues to behave that way in class.

All the Wallace boys were in the MacPherson clan at school, which was part of the Growing Confident Kids programme at Pentland. There were four clans, with members from each class. They had Highland Games type events, were learning songs and dances and all things Scottish. There was a showcase event with lots of things on all over the school. Sharon went along to see it. Finn continues to get a lot more homework than Sean, which Finn finds frustrating. He doesn't enjoy the word side of things, spelling and making up sentences. Usually this ends in tantrums and tears. He enjoys his maths and his reading is great (as is his joined-up writing) but he just cannot seem to settle into writing a few creative (or even basic) sentences without a long rigmarole. He finished "The Enchanted Wood" this week which is by far his longest book to date, so he was quite rightly proud of that achievement. Sean continues to cycle though the Harry Potter tales despite my efforts to get him to branch out. He's read some of them four times now.

Three meetings

We were down at the school this evening for Parents' Night, with an increasingly difficult rota of appointments to attend now that Rowan has entered the system.

First up, Mrs. Urquhart, who is very pleased with Sean's work; his reading and maths being excellent. He still seems to be getting on well with most of his classmates and they've all been enjoying the Egypt project. The only thing, and we've noticed it too, is Sean's untidiness in his presentation, mainly caused by him rushing to finish first, which also makes for careless errors. Finn is a neater writer than Sean when Sean takes a slapdash approach so Sean needs to be aware of that and work more on his joined-up writing. He doesn't seem to be doing as much creative writing now and his reading, while still prolific, could maybe be more challenging (my view!). Sean still seems to rate books by the number of pages he can read and how quickly he can read them rather than whether he finds them entertaining. His recall and interpretation is very good however, and his imagination is still very active as we can see when he leads the play with Finn and Rowan. He's also been scared to go into his bed on his own of late being troubled by images of vampires in his head and has taken to sitting listening to stories with Finn and Rowan once more.

Rowan has settled in right away at pre-school and is widening his circle of playmates beyond Duncan. He has been noted as very chatty (no!) but is good at doing what is asked of him (he listens?) although he "can be easily led" by some of the more mischevious elements. No surprise there, but he actually will stop doing whatever he shouldn't be doing when told. If only that would translate to the house. All in all he seems to be enjoying himself.

We had a good look at Finn's work before and after our meeting regarding Rowan. His writing has come on a lot and we know from recent homework that his reading has really taken off in the last few weeks to the extent that Mrs. Henry is moving him up to join Aimee in the top reading group. She was delighted with Finn ("if only every child was as nice as Finn") due to the way he works hard and eschews the boisterous behaviour that a lot of the boys in his class seem to participate in. His confidence has improved over the course of P1 but he is still viewed as quiet (not in our house!).

It's always great to see examples of the boys' work as the homework is usually one-dimensional (reading or straight worksheets) and it's in class they do more creative or scientific subjects. Finn was out and about doing mapping with his class and they had put together some little books for World Book Day based on the ensemble of characters that each table had come dressed as. Sean's class had their Egypt work freshly posted on the walls. Sharon and I had helped him complete his poster (his subject was mummification) over the weekend although his attitude to homework can be rather lackadaisical.

All in all, a very good set of reports from our fine sons!

Under the influence

Rowan insists on calling me "Grampa" at the moment. Whilst I know that this is because he is stuck in a world of TV characters and insists on being called "Ben 10," it can still raise some eyebrows when he shouts "Grampa!" at me in a play park. At least he is answering to his own name occasionally. In Ireland he was insisting he was called "Manic" which, while quite apt as he rushed about like a headless chicken, is not the best name to use to refer to your child. Sean was "Shonic" and Finn was "Sonia" - characters from Sonic Underground, I believe. Undoubtably Rowan has been exposed to telly that we'd rather he didn't watch. While Sean was quite happy with CBeebies until well into P1, first Finn and now Rowan have moved on to more commercial offerings with predictable results. Their imaginative play is good but definitely focused more on cartoon offerings. Sean, when told he needed to get money for something, mentioned that he could sell an old mobile phone for cash!" Ah, the power of advertising.

Sean has moved on to reading Famous Five books. The boys enjoyed a couple of Famous Five spoken books I had on tape which whiled away some of the car journeys in Ireland and Sean is determined to read all 21 in order. He has fulfilled his "book keepers' quest" at the library and duly received his certificate, stickers and medal. Finn is doing more drawing and colouring lately and will write the odd word under instruction. Most of his drawings currently bear the legend FTOMAD which stands for "Finn to Mum, Angus, Dad." He's quietly excited about starting school, confiding to Sharon that he was looking forward to wearing a blue sweatshirt instead of the pre-school red one.

I took the boys to Peebles for a picnic on Sunday but we had to return home as Sean and Phoebe were booked into an activity at the library, to make a bug hotel. Sean duly returned home with half a melon, hollowed out and with windows, and a flag in its crown. He named it the Chicken Hotel, a phonetic response to the Cuiken Inn which we had passed on the journey to Peebles.

If you want blood

Forget official tests for literacy. There should be a marker in a child's development for when they realise, as Sean did on Tuesday walking into school, that "I can make TOILET from TO LET by putting an I in between the TO and the LET."

I had an introduction to Sharon's hectic life yesterday as she was up at Dundee on PC business so I had the joys of the multiple school drops and pick-ups, all with Rowan in tow. Having a cold didn't help but at least the boys were all in decent form. I even managed to take Rowan and Finn to Bonnyrigg soft play in between preparing a fish pie and strawberry and apple crumble for tea, putting away and hanging washings, making bread for myself and lunch for Finn, Rowan and myself. A house-husband's work is never done! And that was without trying to take PC phone calls and answer the odd e-mail.

Sean got one more sticker at swimming on Monday and was working very hard doing about eight 10m return swims from the deep end. Finn got his second merit star home from nursery, having completed his ten stickers for good behaviour. Rowan is still talking nineteen to the dozen. It was interesting to see who would come out the winner between him and Marie: I reckon Rowan shaded it.

Sean was off school yesterday with the cold that laid Finn low last week and has been running out my nose for the last couple of days. As ever, Sean was not the most gracious of patients but even he was deserving of sympathy this morning as he woke up with a horrendous nose-bleed. Finn summoned me as Sean had blood running from his nose, covering his sheets and pillow. He was sick too as we reached the sink, having swallowed a fair bit of blood. Mercifully the flow eventually stopped and he calmed down enough to go to school but it was a bad bleed.

Three out of five

There was only me, Sean and Rowan sitting round the kitchen table last weekend as Sharon and Finn were in Ireland. It wasn't quite as odd as last October when Sean and I were left behind last while the others headed to Spain, but it's a different dynamic without Finn, so often the catalyst!

Sean had a great weekend though. He was collected and taken to his pal Luke's house on the Friday afternoon (Luke has now switched schools to Buckstone) and then on Saturday Lesley and Stuart came over to mind Rowan while I took Sean to the driving range and then on to see Mamma Mia (again). He was getting frustrated with the golf (who doesn't!) and needs to work on that "I can't do it so I'll give up" attitude but he managed a 50-yard hit and quite a few in the 30-45 yard range; far more than last time. We went putting too but he's not got the touch or alignment for that yet.

Mamma Mia was very enjoyable and Sean was rapt throughout. It is very much a feel-good film with the added familiarity of the ABBA songs (over-familiar in our household - it's a wonder the ABBA CD's haven't melted yet). Rowan had a great time leading Les & Stu about the house all afternoon, chatting away and making demands. On the Sunday morning, Sean went to Ross's house while Rowan and I took a turn round the shops. We then picked up the travellers from the airport, with Rowan repeating "Finn and Mummy, chop chop chop!" from the back seat as we waited for them to appear.

Sean is becoming a bit of a bookworm. He is piling through Horrid Henry books from the library although his level of comprehension and interpretation is still questionable. He needs to ask more if he finds a word he doesn't know. He has given up on an Enid Blyton Five Find-Outers book after a few chapters as I think it was too wordy and a bit difficult for him at this stage. I'm sure he'll be making use of Lesley's collection of Enid Blyton books next year.