Well, this month has brought another few landmarks in our household. At the beginning of July, my son turned five. He was convinced he was going to grow overnight and be taller when he woke up on his birthday, but unsurprisingly, it was not to be. We had a ‘pirates and princesses’ party with all his friends which involved my children and my husband walking down the street in full pirate regalia and getting some very strange looks. It also gave birth to a few pirate jokes, e.g. what does a pirate have up his sleeves? Altogether now: his arrrms!
Five seems very important: it is after all, half a decade and a real unit of measurement as lots of things come in fives, such as toes, the Famous Five (my favourite books from childhood), five Olympic rings etc. We even have a terrestrial TV Channel 5, not to be confused with Chanel No. 5. And of course, I’ve found a couple of bloopers (which seem appropriate as we’ve had toys similar to this) on www.failblog.org:
And then came the end of the school year. My son has come on in leaps and bounds in reception. He was late to start talking, preferring to sign, and had speech therapy which has most definitely paid off. (Where’s the off switch?) We thought we had bypassed nursery rhymes (the week after the speech therapist saw him for his penultimate appointment when she asked if he was singing nursery rhymes, he came out with Queen’s We Will Rock You). His wonderful teachers have helped to extend this development and we even had “Rain in a Manger” at Christmas. He struggles with words like competition and says “comtepition” but comes out with “interactive whiteboard” and “independent learners”. I was so surprised to hear the latter that I thought he’d said “in the pink pyjamas”! What a difference a year makes and in a few short weeks he will progress to year 1 and his sister to year 4.
Oh my goodness, where has the time gone?