The philosophical child

Me: It’s just that I don’t want you to watch the later Harry Potters. They’re scary and I don’t want you to be scared.

Archie: Why are  tthey scary? I know all the characters and I’m not scared of them

Me: yes but you don’t know all the things that happen. Some are horrid. And there’s lots of death.

Archie (looking reassuring): but mummy, death on TV and films is OK. Death for me, that would be bad, but on TV it’s OK.

I was quite taken aback by this exchange. He seems far more sorted at 5 than I was at about 15!

Would you rather…

We were playing a game of  ‘would you rather’ on a long, boring car journey. You know, things like ‘would you rather live at the top of a very tall building with only stairs, no lift, or underground with no windows’. We were rolling along happily and then Archie came up with ‘Would you rather work in a city where shark sausages came out of the road, or on a mashed potato island?’

Fess up, who slipped a tab of LSD in his packed lunch?

Shockingly slack

Yes, I am. It all went a bit pear-shaped blog-wise around Easter time and look my goodness, here we are in June. But the brief update is that all is well, Archie is reading very well now and has gone up to level three at school (he seems to be rocketing through this as well). Tom came for a sleepover which occasioned much grumpy mummy as they got up at 4am (school night) and had to be told to be quiet FIVE times over the next hour and a half. Sigh.

Anyway, will be making more of an effort from now on. Consider wrists slapped.

A milestone

Archie asked me a question this morning that I wasn’t able to answer without looking it up on the web. The first time. The first of many….

‘Why is it called Good Friday if that’s when Jesus died’?

Size discrepancies

Trevor: What did you have to eat at Leigh’s?

Archie: a doughnut.

Trevor: Oooh, was it nice?

Archie: yes, it was a big one.

Trevor: ah. You won’t want any tea then.

Archie: mmmm, well, it was actually the size of a small harvest mouse.

More gems from the world of young love

Archie: Mummy, when I told a big girl at Leigh’s house that I was in love with Bea, she laughed at me.

Mummy *trying to keep straight face*: Oh dear. That’s a bit mean of her, isn’t it?

Archie: Yes. And Noah laughed at me too.

How very splendid to be in love at five. Not looking forward to the break-up though.

The gap filled in

So I’m not quite sure what happened to January and February, just that it seems to be March now and I’ve made no blogs at all. Life intervened. Anyway, lots to report, most importantly that Mr Smith junior is now a whole five years old, and had a rather brilliant Star Wars party to prove it. From Pin the Lightsabre on the Yoda to Destroy the Death star (a painstakingly-made pinata in the garden, hung up in our gazebo with fairy lights to provide the stars!) there were party games a plenty, much food and drink (Yoda Soda, Chewbacca juice) and a lightsabre birthday cake. All the little Jedi Princesses and Princes passed their tasks and were rewarded with a certificate bearing their names and a lightsabre made from a pool noodle. They were delighted.

In other news, Archie has a serious girlfriend, Bea, who is a sweetie. Each night we get several drawings from Bea brought home in Archie’s bag, with pictures of them as mummy and daddy and lots of little babies. Frightening. Archie seems a bit sheepish about the whole thing but has been seen enthusiastically telling people that Bea is his girlfriend, and her mum updates me on the romance daily at school (boys not being so good at talking about these things, it appears, even from an early age. This is Bea, at the front (at the back is Macy, a love rival!):

Disco Daze

Yes, I know, a huge gap. I’ll fill that in in a minute.

But first, I have to log this for posterity. This morning on the way to school I told Archie that I would be going to the school disco with him to help out. His response: ‘Yay! That’s fabulous mummy! I’m so excited. I’m going to get everyone to sit down on the floor and we can do a dance’.

I can’t believe there will be many occasions in his life when his day will be made by the news that his mother is accompanying him to the disco.

Updates!

Attack of the (Christmas-dinner-stuffed) Clones

Gosh, that was a long pause. Well, Christmas, snow, new year, broken car, birthday parties… that kind of sums up the past three weeks. We had a lovely Christmas, spending time at Nana and Grandad Beard’s for the actual day, then heading to the Isle of Wight to see the Armfields (which is where the car somewhat spectacularly died, and where, at the time of writing, it still is. Though hopefully to be picked up tomorrow. Paid for by a rather huge chunk of holiday money. Poop). We were rained in on the island though managed to turn it to our advantage, not leaving the front room for two days, playing every board game in the house, beating each other on the Wii, eating trifle and generally being layabouts. Twas great.

Schnoooow!

Then it was off to Hove to see Granny and Grandad, and lots more wholesome walks on the South Downs, at which Archie did very well, given that he is only wee, and at which I did not so well, managing to get large blisters from my wellies. Which is ridiculous as I’ve worn them to lots of festivals with no ill effects, but there you go. Anyway, Granny kindly swapped boots halfway down, saving my life somewhat.

Straight after new year it was Oscar’s party, at a soft play centre, then back to school, then off school because of the snow, then back to school again. Which brings us to now. Archie is super excited about his Star Wars birthday party next weekend and we’ve spent the day on such wholesome activities as making a death star pinata, a lifesize painting of Yoda (for Pin the Lightsabre on the Yoda) and I’m currently attempting to cook his lightsabre cake in two asparagus tins. Minus the asparagus of course.

When did children’s parties get so complicated?

Beautiful South Downs

Merry Christmas!

Well, we were trying to upload our Christmas song but it seems wordpress has other ideas. So you’ll just have to imagine it until we can figure it out… meantime, very happy Christmas to you!