Way overdue an update....

...so here goes.

Well, after the thrill of Ethan's 4th Birthday and Baptism the rest of the summer rolled on by up until Ethan started school on 14th September '09. He has really enjoyed the whole school experience but struggled a bit with the big playground initially, especially at lunch time. Too noisy and too many children [for him] I think. He's also never really taken to staying for packed lunch ~ possibly also linked in the beginning to his playground issues although those are resolved now but he's still not keen on eating his lunch at school. He's had a few weeks where he has stayed but mostly he comes home for lunch.

We finally moved house in November '09 so we're practically on the doorstep of the school now. I'm also working at his school as a Teaching Assistant in KS2 with three special needs children which I'm loving. This means that I'm never far away and this too makes the logistics of coming home for lunch even easier as we come home together. If he does stay for sandwiches then I do too so I can be close by if he has a wobbly.

The 4th March, 2010 was World Book Day and here is Ethan dressed up as Long John Silver obviously lol ;). He had a fab day!!

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He is doing great academically. He is reading and writing now and despite being the youngest in his year he is surpassing all expectations for his age. At the outset he was definately more of a Numeracy buff in preference to Literacy but this was no surprise to us as we always knew that he loved numbers. His school report indicated that he was way above his target level for his age in this area. That said he's recently ~ and by that I mean in the last six weeks or so ~ got very enthusiastic about his reading as was proved tonight when he spelt out a four letter word [a clean one I mean lol] using the letters on 'Countdown' ~ 'lips' was the word. Both Si and I were amazed. It's suddenly just clicked for him and he's reading everything from road signs to food packets.

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Although not keen initially to pick up a pencil [it's a boy thing] he's also just become keen to write, draw and colour anything and everything. I love the way that Ethan does things when he's good and ready and won't be rushed. He's his own man.

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On the health front we have good and bad. He was signed off from the hospital two weeks ago regarding his legs, the strange way he sits in a 'W' and the pain that he was getting behind his knees. So, that was great news. He still prefers to sit that way on the floor but will cross his legs like the other children on the carpet in class although is not keen to do that at home. Pretty soon he'll be at a desk for some of the day and at home he sits on the floor less and less as he grows up so I've a feeling it will become less of an problem as he matures. He is certainly getting far less pain, it's very rare that he mentions it now.

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Sadly he has just been diagnosed with Asthma. If I'm honest it wasn't a huge surprise as he's been showing signs for the last couple of winters that things could go that way with prolonged coughs with no apparent cause and coughs after colds that just won't shift for weeks. However, this year he's been alot worse and finally yesterday I took him to be checked as he's been dry coughing for weeks. The asthma nurse says he's pretty classic ~ exercise induced and seasonal asthma. ie he's going to wheeze and cough all winter especially after sports or playtime and be fine all summer. I kept him off school today to try and stabilise him as he's been quite poorly this week and he's very tired with all the coughing at night. Also I wanted to make sure he could use his inhaler confidently ~ he can, like a pro already :). I don't think he'll be well enough for school tomorrow but hopefully by Monday he'll be back on form. He had a much better night last night, barely coughing at all so the inhalers are starting to work their magic.

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So, I think that's about it. He's growing so fast and is still a complete joy to be with. Such a happy little chap with a really wicked sense of humour that is starting to show itself more and more often. We're hoping to get away on holiday this summer now we've moved so if we do I'll be sure to post photo's.

Christmas 2008...

Finally I've got round to posting some of the photo's from Christmas. We had a lovely day but most of us succombed to tummy bugs and colds from Christmas night onwards. Luckily for Ethan he has the immune system of a small ox so escaped without a single bug for the whole festive season. This was the first Christmas that he'd been able to anticipate and count down to the day which made it even more special.

Here he is standing in front the presents looking rather bemused and no, before you all start to groan those are not all his lol. Those are for all of us. The big santa sack you can see behind him to the right is his. He did very well and got far more than he needed. He hasn't got to the stage of waking very early to open presents yet so the day started at quite a civilised hour.

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He got a 'Glen suit' from Father Christmas ~ this is what Glen wears to teach 'Soccer for Tots' and they've started doing toddler sized kits so here's Ethan wearing his and looking mighty proud. It's still a bit on the big side as you can probably tell but once on he wore it for most of the day until we went for a walk after Christmas dinner.

Ahh yes, he also got a parachute which has given us hours and hours of fun. A very cheap gift and very good for imaginative games. He loves it. No, I hadn't had enough and tied him up for some peace and quiet he's just lying wrapped in it!! No, honestly he is hehe!!!

Here he is with me, I look fairly ok for a rather stressed 45 year old mother of six on Christmas day but Ethan looks like he's been on the wacky baccy ~ mad staring eyes, dilated pupils, fixed inane grin. All scary stuff. Simon reckons it was photographic pressure, his smile had been overworked from too much posing!! "Smile for the camera Ethan." Not his cutest look in my opinion but hey, he was excited!!

Preparing for Christmas

Ethan and Millie made some Gingerbread men and here he is icing his with the standard green, red and white icing. Look at the concentration on his face!! I'm not sure how much made it onto the gingerbread man and how much made it into Ethan's mouth but he didn't eat alot of supper that night. Hmmmmm!!!

Here he is helping to dress the tree. He found that the baubles made great footballs [now why isn't THAT a big surprise] and that they bounced really high off the laminate floor - groan!!! He also decorated himself as you can see. If I remember rightly he was taking the decorations off the tree faster than we could put them on. Look at that cheeky face - irresistible or what??

He thought that as we'd taken a photo' of him in front of the tree it was only fair that he took one of us.....and here we are..... you can tell he's taking it because we're both talking to him and directing him with the camera 'up a bit, down a bit' lol hence our rather bemused expressions. lolol

Ahhhh now we've collapsed into a mass of giggles. Goodness knows what Ethan was doing at this point but he did a great job of centering us even if he did catch us looking rather bizarre facially [who said 'no change there then'?? - cheek lol]

Home Schooling fun....

Ethan and I recently spent a day cutting out large basic shapes [triangles, squares, circles and rectangles] and made a life size picture of Ethan with them. Here he is modeling his achievements. Yes, I know he's got his Sportacus suit on AGAIN but what do you expect lol!!

Soccer for Tots - Autumn term '08

Here are some photographs of Ethan taken at Soccer for Tots in the Autum term [2nd October'08]. That is Glen with him who does a fantastic job of teaching these little ones all about the game in a very child friendly way. I've no idea how he manages to keep their attention but he does. Ethan loves it and we've never missed a session yet.

A little gem......

....to share with you all. Millie is off sick at the moment with some fluey type virus. She's been sat on the sofa and Ethan asked if she'd play scatch [catching game with velcro ball catchers] so they did for a while but Millie's head is pounding so she asked Ethan if they could play something a bit less energetic. Ethan suggested basket ball [he's still sports mad as you can tell] but Millie said no, something quieter would be better. Ethan pipes up "It's okay Billie, I won't talk while we're playing". lololol I'm not so sure that's quite what she had in mind.

Just love him xx..

S xx

First Official Engagement....

Ethan went to his first birthday party this afternoon. His cousin Gracie is two tomorrow and Sarah [Simon's sister-in-law] threw a lovely party with "Magic Dave" as the entertainment. The weather was amazing for October; Ethan was in shorts and a Tshirt it was so warm. I've taken a few photo's [yes, yes, I know - 'At last', I hear you cry, the girl remembered the camera].
Anyhow here they are. You can see just how wonderful and sunny it was.

His first stop as soon as we'd handed over the present was the Crazy Coupe cars - he spent hours in one.

He wasn't at all sure about ol' "Magic Dave" and retreated to the very back of the group of children to watch from a safe distance on daddy's lap........

......after a while though he started to get a bit braver and here he is craning forward to see better and he's clapping along and shouting out the answers with the other little ones......[Er Simon - is that a beer I see in your hand???]

.....here is "Magic Dave" in action. He really was very good and threw a bit of inuendo in for us adults. We were very sure that Dave worked part-time for ASDA and was infact moonlighting - isn't that an ASDA uniform he's wearing?? We did take the micky - poor guy!! Ethan is sat just out of picture to the right on the sun bed with Simon......

Here he is at last sitting at the back of the crowd on Daddy's lap and in fact sat on his own for the very end. He really enjoyed the show and went to bed clutching his signed photograph of Daisy the Super-Cow [don't even ask].

Finally, here we are with an 'all-action' shot at the end of the afternoon. All the older lads started playing footie and this is Ethan just about to boot the ball. He was really quite good at taking turns and his dribbling skills have come on in leaps and bounds so the Soccer 4 Tots is obviously paying off. He had just the best time and really found some courage to face a few things that normally rock his boat a bit.

IT for tots.....

If anyone had ever told me before I had Ethan that a [just] three year old would be able to use a personal computer almost unaided I'd have laughed them out of the room. However, here I am eating my words because Ethan can turn it on, load Internet Explorer click on the link to his favourite sites and play pretty much unaided. He always has half an hour on the PC with Simon once he gets in from work and he's amazing at it. He can click and drag, use the directional keys, know's the difference between a left and a right click and one click and two clicks. It's taught him to recognise words like "loading", "well done", "enter", "full-screen", "home" and any other word you would associate with children's educational and fun web sites, notwithstanding the potential to learn to count generally and also to see letters [capitals sadly] on the keyboard itself. The opportunity for learning without realising that you're actually learning is huge.

Here he is using the directional keys. He's very accurate and can play platform games better than I can.

Here he is laughing which is always a sign that he's having a good time which is what it's all about at this age. Education is supposed to be fun and primarily about learning through play in the pre-school age group, whether learning at home or at nursery.