May 7

Boy’s Weekend

Lauren and Claire were at Brownie Pack Holiday this weekend, so Sam and I had a boy’s weekend.  A chunk of it was spent at a friend’s sleepover/party, which didn’t start great as I turned up 4 hours early!  I’d originally planned to pick Sam up from Portsmouth (where the party bit was happening) so that we could go up Spinnaker Tower, but I was running a little late so he was dropped off at home.  I was warned that he was rather sleepy, as is to be expected following a sleepover, but he denied it.  Undaunted we headed back into Portsmouth, forgetting about the likely traffic nightmare that meant it took 40 minutes for us to cover the last mile.  Fortunately that gave Sam plenty of time for a nap.  He denies this, but there was way too much ‘comedy elbow slipping off the arm rest’ for me to believe him.

On Monday we went for a walk around Old Winchester Hill before heading to pack holiday to help clearing up.  We happened to bump into Phoebe (Lauren’s friend), Thomas (Lauren’s classmate) and their families, so spent most of our trip wandering along with them.  Sam and Phoebe spent ages chatting, including a discussion of likely careers that I unknowingly duplicated with Phoebe’s mum.  It was rather sweet to see him participating in a conversation that wasn’t about computer games.

Apr 26

Slang

We watched The Hobbit recently, and Sam asked us what a scrotum beard is. After some gentle questioning he was talking about the king of the orcs, who has quite a prominent wattle. Apparently Sam had heard it described as such on the internet. Given that Lauren and Claire were also present I declined to go into details with him.

Mar 18

Titanic

Sam went to the Titanic Museum this weekend with Scouts.  They were gathering inspiration for a model they can each build as part of a crafts badge.  I asked Sam what he had in mind, as we need to get the necessary materials for Thursday’s session.  I already had in mind that he could carve something, perhaps a life boat, out of a bar of soap.  He had a better idea, which was to use a mound of clay to make a model of the iceberg.

I’m guessing you’ve already spotted the flaw, or possible the brilliance, in this; a mound of clay already is a model of an iceberg.  When I suggested that a bar of soap would do (i.e. from my point of view it’s cheaper than that much clay) he pointed out that with clay, if you go wrong you can just put the clay back, which is probably not true of soap.  I had to concede that point, while wondering how somebody would know you’d gone wrong carving an iceberg out of a bar of soap.

We’re currently working on a recipe for home-made clay (there’s the cheap thing again), while pushing him to something just a little more ‘involved’ than an iceberg.

Mar 8

Sam’s school has a maths-themed fancy dress day today, and not being good with such things he’s going in a printed t-shirt.  Last time I think both he and Lauren went with a Fibonacci theme, so this time I upped the stakes with this image,which represents visually one of my favourite mathematical curiosities (or fundamental property of the universe, if you prefer).  To help your interpretation, those are Yorkshire Puddings.

wpid-tee.jpg

Mar 2

Latest Report

Claire went to Sam’s latest parent-teacher conference (I was, somewhat ironically, at the infant school learning about educational standards in general, rather than for a specific child).  He’s doing well, making progress in all areas (except maths, where he’s already so far ahead of where he should be that the teacher kept him at the same assessment level this time round).  It was also good to hear that his teacher’s think he’s starting to mature, which is welcome news indeed.