Habemus Erucam!

I'm sure you all heard the big news from yesterday. J's class has a new caterpillar! He excitedly told me the news yesterday after I picked him up. This morning, L and I went to drop him off and we had our first view of the new little bug. Of course, the classroom has strict rules and people aren't allowed to take pictures, so I have nothing to show you. The caterpillar is very small, it must have just hatched in the last day or two.

Naturally, the main stream media has put its spin on this story, assuming a new caterpillar will usher in a new age of freedom and change for the classroom. Finally, the classroom will adopt a more libertarian view and allow the children the freedom to do whatever they want whenever they want. The media clearly knows nothing about caterpillars or classrooms. It's kind of embarrassing, really.

The caterpillar will indeed change. He will go into a secret compartment called a cocoon. He will seem to have died. But after a little while, he will emerge with a new and splendid body. People, even his own friends and intimate companions, may not recognize him if they don't pay close attention. His nature hasn't changed, just his appearance. It will be his glorified state on show for all. J says then the class will release him to the heavens, where all can enjoy his splendor. Or something to that effect.

The talk in the classroom is that they will name him Francis, after some celebrity in recent news.

Bowling and Fondue with the Kids

We went to a birthday party for one of J's friends at a local bowling alley. The kids are too fast at bowling and all those pictures turned out blurry, but sitting around waiting for their turn was a better photo op.

L's drink might have been a little tart

Hanging at the alley!

Later that weekend, some friends of Mom and Dad came over and brought their fondue set. L had her first experience of dipping delight and was overcome with joy.

Yes, you are a cutie!

Where did the chocolate go? In there! (mostly)

More pictures later when we have more fun adventures!

More Kids' Art

L has been doing a lot of drawing in school and is getting quite skillful. She drew this hand without even tracing! She was quite proud.

Free-hand hand drawing of a hand

J has been doing some art at school too. He put together a whole book about firefighting. Here's what the fire they fought looks like.

J creates fire! It looks like a flaming horse to me.

At home, L first created a boot. Then she decided to expand the work by adding legs, another boot, a body, arms, and a head. She says it looks like a member of the family, but I will leave that to your imagination to guess who it is.

The right boot was the first part of Franken-family-member

Look familiar?

J helped make his sandwich one day, for which he was justly proud.

My own peanut butter and raisin sandwich

Speaking of food, for Mommy's birthday we made special cupcakes. Not spiders like on my birthday, but owls. The eyes are M&Ms. We'd have had more owls if someone hadn't eaten so many of the eyes. Again, I will leave it to your imagination to guess who would eat so many owl eyes. (Hint: It's not the same person)

Owl cupcakes (beaks are also M&Ms)

School Christmas Plays

J had his Christmas play for his reception class (basically, kindergarten). The school he goes to has two reception classes and the kids from both combined to put on the play. So it was 40 or so 4- and 5-year-olds working together to entertain their parents. The production was amazing for the age group. They sang seven different songs with choreography on most, had various traditional characters who all had lines, and delightful costumes. J was a shepherd and he had one line: "We're tending our sheep." But his real moment to shine came when he had to act surprised at the angels appearing in the sky. He widened his eyes and put his hand to his mouth to cover his gasp. He did it so well! And it's not just me saying it, other parents commented too! He had a great time and sang the songs on Skype to Granny and to Grandmama. After the second Skype call, he said he wouldn't sing them anymore. Though maybe next year...

The school had a strict policy that no photography or recording was allowed. This restriction is for various reasons, one of which is that parents can "opt out" of having their children's pictures taken at school. The crafty staff at the school did take pictures of some of the children (presumably those whose parents didn't opt out) and sold them for 50p (which is about $0.80 in US money) to parents. So we could be satisfied with a happy memory and a nice photo of our son.

J the Shepherd

For L's Christmas pageant at her nursery school, she was supposed to be a donkey. Things didn't work out though, because she and J caught the stomach bug that's been sweeping the nation. Too bad, because she had a cute outfit and had her line down cold, "Hee-haw!" Though maybe next year...

Christmas Mass 2012

This year we went to the Christmas Vigil Mass. For the past few weeks, we've been staying around after Mass so J could practice for the Nativity. The Vigil was at 5 p.m. and we came to church at 4 for a rehearsal. Mostly the rehearsal was just getting costumes on. L decided she wanted to be part of the Nativity when she saw costumes.

Ready to shine

L and J ran around a bit. Then L had her fill and decided she didn't want to be in the play anyway.

A farewell hug

A farewell performance

Ready to play

Meanwhile, I was in church holding seats. Mommy and L came back at 4:40 to wait for the kids to come in. The performance was quite nice, though not as great as J's school nativity, but that will be a post later this week. The songs here were a bit too much like show tunes. I guess my taste is just old fashioned.

The sermon was definitely focused on the children and had a great message about the importance of giving and love. I wish it had a little more for the parents. At one point, father had a present and he asked some of the children to guess what was in it. J was a little dumbfounded at first, but then he guessed, "Frankincense?" Which got a good laugh.

Amazingly, Mass only ran a bit after 6 p.m., so bedtime was hardly delayed, even though we did have dinner and one present opened by each child, since they were so good all day.

J opens one...

L with her gift from J

Merry Christmas to all!

Mince Pies, UK Style

Last week, L's school invited parents to come for a "stay and play" session. I went and the main activity we did was making mince pies. The teachers had already whipped up some dough, so L and I only had to roll it out and cut out a circle for the pie shell. They had mince filling from one of the local grocery stores, so we spooned some in. Everyone was supposed to pick a shape for the top of their pies. L chose a triangle. The teacher cut a triangle shape out of leftover dough and put it on top of the pie. Once all the tops were on, the tray went to the oven. Later on, we had yummy mince pies! It was so easy we decided to try it at home.

Getting mince from the store was no problem (though I suppose it's a bit of a cheat for all you purists out there). Making the crust was a challenge. Usually crusts are buttery and crunchy and yummy, like the tastiest of pie crusts. My wife found a recipe here. You can tell its authentic because the ingredients are in grams and the oven temperatures are in Celsius (which would be a problem back in the States, but not here). She and the children forged on while I took a nap.  I'll let A take over the narration:

J and L were enthusiastic helpers. They demanded proper aprons, of course, and then wielded their wooden spoons with gusto--occasionally spreading flour far and wide. 

Dough Boy J

After mixing the dough we patted it into the muffin tins. This was surprisingly time consuming. The kids poked and patted the dough a few times in the pan, but it was a grownup job to pat everything up the sides. L fetched her cookie cutters and was eager to begin "making shapes."

L ready to make shapes

J and L each scooped the mince pie filling (raisins, apples, cinnamon, etc.) into the pies.

J gives a thumbs' up

Too cute not to post

The recipe next said to pat out rounds of dough and put them on top of the pies. L flourished her round cookie cutter and used it to cut several circles of dough. Then, unfortunately, The Great Mince Pie Meltdown of 2012 happened and L fell to the floor screaming and writhing with outrage about my lack of proper dough handling technique. I'm not exactly sure what my crime was, but I believe that I may have stretched one of the circles into an oval. L retired from mince pie making in protest.

J is the lone helper still standing.  Mince pies are shaped and ready to bake.

The pies smelled wonderful while they were baking. We waited patiently and were rewarded with the misshapen yet delicious results.

L is unclear about how they came out, or maybe she's just blurry

By this point I (Daddy) was awake again and got to enjoy a mince pie fresh from the oven. It was very yummy warm and went well with a cuppa tea. And we have plenty of leftovers for the coming days, so we can enjoy them again and again! Too bad the kids aren't interested in actually eating them. Their loss!

Another piece of English mince pie tradition is that a pie was made in the shape of a manger and used in the Nativity scene for the Christ child. At Christmas dinner, the pie would be eaten. The Puritans in 17th century England forbid the baking of mince pies since they considered the pies "idolatrie in crust." Protestant iconoclasm extended even to food back then! For a big helping of mince pie history and lore, listen to this podcast at Catholic Under the Hood.

More Dealing with Darkness

Another way to deal with darkness is to have a light in your life. I have two!

J with sandwich

L with smile

For you, Grandpa!

Art Projects from School

Jacob and Lucy have been bringing home some interesting works from school. First up is Lucy's "Dinosaur." It's a mixed media piece--colored paper and white paper glued on a white paper background with one shell from an egg carton.

Dinosaur by Lucy, 2012

The most amazing part is the signature in the top corner. Here it is blown up for you.

Delightfully legible, eh?

Jacob painted a garden. I guess a river runs through it.

Garden by Jacob, 2012

He also signed the side of his picture. Not as easily legible as Lucy, but still quite delightful to us parents.

You may have to click through to see it better

Lucy later did another work. She calls this "Tree" though some imagination is needed to pull the image into a whole. Clearly the colors are inspired by the falling leaves of Autumn we are experiencing right now.

Unsigned "Tree" by Lucy

Jacob Loses a Tooth

Jacob's loose tooth had finally fallen out! After a couple of days of nervous anticipation, his tooth came free just before we went to a friend's house for dinner.

Not quite excited yet about losing the tooth

In Mommy's hand

Jacob had been very nervous about the tooth coming out, probably because his teacher at the last school had a problem with one of her teeth and she couldn't talk for a while. Jacob feared the same fate for himself. After it came out, he said that it hurt and he didn't want to eat dinner. We convinced him that it would feel better with a cold drink and maybe a little medicine. After ten minutes of talking about it, he became distracted and didn't feel the pain any more (he never took a drink or any medicine). By the time we made it to dinner, he was ready to brag about the missing tooth and to show off the hole in his mouth.

At bed time he put the tooth under his pillow for the tooth fairy. He was hoping the fairy would come and give him a new tooth to replace the old one. We eventually convinced him that was not her job. The family who invited us to dinner had a book about the tooth fairy where a boy loses a tooth and his jealous sister paints a corn kernel white so she can get a treat as well. They are both whisked off by the tooth fairy to tooth-fairy land to see the fate of lost teeth. The forgery is discovered by the tooth-cleaning robots in the land. The children almost get tossed in jail but escape in the nick of time. Jacob liked the book because it had robots in it. He showed that part to Mommy before we sat down to eat.

After he fell asleep, my wife slipped a pound coin under his pillow. Kids in England have it pretty good. When I was a kid, the best we ever got was a quarter. Too bad we don't have any American money left! I hope he spends it on something good. Probably he'll spend it on something robotic.

When that tooth first came seems like ages ago...how can it be less than five years?

First tooth in, first tooth out!

Close up to show the tooth

At least Lucy has shown no signs of jealousy. She can wait for her tooth to come out naturally, just like Jacob.

Jacob the Five Year Old

For Jacob's fifth birthday, we had a party at the house with a bunch of our favorite people here in England. The party included fun play in the back garden, food, cake, and presents.

Outside, the children played on our swing set. They tossed balls around. They jumped on the trampoline. They basked in the glorious sunshine that is such a treat here in northern England (especially as the days grow darker throughout October).

My wife had the fabulous idea of hiding clothes pins around the back garden while the children hid their eyes. All the adults took four pins each and hid them. The children then searched all over. Some spots that we thought were pretty obvious turned out to be more challenging since the wooden clothespins blended in with the woodwork. After they finished, we swapped roles and the children hid the clothespins while the adults hid their eyes. It was even more challenging the second time!

Then we came inside for food and cake. We had the traditional candles on the not so traditional robot cake.

Lit Cake

Blown out cake

He also unwrapped presents from the guests, including lots of great gifts.

Still haven't mastered bowstring technology

Connect 4!!

Opening another great present--a book!

Trying to guess before all the paper was off

After another round of outdoor sunshine, we bid our guests farewell as Jacob and Lucy headed off for naps. A great time was had by all.

"Even I had a good time!"

Double Trouble at School

Jacob had a very busy day at school the other day. When I came to pick him up, nothing seemed amiss. But appearances, as they say, are deceiving.

He takes a backpack to school, though he doesn't have any school books. He's in Reception, which is a sort of kindergarten where they spend most of the day playing. Learning and living by a schedule is acquired through clever guidance by the teachers. But the children don't have homework and don't have any school books, as I say. So the backpack is more of a mobile mailbox, for sending information and items back and forth to school. There's a little notebook if we have any questions or comments we can send them in and the teacher can reply, or she can send us messages. Sometimes he's painted something or some other craft comes home. A weekly newsletter comes home on Thursdays telling us about next week's events at the school.

This day, his backpack had a plastic bag with his pants (that's his underwear to you American readers) and his trousers (that's his pants to you American readers). So naturally I asked him about it. He said that he was too slow going to the potty and had an accident. Luckily his clothes were just wet, so it didn't seem like much of a problem. I asked where he got the pants and trousers he was currently wearing. He wasn't sure. So we put them through the wash that night and sent them back to school the next day.

I was initially surprised that the teacher said nothing about it. But on further reflection, I imagine that it is not so uncommon that children wet themselves by accident at the school. Maybe she thought it was unremarkable, and so didn't remark on it.

The other surprise was when Jacob volunteered information. Usually he doesn't tell us much of anything about his day at school unless something really exciting happened, like the day they had PE in the big room and danced to the song "Life is a Highway" from the movie Cars. He loves the movie and knows the song quite well. But I digress. His volunteered information was in itself surprising--his tooth was loose! He showed me with his tongue. Sure enough, one of the front lower teeth could move back and forth. I even tried moving it very, very, VERY gently with my finger, just to make sure. It did wobble a bit.

We were already walking back to the car or else I would have asked the teacher some questions. I asked Jacob if he had fallen or hit his mouth. He said no. He had no bruises or any marks. He seemed pretty calm and just asked that we see a doctor or a dentist (who we had seen two weeks earlier, even though I just posted about it yesterday). I was still imagining all sort of horrible dental surgery or Jacob spending weeks or months or years with a missing tooth. He's only four years old, and teeth only fall out when your seven or nine, right? At least that was what I was thinking on the drive home. The kids in the back seat seemed so calm. I didn't know how they could do it.

Finally arriving home, I went inside and called up our dentist. I asked them a lot of questions. They thought it was just a normal case of a new tooth pushing out a baby tooth. I took some convincing. They recommended some over the counter medicine in case Jacob felt bad, but their main suggestion was that he should keep working it around until it came out. Jacob seemed fine with this and life went on as normal.

So we are on tooth watch. I will provide updates as they happen. If only I had a Twitter account!

First Day of School

Monday was the first day of school for Jacob. He'd been in preschool (which is called "nursery" here in the UK) last year but now he is in our Catholic parish's school in what they call "reception" which is roughly equivalent to kindergarten. He's been counting down all summer (though for most of the time school was "100 days away" according to Jacob).

We were all nervous about the first day but Jacob was very upbeat and interested in going. We had done several things to prepare for this day.

First, we filled out a ton of paperwork. In addition to the school's application (which included getting a signature from the parish priest to prove we were in regular attendance), we also had to fill out forms (both physical and on-line) for the local borough council. Most schools are funded through government sources so the application process involves the local government. The form asked for our top four preferences and also the reasons for those preferences. We had only gone to see two schools (both Catholic parish schools) so I listed just those. Luckily, we got into our first choice.

Second, we went in July to a story-time hosted at the school so Jacob could meet his teachers and his "special friend"--a fifth-year student who is now a sixth-year and will be helping Jacob learn the ropes at the school. That includes eating lunch with him and hanging out on the playground. At least, that's what Jacob said they did on their first day of school. She also gave him a wonderful hand-made puppet of a lion with a story about him.

As a side note, the weather was pretty spectacular that July day, so most of the parents who came to pick up their kids just hung out in the school yard with their children rather than rush off home. It seemed odd to me because I remember just rushing off whenever I got out of school in America. Though maybe they had siblings in higher grades and they were waiting for them to finish school.

Third, we went to the local school uniform shop and spent almost £100 on clothes for the boy. Figuring he might be a little messy, I decided to get multiples of the polo shirt and the jumper (that's a sweat shirt for Americans) with the school's logo. They also had a warmer coat, presumably for November to March, that we picked up. And he needed trousers and P.E. clothes as well. We also bought some stuff at other local stores to fill out his kit. Everything needed his name in it, in case there was any clothing mix up at school. We spent a frantic night figuring out how to iron on the iron-on labels we bought from the uniform shop. He does look pretty good in his outfit.

Jacob wants to get to school so fast, he's blurry

Checking out how blurry he is on the Auntie's camera

In case you are wondering, yes he did wear shoes to school (though they don't sell shoes with the school logo on them). We packed his lunch and a water bottle. We packed gym clothes (which apparently he didn't use on the first day, at least according to him). We took him to school at 8:50, only to discover the children were supposed to come at 10 for the first day for reception! We went back to the car, found a little snack at a nearby bakery to kill some time, and then returned to the school.

This time we were able to walk in with Jacob. We found the spot where his backpack goes. We found the spot for his coat and gym clothes. We weren't really sure where his lunch box should go but we had left it in the backpack anyway, so no worries. In his main classroom, they had a big computer screen on and one of the teachers was sorting the names of who had packed lunches and who had school dinners. Each child's name was on a virtual balloon and the balloons were dragged to appropriately labeled clouds. It was a fun way to get some needed info and to match up student's names and faces. One balloon said "Jacob S." so there is another Jacob in his class.

Once that was sorted, we left him. My wife was welling up with the sort of tears you cry at weddings, which she accused me of knowing nothing of. I have to admit, I don't cry at weddings. I can imagine what she's referring to. Maybe someday my horizons will expand.

Lucy also had her first day of preschool or "nursery" as they call it here. Her school is right next to Jacob's, which is very convenient for me. She is on a 9 to 12 Monday through Friday program. She does not have a uniform and does not have to pack a lunch. She is a bit jealous at not having her own lunch box. We may break down and buy her one if she insists. We can always use it next year.

Lucy packed her backpack with stickers and other "show and tell" items

She also had a good day, playing outside and doing various crafty things inside. She says she had a snack of apples and crumpets. When I asked how many she'd eaten, she said about 20 crumpets. Also, she said that the other kids yelled at her. When I asked why, she said she wasn't helping to clean up. When I asked why she wasn't helping to clean up, she said she was too tired to help. I think the story is fabricated, since the lady in her classroom said that Lucy was fine and there were no worries.

So the school adventure begins in our household. As we were walking away from Lucy's school, I told her that she would be starting at Jacob's school next year. She was excited about that. She wanted to go shopping to the uniform store and to get a lunchbox. I wonder if she'll be able to wait a whole year.

Recent Fun with the Kids

We've had a lot of little events mixed in with the visit from Jacob's godparents, Sarah and Prior. More about them in another post. Here's a couple of snapshots of things that we did:

1. Going bowling--for some reason we only have pictures of Jacob and me when we went bowling. I'm afraid my moment of glory looks more like I am someone who is about to evolve into a homo sapien.

Jacob loves the ramp

Really, I can stand upright! I swear it's true!!

2. Opening mail--sounds boring, right? Except when you get packages from Granny and from Lucy's godparents! Granny sent us a wonderful Connect 4 game (which Jacob misses from school) and the godparents sent Lucy a cookie baking play set. Both have been used extensively in the past two days. We also received a bunch of other stuff in both packages.

Ready for fun, thanks Brian and Teresa!

3. Playground near the airport--after dropping off Sarah and Prior at the airport, Jacob asked to go back to the playground we went to after dropping off Emily. On our return visit we found a new piece of equipment and a new tea shop. The kids loved the spinner, though Jacob wanted it to go much faster than Lucy did.

Jacob pulls it to go faster

What's wrong with 3000 rpm?

3000 rpm makes Lucy unhappy

Lucy did get off and let Jacob go much faster. A good time was had by all.