Because she is a girl?

I was going to blog about how great a job I did of re-spraying my son's bike for my daughter. I did do a good job because she tells me that I am the greatest dad in the world.

Instead though after a short discussion I have changed my emphasis from the bike to the bike's colour.
As you can see it was blue.  That is the bike after I stripped it down, primed it and finished it.

 The bike is now Purple with half red forks and her name on the down tube.

Why not leave it blue, because she is a girl? No. Because she does not like blue.  She is hot on purple.
She used to like blue and had toys in blue and clothes in blue. Once upon a time at nursery my son liked pink, he even painted in pink a bird house they made.

We never forced any colours on them and they have come out loving blue for my son and pink, now purple/red for my daughter.  Colours they chose and are happy with.

Also proud of my nifty re-spraying work.

Changing Faces

This month is birthday month for both of our children.  Eldest, Aden, is 8 and youngest, Zara, is 5.


As another year has crept up on us, the unsuspecting parents, we were reminiscing a few days ago about how fast the years seem to have gone and our once little babies are growing fast, rushing towards those teenage years.  


I got to looking through some of the many pictures we have taken of the children over the past 8 years and thought I would share a small collection of them with you via a collage (I used smilebox) 
This is the shortest of journeys through 8 and 5 years respectively


I will leave you to work out which baby picture is Aden / Zara.

Chainging Faces

Joy of Customer Support - Really

Some companies make good use of twitter and others don't, well let's be fair some are plain Rubbish.

Tesco are an beaming example of good.
We bought our son's glasses from Tesco's Opticians a few months back.  Unfortunately second day at school after PE he accidentally sat on them.  They were in his bag and he heard the crack - Uh Oh, busted glasses.
Fortunately he has a spare pair, or call it as everyone does the 'old pair'.

Sent Tesco a tweet rather than call, as I was busy with work, asking whether they kept prescriptions on file and they would be able to make up another pair without eye test. They responded within about 5 - 10 mins, checked a couple of details, got onto the store I bought glasses and gave me a call back to give me the info I was looking for.
Did you know that for under 16 yrs if their glasses break within 2 months of purchase Tesco will replace free? No? Neither did I. Son's is over 2 months but even so it is good to know.

I'm sure they have some sort of fair use policy around this, though maybe plastic and titanium for the glasses would be more suitable if you actually have to discover this practically.

If it were urgent I would of called of course but when on the go and needing assistance Twitter is a very useful tool.

Not wanting to be pawing all over one company but they are fresh in my mind, if you have had a postal issue or are with Orange you may well have availed yourself of their Twitter customer support and they are brilliant also.

Would not be right to talk about the good without mentioning the bad. I wont though as hopefully they will up their game. For me how a company react after a sale is so much more important than the pre-sales - get the money off the customer team.

Learning to love to read

This past christmas I realised from the presents that my 7yr old son got that he is growing up. Most of the presents were books or book tokens, family must know his parents well   :-)  rather than toys as it used to be.  It is not all read, read, read - he did get the football kit he wanted and the PSP game, before you judge me too harshly.

Every since he turned 4 we have been going to the library every 3 weeks to borrow books, initially that I read to him then as he started to read books, that he could  read.  Every night we have reading time before bed and I think I enjoy it as much as he does.  Now he reads on his own and I have started the same routine with his sister, who is just learning to read.  Every time we borrow a book I used to read to my son, it brings back a lot of memories and my daughter is now in the habit of asking, "Did Aden read this book?"

He loves to read and I am sure she will gain the same love of books.  It has been a lot of work to ensure we got to this point, though enjoyable. 

If you do not make time to read regularly with your child, I would encourage you to do so, it is very rewarding and impacts so postively on their ability to communicate effectively and exceed in school.

In case you are wondering, yes I did love to read. I remember been a teen not wanting to get up on a weekend morning until I had finished the book I started reading the night before.   Any of you remember Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew?  :)
Later in life - Stephen King, Stephen Donaldson

Deja vu mon petit fille

The little girl is going through same as the boy, three years apart. Morning started well enough, children woke with smiles....then little one said "not going nursery. Stay home!" Cue lots of crying and pulling and cries of, "take work clothes off". Grandparents arrived to do the nursery and school morning runs. As if by magic parents give to work and all screaming and crying stops. At least I know what is coming, always 3 years in advance.  :-P

A good buzzing feeling

Had our karate grading on Sunday. Not our first, in fact our 6th spanning 18 months (our = myself and son). Nerves were jangling on the day. Went past in a blur. We did well and to top it I was told that I'd made a massive improvement. Top of the world is the best word for how I was feeling.  :-)

What time is it?

Getting up earlier than you needed to is never great, especially when you don't know you are up earlier. The eldest decided yesterday it would be good to get mum up from her lie in.

He sets the clock a couple of hours later, she awakes and gets ready to go out. 

The following conversation between wife and son starts over breakfast.

"Go get ready it's nearly 9.30"
"No it is not, look" (points at kitchen clock showing 8.00)
"The clock upstairs showed 9.00!" (look of bewilderment)

Cue much laughing from son.

Funnily enough the clock upstairs was showing correct time by the we looked at it.