family

Before he died, my father insisted that he wanted me to have two old fog watches that his father had passed to him. My reaction was visibly lukewarm, but I accepted them and promised that I would make sure to pass them down the generations. As long as Lisa doesn’t eBay them first. I’m joking :) See? I used a smiley-face!

But wait, judgemental reader, this wasn’t because I was holding out for a high value item such as a house or a car. No, it was because no physical item would ever replace him.

I wasn’t visiting the hospital so regularly hoping to nudge myself into a more favourable spot in his will. No siree, and I think he knew that Lisa and I are fairly non-materialistic folks. Funnily enough, the one thing I would have loved to receive would have been some kind of letter from beyond the grave. Yes, you can almost taste the diet of Hollywood schmaltz - did Bette Midler get a letter at the end of Beaches?

I stumbled across this post over on Ririan Project today about the 7 habits of highly successful fathers.

Funnily enough, when we first started a family, I picked up that book by Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Successful Families. While it was an interesting read, I never got to the end of it. It's on my to-do list for when I start working from home.

Ririan's post borrows heavily from the Covey formula, and it's an inspiring read. However, I do disagree with his first point, keeping stress to yourself. OK, it's one thing to not let your mood impact your family, but I try to talk to our children about what's going on in my life.

I came home quite tired from work the other day and explained that I'd had a hard day at work. We briefly chatted about why my day had been so difficult. While it's important to let the children get on with the business of being kids, part of being in a family is sharing your emotions, and I'd like to think the kids can come back to me and talk about their lives too.

We've done it! We've toilet trained a child or the third and final time, and that feels good!

Just before Christmas, Daniel decided that he didn't want to wear a nappy anymore. We had known from late summer that he was ready, but in our laziness kept putting the inevitable off. We just didn't want to spend a week mopping up puddles from every corner of the house.

I got a little weepy tonight as my wee 4 year old blew out the candles on his chocolate caterpillar birthday cake.

In honesty, he won't be four until tomorrow, but we had a party tonight in his granny's so his cousins could join him.

He is such a massive wee boy, he actually looks like he is about five or six years old, but it seems like yesterday when we brought him home from hospital all fresh and new.

Our good friend Wooftie - on his annual visit from The States - dropped a couple of small-but-expensive presents on Rachel and Jake: Nintendo DS Lites.

At the same time, Lisa's mum gave us a PlayStation 2 and donated a boxful of old games including the highly addictive Star Wars Lego.

We were away this weekend in Ballycastle visiting the folks up there.

Saturday evening was beautiful, so we decided to go for a walk. The weather was warm, but there was a gentle breeze keeping us cool. Rachel and Jake came along on their scooters, riding a bit too fast for comfort (since I was the one trying to keep up with them)!

I read an article today about world birth rates and the fact that the amount of males born is signigicantly higher than the amount of females. It made for very interesting reading, and pointed out that this skewed birth rate is causing problems in some countries (such as China) where men are beginning to find that there just aren't enough women to go around.
Reading the piece reminded me of my feelings and concerns when I found out that I was expecting my sons.

When I was growing up I always imagined a family with at least 2 or 3 daughters, I couldn't imagine what it would be like to have a son.

When I found out that I was pregnant with a boy during my second pregnancy I was slightly nervous. I wondered if I could parent a boy, I imagined a crazy toddler turning into a surly young man who is conditioned to bottle up his emotions and remain difficult to reach.

Everyone I spoke to with sons disagreed. Each and every person told me that wee girls are much harder work, they want to rule the house, while boys are much more placid and easy going.

To date my experience has been immensely positive and I can't believe I was ever worried. My three children are all precious to me, it makes no difference what gender they happen to be.

I think my concerns must have stemmed from the fact I have two sisters very close in age to me, my brothers are a lot younger, one has yet to reach his teenage years. As my father was not around for most of my childhood, my experience of family life was very much a female orientated one.

I am lucky to have an excellent husband who is very much involved in the childrens lives. This will hopefully come in useful in those teenage years, when embarrassing topics have to be broached, and my son may not actually want my input into his love life, or romantic crises. And I am now wise enough to realise that my daughter is unlikely to want to confide in me about her first love or hot crushes either. Surly teenage behaviour is not limited to the males of our species, I can all too well remember the trouble I gave my own mother!

My sister is currently 5 months pregnant and strangely, experiencing exactly the same worries as I did, way back when. I am trying to give her the benefit of my experience, but I know that once the baby is born, no matter what the sex is, she will realise for herself, what a precious gift a baby is, and that sex is irrelevant to the love you feel for that person who is piece of you.

So, Rachel had her nursery graduation ceremony yesterday. Most of the grandparents came to the school to watch the little concert they'd prepared and to see the kids getting their certificates from the principal of the school.

I showed up slightly late, due to my parents managing to get mixed up over timings. When I got in to the assembly hall, the children were already on stage. It didn't take long to locate my little cherub on the left of the stage among a gaggle of friends.

My husband will often tell people that I don't allow him to have any money, or carry an ATM card to withdraw from our bank account. I resent this, as it makes me sound like a tyrant, while the real reason is that he is a pea -brain who loses absolutly everything!

Each time he gets a new ATM card he loses it within a matter of months, if not weeks. When this happens, both our cards have to be cancelled, leaving us with no access to our account for at least 7 days. It's a real hassle!

I have bought him a wallet, which he never uses, so in the end I just stopped ordering new cards. When he lost his, I kept mine and became the main administrator of our finances.

For the last year things have ran smoothly, until last night. I lent Gerard my card to get some petrol for his car, I then let him look after it while we went out for a meal for my dad's 50th birthday. When I asked Gerard for the card this morning to get some groceries, it was nowhere to be found! He is adamant that he didn't lose it, but it isn't anywhere in our house, so I don't know what other conclusion I can draw.

Once again all our cards have now been cancelled. We have no access to our bank account until we can get to the branch on Monday, so we are going to have to scrape by this weeked on the few pounds we have lying about the house and hope we don't starve.  Bang goes that takeaway I was hoping for tonight!

They say you can raise the perfect child, until they mix with other children. Over the last few weeks I have had some detailed insight into that topic.

Over the last month or so Rachel has been playing outside almost every hour that she isn't in nursery. She has become so sociable, and it is so funny to see her playing games like 'mummy and daddy' and hopscotch. She seems to have aged 4 years in just 4 short weeks.

I love seeing her interact in a large group, I love how confident she is, and how much she enjoys the company of other children, especially girls.