On Sunday, it was our 11th wedding anniversary. We had a day at home with the boys, then went with Grandad P to a local fireworks display & funfair. It was Sunshineface’s first experience close up with fireworks, and he seemed pretty impressed, though there were some points he kept saying “No, daddy!” and turning away from the display, but I couldn’t work out if it was certain noises he didn’t like, or something else, as it seemed to vary when he was saying no. We bumped into Picklepot’s girlfriend and her mum so we went round the funfair with them and she and Picklepot enjoyed going on some of the rides together.
On Tuesday after school we had parents evening for Picklepot. We had a good chat with his Yr 3 teacher, Mr A, and we found that Picklepot is streets ahead for his maths work – Mr A is going to start setting him Yr 4 work as he is finding the Yr 3 stuff boring – for his English and his Reading he is being quite lazy and although Mr A knows he is capable, he is not showing his skills and so he is beginning to drop from ‘exceeding expectation’ to ‘average expectation’. It’s just trying to get him to see the point in doing a lot of it – He knows he can read well, so he sees no benefit in ‘proving it’ to anyone else; in the same way he knows he can write well, and has excellent comprehension skills, so again he sees no point in ‘proving’ himself. I’ve explained to him that for school, they need him to ‘prove’ it, so they can track his progress.
Mr A said he is a very popular member of the class – especially with the girls! – and that he has got a lot better working with others in a group when needed, though he is still happiest working alone, and Mr A said he does tend to ‘cherry pick’ a group that he knows Picklepot will work best with. His lack of concentration, his ability to daydream the time away, his motivation being hand-in-hand with approaching loss of playtime, his easy distraction, is all part and parcel of Picklepot and Mr A is sympathetic to that, so he is working out ways of ‘dangling the carrot’ so to speak, in order to motivate Picklepot by reward for doing well, rather than punishment for not finishing things.
Year 3 started swimming lessons last Friday, and I was very apprehensive. Whenever we’ve been swimming before, Picklepot has been dead keen on the idea and as soon as we’ve got into the pool he’s attached to me like a limpet and won’t let go. It can get quite awkward as he’s so tall now and there’s me struggling to move around with this child whose arms are tightly wrapped around my neck, freaking out because he thinks he’s going to drown if he loosens his grip on me at all. He’s also always complained about how cold he gets when we’re swimming, and then once he’s cold he won’t move at all, so once out of the pool he’ll just stand like a statue, wrapped in a towel, complaining how cold he is, and not getting himself dry and dressed. All in all, I thought the school swimming lessons could be pretty disasterous!
However, first lesson was last Friday, and Picklepot sprang out of school full of enthusiasm. He said he’d absolutely loved it, really enjoyed it, couldn’t wait to go again etc. Last night he asked me to include his goggles in his swimming bag as he wanted to try putting his face underwater this week. Last night at bedtime I was getting annoyed with him for being so slow at getting ready for bed, so I kept on at him to hurry up, and he kept moaning he didn’t feel well. The moment I said, Well, if you’re not well you can’t go to school tomorrow, and if you can’t go to school then you can’t go swimming! And suddenly, he was feeling much better … 😉
This weekend both myself and Daddy P are off work, so we’re planning a nice lazy weekend with lots of family time. My mum might be coming to visit on Saturday, it’s been a few weeks since we last saw her so it will be good to catch up if she can visit, but it depends on her new job at the moment as she might end up working.
The week has once again gone past in a blink and I don’t know how it’s Friday again already! But I am definitely ready for this weekend!
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