Maternal instinct

We were discussing the differences between boys and girls tonight in the car on the way to the swimming pool and Léon decided he was more than pleased to be a boy as he didn't really fancy any of that giving birth nonsense. Anna seemed more upbeat though: 'I definitely want to be a mum when I grow up' she announced - I was about to comment on the fact that she always seems to love babies when she elaborated, cackling like an old witch: 'I want little people I can use as my slaves, who can do all my cleaning and tidying up'. Patently I must be doing something wrong on the mothering front.

Money madness

I have no idea what made England decide to go down this silly road - they certainly weren't going with the flow, nor do I have any doubt that it will need rethinking once it becomes patently obvious that the majority of loans will never be repaid but given my children are in the 'guinea pig' age-group, attempting to avoid Scotland being forced into introducing this (reduced block grants and all that) will be top of my list of reasons for voting 'yes' this September...

Dream bedrooms

I was driving the kids to school the other day when they started discussing their ideal bedrooms.

Léon's taken to discussing how he'd like his room to look on a daily basis recently. He's had to share a room with the girls since the fifth bedroom became our home office a few years back and he's now getting to an age where he's desperate for his own space. So it started with him asking if we'd consider converting the loft space above Charlotte's room and the home office into two bedrooms for him and Anna, leaving Amaia in the big room they currently share. I agreed that I was happy to do that as soon as I won the lotto, not mentioning I didn't actually play lotto... so they started to describe their dream rooms.

Anna was going to have a pale blue room with dark blue hearts all over the walls and 'I love 1D' written all round the wall just above the skirting in red.

Amaia asked me to paint Mr Men on her walls. That'd be easy as I'd done that once before in a previous house. (see above)

Then Léon told me his dream room was dark blue with life-sized Gandalfs painted on the walls. How creepy would that be?! I'm suddenly very glad he hasn't a hope in hell of getting a room any time soon!

Proud of my wee boy

It seems like no time at all since I took this photo. I remember taking it like it was yesterday. It was the day France won the world cup in 1998 and also the day Marcel said his first word (pomme) at the ripe old age of 11 months!

He's come quite a long way since then on the talking front... Today his senior school debating team (along with just one other Scottish school debating team) won the Strathclyde uni school debating championships propelling them to the national debating competition in Liverpool in autumn where they will be competing for a place on the team to debate next year in Brussels at the European Youth Parliament in French and English. The head of the school debating team even insisted on shaking my hand as I picked him up and thanking me for 'having him'! I guess I should take pride in my son turning into a bit of an argumentative bugger! ;-)

It's interesting to watch his determination. He works five days a week in the local shop, he's teaching himself two extra Highers (Chemistry and Spanish) from text books without a tutor, sitting an Advanced Higher a year early, trying to shine on the Scottish debating scene and preparing for his World Challenge helping the underprivileged in India. I wish his Pumpa could have seen the wonderful young man he's become. He would be so proud.

Spaceman

I love kiddie conversations:
Léon: How would I become a space man when I grow up?
Me: Well there's always the European Space programme.
Léon: Is there? What channel is it on?

Ian Brown

On Sunday my mother-in-law sent us out for our second childfree meal in a restaurant since we had Anna over six years ago. Thomas opted for the local Scottish restaurant Ian Brown's, as he'd recently seen it recommended on Twitter by Patrick Harvie. What a treat it was to get such exquisitely-prepared and yet reasonably-priced food so close and yet so far from our daily grind. It was a real sanity break.