Brave boy

Marcel has spent the last three years attending the orthodontist because his mouth had been too small to contain any more than 24 adult teeth. It was quite soul destroying to nag him for twelve years about good tooth hygiene only to see him have his perfectly healthy adult teeth extracted because of space.

Fast forward to last year and Lots, who has a big mouth (literally more than metaphorically!) found out at a routine x-ray that she was missing the adult teeth under the very four teeth that Marcel had had to have removed at twelve. How ironic is that?

Fast forward to last month and Léon's adult lateral incisors came through, but because his milk canines were too big he had no space for them so they were pushed back behind the canines and were starting to cause him to speak funny. Remembering from the others that the canines didn't fall out naturally for another five or so years, I dragged him across the road to the dentist for a second opinion. He said they absolutely needed to come out as soon as possible and gave me the option of next week or on the spot! I couldn't see any point in waiting and giving him a week to worry so we went for on the spot.

He was so brave... a tiny whimper at the three jags and a squeeze of my hand and then finally the beautiful, perfect canines were tugged out without a tear. He's such a mature wee guy, I'm so proud of him.

New glasses

Léon now has his new glasses too and they don't seem to be overly reflective either - I am such a happy bunny!

Into the bargain, for the first time in three years neither of their prescriptions had changed so I didn't even need to buy that obligatory spare pair you need for when they snap off a leg or lose a screw. I can use their old ones as spares.

Excellent news for my bank book!

We make piss and we eat piss!

Anna had been asked by her teacher to write 'a couple of lines' about a place she goes that is special, suggesting a relative's house or holiday destination might be a good option. (The poor teacher is going to need to ask for overtime given how carried away she got!) Anyway, she only had to ask for help with a few words, managing to sound out much of the spelling herself. Her biggest problem, because it was not phonetically English, was the word 'pizza'. She knew it was an 'i' and not the expected 'ee' and she must have remembered the double consonant in the middle, but somehow she remembered it as a double 's' and worse still she was concentrating so much on the 'zz' sound, she managed to forget the 'a' altogether, so when I proofread it for handing in, she's actually written 'We make piss and we eat piss!' I guess you must get the odd laugh when you are teaching five year olds!

Anyway, all in all I was quite proud of her wee story. It isn't bad for someone who only started school in August.

Burns supper

We held our own wee Burns Supper last Friday and mum joined us. I think if we redo one next year I will film Thomas reading the address to the haggis - for some reason she seemed to find Thomas's version of Scots rather amusing!

Prisoner Number A26188: Henia Bryer

There's nothing I can add to this testimony, except to say how moved my oldest two kids were watching this dignified, elderly woman.

Anna's new glasses

When Anna got her first glasses the week before she turned four, I wasn't overly pleased with the selection available. They had a few models that fitted babies and a few for school age kids but not much in between, so we ended up with the only ones on offer in Boots. I had learned from Léon's glasses the previous year that you go for the optician nearest to your local supermarket because you want to be able to take them in for repairs on your daily trip, not somewhere in town where you only go on weekends! So for us that meant Boots. They came with thick lenses and no anti-glare coating and the were the bane of my photographic life for the last year. Now she's five however, they have a better selection and thin, anti-glare lenses have been added as standard. I am much happier with her new ones already. Not only does she think they are prettier, but I can actually see her eyes through them. Yippee!

I can definitely see more of my little girl today, than I could back in September.

Brave little girl

As a child I was quite reticent. The thought of having even one line in a school play in primary school would have given me many sleepless nights. Still fairly introvert as an adult, I have learned how to stand up and speak to an audience. I've have given the odd talk and lecture in my time, in English and French but I have to admit I am secretly still happier working quietly in my office with my books.

Today I learned that my daughter has not inherited all my personality traits. We were invited to the primary school as she had won a Burns and Scottish poetry competition. I thought that was quite an achievement for someone who only turned five last month. We were ushered into the gym hall where thirty parents, fifteen teachers, ninety p1s, ninety  p2s, ninety  p3s and ninety p5s were assembled. A lone mic stood on the stage. The head teacher welcomed us and then called out her name. Knee-high to a grasshopper, she made her way up the stairs and stood in the spot light and sang five verses on Ally Bally Bee in front of everyone with no musical accompaniment. She then walked over, shook the head's hand and sat back down again. I don't think I managed to get a single photo of her in focus because I was shaking with nerves! She was as cool as a cucumber. When Thomas asked if she'd been afraid, she looked blank and asked 'What of?'

I'm so proud of my wee p1!

Cousins

Although it is lovely to have family abroad because it gives you an excuse for foreign holidays and lovely reunions, you do feel the odd pang of sadness at what the kids miss out on. These two girls, had they lived in the same city, would probably have spent a lot time playing together - they are just a year apart in age, and yet because they live in Glasgow and Copenhagen, are lucky if they meet up once every eighteen months. At least they can communicate. It would be awful if Anna hadn't learned Danish too and they'd had to wait till Ursula learned English at school.

And the same is true for Ursula and Léon, who got on like a house on fire despite not having seen each other since September 2011. It was lovely to sitting and listen to them chatting away happily in Danish, laughing and hatching little plots together.

The Jeely Piece song

Léon's been singing this non-stop all week. It is strange to hear him use Scots because he isn't really all that familiar with it. In fact Danish is much more comprehensible to him than this little song, that I had to explain in places! I've always found it quite amusing to hear my kids' mistakes when they try using real Scots words. I grew up with grandparents who spoke nothing else so knew exactly how is should be pronounced even if I spoke standard, boring Newton Mearns English myself, but my kids haven't heard much real Scots themselves so happily sing 'bread' in the middle of a sentence containing the word 'jeely'. Many words I understood passively as a child are more foreign to my kids than the Danish, French, German and Spanish they hear around their own dining room table. Things have changed quite a lot in the last generation.

Aptly named, after all?

Léon's name isn't actually Léon... Technically, his real name is Léon-Olivier but that is a bit hard for his Scottish compatriots, so he gets called Léon (which in itself is hard enough as we pronounce it the French way, not the English way).

Anyway, people have often remarked that we chose to shorten it to the wrong half, given his nature. You see, Léon is a very soft and gentle little boy, and is not at all lion-like. He also has a very conciliatory nature - quite olive-branchy! However, I think in the last few weeks he's grown into his name! His mane has taken over! He's been badly in need of a haircut but I kept thinking it was a bit mean to have all that cut off in this cold weather.

I've known since he was a baby that he has extremely thick hair. Once, at the hairdresser in town, when he was just one, the woman who was cutting his hair remarked to me that she'd been cutting hair for thirty years and had never cut a baby before whose hair felt like a grown man's! Anyway, tonight when he spiked it up using little more than his sticky hands, I decided enough was enough - he's just going to have to wear a hat to keep warm because like that he actually looks like he's wearing a fancy dress costume!

Sadly, I do think that however long the fashion gets, poor Léon is never going to be able to opt for anything other than a short back and sides because it just becomes way too overstated and unwieldy when it gets any longer.

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Beer tasting

Here's what my husband referred to as 'conducting a scientific tasting of four varieties of Kölsch'. Is it just me or does it look more (from a female perspective) like finding an excuse to legitimately drink four nice glasses of beer each? :-D

Onesies

We decided to create a wee onesie zoo here at the weekend.

Having bought some of them in Primark over Xmas, we decided that was the obvious place to get one for those members of the family who had not yet succumbed to losing their dignity in favour of warmth and comfort. So over we went to Braehead, driving through the snow and walked in the the ladies' department to find they'd got rid of their fleece onesies and replaced them with bikinis and beachwear. What is it with these big chain stores? How often are they so busy rushing ahead to the next season that they miss all the money they could be making now? I cannot believe that with outdoor temperatures on the minus scale and no holidays imminent, they would have had a rush on bikinis, and they missed out on selling Miriam and I something ridiculous and fleecy on Sunday... I guess it is a bit like my rant back last Halloween.

Scandinavian stereotypes

My sister-in-law, Miriam, is (of course) Danish. I was recounting to my mother yesterday how one of Miriam's culinary specialties is 'mousse'. She makes wonderful mousse. Previously, I had tasted her lemon mousse, and on this weekend's visit, she made blood orange mousse. Anyway, I was simply raving to mum about her 'mousse recipe' but we spent half the conversation talking at cross purposes because she had assumed, given the Scandinavian connection that I meant 'moose recipes!' I think it was only when I got to 'blood orange' that the penny dropped!

Sweet!

I fear disappointment is imminent...

Having fallen in love with this video over Xmas, Léon bounced outside last night and made his own little Snow dog (which was quite a feat with less than one millimetre of snow!) He then proceeded to score the 'real pet owl' off of his birthday list (no idea why he's already written that with nearly nine months to go), citing the fact that his snow dog would come to life on the stroke of midnight and he wouldn't need two pets!

The poor wee man is just desperate for a pet.

Graffiti artist

Anna is a strange one. She's a complete goody two shoes, teacher's pet type. She wouldn't dream of doing anything naughty and is very mature in her outlook, often tidying up behind her older siblings in a parental fashion. She has one little failing though, and it's one none of the others has ever even tried out. She is a graffiti artist. The Welsh dresser, the door frame, the bookshelf, the wall on the staircase and today the hall window ledge have all been graffiti-ed by her at some point over the last two years. Up till now, she has always been found out. Her drawings of people are instantly recognizable, her hand-writing quite distinctive with curly 'n's and angular 'l's, and to make things even easier, she signs her work 'Anna', probably because she's so proud she can write, she forgets she's not allowed to! When pulled up for it, she always looks almost suicidal and immediately admits she got carried away and forgot where she was allowed to write. I think she subconsciously thinks that as long as she produces something beautiful, I will forgive her for it being on my furniture! I'm sure we'll have a lull for a few months now she's had another serious talking to, but I doubt Picasso has produced her last work of art!

Changed days for music

After all the talk about HMV yesterday, it got me to thinking about my gran. She had two main jobs that I remember from my childhood - she was a pianist - she played in a club on a Saturday night and she worked in a record shop (the record department in Lewis's department store on Argyle street). By the time I was around, she simply worked behind the counter so I wasn't really aware why she worked in a record shop, given she was a 'granny'! One night when I was a teenager, after she'd retired, I asked her how she'd come to work in a shop where most of the staff were teenagers. She explained a world to me that I knew nothing of... Before rock'n'roll, before pop and the likes people went to music shops, as they were then, to buy sheet music, and to help those buying the music, they needed a resident musician who could take the customer into a booth and play it for them to help them decide which piece to buy. In an age where we listen to snippets of music online and then download tracks through cyberspace, you have to say we've come a long way from my granny (born in 1916) sitting playing sheet music to potential music customers in the 40s and 50s!

Still at the forefront of her mind

Amaia had not long turned two when dad went into hospital and died. My greatest fear for her back then was that she was too small to remember. I was wrong then and I'm still wrong now. Today, eight months on, I took her shopping in Adsa. I was putting things in the trolley when we passed the drinks aisle. She skipped down it, picked up a small bottle of lucozade and put it in the trolley saying quite clearly 'We need this for when Pumpa comes back again. He's been dead too long now, he needs to come back.' In Amaia's head lucozade was synonymous with dad, as I discussed a few weeks after he died. My sweet baby...

First Day at Hazeldene Nursery

I had feared for about a year that Amaia would set another first in the family - the first to reach the age for state nursery before growing enough hair to go! And it seems today that she has achieved that goal!

Anyway, she may not have been able to wear any bobbles on her first day but she was absolutely thrilled to be allowed to go out with her siblings at 8-45 wearing her own little (recycled from Charlotte, Léon and Anna) uniform jumper! She refused to zip up her jacket despite the sub-zero start so everyone would see her jumper and badge on the school drop-off. And Anna and Léon showed her off on the way in to school almost like proud parents!

She was happy to be left alone for the settling-in hour doing jigsaws, weighing fruit and happily sitting with her teacher who'd come to our house last week to meet her. Having met her in her home surroundings, Amaia immediately clocked her teacher (who we knew well as she'd been Lots' teacher nine years ago) and felt safe to go to her. The home visits are definitely a positive innovation.

When it came time to leave, she was full of smiles. Tomorrow she's back for a couple of hours and I'm sure by Thursday, she'll be ready to start her full sessions.

Play Doh fun

Amaia got Play Doh for her birthday. Playing with it with the girls reminded me of Derek's Fuzzy Pumper Barber Set. He got it for Xmas or a birthday when he was six or seven, so I would have been pushing ten and trying to play cool. Play Doh was for kids! But to be honest, I was desperate for a Fuzzy Pumper of my own! In fact, if truth be told, I wouldn't say no to one even now! Anyway, I think I simply opted to casually help him play, much in the same way Charlotte has been helping Amaia play for three days now!

Baby Catriona

When Amanda was over for Amaia's birthday I took a few photos while we were waiting for the cake. I'm not sure how Catriona looks when she's home and surrounded by the people she knows best, but when she is in my house, surrounded by people she doesn't see as often, she is always very wide-eyed and investigative. As I was uploading them tonight, I came across this one. As soon as I saw it, it reminded me of a photo I had seen many years ago of that same wide-eyed surprised look. This one was of dad in 1943. Strange to see him in a baby...