World Book Day brought the usual quandaries. We read lots of books, but few have characters who can be dressed up as. However, a recent favourite of Finn's, which really drove his imagination, was an excellent book of Greek Myths. So Cori did a great job of costume-creation and he went in as Zeus:
Orry was very proud of his brother and was rather sad not to be a part of the Greek God gang:
... But, inevitably, he got frightened as he went in that people would laugh at him. Then, the first person he met was a boy who shouted at him, "What are you supposed to be?!," and Finn started to cry.
That was the end of that.
Though there were a few other amazing costumes, a lot of children came as super heroes or princesses. Whatever the aim of World Book Day was, it certainly missed the mark in our household this year.
Orry started properly potty training in March:
(Please note that Orry has a harmonica & a whistle here - two of the more annoying toys to take to the potty!)
After the first few days, Cori was unsure what the point was as he would fail to go on the potty, and then hide in a corner to do his thing in his pants. Very frustrating. This was even despite having treats for successful potty stints. It was like he didn't care about the rewards at all.
However, Cori then started a chart with stickers, which he began working with:
However, as you will perhaps guess from looking at Monday's apparent frequency of wees, Orry's levels of honesty are perhaps not perfect, especially when confronted with access to such a reward chart and the stickers without anyone seeing!
However, he got into the swing of things eventually and by the end of the month, accidents were few and far between. Great times!
Though, before we get ahead of ourselves, it is probably worth having a couple more pictures of the misery of hanging around as Orry perhaps does his business on the potty whilst drawing, perhaps polluting the air of the living room with poo-air for hours after!
You might have seen over Orry's shoulder in that last picture evidence of his fine drawing skills. This rather surprised us when he picked up the habit. It is a relatively recent skill of his which he's discovered, and he's been really enjoying it since:
A thing he especially likes are lines, and shapes, and following these around. Blank pieces of paper are nice, but not nearly as exciting for Orry as something for him to follow or trace around. This has even meant that he's had a go at a bit of writing, and copying of Cori's drawing, which was thoroughly shocking for us, how good it was:
In case anyone needs a reference point, here is Finn's (average to his class) writing, at 6 years old and half way through his second year in school:
We are, therefore, amazed by Orry's writing/drawing skills.
Finn too makes beautiful things, though he much prefers go for crazy imaginations in pictures, so his will look like this:
Great stuff!
However, having spoken about Orry's eventually successful potty training already, it definitely wasn't all plain sailing. We don't know what was up with him (perhaps he was a bit ill or the like), but when we went out to a fancy restaurant for Granny's birthday he went through ALL of the spare trousers and underpants that we had in the bag and ended up like this:
He went home wrapped in Cori's jumper like a strange sarong. He was not happy (and neither was Cori, who drew the short straw in sitting at his table and so having to deal with multiple disasters throughout the meal!)
Besides the toilet disasters, going out for Granny's 70th birthday in Peel was lovely, especially as it brought over Finn & Orry's Uncle & Aunt and cousin, and Great Uncle & Great Aunt, which is a rare treat indeed! And we all had a great time, including the Birthday Lady:
We achieved a new Must Do Manx Event in March - our first Braaid Eisteddfod, here:
If you don't know a traditional Manx Eisteddfod, it is a local community open-ended entertainment, with people from the audience getting up to do their turn of singing, poetry recitation, music, story telling etc. There's also, of course, the legendary Hymn Raising (where someone starts a hymn unaccompanied, with everyone joining in for a verse, before the pianist plays the tune's acutal key, to see how close they were). There are trophies and it's arranged like a competition, but that side of it is clearly just the excuse for a community entertainment.
We'd long heard about it from friends but felt very nervous in stepping through the door, but once inside we knew the first two rows there in front of us from Manx Dancing and from the school. We sat down and had a very enjoyable night (even if it did go on till midnight!)
(If you want a feel of the event, here is a recording of the end-of-the-night Ellan Vannin from a few decades ago).
However, undoubtedly the Big News of March was The Scan. So, without further ado, here is the moment when Finn revealed to us the results of the scan (which we all went to as a family):
Exciting news, huh!
It was nice letting Finn get the exciting role of finding out first (even if we could tell immediately the gender from Finn's massive grin as the technician whispered in his ear). In contrast, Orry wasn't so bothered, not even in really listening to Finn's Big News:
(If you're interested to see the full film, which is not very interesting, it's here: https://youtu.be/BhvcNuz6IH0).
We have to admit that we'd been discussing and imagining having a girl. So the news of a boy rather stopped us. Not necessarily disappointed; just stopped us and made us re-think. Cori was particularly sad to give up on a girl for a final time. But the day later, we'd re-adjusted and the baby we were looking forward to was still very much looked forward to, but this time we were imagining it as a boy. Over the week or so after we were admiring our two lovely (if naughty and frustrating!) boys and reminding ourselves what lovely things boys are. And now it's all not an issue, and we're happy.
... Though not so happy to have to think of yet another boy's name!
It wasn't long after the scan that Cori went off for a spot of work, presenting about the National Grid at a Science Convention for children in Birmingham (as you do!). It meant that I took a week off work to look after Orry (& Finn, who was mainly in school).
This began as great fun, when the weather allowed us to get out to Langness:
... And this was even despite having a poo nightmare on the way back (note the faeces on the pavement)! This was on the pavement outside Malew church, which is somewhat exposed. Orry didn't seem to mind though, though he was evidently very disappointed to have had the accident.
However, the weather was against us the rest of the week, so we did a lot of more indoor things:
One of the main things we had to do during Cori's absence was practice our Manx dancing, for the big competition that was coming up. We ended up having nightly practices with teddy bears for partners, and using flash-cards as reminders. We never really learnt the dance, but we had good fun doing it (even prompting Orry to almost join in at the dancing in the Sundays after):
We had a nice time on our own, even having fun bonding together to do things like shopping:
We were sufficiently relaxed to enjoy ourselves, even near to bedtime:
The finale of the week was our doing everything on our To DO list, including tidying the house, and rewarding ourselves with The Best Evening Ever - eating our pizza dinner on the coach in front of a film! - Finn was so excited!
Once Cori was back the next big thing was the Manx Folk Awards.
These are the set of competitions for school-age children, in Manx music, dance, song and recitation. Finn was in it twice, the first of which was with his dance group, who gave a great performance:
This won them an excellent second, which everyone was delighted by (though particularly as they did their dance so well, after resolutely middling rehearsals!):
To celebrate, most of the group went down to the promenade (in Douglas), to get an ice cream in the Villa Arcade. After the ice cream was devoured, and as the grown-ups chatted, the children wandered off. When the grow-ups went to try and find them, this is what they found:
They had found a door open and let themselves in, to find the organ maintainer putting the Wurlitzer through its paces. Naturally, the children reacted as they would, by dancing. It was a joyous sight to come into. The musician seemed happy enough to play for them for a while, and he even let them have a quick go themselves:
A lovely day out to Douglas, topped off by Orry's pooing at short warning on the Douglas promenade!
The next appearance of Finn's at the MFA was a strange one.
It was partly organised at my work, and, despite having nearly 1,500 entries for other categories, they had very few for the 'dialect' recitation. This was worst at the early Primary School age, where they had no entries. So, to help out, we put Finn in, against the opposition of one - a boy of only four or so, the nephew of one of the organisers!
We didn't tell Finn about it, as we knew that it would then be a struggle to have him learn the poem. Instead, we just played at reading it and memorising it at the breakfast table etc. Or reciting it as we walked around the house etc. Finn soon had it in him (and better than me, certainly). At that point we were able to tell him about being in the competition, which he was accepting of, thinking of the potential winning.
Come the day, he was excited, and very nervous. Before he got on the stage he was very nervous indeed, but he told us later that he got over that as he had the idea of imagining that it was just a practice and that he was just reading it to us, and not on the stage in front of everyone etc. He did a great job:
He was very proud to have won the first prize, and so were we:
We're close to the end now, but first we need to clear up a few loose stories and pictures, starting with Orry's grazed face from falling in the swimming pool car park (where Finn has his lesson each Thursday after school). He was dashing out in danger and Cori called him to stop, which he did, sort-of, stopping his legs but therefore falling on his face. The result was a bit of wailing, some tears, and this impressive scar:
The train track makes only infrequent appearances these days, but it is still impressive when it comes:
More frequently played with are the blocks, which the boys have fun creating their own castles with, with or without the instructions:
I'm not too sure what this is all about, but it would appear that Orry loves a cocktail sausage:
We took a trip to Scarlett. It was nice:
Cori's bump is blossoming:
The last thing of March for us was the lead in to Easter, beginning with flitters.
This is the Manx tradition for Good Friday - to go down to the shore and eat flitters (known as limpets elsewhere). I had made a film about it in work, so it was something I was keen to try out. Having seen the video, some of Finn's friends also wanted to come along, and we had a lovely time at Niarbyl, even if it was drizzling towards the end, and even if the things themselves weren't the most tasty of delights!
Of course, after Good Friday, it's time to get painting eggs:
Finn also prepared for Easter in school, which allowed us to make this little film and Finn wishing everyone a happy Easter:
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