Thursday, January 31, 2008

Growing Sunflowers

Last year I tried to grow some sunflowers. I put some seeds in a pot, waited for them to sprout and then put the young plants in the garden. Next morning there were no plants remaining, the slugs had eaten the lot. All foliage fed upon.

This year I was given some bird feeder things for the garden. The idea is that they look a bit like flowers, you put bird seed in them and then the birds come and eat the seed. The supplied seeds happened to be sunflower seeds. So, I put the feeders in the garden and put the seeds in them. A month later and there is no sign of any birds being fed, but there are loads of sunflower seedlings. Here's a piccie:




Go Figure.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

It's pretty gross

Liz found some pictures of what the insides of her lungs probably look like, so I thought that I would share :-) This isn't completely random. Apparently the antibiotics she is currently taking aren't keeping the horrible bug (psuedomonas) she now has under control, so it's back into hospital next week for some more IVs.



Friday, January 18, 2008

Football Again

Week two of football, and Nathaniel is getting the hang of it very quickly. Joining in with the skills training, practising taking penalties and getting the idea of the games a bit more. However, daddy has once again let his little boy down.

But before we get to that, a couple of photos:





For the games the kids are divided into teams. The captain of each team is chosen first and then the guys running the session divide the remaining kids amongst the teams. Nathaniel was chosen to be a team captain this week. It is at this point that I realise that I have not equipped him for this task. The one responsibility of the team captain is to choose the team's name. This was the same last week, but it had just not occurred to me to brief him on the possibilities available to him.

Sure enough the first team captain chose Arsenal, the second chose England, the third chose Notts County. Nathaniel did not even understand the question. Blessings forever on the coach who grasped the situation, asked Nathaniel where he lived and, on being told, "Nottingham", announced that the team would be Nottingham Forest. Task for the weekend, watch MoTD with Nathaniel on Sunday morning and get him to pick a team.

Thursday, January 10, 2008

My little boy

I took Nathaniel to Football Club on Wednesday.

Having booked him in on Tuesday (forward planning and organisation being key features of our family life) we realised that he didn't actually have any trainers, so first job was to get to SportsWorld and get him a pair. His first football trainers, a pair of Umbros reduced to seven quid, trying not to think to hard about the Vietnamese kids about his age who probably sewed them together :-(

So to the club, a session for 4-5 year olds at the indoor pitch at the local high school. About 25 lads and one girl, all bigger than my little boy, only just four, short for his age, and with the football coming up to just over his knees. Some have obviously been last term and the two coaches know most of their names, and I was impressed that by the end of the hour they seemed to have got all the names learnt.

Skills training first: dribbling, heading, keepie ups with feet and thigh. My little boy starting off running all over the place but then started to get the hang of things. Between exercises they all had to come into the middle of the hall with their footballs and sit and listen. The first time they did this, a lot of those who had been previously were sat on their footballs. Nathaniel sat next to his and held it. The second time he tried to sit on his, but was a bit wobbly. Third and subsequent times he sat on it, no problem, just like all the others. My little boy.

Then it was time for 5-a-side matches. 10 little people running round after a football. My introvert, control seeking, little boy's idea of hell, especially if nobody's explained to him what's going on. Why couldn't he have the ball and what was meant to be happening? Why hadn't daddy explained what happens in a game of football? Because I hadn't realised that I needed to, I hadn't got into his head and thought in advance about what he wouldn't know, but might need to know to enable him to get the best of it. My little boy.

He loved it, and wants to go back (just as well really as you have to pay for 4 weeks in advance), my little boy, growing up fast.