Ambush

George's naughty cat thought of a new game tonight while George was in the bathroom brushing his teeth. She hid in the linen basket, and as he walked past, she jumped up, bopped him, and dropped back down into the basket. George was a bit taken aback, but I thought it was funny, and so did the cat apparently because she did it twice more. She never uses her claws, she just pats him and runs away. She has always liked creeping up on people and gently boxing their ears - now we may have to watch out for cat hiding places too.

Parents Evening

Tonight was parents evening at George's school. My friend minded George for me while I went for my 10 minute chat with his teacher. Apparently he needs to concentrate more, but is coming along nicely. I can see the improvement in his reading myself, and his vocabulary is extensive, but he needs to practise his writing.

His teacher says he is friendly, chatty, and a pleasure to have in the class room. Yay for George !

Busy Day

We have had a busy day today. We have been swimming, had lunch at McDonalds, been shopping and we have seen art.

We live fairly close to Port Sunlight village which has an art gallery founded by William Hesketh Lever, soap producer extrordinaire. After we'd had lunch I suggested to George and his friend M that we should call in there on the way home. They were fascinated by the sheer size of some of the paintings and pieces of furniture. The two of them are like human question marks, so there was a fair bit to answer, but the male marble statues caught their attention the most - for all the wrong reasons I hasten to add. M's eyes were like saucers (she's 10).

The piece that had the most attention was a statue of a hermaphrodite. "But mum, it's got boobs and a willy" said our hero in a voice that could well have been a tannoy broadcast. He wasn't wrong.

Clapping games

Tonight I started to teach George some clapping games for fun. We did "A sailor went to sea, sea, sea" which he thought was hilarious. I don't remember boys doing clapping games when I was small, but we had a good time, and if all else fails, he will be popular with his female friends if he can teach them how to do it.

We also had a snuggle on the sofa. He was tired because he woke at 4:40am this morning. That's a 20 minute lie in from the past couple of mornings though.

Club Penguin

I think it's fair that George's new hobby should have a mention. It hasn't quite taken over his mermaid obsession, but it's coming close. He plays club penguin on the computer with his friends a lot, and is also enthusiastically trying to talk me into becoming a member. This is not going to happen. I have to give him credit for persistence though - he has been asking me every other day for about a month now!

He is still getting up at 4:20am in the morning - a habit which i was hoping his daddy would help me cure, but of course his daddy never came home. I am at a loss as to how to deal with it at the moment. There is early, then there is stupidly early. If I ignore him in the morning then he will wake the neighbours up, which isn't fair when they have work too. The doctor was no help either - she said it's a sign of intelligence and her daughter does it too. Oh joy.

Cat Inna Tree

This is where our newest and naughtiest best friend spent most of Christmas. She was very careful most of the time, but on boxing day she discovered tinsel. After 2 hours of a rattling shaking tree due to the tinsel chewer, George suggested that we take the tree down. I was more than happy to go along with his idea, and the tree dweller was relocated once again to her cat bed.

The other best friend

When George's daddy died, I decided that we needed something extra in the house to fill up a tiny bit of the giant space left in our lives. I decided to let George have a pet. Not just any pet, but a pedigree kitten. I checked on the internet, and as luck would have it, there was a lady with an available litter of Burmese only 5 minutes away from our house.

We did not get a Burmese kitten. The lady (who is now our friend Sheryl) also had 6 of the most adorable grey kittens. We are now owned by a Korat. Her name is Moei Rochana, aka Pixel. In the first couple of weeks that we had her, she fell in the bath twice - that was nothing, she's been down the toilet since, and in the washing up bowl with the dishes. She is captivating, noisy, naughty and funny and she is helping to heal our broken hearts. I honestly don't know where we would be without this funny little scrap who rules our lives with a paw of iron, and gives us an opinion on everything.

As soon as she climbed from the floor to my shoulder using only my clothes (and she can still do it aged 7 months old, without hurting or using claws), I knew that I had found the ideal cat to keep up with a 5 year old child. When she came to live with us I took her away from George and his friends a few times to give her a rest, but as soon as I put her down on the floor she went running back to find them again. Here is the latest addition to our team.