Rachel’s chatter has really come on in leaps and bounds recently and she’s becoming such a confident and pretty little thing.

On Friday night, she sneaked out of her bedroom and came down to the living room to see us both. Knowing that she would be instantly returned to bed, she switched on the brightest, most cutest smile you’ve ever seen. With her purple pajamas, curly hair and toothless grin, she managed to bargain a few extra minutes down the stairs with us.

To give her a decision in how long she stayed up, I showed her my watch and asked her to point to where the big hand should be when she went to bed. She pointed to “7″ (giving her about 15 minutes), and so we allowed her to sit and banter with us until time came. Because she’d chosen the time, she went to bed without an argument!

Which brings me to this morning. I had the morning off work because I had to drop in an all-important post-vasectomy sperm sample. (Possibly the most un-erotic moment in my life, but let’s not get into that!) When I walked into the living room, she was all surprised to see me and asked me why I was home. I explained that I had to see the doctor after my operation to make sure everything was OK. She said - with a serene and genuine look on her face - “Well, I hope he tells you that you’re well Daddy!”

I just love how Rachel’s coming on at the moment, she’s such a bright, outgoing and clever little girl and she’s developing in the way I always imagined she would.

The latest phenomenon in our street is Bratz Club. We’re not entirely sure what a Bratz Club is, but it can’t be that bad, can it? Probably best not to ask.

Anyway Rachel and her friend Niamh are making invitations for their other Bratz Club buddies and Lisa has just overheard their planning session. As they cut up little hearts to paste on each card, Rachel comes up with their slogan - “We love you. If you love us too, come join our Bratz Club!”

Lisa’s convinced she’s heading for a career in advertising!

Poo has become the word of the moment in our house. Between Rachel and Jake, everything they say or do has poo added to the end. Their favourite insult (or compliment) at the moment is “You’re a poo-poo head!” I say compliment because they all seem to love being called it, apart from one of their little friends who takes it as the kiddie equivalent of character assassination.

What are you having for dinner tonight kids? Poo and chips. What’s on the TV? Power Poo-poos. What should we do this evening? Go for a poo-pa-lee.

We’re going along with it for the time being, until the next fad comes along - and rest assured it will. Probably the worst thing to do right now is order them not to say “poo” and risk turning it into a way to challenge us. So, as of 7:00 every evening, a familiar cry will sound out around our house:

“Time for bed, poo-poo heads!“

Last year I had an idea that I’d like to read Jostein Gaarder’s The Christmas Mystery to the children. At the time, I read it myself, but decided to hold off reading it to the kids.

The Christmas Mystery is a charming little story, told through an advent calendar, of a girl (Elisabet) who chases a lamb through a department store and across country. On her travels, she meets various figures from the nativity scene and discovers that they are all travelling across time to Bethlehem and the birth of Christ.

The story is told via a little boy, who is given the Advent calendar by an old shopkeeper and told that it is a magic calendar. When Joachim opens the first door on the calendar, a piece of paper falls out and he discovers the story of Elisabet, and each day her journey unfolds and her meetings with new members of the Nativity.

Anyway, I’ve been reading The Christmas Mystery with Rachel for a couple of days now. Granted, we’re a bit behind and need to catch up by a few days if we’re to finish on the 24th December!

I think she’s liking the story so far, as she’s repeating the tale to Lisa and her aunts. In fact, when she was given an advent calendar as a gift, she was a bit disappointed that a piece of paper didn’t fall out!

I’ve since found out that reading The Christmas Mystery has become a family tradition for some people - one review on Amazon.co.uk said:

Our family started reading The Christmas Mystery about 5 years ago and it is now a very special Advent activity and a way to come together as a family in a busy season. While it is a bit confusing at first- the story moves backward through time and geography-it is so rich and has so many layers that it’s absolutely worth reading.

There are bits that obviously confuse Rachel, but I try and skip these or simplify them as best I can. However, after we read the night’s chapter, I ask her to tell me what happened in the story that night, and then we look at the picture on the next chapter to see what the next tale will be about.

If I remember correctly, the end of the tale moved me the last time I read it, so I’m looking forward to Rachel’s reactions! Anyway, I’ll maybe post a few updates here before Christmas!

Being the firstborn, Rachel has always displayed a stubborn independence that we’re well used to by now.

Tonight we were playing on the computer. Correction - she was playing on the computer, with minimal input from me. However, at one point the wireless connection dropped and we decided to reboot the computer.

All the while, Rachel sat patiently waiting to the desktop to load and double-clicked the FireFox icon (no IE in our house!). Once FireFox loaded, she asked to type in the URL. Before I could answer, she clicked into the address bar and turned to me, “How many ‘w’s do I need Dad?”

Surprised, but not surprised (if you know what I mean), I proceeded to spell out the URL for CBeebies and she dutifully tapped it into the keyboard. She’d have got it right first time, but Jake decided he wanted a piece of the action and started randomly tapping keys too.

A few stern words from Rachel, and I managed to distract Jake long enough for a second attempt. This time she got it right, and I told her to hit the enter key. She pointed to it and said “This one, Dad?”. I nodded and she hit enter, Cbeebies loading within seconds.

Well, you should’ve seen the look on her face - a mixture of utter amazement and delight. She was so proud of herself for getting it right!

I can guarantee that in a week or two, she’ll be navigating to these sites on her own. Then the fun begins!

Rachel started primary School this week. The sight of her in her ‘big girls’ uniform, walking into the classroom for the first time almost reduced me to tears. Worse was Jakes reaction to the situation, he wouldn’t talk to me the whole way home and spent the  rest of the morning asking “Can we go get Rachel now?”

Typical of Rachel, she settled brilliantly and her only problem with the whole primary school thing is that her teacher asked her not to count in spanish.

i should explain that Gerard took a few spanish conversation classes last year, and ever since has been introducing the odd word and phrase to the children. With the help of her dad and of course Dora The Explorer, Rachel can count to ten, as well as add and subtract in Spanish.

On her first day her teacher must have been trying to gauge her capabilties and was asking her to count some objects. Rachel proceeded to do so in spanish and was most offended when her teacher asked her to do it again in English.

Other than that we have had no issues. Rachel seems to enjoy school, so much so that she declared today “I wish i could stay there forever and never go home.” It doesn’t say much for my parentig skills does it?

We were away this weekend in Ballycastle visiting the folks up there.

Saturday evening was beautiful, so we decided to go for a walk. The weather was warm, but there was a gentle breeze keeping us cool. Rachel and Jake came along on their scooters, riding a bit too fast for comfort (since I was the one trying to keep up with them)!

We ended up in a local playground near the beach and spent a relaxing hour playing with the children on the swings, slides and climbing frames. As the sun started to descend and the air became cooler, we decided to head back up to my parents’ house where we were staying.

So, the two scooter kids shot off and I lumbered along in pursuit. The pair stopped at the end of a row of houses and loitered for a minute while I caught up. Running down the side of the houses was a steep hill, which son and daughter were contemplating from their scooters.

Rachel did a little test with her scooter, going a little bit down the hill and then pulling toward the verge to stop. I thought she’d realised how steep the hill was and had decided against scooting down it. Wrong…

After a couple of seconds, she shot off down the hill. I couldn’t believe my eyes and shouted at her to stop. (Great idea, she was already out of control, how could she stop?) A car was parked near the bottom of the hill with the driver’s door wide open. Rachel was heading straight for it. I was pounding down the hill as fast as my legs would carry me, no hope of catching her now, just to pick up the pieces at the bottom.

Rachel managed to avoid the car door, but the road came to a bend at the bottom and she couldn’t follow it at that speed. Her only option was to either crash into the hedge or attempt to skid to a stop. She chose the skid.

For a moment, it looked like she was going to make it, but a patch of rough ground caused the scooter to fall abruptly and she was thrown off, landing hard on her knees and then smashing her face off the ground. I was beside her within seconds prising her gingerly off the ground, trying to asses the damage and comforting her and berating her in the same breath. Her mouth and nose were bleeding and she was pebbledashed with small stones which I gently wiped away. Her knees were grazed and bleeding too and she was scared and badly shaken from the ordeal.

Jake appeared a minute or two later, offering to take Rachel’s scooter back up the hill, and I carried the patient back to the top, still incredulous at what I’d just seen. As I was going up the hill, I noticed a car had stopped and the passengers staring at us. I inwardly cursed them for sitting there watching our misfortune when the driver got out and came across the road with a first aid box. He explained that he works for the local coastguard and proceeded to clean Rachel’s knees and patch her up. When he finished, we thanked him profusely (and I felt bad about my snap judgement).

Epilogue

Rachel then refusing to walk (too sore), I ended up carrying her all the way back to her Grandparents’ house. When we got back, I laid her down on the sofa to rest. Guess what? Within five minutes she was up and running around again as if nothing had happened!

Still, the sight of a child hurtling down a hill and crashing at the bottom is never pleasant. Rachel’s got a few minor cuts to her face, but it could have been so much worse - we were expecting broken bones.

Over the last few weeks I have felt as though I am banging my head off a brick wall. Jake has always been more free with his hands than Rachel, but over the last six months or so, I have noticed that he rarely hits, kicks or pushes anymore.

Since summer holidays started though I have noticed a deterioration in both of the children’s behaviour. They are hitting each other A LOT! To make things worse, a boy that often plays with Jake and Rachel came crying to us tonight that Jake had hit him on the head, and it turns out that Rachel, who thought the boy was being cheeky, had told Jake to do it.

I am trying to talk it out with them, explaining what they are doing is wrong and that it hurts other children. They have had stickers removed from their reward charts, they have been brought inside and not allowed out to play. None of it seems to be working. To be fair the majority of the problem lies with Rachel, Jake often just follows his big sister’s lead.

I think that Rachel is bored, she misses school and it is very hard to stimulate her effectively while also trying to amuse the two younger boys. I am at my wits end, and don’t like to see my usually very kind and considerate daughter turn into such a bad tempered little girl.  I am trying to practice positive discipline and not constantly tell her she is being bad, but sometimes my patience does wear thin. She is so quick to say sorry to avoid punishment, but I know she rarely means it.

Gerard is going to take some time off work within the next few weeks and we are going to try to occupy the childrens time a bit better. Hopefully a few day trips and some one to one time with Rachel will help cheer her up.

I love the way Rachel talks down to me. The way she assumes that she knows everything and tries to explain her theories to me in her most patronising voice. Though it doesn’t bode well for her teenage years!

Yesterday while the kids and I were staying at my mums caravan, I took all three for a walk to the nearby town of Cushendall. On the way I stopped to point out Lurig mountain and told the children how their dad wanted us all to climb to the top for a picnic one day.

Rachel then informed me that it wasn’t in fact a mountain, but a volcano. I began to talk to her some more about volcanoes, trying to pass on some of my very limited knowledge on the subject. She paused, looked up and said “did you know that balls come out of a volcano?” I replied “why would balls come out of a volcano?” she gave me a look of dismay and in her most patronising tones replied “ballcanoe mum, ballcanoe”. I could have died laughing, and of course she still refuses to accept my pronunciation of the word, her teacher told her it was a ballcanoe and thats that!

So, Rachel had her nursery graduation ceremony yesterday. Most of the grandparents came to the school to watch the little concert they’d prepared and to see the kids getting their certificates from the principal of the school.

I showed up slightly late, due to my parents managing to get mixed up over timings. When I got in to the assembly hall, the children were already on stage. It didn’t take long to locate my little cherub on the left of the stage among a gaggle of friends.

The concert began with a few songs from the children, sung in that tuneless, half shouted manner that kids do best!

My heart melted as I saw Rachel scanning the audience and as her eyes settled on my she broke into a huge grin and waved down to me. We spent the rest of the concert intermittently nodding and smiling at each other across the hall.

When the time came, she had to walk out to the middle of the stage to receive her certificate from the principal. As she did it, she looked slightly nervous, but she turned and gave a big wave to the whole family as she walked back to her seat!

It’s always great to see Rachel in her element, mixing with the other kids. She’s such a little butterfly, and she knows it!