December is here and with it the dreaded Christmas Season… Yes I said dreaded… And if you know me you will also know I am not really a very Christmassy sort of person. Don’t take me wrong, I like the whole getting family and friends together thing and like anyone I like giving and receiving presents… but there is something about the whole season that just puts me off… Actually there are quite a few things that put me off… but that’s not what this post is all about!
Believe it or not, I am talking FUN today!!
We’ve been planing today for about a week (and by we, I really mean Vic) and we woke up with the prospect of going ice skating at Hide Park’s Winter Wonderland. And I was looking forward to teach TB to fall on his ass slide graciously over the ice… just when we got there it was sold out… that and the circus thing…
Not to worry… there was still plenty to do… and wit that we’ve spent a whole afternoon of indulging ourselves.
At some point of the afternoon was called a grumpy old man for complaining of queues, pain in my knee, expending too much money (You gotta agree that £16 in pick and mix is A HELL OF A LOT)…
My response to that? It is all part of the Pires Xmas Tradition!
I want to live in a house completelly made out of legos!!!
I wish I had this idea… and the money to buy 3 million bricks of lego…
Capitain Slow and one of the bricks made out of 272 Lego Pieces
The presenter of Top Gear, James May is up there and living my dream – and most of all TB’s dream in the middle of Denbies Wine Estate in Dorking for the BBC series “James May Toy Stories”. I a, soooo gonna have to watch that!!!
May has vowed to live for a few days in the life-sized house, which comes complete with a working shower and toilet, once it has been completed.
I’m planning to stay there for two or three days, or until it falls down – whichever is sooner. I’m pretty relaxed about it, but will just have to be careful moving around. If I wake up buried under a pile of bricks I’ll know it’s gone wrong.
Well one thing is for sure… if it works that COULD be a way to make housing prices go down as I am sure building houses out of legos would be cheapper than out of bricks! Not that some of the modern houses you see out there don;t already look as if they are made out of lego pieces but hey…
The most worrying thing of all is that he said he had the idea whilst having a beer with friends! Who said nothing good comes out of alcohol!!! LOL
As I said… I am soooo gonna have to watch that program with the TB. Too bad really they didn’t do it coser to us so I could take him to give a hand. They were letting the kiddos help make the mega bricks for the building! hehehe
I wanna live in Legoland!! How about you?? Would you live in a Lego House?!?!?!
TB woke up today with a one tracked mind: He was to spend the whole day in his firefighter costume.
He finished his second breakfast (don’t ask…) and found a basket at his Toy-room (the conservatory) full of his costumes and whilst rampaging through them he found both the Spiderman and Firefighter costumes (no interest in the Peter Pan one today).
After 2 minutes he decided what he wanted to wear (it took me other 15 to convince him to wear some other piece of clothing underneath) and he became Mr. firefighter.
“Daddy, firefighters go everywhere by car, so you need some lights in the car so we can go to the hub (The Metanoia Cafe)”
IT is just a 5 minute walk from home so I convinced him that firefighters do loads of healthy stuff like walking… plus sometimes they can’t get through traffic on their cars so they take their firefighter scooters. That was enough to convince him.
After a very cool scooting around + arty craft making and PSP playing and generally being bored day, at about 3 pm we were VERY bored I decided to close up shop a lil earlier and go home.
Well, that’s not the only reason why we closed up shop earlier. I have received the news that some big Photography company is about to open a studio at the Mills, which infuriated me profoundly. That and the whole Bulshit Telecom Broadband problem (engineers coming to fix it tomorrow apparently) were enough reasons for me go home and do something about the piles of work on the Metanoia Website and advertisement I have to finish… the day was being VERY slow anyways…
And that was enough (after talking to a photographer interested in renting the studio and to Kathia yesterday) to accelerate my plans to make photography a weekday fulltime thing to dedicate to photography again. Just taking a different approach this time offering the courses I had already planned to offer at the HUB.
What saved the day was the idea of taking advantage of TB’s firefighter cuteness… hehehehe
Before coming home we took some time to take some pictures to properly test the studio capabilities…
We had loads of fun… and I kinda liked the photos! TB is a natural in front of the camera.
If you wanna take a look at the photos, click at the image bellow:
TB the Firefighter (or firestarter?)
You can also watch the Animoto Video of the TB’s phototshoot right down here.
Hope you liked it!
And if you want some like that taken of ya gi’me a shout… I can both set an appontment at the Upper Room Studio for ya or I can go to you to do the photos. I have a portable Kit that I can take to wherever you are…
He was hungry and I was feeling creative… well at least inspired to cook… so we decided to do some “half cheated pao de queijo” (Brazilian Cheese Bread). Half cheated because even though the main stuff came in a package (we can;t find decent ingredients in Britain….) we decided to add our special touch to it…
Enjoy!
I know I know… after a while it gets dark… but still fun! hehehehehe
yum yum!!!
If u want the recipe let me know and I’ll email it to you… hehehehe
… I’d probably have been fulminated this Morning!!
I hate to shout at TB! I also hate to discipline him… It simply breaks my heart… And I had to do it today, right before he went to school… it sort of started yesterday really… he is in one of these phases in life where he thinks that howling and crying and kicking and hitting things will give him everything he wants…
I know… it is a phase… and he’s only 4 years old… not a baby anymore but also not a “big boy” yet… and some times I forget that. It doesn’t help that half his friends at school do the same thing (much more than half getting exactly what they want out of it…) and get away with it… which seems to infuriate him even more because he won’t… I refuse to let him get away with being disrespectful. This is not how I was raised and I think half of the problems that Britain has today with gangs and hoodies and binge drinking, drugs etc etc etc have to do with the lack of discipline or “control” that parents exercise over their kids today…
Don’t take control as a bad word… I’ve just used it in the lack of a better one…
I don’t blame the authorities for it… I am sure they had the best of intentions when they toughened up to protect children against abuse and mistreat caused by a minority of parents, if you can actually call some of them parents… they are NO EXAMPLE to set for their kids… or at the very least a VERY BAD one… and you lead and influence by example…
The only problem is that because of these “£$%$&% rules parents are now afraid to raise their children. Are afraid to discipline them.. we kinda live in a “Free Range Kids” society.
I can’t say we don’t spoil TB because we do! We pretty much give him whatever he wants, and if we don’t then his grandparents will. He’s the only kid in his class that is allowed to play video games for example (and up till 2 months ago he had his own console as well), and some of the parents of his friends got scandalized when they found out he had his own games (I couldn’t effing believe it…) and that I allowed TB to browse the internet (he loves the Thomas the takn engine and CBEEBIES websites… ah… youtube is a big thing as well now)… Imagine if they find out I gave my old Laptop to him!!!
The thing is… We give him pretty much what he wants… within limit of course… but that makes it one more bargain chip to our side… Example… he is now VERY upset because he is not playing his Lego/Star Wars game for the whole of today because of the fit he threw this morning because he didn’t want to go to school to play Lego.
I know he has been impossible since yesterday… but that still doesn’t make me feel any better for shouting at him and going to the extreme of smacking his bottom this morning. I had to say sorry to him on the way to school which almost made him and me cry… specially when he turned to me and said “It’s OK Daddy, I am still your friend.”
It broke my heart…
He’s still not playing X-Box today tho!
How about you??? Are you/will you be a free range mum/dad??? What do You do when you need to show your kiddo some Tough Love????
