Musical Christmas

Cruising towards his teens...

Move over Take That.

Sammy gave a stunning performance with his backing band 'The Rest Of The Class' at the renowned venue; 'The Playground' on the last day of term.

Friday 21st December 10:30am saw a pride of parents, grand-parents and die-hard fans waiting for the 3 and 4 year olds to take the stage.

As expected the choreography was excellent. The stars were obviously used to performing on a larger stage but despite the cramped conditions they shone through, with only the slightest of jostling, like true professionals.

Sammy's guitar solo coming soon...

Competitive Mum

Picked Sammy up from school at lunchtime yesterday and straight away I clocked a silver star stuck to his jumper. Not a standard matt blue, yellow or green star but a shiny silver star. So I scanned the rest of his class to see who else had one of these little symbols of success to find there were no other silver stars.

A ha, I thought - what can my clever little boy do that no-one else in his class can do?

To my frustration I couldn't get it out of him, he wouldn't tell me what they had been doing that morning but then he rarely does when I ask him. It was later in the day when Sammy said that his class had been using a computer in the morning.

He got his silver star because he was the only one who could type his name on the keyboard.

Smug and proud mum.

Firsts

Sammy went on his first school outing last Wednesday and he was away for the whole day to the royal palm park in Alicante. It was the first time he'd been on the coach or his 'big school bus' and it was the first time he'd been out away from myself and Paul for any length of time. It was also the first time he'd had to manage the contents of his snack box AND his lunch box !

In the last few weeks Sammy has also been freely saying spanish words for the first time; he happily tells me that he is a 'niño' (boy) and Jessica is a 'niña' (girl), that he is in 'azul' (the blue team) at school and Cole's name is actually pronounced 'Co-el' (The way Rebecca says it)

Last week in one of those peaceful moments Sammy has when I am working away at something online and Sammy is concentrating on something and I realise he's been very quiet for a while and I ask him, or I creep over to have a peek at, what he is doing and it was this...

and I forget all the time but he's only three and a half.

Toilet Paper

Now I always thought that taking a newspaper to the toilet and spending ages in there is a male Rebera thing. Having lived with a Barton for 6 and a half years I realize that it is probably just a male thing.

Chip off the old block... eeeuuuwwww

Silver Surfer

I'm not a regular X-Treme sports participant although I have done a 360 flip on a quad bike down an incredibly steep sand dune - unintentional. I have also jumped off a snow-covered mountain in the Austrian Alps with nothing but a nylon sail to get me to the ground safely - intentional although I did question my sanity as I leapt into space. These activities are quite rare in my life but I do really enjoy them - they take me out of my self, put me momentarily on a different planet.

I had an X-Treme phone conversation with mother today.

Mother: Helen, I want to send an email to Roshanee & Noel
Me: Yes ok.
Mother: But I keep getting a message back saying there's no such address.
Me: Right, what address are you sending it to?
Mother: erm www.rosh...
Me: That's not an email address. you need 'something-at-something-dot-something'. I'll get you their addresses, hang on....
Right this is Noel's (and I said Noel's) and this is Roshanee's(and I said Roshanee's)
Mother: Oh don't they have a joint one? I want to send an email to both of them.
Me: Yes send the same email to both of them.
Mother: No, I want to send it to both of them together.
Me: Well in the body of the message write 'Dear Roshanee & Noel,' and send it to both of them. Put Noel's address in the 'To' field then a semi colon and then put Rosh's address.
Mother: Oh now you've lost me.
Me: The 'To' field, above the message, where you put the email address.
Mother: Oh 'To' I thought you meant '2'. So I put Noels address in the top one and then 'Dear Roshanee & Noel' in the next line down.
Me: No, the next line down is the 'CC' field. In fact use that one for Roshanee's address and then you won't have to bother with semi colons.
Mother: OK.
Me: Have you looked at the new paulnhelen site. I've finished it now.
Mother: No. Your father had it on the computer upstairs but I can't get it on this one.
Me: Mum, you have internet access on that one, you can look at the new site. (and I gave her the address)
Mother: Hey, I didn't know that Sammy was going to school in the afternoons now.
Me: You read that on the blog, so you've looked at that.
Mother: The what?
Me: The Blog.
Mother: Yes. We've both looked at that.
Me: Good so from the blog you can get to the new family site. At the top of the blog is a link to www.paulnhelen.com in the intro paragraph.
Mother: Well I can't because I can't see my list here. Your father can but I can't see mine.
Me: You mean your email?
Mother: Yes, I don't have it.
Me: Well I have just given you the website address so you can see the new site and the blog.
Mother: Well where do I put the address?
Me: You open your internet explorer, your blue 'e' that you use when you want to check your bingo pages or tennis pages or whatever and you type in the website address beginning www. OK?
Mother: OK then. But I don't think your Father has seen your new website.
Me: He has because he sent me an email through the new site.
Mother: Well I need to send this to Noel now. Although I don't know how to get the message out of Drafts. I'll probably have to type it all again.
Me: I've put a message on the new site for Noel & Rosh - On their wedding day with some pictures.
Mother: Yes , I've seen that, lovely pictures.
Me: So You have seen the new site.
Mother: Oh, I thought I was looking at my email.

At which point I knew that one of us was on a different planet.

Silver Surfer of the Year 2007 - Dora aged 92.

Teaching - Best Job in Spain.

Well it's the end of another week here in Spain.

"What?" I hear you cry. "It's only Thursday!"

This is true and actually it's only Thursday lunchtime and it's raining which seems to be good enough reason to close the school as far as the little ones are concerned. Actually it's barely spitting by British standards.

And there's no school tomorrow, Friday, as it's a 'Fiesta' - Dia del Pilar. Don't know who Pilar is, a saint presumably although pilar actually means post or pillar. So tomorrow instead of going to school we are dancing round a big stick.

Wednesday was a normal day; school for everyone as usual 9 to 12:30 and 3 to 4.30.
Tuesday, however, was a fiesta. El Día de la Comunidad Valenciana so that's like having an Essex Day !

And you'll love this...
On Monday there was no school because Tuesday was a fiesta and Monday, being the first 'working' day after the weekend, becomes a 'bridging' day. Yay !

So, it's actually been a busy week what with one and a half normal school days, half a day off because it rained (a little bit), 2 fiesta days and a bridging day. Phew !

And this is how we keep Sammy busy when he's off school. Which is a lot.

Sammy Barton Rebera (P.E.E.)

So I'll tell you what we've been doing. Sammy's about to complete his third week at school; no tears, lots of new friends, not a single bag of wet stuff although a faint smell of wee one day. Oh the glamour of being a mummy in Spain !

Sammy has been doing a bit of work on the side this week; last Sunday, not a school day so practically moonlighting. He's establishing himself as a Playground Evaluation Executive and he had his first assignment at Polaris' La Torre, 45 minutes south of us. Paul and I did chaperone him but we didn't force him in to it - we're not pushy parents or anything.

Here's Sammy's Executive Overview: