Dads

My eldest, 13, had started doing his Duke of Edinburgh with the Air Cadets. A few Saturdays ago, they were walking and following maps and the temperature was at least 30°C. They were supposed to be out for 6 hours but the map reader got lost and they were walking for 12 hours.

He's high functioning autistic but amazingly he held it together and didn't moan or break down. So proud of him, he was knackered and sun burnt at the end. To be honest, I was pissed at the air cadet people for letting it run for that long on such a hot day.

16 year old tore himself away from his computer today and baked some sweet things for us all!

Very nice they were too!

It was my son’s tenth birthday yesterday and he came back from school saying that he had got the best birthday present ever- a new friend! Made my heart smile, especially as we moved areas a couple of years ago and he found it really tough moving school at first as he was so shy. He has a good group of mates though now and I am really proud of him for noticing that the new boy was by himself, and going over to talk to him.

My daughter (8) enjoys gymnastics, so she's pretty strong and agile.

The other week, a boy she knows from school decided to challenge her to a chase game in the park ("I'm going to GET you"), so she sprints to this big climbing frame, monkeys up one side of it, climbs hand over hand across the horizonal ladder thing, swings up to the platform at the top and then looks back to see if he's behind her..

..he's still struggling to get up the first part of the climbing frame

and I laughed to myself and thought: "yeah, just keep leaving the boys in the dust".

That was a proud dad day.

My son, also five, had his sports day a couple of weeks ago. He had a lot of fun and seeing his enjoyment made me smile. He didn't really understand why he was doing the various tasks but he had so much fun doing it.

His obsession with space and the universe also makes me smile. He can't get enough of it. I put Brian Cox's Universe on the iPlayer the other week and he sat there for the entire hour engrossed in it. I thought he'd get bored 10 minutes in but he didn't.

Son (2) learning how to count to 10 in English and Gujarati (language spoken in North Eastern India). He knows all the numbers, but keeps getting stuck at ‘chix’ and ‘cheven’ in both languages.

Gets stuck in a loop… 5,6,7… 6,7?, 6,7,6,7

Mine’s just coming up to three. The hugs only get better. 😊