babyblog

Mr Dylan

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Originally uploaded by katybops.

Mr Dylan and his Grandad this week. Had to post the picture because it's lovely... and also to make note of my wonderful 7 going on teenage son's latest doings.

The sleepwalking has stopped and I think it was due to the fact that he was coming down with the same bug that Harry had. Dylan had 2 or 3 days of high fever and feeling utterly wretched and soon as that was over he was much better and sleeping properly.

This week I went up to the school for parent-teacher conferences. Those of you with kids not yet at school you're going to love these. I can't help approach them feeling that any criticism of my child is a criticism of me and I'm defensive before I even get in the door! Also brings back bad memories of my own parent teacher conferences where I would invariably get in enormous trouble afterwards when my parents were told that I needed to apply myself more and not muck about / bunk off / fail to do homework.

Dylan is doing very well, he's the top reader in the class and according to his teacher extremely bright. What is holding him back somewhat is his handwriting and she wants us to work at that at home. It's been a battle with Dylan since he was small, getting him to pick up a pencil and use it. He's always resisted it for some reason and loathes to do it. When he does write - it's illegible. However, getting him to work on it basically means WW3 at home every night. Same goes with getting him to learn his spellings. If you get Dylan in the right mood, learning 20 words to spell for a test each week takes him approximately 10 minutes. The battle surrounding getting him in to the right frame of mind takes approximately 4 days. He hates it.... resists it..... fights me over it...... and so now we have that PLUS practising writing to deal with on a daily basis. Argh. Even Grandad got cross with him this week for his refusal and arsing around rather than do it! He sits there slouching, avoiding it, doing anything other than concentrate. It's so infuriating. But I have no idea how to get him to work without the battle! I guess persistence is the only thing - get it drummed into him that he has to do this and he can't get out of it. Stupidly if he realised that it'd all be over with in minutes but instead we end up with entire evenings of fighting him over doing this stuff.

Basically Dylan is me as a child, lol. And Harry is Sally!

Today I'm facing a battle with Dylan to get him to go and ride his brand new, very smart, bike that Grandad bought for him this week. He's needed one for ages as his old one is far too small but we hadn't gotten around to it and the weather hasn't been really up to going out on bikes much. There are some fabulous bike trails around here though so it's important that he gets more confident as he thinks he's forgotten how to do it since the Summer. Of course he hasnt', but in typical Dylan fashion he doesn't want to *try*!

Oh the joys of parenting a teenager several years ahead of time :)

Don't mean to sound down on him though, he's delightful and funny and very sharp witted and an absolute joy. He's also so caring and considerate of his bro. Last night after some confusion the previous evening with our babysitter, G and I took him out alone... leaving Harry with the sitter, to see 'The Pink Panther' movie and to dinner at a Thai Restaurant. He was really full of the fact that he got to come out with us on a 'grown up' night out and enjoyed himself thoroughly. He giggled through the movie non stop, it was great!