Archives for June 2010

Little Pencil was sick at home for a couple of days.  Awful?  Yes.  I hate it when my child is sick.  I worry, I fret, I panic and I pamper.

The worry I can sort of deal with (hello voice of reason,  Mr Pencil), the fretting I can cope with (rescue drops) and the panic can be tempered by a quick visit to the doctor.  Unfortunately it is the pampering that gets me unstuck.

When Little Pencil does not feel well he seems to get this primal urge to crawl back inside me, to be as close to me as humanly possible.  And when he gets as close as he can – he complains that I am too far away.  So for three days he has sat on my head.

The only hope that I had of regaining use of my limbs and head was engaging him in a game. And many a time, when heavily involved in a game of Little Pencil’s choice , I have honestly wished to lose my limbs because clearly my head was completely surplus to requirements..

These are the rules of playing a game with Little Pencil

• He will make up the rules.  Even if you are playing a game with printed rules that have been around for longer than he has, he will have modified rules.  If you object to the new rules he will make up an entirely plausible reason why his rules are better. If you object further he will rescind externally only.  It wont be long before you notice you are playing by his rules anyway.
• He will spend 25 minutes explaining the rules.  Sometimes this means you only get to hear the rules but you don’t get to play the game.  This only happens when you are very lucky.   You can actually draw the rule explanation out by 10 minutes by asking simple questions like – what happens after that? This question works even after all the rules have been explained.
• If you are playing a game where you can choose a character to “be” he will always choose the better character.  His character will always have better powers than yours.  If you stake the claim that yours is the best in the world, he will proclaim “My guy taught your guy”
• If you are allowed to choose special powers or attributes for your character, his guys will have your traits as well as his own ones.
• His character will be allowed to change mid game.  Your character is not allowed any development at all.  He finishes as he starts.
• You are not allowed to show any signs of boredom or frustration, Little Pencil can walk away when he’s had enough (ie when he thinks of something else he’d rather do)
• You are not allowed to create any mundane or “girly” stuff  – if you choose to build a house out of lego, he will transform it into a wrestling arena, if you build a bridge – it becomes a cannon, if you try to choose to be a girl – it is only on the proviso that you are the mother of a wrestler

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Sounds like fun hey?  Bet you want to borrow Little Pencil for a day of board games and lego building.  Or he could just stay with me and sit on my head.

Do your kids play by the rules?

I am really desperate to find a good book to read.  And so is Little Pencil.

We have had a tradition since the very beginning of his days of reading together in bed before we go to sleep at night.  It started in the Newborn Care Unit when he was too small and fragile to be handled.  The nursing staff suggested that we read to him because he would recognise our voices from his limited time in utero.  As it was really the only thing that we could do that felt at all useful, we grabbed that job with gusto.  In his first two months he had heard the whole series of Winnie the Pooh and all the adventures of the Folk of the Faraway courtesy of me.  He had also heard many many stories from The Sydney Morning Herald and the New York Post courtesy of his father.  Why there were endless copies of The New York post in the Newborn Care Unit is just one of the things that we didn’t understand at the time.

The tradition continued once he left hospital and I can proudly say that 9 years later and we still read with Little Pencil every night.  He is a voracious reader and his reading age is well beyond his years.  (excuse my bragging, I wont be much longer) His comprehension is also quite remarkable as is his depth of analysis. But therein lies the problem.  He reads well, his comprehension is great but he is only 9 years old and he is as mature as, well as a 9 year old boy (that is he’s not very mature at all).

So we have read all the Zac Powers and we have read many, many boy detective stories, we have stumbled upon many great authors and read all their books, we loved The Wimpy Kids Diaries and the stories of the Undy’s family, we have gone through so many Captain Underpants stories that I feel like he is a member of our family, we adored Alex Rider and Harry Potter (although I thought they were a little scary and Mr Pencil did all the honours).  We have read so many records in the Guiness  series that there are times that I worry we will leak fact records if we are shaken.
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The other day we started to read the adventures of Skullduggery Pleasant, Little Pencil was hooked.  And so was I.  It is truly awesome when we find a book that we both can’t wait to read.  The writing was perfect, the descriptions amazing and watching Little Pencil’s face concentrating on the plot was heavenly.  He kept telling me the book was like a movie because he could see every scene in his head.  High praise indeed for a child with a penchant for the screen.  But then it became ridiculously scary.  Like pathetically, unnecessarily violent and just plain sinister and frightening (more so than Harry Potter).  I scare easily, I’m the first to admit that, but this was the stuff of which nightmares are made.  Little Pencil agreed and so we had to stop reading.

What is it with books for boys?  How do we keep their interest without being violent and destructive?

I can put up with the fart jokes and the bum references that crack him up but I want books that keep my child riveted.  I want books that make him think and laugh and learn and wonder. And he wants them too.   The only difference is I would really appreciate the stories that leave out the senseless violence and aggression.  Do they exist?