happy birthday sherlock!

Well...we've had cake, we've had sushi, we've had experimental cake sushi made by Sherlock (cake bits flattened out and rolled around icing). And I had a shock this morning when Sherlock walked into our room, announced that was NINE and that in JUST FOUR YEARS he would be a teenager. Then he said he was old enough to make his own breakfast and walked out again.

L and I stared at each other for a little while, three quarters asleep, and then got up to go after him in case he decided he was old enough to cook bacon and burn the kitchen down. When we got to the kitchen, he told us with great scorn that he was just making toast, god, and said it so exactly the way Carla does that neither of us could help laughing.

Sorry, Sherlock. You are old enough to make toast, certainly, and for many other things, and you seem to be getting more grown up every day. It's a joy to have you in our lives. Happy birthday! 

tall ships

You've heard a bit about the trip on L's blog, but here are some pictures...

There was also a bit where kids could put on a climbing harness and climb rigging...which Sherlock loved, as you might imagine. Although he did argue about the climbing harness for about five minutes before he agreed to put it on, on the grounds that he wouldn't have had to if he'd gone to sea a few centuries ago and he'd have been in battles and everything and he bet there were pirates somewhere in the world right now that would let him climb things without a harness, which he didn't need, at all.

I told him that poem-- All I need is a tall ship and a star to steer her by -- and he decided John Masefield was obviously a pirate. Nothing I said could convince him otherwise. Are you sensing a theme?

L and Mycroft and I have heard the word pirate so many times since that day that I think it's lost all meaning for us. Piratepiratepirate. He was so quiet in his room after school yesterday that I went up to check and was shocked to find him doing his homework and not, as I had suspected, making pirate hats for the degus.