Hi all

Thought I'd do a mid week update - it's better than nothing, haha.

I should be doing other things, but my brain has not been functioning very well this week, so am going to do this instead.

What has been going on in Callum's World this week? Well, for starters he had his first guitar lesson on Monday night with a friend of mine. Callum had been given an acoustic guitar a while ago by his best mate who had upgraded and Callum has had a bit of a thrash about on it a couple of times. I asked him, at the time, if he fancied lessons, but he wasn't too keen as he didn't want anyone telling him what to do. But as time has gone on I could see he was beginning to get a bit frustrated. I told him about a friend of mine who is a lot of fun and it wouldn't be a 'serious' lesson and would he like to give it a go. He said yes, so we did!

The lesson went quite well actually and Callum did seem to pick up a couple of the chords quite quickly although he was having trouble holding the guitar properly. He is pretty good at thrashing the strings, but trying to play chords with one hand and strum with the other took a bit of getting used to. To add to the problem, Callum is left handed, but the guitar is right handed! However, he found it just as easy to hold/play with either so we stuck with right handed, but I think, as he is using the opposite side of his brain to normal, he was finding it a bit difficult to be consistant.

Peter let him have a go on the electric guitar and the pair of them thrashed out some noise together and Callum had a huge grin on his face. He now wants an electric guitar! Hmmm, thanks Peter! Anyway, he had an hour's play about and basic lesson and it's now up to him if he wants to continue. He had a good time, but is unsure of committing himself. Will leave until after Halloween I think and then ask again.

Another first this week is him (and his best mate Callum D) being left at Youth Club on their own this time. It kind of isn't first time as they have been to activity days, but this is a little different and they obviously stay in the building. They both went off quite happily, but seemed pleased when I returned to pick them up. Apparently there was a five year old girl who was lethal at table tennis - their words not mine - who had nearly whacked both of them in the eye with the pingpong ball. They laughed about it in the car all the way home, making up sillier and sillier ways of getting hurt - at least they were using their imagination.

Wednesday we were invited to a birthday party which started in McDonalds and then on to bowling. Today did not go well for Callum! I advised he had breakfast before we got there, but he chose in his ultimate wisdom not to have any. This, of course, meant he was starving by the time we got there and wanted to eat there and then. Unfortunately there was also some children he didn't know, so he went off in the corner and sat with us mums, moaning and stressing about food. I decided that, as I was hungry too, I'd go down, order myself a Big Mac meal, come back, give him my Big Mac and I'd eat my fries and then once he got his meal (Kids meal cheeseburger and chips), he could give me his cheeseburger. I know that that doesn't really make sense in the swapsy way, but he wanted two burgers in a bun and I knew that they didn't do that in a kids meal, so we swapped as I only wanted a single burger. Anyway, he got some food and all was calm for a bit.

Then we went off to bowling! He stressed about the shoes as he hates the feel of them and doesn't do laces, so off to the side we went and we managed to sort out shoes that were comfy with laces tied. Down the stairs to the alley itself and, as is normal for a kids party, chaos reigned as kids needed to be sorted into alleys, names needed to be inputted and there was a general feeling of hubbub and noise. Also the lane that Callum was put onto had a group of adults next door and I think this sent him over the edge! We had tears, we had 'I hate bowling' (which I know he doesn't), we had 'I don't want to be here, but I don't want to go home', we had more tears, we had snotty nose, dribble and general burying in mummy! Those mums that know Callum and myself well basically left him (and myself) alone, but kept a watchful eye - thank you mums! Those that don't know us kept asking if he was ok and could they get him a drink, etc, etc and although I appreciate their concern and thank them, it wasn't helping! However, eventually after much calm talk and reassurance, he was back to normal and joined in the game scoring a strike on his first attempt and coming 2nd overall. He then went on to play a 2nd game, coming 1st!

The only downside to this is that I find he goes from one extreme to the other and he became more and more hyper as the time went on. Thank you Carol for once again putting up with him leaping all over you and pretending to be a plane! And thank you again Lorraine for pretty much the same thing!

He did, overall, have a good time!

Today was bounce! He bounced today, although didn't do any serious work. He was also pretty hyper with the rest of the kids. A residue from yesterday me thinks. However, they were all a bit more active this week and on returning home I checked the moon phase to discover that it was 98% full moon, so that may have something to do with it.

Hopefully off to pictures tomorrow.

So that's it! Midweek news done. Cya