Summer holidays

Well, here we are, about half way through the Summer holidays and already I'm counting down the days until the the little man returns to nursery!

Now I look back fondly upon my summer holidays, playing with my mates up the woods or around the estate where they lived, was better than mine as it had lots of back alleys and garage blocks which were for water fights and the like. We generally didn't get up to much mischief, except the summer after the school trip to France. Well, school kids + France = banggers!

We blew up quite a few milk bottles that summer, along with a few other items no doubt. I can remember further back to when my sister and I use to attend "action holidays", at least I think that's what it used to be called, where we would spend the week participating in various activities while our parents were at work. I've fond memories of these days as well, from several years, from my first solo motorbike ride, which told me I don't like motorbikes, through to realizing I was actually pretty good at target sports, with shooting air rifles and artery.

I have a few years to wait until my kids are teenagers and capable of looking after themselves for more than a few minutes at a time and while I don't wish the time away, right now it sounds good! I can't complain to much as there are plenty of things to do, from the various kids clubs and activities on at the leisure centre to bambinos and all the various museums and the soft play, and when I say soft play I mean it as there is only one and its not very big! But that's another moan. I'm also lucky as one of the toddler groups runs through the summer, so that's 2 mornings a week taken care of! Having a park opposite the house is also useful, even though it means I'm getting no house work done!

But even with all these activities and such, there are still timed when there is nothing to do and with the unpredictable weather up here, no where to go. Its days like those that I find really hard, after all there is only so much Youtube you can watch and only so many times the DVD of "Little Red Tractor" can be repeated! The bairns are energetic to say the least, and I seem to spend half my time breaking up fights or dealing with the consequences of said fights! Why is it that they always want to play with the same toy when they have enough toys between them to cover the floor, quite literally as the other day I couldn't actually get from one side of the room to the other!

Little Red Tractor

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, school holidays, why do they seem like they were just designed for teachers?

YouTube

How much YouTube is to much? Well when your child starts talking in an American accent, its probably to much, lucky were only at the stage that everything is in dollars.

From YouTube.com

I know many people with bang on about how letting children watch YouTube is poor parenting and it shouldn't be used as a babysitter and all that stuff but sometimes it's useful. Like when your trying to clean and tidy the house for some guests coming to stay, the last thing you need is for the little ones following along behind you emptying everything you've just tidied up! Sitting them on the sofa with the laptop (don't own a pad) is a great way of keeping them out the way. Doing it at 6am is also acceptable as far as I'm concerned.

Now some of the content on YouTube is rubbish, now I'm not worried about the 'adult' side of it as the filter is actually quite good, too good in some respects, as I sometimes have trouble watching some of my hobby videos, which is annoying. What I mean by rubbish is that the content is just so dire that I can't understand how anyone can watch it, yet often the figures are astonishing, with views in the hundred of thousands, several from my son.

Now some of the content is quite good, either as the story is actually well planned and filmed or because the video is entertaining and informative as well. These are usually the videos that the little man skips about a quarter of the way through, just when I'm getting in to them and want to find out what happens!

Now there are a few downsides to watching YouTube, everything now has names, usually silly, dumpy the dump truck, diggy the digger, Porscheee the Porsche, you get the picture (thanks axle and daddy), then there is the crashes, fascination with knock off/dark side and fail reels (thanks leokim) and lastly there is the fact I keep getting corrected, no daddy that's not a digger, that's a front loader. Well, its an education of sorts. Of course other honourable mentions have to go to the Engineering Family and the Thomas and Friends videos.

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Now, as I mentioned, I watch bits and pieces myself on YouTube, not as much as I use to, just don't get the time these days, and I think that it is a very useful tool, either just for entertainment or for education, but there really is a lot for crap on there!