Welcome to The Elijah Chronicles!

I thought it was about time I started a blog just for Elijah - to keep everyone updated with what's going on in his regular everyday life.

Check out all of Elijah's newest videos on the right (opens up in YouTube), and I'll be posting any new pictures at the bottom of each blog post. You can even see what the weather's like in Folkestone. Fun fun!

So, where do I begin...

Elijah is in "Year 2" at Capel Le Ferne Primary School (you can see his school's website HERE if you're interested). Year 2 is the equivalent of between 2nd and 3rd grade in the US. In England, Primary School is 6 years, so until age 10 for Elijah. After that he'll move onto Secondary School - which is for 5 years (years 7-11). He'll either go into 'regular' secondary school, or can test to get into grammar school - the posh version of secondary school (and supposedly a much better education).

After Year 11 (when Elijah is just about 16), he has the choice of continuing school for 2 more years, going to college, or starting work, so quite a bit younger than the US. Anyways, that's the basics about school here.

So far in Year 2, he's been improving his reading & writing; adding, subtracting, dividing, multiplying & fractions; learning complex 2-d and 3-d shapes (pyramids, prisms, octagons, etc); learning the computer; and all sorts of other various things! Here are a few pictures of his classroom (he's in the top left photo): Elijah's Classroom.

Here are some samples of his homework this year:

His best friend is still James Bates, who he met in playschool when he was 3 years old. They've been best buddies ever since - here's a pic of them together at Elijah's 6th birthday party.

They're both into Ben 10 and Transformers, and looooove video games. Elijah just beat Monsters vs Aliens on the Wii, and plays a game called Zack & Wiki, which is a strategy puzzle game, and I have to say, he's more clever than I am on some of the levels! He's only allowed to play them on weekends - it's a special privilege, and yes, I've already heard, "but so-and-so gets to play video games every single day...", though he's said it more like he's stating an interesting fact rather than a complaint. We'll see how long that lasts!

Elijah would like me to introduce you to our new cat (if you haven't heard, our first kitty (JabbaYiaYia) got hit by a car on Halloween, and sadly had to be put down). Elijah seemed pretty ok with the whole thing at the time. About 6 weeks after she died, Elijah's babysitter Laura called us to see if we wanted to rehome a stray that had been found in a shed in Dover (the next town over). We gave it a thought and went down to see her, and couldn't resist her fluffiness! Her name is Mimi (but really Meemers or Method Meow to me. Becca & Ward suggested Double-Fluffies, which slips out every now and then when I'm talking to her in my obnoxious kitty voice). Here she is in all her flurffy glory.

It's nice having a cat in the house again, but she surely has a vicious side. She's about 9 years old from what the vet's can guess, so who knows what life was like pre-Martins. Elijah can't touch her unless she goes up to him. It's hard work to stay away from her cause she's just so stinkin' fluffy, but she's prone to attack when bothered, or when she's hungry, or when she's sleeping, or playing, or walking around. Elijah's a bit sad about this because he could abuse our old kitty as much as he wanted and she loved him. He told me the other day that he misses the old kitty "cause she wasn't mean". Awwww. We're hoping Mimi improves more over time - she already has since she arrived, but the mean streak still comes out at least 47 times a day.

So now I will end blog post #1 with a personal message from Elijah (typed by him):

"I have to do work evry day but I do not mind. The day me and james met each other was a long time agoe."

There ya have it! A profound statement from the coolest 6-year-old evah.

Click the picture below for a photo album of Elijah from the last 4 months or so, and please leave comments on the blog - Elijah would love to read them!

Elijah - August 2009-January 2010