Wounds

Day 24: Max hurt his foot on his way out of school, so he hobbled his way to the bus.

Naturally, the rhyme gravitated towards the topic of being hurt: wounds.

Wounds

Falling over cuts your knees,

The same as falling out of trees.

Stick on a plaster,

So it heals faster,

Unless of course you were using skis.

If you hurt yourself while skiing, you tend to get really hurt.

Headaches

Day 23: A little late in posting this, and probably because I had a headache, or a haircake as we like to call it in our family. Consequently my brain was in the deep freeze when it came to writing rhymes with Max. So this one is just from me.

Headaches

Creeping up they worm inside your head,

Twisting fingers weave a painful thread,

Thumping like a drum,

Your head's a rugby scrum,

Go away I'm staying in bed instead.

Some mornings I wish I could, but then I would miss out on a moment, like a child waiting at the top of the stairs, not wanting to go to bed quite yet in case he or she misses something.

Back to School

Day 21: Today was a back to school day after a two week mid semestre break. It was good to be back, even if it did mean getting up really early. Mum gets up even earlier, so by the end of the week, we all walk around like zombies. That's an idea, if we keep this up, we have ready made costumes for Halloween.

First day back at school was brilliant, I really enjoyed my day, Swimming, Humanities, Maths, Mandarin and Art. Tomorrow I have English, so I am going to see if I can share my blog and the poems I have been writing.

Back to School

When you go back to school,

It can make your feel like a fool,

If you forget your sums,

You have to twiddle your thumbs,

And try your best to look cool.

Back to school means that we should get to bed early. 

Teeth

Day 20: We have reached our two thirds mark of the month!

Max has written up his five top favourite rhymes so far on his school poetry blog: 

Bob the Slob,
Ice Cream,
Pizza
Mummies,
My Crazy Cat

And now, before we all head to bed - we have an early start tomorrow, it is back to school and 6.30am wake ups, we have a rhyme to write.

Max was brushing his teeth and so this became the subject. We looked at words that rhyme with teeth, toothpaste, brush and whatever else we could think was to do with cleaning your teeth.

This is what we came up with:

Brushing Teeth

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/289281

At night my I'm always in a rush,
To give my teeth a brush.
So the stripy paste,
With a minty taste
Gives those germs a flush.

Nothing to edit, just a note to remind everyone to brush for at least 2 minutes, or more and to scrub around the back.

Pie

Day 19: Finally, after sausages and cheese, we have... ...pie!

Pie

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/556342

Once a man made a pie,

That could really make a lie.

He stuffed it with cheese,

And frozen peas,

And called it chicken pie.

The man actually gave the pie the power to talk. He threw in some magic ingredients along with some very strange liquids that created a perfect chemical reaction, causing the pie to have vocal chords. 

Joe's Toe

Day 18: Friday was rather busy, and we never found much time to write, however we did start a rhyme that we had to finish today (day 19). So we will have two rhymes today by the time we have finished.

We ate pasta for lunch yesterday, back to our favourite pasta haunt in Singapore. Then we wandered over to a strangely named Union Building in Tras Street to drop off a couple of copies of Mum's new book: Mayan Cocoa: A Halloween Tale. All ready for Halloween and to celebrate All Hallow's Eve.

Joe's Toe

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/342694

A grumpy old man named Joe,

Had a habit of stubbing his toe.

So he wore a steel boot

And played on his flute,

While praying for the weather to snow.

It seems to be getting harder to write rhymes - or maybe we are choosing silly subjects.

Sleep

Day 16: We are all rather tired today, so naturally the topic of sleep was chosen as our rhyme for today.

Max found a number of words that he liked, that rhymed with sleep: weep, creep, deep, beep, cheap and cheep, heap, keep, leap, peep, reap, seep. The next task was to decide which ones we wanted to use and what we wanted to say about sleep.

If you don't get enough sleep, it can make you very grumpy and totally ruin your day. So, it is extremely important that you get your head on a pillow early and benefit from some quality dream time.

This brings me on to a poem that I wrote a couple of weeks ago about being tired, you can find a copy of it on Limey Limericks: Being Tired. It really is rather unpleasant being tired.

Sleep

http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1335678

Not having enough sleep,

Makes you grumpy and weep.

You're drowsy all day,

What more can I say?

Head on your pillow, sleep deep.

It always feels very satisfying when you have had a good night's sleep.

Lemons

Day 14: A momentous day, we have reached the two week mark! Fourteen limericks. This is quite an achievement and we are building quite a routine. Writing needs routine, although when you write to a routine, sometimes you meet a brick wall. What do I write? How do I make my poem rhyme?

This is where lemons come in. Today, we are writing about lemons. Max's choice, no doubt inspired by an episode of Doc Martin where a patient has to suck on a lemon and another one is diagnosed with scurvy. All the more reason to eat your fruit and vegetables and take Vitamin C.

Lemons

Lemons, yellow, juicy and sour,

Drink a glass for superpower,

Add some water, and you've made,

A refreshing cup of lemonade.

That tastes much better than cauliflower.

Lemons certainly do taste nicer than cauliflower.

Washing the car

Day 13: We were a bit late sharing our post from yesterday, but nevertheless, we did. We also washed the car this morning. It was filthy. I realised just how much brake dust gets deposited on the wheels, it made my hands and the sponge go black.

What better subject to tackle than washing the car? There's soap, water, sponges, wheels, dirt, brake dust and hoses that burst under pressure and get Mum all wet.  

Washing the car

Washing a car can be such fun

Sunday morning in the sun,

The wheels were really dirty,

Which made me feel quite thirsty,

Soap, water, sponge, then you're done.

Washing the car is fun but hard work and it made me feel incredibly thirsty. 

Older Brothers

Day 12: It is the weekend and we had a very lazy morning, which was good as we all needed some extra rest. Normally Mum get's up very early on Saturdays and Sundays as she teaches English, but this weekend she has got a break. Maybe tomorrow morning we'll surprise her and wash the car, or maybe we wont.

After lunch it was time for reading and relaxing. The afternoon was cool, but then the man came back to finish cutting the trees and propping up the young ones with frames. Mum is still upset they cut their arms off.

I thought and thought about what to write about today. I thought about computers, but mum screwed up her face. Then, it came to me: Older Brothers.

Older Brothers

Sometimes an older brother,

Really causes you to suffer.

They give your door a knock,

To make you jump in shock,

To tell you it's time for supper.

Having an older brother can be lots of fun, but sometimes it's a pain.

Trees

Day 11: Today our rhyme has to be about trees. Not least because they have cut them all down outside where we live. All because Mum mentioned that one of the young trees was bending and bouncing over the road like it was about to fall on someone. So instead of just cutting one down, they cut them all down.

Could this be called a tree massacre?

Trees

tree flopping over outside my house

Outside my house grow lots of trees,

Today cut straight down to their knees.

The branches shrunk,

Right to their trunk,

No more to sway in a gentle breeze.

We could have written about the jungle outside, or the trees in my Granny's Magic garden. We could have made a rhyme about Ents, or Christmas trees, or even the Ash tree that is under threat in the UK from a nasty attacking fungus, but instead we wrote about the trees that used to give us wonderful shade. Now they are gone, all carted away on large trucks.

There are lots of brilliant words that rhyme with trees. We found that we could have written this rhyme very differently with words like sneeze and peas, chickpeas and bumblebees. Max also pointed out that there were three words that sounded the same, but mean very different things: frees (as in freedom) and freeze (as in frozen) and frieze (as in a decoration or screen).

Maybe that can be another project for us to do, to find as many words that sound the same, but do not look the same?

Pizza

Day 10: one third of the way though the month! That means we have composed ten rhymes already, (including this one). 

This evening we got take out pizza as a treat, it also gave Mum a break from cooking. We had discovered a restaurant that offers woodfired pizza at half price, between 6pm and 7pm Monday to Thursday: La Nonna (if you live in Singapore).

So, it goes without saying that our topic or word for today had to be Pizza. 

Pizza

While devouring a cheesy pizza,

I was caught by a sneaky cheetah,

It nicked a slice,

Not once but twice,

So I rolled up the rest as a fajita. 

Luckily there were no cheetahs around this evening, so we all got to finish our pizza in peace. 

Mummies

Day 9: Ha! I got my way. We are writing a rhyme about Egyptian mummies. Or rather I ended up writing most of this, as today was one of those days filled with no spare moments. 

I wanted to write about his brain making his nose runny - well the embalmers would pull the brain out though the nose. They didn't think it was very important - could you imagine having your brain extracted in chunks through your nostrils? Mind you, sometimes when people sneeze, what comes out of their noses could easily be mistaken for brain tissue.

I could not work a runny nose into the rhyme, without making it more than a limerick. We will have to settle for writing a poem about mummies and runny noses some other time.

We did however, manage to include the bits about the inside bits of the mummy being removed. They were kept in giant pickling jars. Could you ever imagine going to the food cupboard and accidently taking out a jar of pickled stomach thinking it was something else? No, I doubt you could, and nor could we. But it was fun thinking about it.

Mummies

We couldn't find a good photo of a mummy,
so here is a black cat with an ear ring instead

I once knew an Egyptian mummy,

Whose demeanour was really quite funny.

All wrapped in a sheet,

From his head to his feet,

He'd no brain, no heart and no tummy.

I still prefer my Mum to one of those strange bandaged up things in painted boxes.

Sausages

6th October 2013.

Well, I stand corrected. I was well and truly wrong. I was convinced that Max would pick the word "pie" for his rhyming word today.

Instead, he chose: sausages. I looked at him, somewhat aghast. How could I have missed that one? Bob, Cats, Milk, Apples, Cheese - it had to be pie. But I overlooked a vital clue... cheese dogs. By association, cheese becomes cheese dogs, dogs become sausages.

There are not many words that rhyme with sausages, unless you want to write about sausages in Ancient Rome, and then you could use auspices.

We needed to think about what sausages do or what words best describe sausages.

They sizzle, they roll around on the ground, you by them by weight, you can put them on the barbecue or in a hot dog bun, they are cooked on automatic grills (I really do not know where that idea came from), Max even has them on home-made pizza (which defeats the purpose of me trying to make it healthy).

So, Max and Mum proudly present a rhyme about sausages:

Sausages

sausages: http://www.sxc.hu/profile/chidsey

Filled with cheese, they roll around,

On barbecues a sizzle sound,

Sitting on automatic grills,

Hot dogs complete with all the frills.

I like my sausages by the pound.

Now, about that pie......

Crunchy Apples

5th October 2013

Our fifth word is Apple. I reckon that tomorrow's word with be Pie. All will be revealed tomorrow, if I am correct.

Max (and I), like apples, we particularly like the huge juicy China Fuji apple variety. So you can imagine Max's delight when we got the chance to go apple picking in an fruit orchard in China, in Hebei, just near where we staying.

The experience of walking the unkempt Great Wall, the day before, had sparked the comments from both Max and his brother Jason that it was "better than XBox. And then, like icing on a cake, and pretty yummy icing if reactions are anything to go by, Max gets to pick real apples!

Having chosen the word, we then searched around for words that rhyme with apple that we could use. We didn't find any we really liked, so I asked Max for words to describe apples. Crunchy seemed like a good one, so off we went in search of "crunchy" rhymes.

And here it is: our rhyme for today:

Crunchy Apples

Fresh apples, straight from the tree

Apples taste best when fresh and crunchy,

I don't eat pears there just too lumpy.

I eat one once a day,

To keep the doctor far away,

And stop me getting sick and grumpy.

Which reminds me, time to cut some apple for a snack.