Although lots has gone on this month, the most pressing and depressing is the death of our boiler. Since around the start of December the heating has been on the blink (which was not helped by Cori trying to fix things, by breaking a radiator and spraying water all over Finn's room!). We had it fixed and things were ok for a week or so, but then it failed again and wouldn't light at all. The man who then came in declared it unsafe and so we have to get a new one... But quotes of around £3,000 are asking for an intimidatingly large amount of money, especially so soon after emptying all our savings into buying the flat.... So, in short, we've simply ended up being very cold over the past couple of weeks!
Cori has been been taking showers at work, but I have been manfully (squealing) through cold-water showers each morning. We have been boiling a lot of kettles - around two for a washing-up of the dishes, and around six for a Finn bath. And we've been wearing a lot of jumpers (at least two each) and wrapping ourselves in blankets whenever Finn allows us to. The flat is cold. We are cold. Everything is cold.
We are, therefore, very much looking forward to being in the all-heating-included-in-the-bills flat in the Isle of Man!
Though, having said that, Finn seems not to really care too much. He still refuses to wear his trousers or jumpers whenever possible and he's yet to complain of coldness. He must be made of very different stuff to his dad!
But enough of our peripherally-related-to-Finn matters - let's move onto Finn, who is, as I'm sure is clear from all 80+ posts of this blog, very silly.
This month has seen lots of silliness, five of which we caught on camera...
Silliness #1: wanting to hang out with Bear in the pram and car seats that are lying around the house:
Silliness #2: only being convinced to stay in his seat for the monthly picture by our using a microphone to sing with. But, Finn being Finn, he extended this generally innocuous child's game of make-believe so that it wasn't him doing the singing, but one of his favourite sorts of things in the world... a singing car.
Silliness #3:impersonating me ("Deedah") by randomly taking it upon himself to wear the cycling High-Vis vest (not incredibly silly - I admit - but the picture is cute!):
Silliness #4: being very clever in knowing where to put stickers of eyes, although it would probably have been slightly less creepy if he'd put them in his sticker book rather than on himself:
Silliness #5: sharing of an inappropriately small toy train with Lily when she comes around (the train, incidentally, has yet to be used for the purpose for which Cori's sister very kindly gave it to us for his birthday - as an excellent box - Finn is much too excited to drive it):
Finn is continuing to have really good times with his friends.
It is a shame that photos are not allowed in Dad's Club - Finn has an amazing amount of fun with everyone there. The last session we were able to go to was especially good for him as he had an amazing amount of fun with Lily and Annie. They always come a little later than we do, which is great because we are able to get the boy-centric train-playing out of the way before they arrive. Once they arrived, with Finn leaping up with a cry of "Lee-lee!" or "Annie!", we managed to all sit together over our fried breakfasts as the kids chatted amongst themselves and we dad's had a good natter. Then the threesome dashed off to do some puzzles, then Finn led the way off to play in the water, they they all moved off to the drawing, then they all swooped off into the kitchen corner to do the washing up or cooking - all just in time before the stories and singing to round off the morning. Brilliant fun!
It is really lovely to see Finn and his friends actually playing with each other, and having a lot of fun in doing it. It is especially pronounced because Finn likes to play with someone always, which normally means Cori or I (or Bear!), but with his friends around we are not needed at all. It is wonderful! (And it is also great to be able to chat to their dads, who I am delighted to be able to call my friends).
This brings me to a slight aside: I went out without Cori or Finn for a non-work thing for the first time that I can remember since Finn was born. A week or so ago, Lily's dad, Andro, had a book launch in a big bookshop in town. At 7pm, it was too late for Finn and so Cori stayed home as I went along by myself. It was a lovely event, great to see my friend in his natural habitat (not singing nursery rhymes etc.!), and also immensely invigorating to be free for the evening.
But it was particularly remarkable because Lily was there with her mum. Arriving early, I was delighted to be able to lend and hand in looking after Lily as her parents were occupied in setting up or greeting friends etc. Although we see a lot of each other, it was surprising for me to see that Lily obviously saw me as a special and safe person there amongst all these other people, many of whom she knew. I felt honoured, and very privileged.
I was struck again how by much of a privilege it is to be a parent at times - to be able to spend so much time with such lovely people (both parents and especially children). Knowing that most people we know, ourselves included, have (grand)parents very far away, it really drives home how privileged we are to be able to spend such lovely times with these (grand)children who others must miss so dreadfully much.
I think that when the time comes, one of the things I'll miss most of all from my life now will be this privilege of being able to hang out with other children... Sigh...
...Getting back to Finn and his friends though.
Since November he has been struggling a bit with sharing things when at home. It is not that he snatches them from others or is otherwise nasty - instead he will just get very upset when others play with his toys. Tears, wailing, occasional tantrums.
It has proven difficult to have his friends around - Conrad and Lily: he will be delighted to have them there, shouting in glee as they come into the house, only to then start crying pretty much as soon as they start in on the toys.
Hopefully it is just the awkward edge of the perennial sharing issues, which will be blunted very soon, but we are now feeling a little nervous in inviting people around, for fear of denting Finn's excitement at visitors through repeated traumatic experiences.
It's just as well the heating's broken so no one is going to come around anyway!
We're able to keep Finn creative, in his own distinctive way. This month this has meant using Play Dough to create things of his request... Trains. In fact, perfect life-like renditions of his favourite characters from Thomas the Tank Engine - Thomas, The Fat Controller and Toby the Tram:
Finn has also helped out in making more things with blocks. Such as, well, trains, again. But this time Finn thought that my construction would be improved with more funnels, and wheels, and wheels on the back, and more wheels on the back:
In other Finn news, there's nothing doing on the potty training front. He's simply just not interested in being weaned off nappies. The closest we came was having him sit on the toilet, for about 20 seconds, once. But don't worry - I got a picture of it, with Cori clearly being very comfortable about it:
December has also seen us get a Christmas Tree, for the first time ever - at Cori's decree. Finn likes it, although he couldn't really care less about helping to decorate or maintain it. But he does like swinging or generally bashing the baubles:
Finn has been getting into Christmassy things. He came home singing Jingle Bells only days into December, which was great - anything other than The Wheels On The Bus is very welcome by us!
He likes very much to point out the tinsel in the reception at nursery, and also their Father Christmas, although Finn calls him, like all other Father Chritmases, "Snowman." He seemingly doesn't distinguish between the two, using the one term for both Father Christmas and Snowmen. We guess it's just the white beard.
We managed to get him to make some special Limited Edition Christmas Cards, just about - it took a lot of fun objects to keep him at it (and not just demanding that we paint (trains) for him):
(Cori is clearly rocking the double jumper look here... while Finn is gleefully refusing even socks)
The Christmas spirit has been also ramped up through some early presents, of course!
These included a hoard that he took from my work when he was there the Friday after the last lecture of the year. Leaving with train books and digger books and toy cars, he was a very happy boy.
But he was also treated to more than just presents when his Grandad and Grandma came down to visit for the weekend.
Arriving on the Saturday afternoon and leaving late on the Sunday evening, Finn got to see a lot of them, and we all had a very lovely time. Unfortunately we haven't got many pictures of them together because we were all having too much fun. This included a trip out to Greenwich to trek up to the observatory and then for a pie in the town itself, before attacking the Maritime Museum.
Museums are excellent, always, for Finn. Large open spaces, lots of people, stuff to look and shout at - all clear winners with Finn. But the Maritime Museum went even better than this in having a digger:
And, even more brilliantly, he got to sail a boat around the world!
Finn really enjoyed seeing his Grandad and Grandma. He hadn't seen them since July/August, but he was best mates with them from the off. It was especially lovely to see how delighted he was when he woke up on the Sunday morning and they were still there!
It was only slightly marred by the lingering illness that put Finn in foul moods around bedtime. This was particularly difficult after the long day on Sunday, but at least the fun had been had by that time!
And now, after this rather long post, the only thing left is to give two final pictures, which are not only very cute, but also act as an update on the status of Finn's hair!
