25 months old

November is long upon us, so it's high time we have the October review and the month's pictures...

24 months old

25 months old

Now that the flat is in a livable condition, we've been getting out and doing things more. This is mostly driven by Finn, who really enjoys others' company. We set about trying to do something out and about every weekend, and we pretty much did so during October.

One weekend we went to the Transport Museum, again, but this time with Finn's friend Lily S. Unfortunately, as wonderful and as long-lasting as Transport Museum trips are, it is very dark in there and so very few presentable images emerge. The best we have to show for ourselves this time around is this one of Lily looking pretty cool on a tube train, and Finn on his way to disembark:

Finn and I also had a very fun Friday afternoon one week. (Cori collects him from nursery at 3.30 four days a week, but I collect him one day - it's normally a Friday, Cori's work-depending, which means that it's now referred to as "Finn Fridays" at my work!). I collected him on the bike and we then cycled for 20 minutes back into town, past St. Paul's and over the Millennium Bridge to the Tate Modern. The intention was to go into the gallery, but Finn was too interested in the river and the bridge etc. So we spent about an hour and a half walking up and down the Southbank: listening to buskers, shouting at birds, pointing at boats as they went under the bridges, spotting planes, clambering up and down the steps, strolling out along little jetties etc. - It was nice to have fun with Finn there; it felt like London was his playground, literally. Passing by tourists for whom this walk along the Thames might be a lifetime dream, it really struck me how lucky Finn is, perhaps, to be able to call it home.

Another fun family trip was to the Geoffrey Museum near where we used to live in Haggerston, Hackney. It's questionable how much fun Finn had on this trip, but at least we got out, and he got to each sandwiches on a bench outside, which he always loves to do! And it also allowed us to get some nice pictures...

The thing which we always tend to do after a weekend afternoon nap, before dinner etc., is to take a walk around the block. The round trip will tend to take about an hour or so, with the highlight being the "Train Park" on the way. The park is lovely and close, and a good size to just pop by:

But it is not really the park itself that is the attraction for Finn - it is the view over the wall to the train tracks below! Hence the name we have given to the park. Normally Finn can take or leave the park itself, but is very excited about seeing the trains. This is especially so when we have to pass over a bridge to get there where we can hear but not see the trains passing beneath us. At this point Finn tends to begin to run to the park! And when we get there, we spend a long long time looking, and waiting, and listening, and then seeing Trains! Trains! Trains!

Another trip out, on another James-pick-up day, was to go and visit Lily (S-W) in her house. We were even treated to dinner, which was lovely (especially when Finn actually ate it!). There isn't much to report from the trip, other than that it was lovely to see them, and to see Finn and Lily getting on so well and being so silly together:

October has also seen Finn move up from the baby group at nursery. Now that he is two, he takes part in the older children activities. However, at the moment, the report sheets pretty much remain the same - "Finn enjoyed playing with cars" etc. But there were two very nice variations on this theme:

8th October
Finn enjoyed taking part in What's In The Bag. He was able to name objects that he took out of the bag. He was happy when he took out a train and a car.

No surprises there then! We imagine that Finn probably had a good root around in the bag until he found the train and car. In fact, he was probably meant to only take one, but he has two hands after all! Then he probably didn't partake in the rest of the game, simply scampering off with his booty.

11th October
Finn really enjoyed role play transport songs. He joined in with all of the actions and some of the words. He also played outside on bikes.

This was actually the children sat in rows on their seats as the staff flapped sheets over them as an aeroplane. Finn, apparently, loved that immensely!

Picking up on the transport obsession theme, I was trying to get him to engage with the heap of wooden blocks that we have. I expected him to build houses, or towers etc. But, no. Of course, he jabbed his finger at them and demanded "Car! Car! Car!" I don't know if other boys are as obsessed as Finn is - and we certainly don't encourage it more than normal acceptance of his liking it - but driving his Fire Engine around the roads of a giant car made out of blocks made for a new high in vehicle fetishism!

When I tried to make actual constructions from the blocks, Finn was certainly impressed to have been able to watch a train take shape. But he was rather nonplussed when it did not perform as vehicles obviously should when you push them:

Something odd that Finn has taken on during October or so is impersonating things. For example, one of his new favourite things is being a "Robot". This began, for some reason that I now forget, with him putting the bag for one of his toys over his head and making the funny Robot Beep Beep noise.

Another of his favourite games has always been to have "Bear" be a part of our playing. So, when he leaps into our bed in the morning to say 'Ello to us repeatedly with his forehead pressed up against ours, he will also demand that Bear is there also to say 'Ello to. This has recently taken a new twist by Cori's having Bear wear a pretend pair of glasses and then she will pretend the Bear is me. Finn, of course, finds that very funny!


Another brilliant role-play impersonation game for Finn is his identifying us in all of his books. So, when the train driven by the monkey drives through the snowy landscape, one penguin will be Mama, one Dee-dah, another Finn. In another book, where the frog is trying to find a friend to hop with, the final page always is of Finn as the frog and Lily as the hopping rabbit. Etc. It's all rather strange and brilliant, as it's not everything that is identified as someone - only certain pages of certain books. But the strangest one is the one that started it all off - for no apparent reason, and without any prompting from us, Finn saw one particular picture of a train in his Thomas the Tank Engine book as a picture of me. Every time we came to it, he would see it, get excited, jab it with his finger saying "Dee-dah" and then point at me. The picture, you can see for yourself, isn't really like me in the slightest:

It won't come as a surprise that Cori and I then started to prompt Finn to call the funny-looking chicken, or the fat pig "Mamma" or "Dee-Dah"!

We don't really know what this impersonating or role-playing game is all about. It is probably just a normal part of a toddler's development, but it is still very impressive. He seems to be still at the stage of understanding the world itself, which makes pretending that the world is not as it seems pretty amazing, if you ask me!

To finish off with, here is an unusually lovely picture of Finn, with Fire Engine (whose nee-nor by this time was slurring into a battery dying "nuuuuuur-nuuuuuughhhh"), and looking pretty amazing...

And here are two videos from his birthday, when he got some cards that played music.  He LOVES these sorts of cards and we keep them all on hand until the batteries die (we only just got rid of the one his Grandma gave him for his 1st birthday!).  My sister sent one to me a while back that sings "unforgettable" and Finn thinks it's hilarious to join in the singing with a "ahhh-ahhhh" in all the right places.  But mostly he just likes to boogie, with his trademark arms a-rolling dance.  Enjoy: