But first, let's have the monthly side-by-sides...
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| 31 months old |
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| 32 months old |
So, Granny came to stay for a couple of days, on her way from the Isle of Man off to hike about the Dolomites in Northern Italy. Finn was delighted to have her here, right from the moment of seeing her: we went out to meet her on the street, to make sure that she found us ok, and we hid behind a wall to surprise her but Finn was too excited to do anything but do his happy dance and run around in excitement!
He couldn't get enough of having her around, and it was a real delight for Cori and I to have her here also - not least because it meant that Finn didn't care at all about us and instead only wanted to hang out with Granny. This mostly meant exhausting her completely by having her read lots of stories, but it also meant his being happy just to hang out and play near her in the same room, which was great. It was all very relaxed and lovely.
Hanging out with Granny was also a good opportunity to master the remote control for the camera, seemingly...
And, seemingly, it was also a good time to begin your directorial career...
London Zoo is an amazing zoo, and we got perfect weather for it. We spent far too long there (according to Finn's very loose schedule), but we were all having lots of fun and Finn barely showed any sign at all of being three hours beyond his normal nap time (beside manic excitement over giraffes, gorillas, flamingos, lions, tigers, fish, penguins, meerkats etc.), but he did sleep very soundly on the bus home!
We were surprised that his most intense period of concentration and attention was in the aquarium section, where we had to hold Finn up to each tank for five or so minutes, and there are a lot of tanks! In the end we had to distract him and sneak him out past the tanks we'd not seen!
It was really great to see the animals from his books in the flesh; the first ones we saw were the giraffes and it certainly seemed like he was amazed to see these things in reality. It was lovely to witness.
But certainly the most influential, for some reason, were the meerkats, who Finn wanted to see as soon as he saw them on the map. They weren't that spectacular, and we didn't stay looking at them for especially long, but for weeks after that Finn went through a period of really really liking meerkats and even doing impressions of them. We didn't understand what he was doing at first, but once he told us it made sense, sort of...
It all seemed a bit odd to us, but then we looked up a picture of a meerkat and it transpired that he was actually depicting them quite well!
We were sorry to see Granny go, and Finn was even more sorry to wake up from his nap on the Monday and not have her there at all. He ran into the lounge shouting for Granny and then started crying when she was gone!
Besides a Granny-visit, Finn continued to be silly this month, unsurprisingly (and, if you're can't make out what he's saying here as he sees the display of the camera, it's something like "Ah, my eye!... Ah, Finn!... Look, there's Mama!... A little Mama!... Ah, couch!... Ah, Finn!" - oh to be as easily entertained as Finn!):
His silliness (for us) is also often complete earnestness (for him), such as his demanding to wear his dragon costume when he reads the book about a dragon (which is now thankfully back in the library!):
The wearing of the dragon costume was set off by a silly idea I had when I was left looking after Finn as Cori was cooking one evening. I normally get driven mad by Finn in very short periods of time and I end up doing silly things with him, often ones that I regret setting him off on, such as having everyone dress up in his costumes and march around the lounge with our guitars (little and large) singing made-up songs. It's all very fun the first time round, but then it's very tiring when he won't let you stop doing it! It looked a bit like this:
It was evidently enough of a success that Finn then wanted to spend the rest of the day being a dragon, as you do...
The only problem came when teeth had been brushed and stories had been read (as a dragon), and he had to take off the costume before getting into bed!
In the last picture, of a very British dinner, please don't be fooled to think that he eats his veggies - he doesn't, at all. Even a substantial lump of tomato-like blob in the bolognese sauce has to be pulled out for him! Even bits of veggie that are inside ravioli have to be got out!
But, at least it means that we're forced to be inventive with our cooking, although following the How To Cook Healthy Food Which Hides Veggies From Your Toddler book is a lot more effort!
We have also had to fall back on a number of typical tactics. One that has developed since the start of this month, in tandem with Cori's pregnancy giving her an excuse to keep a store of chocolate in the house, is rewarding Finn with a "Brown Chocolate!" after he's eaten at least one bite of whatever veggie we give him... Although, to be honest, the bite is often very small!
Another thing we do to help the smooth-running of meal times is, miserably, give into Finn's whims, such as wanting to eat as a dragon, or wanting to have all his cars near, or to have his cars do a "Round and round the garden" around his plate (it was him who gave the sun-ray like formation that name, we've no idea why!). It's all very nice and cute etc., but it is rather exhausting, and woe betide you should you knock one of the cars out of place!
Finn is, as this picture makes clear, still very much into cars. Note how the train box is now entirely devoted to cars etc. (This is distinct to his train box, which is separate entirely!)... It is probably worth noting the level of the cars here, since it's likely to be much higher the next time you see it in a picture, inevitably!
Finn's love of cars was the inspiration behind this rubbish truck that I'm rather proud of having made him out of cereal packets:
It took as long as you'd think it would take (which is a long time!), and I allowed Finn to help as much as you'd expect (which is not a lot once I got into it!), but he did enjoy watching it emerge and he did get very excited when it was finished. Although, having said that, he was rather miffed when he went to push it around and it didn't at all roll!
It was traced from a rubbish truck that he has, and it has an open back, just like a rubbish truck, but still Finn insisted on having the back windows (which it pained me to draw, after all my efforts for realism and accuracy!). He wanted them in because I'd drawn in, at his request, himself and Lily driving, and then he wanted to have more people in the rubbish truck. "Who do you want here?" I asked, when the windows were done, to which he said, without a pause, "Andro and Yu-Chen" (Lily's parents). "Really? Don't you want Mama and Dee-Dah?", "No; Andro and Yu-Chen!" I then drew them (highly accurately, I might add, as you will have seen), and I suggested that I draw some windows on the other side, but Finn said "no", considering the thing complete and took it from me to play with. So much for us!
But Finn's lack of appreciation of his dad went further an hour or so later, when I finally got him to allow me to draw in the windows on the other side (the lack of symmetry was really irritating me!). In the first one he requested Cori, and I drew her. In the second one he didn't know who to say so I suggested myself, "yeah!", so I drew myself, but just as I was finishing my oh-so-life-like self-portrait Finn changed his mind. "Conrad! Conrad! No, Dee-Dah - Conrad!" (Conrad is Finn's good friend from nursery). He then tried to rub out my picture with his arm and started to cry when it didn't work! Later he came back to it with Cori and asked her to rub me out, and he cried again when she explained that it couldn't be done!
(However, it should perhaps be pointed out that Finn does love me really, honestly he does!)
We had actually been round to Conrad's only the day or so before, for Conrad's 3rd birthday. It was a lovely afternoon, as Conrad has a three-week old brother, so his parents were very relaxed about just having a few of Conrad's friends round to play as the parents chatted. It was all our favourite kids from nursery, who we never get to actually hang out with, other than in the one or two minutes at drop-off or pick-up, when there's normally someone sulking and hugging our legs! The only real problem for the morning's playing and hanging out was that as soon as Finn arrived Conrad's older sister, knowing Finn's weak spot, went and got out the box of cars. That was, of course, nice and lovely and very thoughtful, and absolutely wonderful for Finn (so many new cars!), but it did mean that Finn then didn't play with anyone for the rest of the time we were there - he was pretty much just lain out driving the cars across the "roads" in the patterns of the rugs! It was a bit awkward, but at least it gave us a chance to relax and chat to the other parents (for Cori), or to ruckus about with the other kids (me).
There is not picture of the party, but instead you can imagine it off the back of this silly picture of Finn and Lily, outside the Museum of London, where we also went recently together for a great day out.
Something else that I enjoyed in May was a thing that I hope will happen a lot more in the future - Finn correcting Cori on her pronunciation. I can't remember what it was (it wasn't "yoe-ghurt" or "tomayto", which currently have been introduced into Finn's pronunciation probably just to torture me), but it pleased me immensely to hear Finn very sternly frown at her saying of the word before saying "No!" and giving the correct pronunciation!
Another thing worth a mention is Finn's endless story-reading. We mentioned this for last month, but it is still the main thing in Finn's life at the moment. Although cars are what he'll play with outside of the house, or what he'll choose to get from a second-hand shop with Cori etc., in the house he will demand that we read with him. It is only when we say no, or distract him, that he changes to his secondary demand, which is to play with toys (meaning cars, or trains, or something random that he's decided is fun that afternoon!).
I find myself trying to avoid the books at Dad's Club now, since the session is only two hours long, and we could easily lose an hour there just reading books, which would be such a waste when there is so much to do there and so many other kids to play with etc.
But books do come in handy at the nursery drop-offs. He has now taken up the routine of running into the reception area very excitedly, then clambering on the couch for me to take his coat off, after which he crawls backwards across it and off the end, then he runs down the corridor shouting happily, then he peers through the glass door and gets excited at seeing his friends, then we go inside and... he grabs onto my legs in a sulk one yard inside the door. "Want to go home," he says in a sulky voice and he won't be distracted by anyone or anything else. That is, except by a book. The nursery workers now know this trick and they will offer to read to him, at which point he trundles off after them. He still wears his sulky face, but in another instant he is stood over the book box flicking through them with complete concentration ("Errrm... Not that one... Errrm... Not that one..."). He tends not to give any acknowledgement of me when I then kiss him and then wave goodbye from the door. (More often than not I end up waving to someone else's child, who will smile and wave instead!).
Anyway, Finn likes books and reads a lot - you get the picture...
He's known his alphabet for a long time now. He now doesn't really engage when we test him on it - he sulkily says the letters in a bored and funny voice for a bit before demanding that we "Toto" (which still means "read" in Finn language). So instead we've begun asking him to recognise keys words in his books. So, 'Train' in train book, or 'Cat' in a cat book etc. But it was clear that he just learnt to answer the one word whenever we asked him the question, without even looking at the page. So we starting doing two in a book. He started doing this really well, to such an extent that I began to suspect that he could read some words.
Cori bought him a new book, ahead of his coming sibling, which he'd not seen before and so had never read. When it came out of the wrapper (and Finn had immediately shouted "Toto! Toto!") I asked him what one of the words meant. "Baby," he said, absolutely correctly, "Toto! Toto!"
We were amazed and immensely impressed, to say the least. So we tried to test it again just this morning. I wrote out some cards with words on, and drew the pictures of the things on the back.
I have to say that I was disappointed when it transpired that we don't have a Genius Reading Child, but only a Sneaky Cheat Reading Child, albeit, a very clever one! It transpired that he was guessing the words from their first letter, from the set of the sorts of words that we'd been "teaching" him through his books. So, the results were something like this:
He hasn't grasped the spelling-out of words at all though and seemingly has no idea what we're going on about when we try to spell out C-A-T or whatever it is. But it is still very impressive that he's doing so well at this Guessing-Reading of words in this way... but we'd expect nothing less, the amount of reading he demands we do with him!
... And... that's about it, I think. So I'll just leave you with two last pictures, of Finn enjoying a good game of Hungry Hippos (in his new Thomas pyjamas, which inspired him to go and get his Thomas cardigan!), and also looking kind of cute (shame about that weirdo in the background!):
Silly me hasn't looked at your blog for a long time - but so glad I did today! He is soooooooooooooo grown up and thank you for continuing to be honest about parenting (love the stuff about meal times). You guys rock! Love Em x
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