Finn and I left Cori behind for a trip to the Isle of Man on the 2nd of August... and we didn't think about his monthly picture until we were getting ready to leave the house around about 5.00am. The camera was already packed so Cori quickly grabbed one on her phone. It's pretty bad. But at least we didn't miss one out! So here they are side by side:
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| 33 months old |
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| 34 months old |
(Seriously, how is anyone that energetic after waking up at 4:30? There is something unnaturally wrong with children.)
You might not be able to tell, but Finn is in a specially made 'Little Turtle' shirt. He is STILL a turtle - for at least 8 weeks running now. The difference is that he is no longer 'Baby Turtle' but rather 'Little Turtle.' Apparently he had a moment of revelation during a nursery pick up when Cori and him were chatting to one of his nursery workers. She asked Finn the important question of "but if you're Baby Turtle and that is your Mama Turtle then what is in Mama Turtle's tummy?" Finn just went dead silent for a minute and thought about it... then declared with certainty: "Yes. I am not Baby Turtle. Baby Turtle is in Mama Turtle's tummy. I am LITTLE Turtle." And there was no turning back. From then on he was Little Turtle. And despite one brief day a couple days ago when he declared that he wasn't Little Turtle that day but we had to call him 'Green Pea' instead (though by the end of the day it had become Little Green Pea Turtle - who can keep up!?) it shows no signs of abating...
But anyway! On to what we got up to in July! The highlight of July was our trip to Shropshire for a little holiday, but there was much which went on before we get to that, including a few momentous things, such as Finn's friends beginning to leave nursery!
Finn's nursery is excellent, partly because it is restricted to younger children only. This is great, but it does mean that now that Finn is approaching the grand age of three, he will soon be too old to be in the nursery, since it only caters for under-threes.
This is a rather stressful thing for us. We've nowhere else lined up, and we will almost certainly be moving Finn away from his current friends, since we've moved some distance away from the nursery to our "new" flat since he started at nursery. It is rather depressing to have to start the classic Parents-Fighting-For-Good-Education-For-Their-Children game at this stage, but if everyone else is fighting for it, we'd only be losing out by not mucking in. Or, more accurately, we'd be making Finn lose out by our not mucking in. Sigh.
But I'm sure that the September and October updates will be full of that when they come.
What we've been seeing since even the start of June is the slow departures of Finn's friends, as they turn three. The first to go were The Monster Twins (as Lily's dad so brilliantly termed them when he met Finn's two huge and hearty young friends) - we were never very close to them, but Finn adored one of them. They've moved away to another area as well, so we're unlikely to ever really see them again.
More shocking is that Conrad has now gone. Conrad - gone! Conrad was Finn's best friend - and we mean, like, best friend - for so long in the nursery, it's just shocking to think that he's no longer there. Very sad. But at least Conrad's baby brother will be in the same nursery, so we're likely to see the Conrad mob again with Finn's brother. Phew!
(If you're unclear who this Conrad boy is, he was most notably at Finn's 2nd birthday party).
The nursery is beginning to feel a little sad these days - the most notable events are the departures of friends. (Such is life...!)
We did have a very nice final party for everyone in the train park on Thursday afternoon. The place was packed with everyone and all the parents brought food, and all the kids brought Fun-Fun-Fun. Great times. A nice send-off. We've got a few lovely pictures from the day but won't put them here because there were a LOT of kids there (I think the whole nursery basically emptied into the park) and I don't have permission from everyone to put pics of their kids here. So here's one of just Finn, in his stylish party hat:
But, before things get too morose and sad about children we'll not really see again, here is Finn's annual report from the nursery, which tells us that he's doing well:
It's strange to read of a Finn have a part of his life which we have no idea about, even at this age!
Also in the report, the asking questions about books is something that we've not mentioned here before, I don't think, but it was really prominent in July-time. We could sometimes barely read a sentence without Finn asking "What that say," pointing to some words on the page. Sometimes this is would be frustratingly the page you're yet to get to, or frustratingly what you've already read, or frustratingly beside the point, or just downright frustrating! We sometimes had to stop reading and just respond to his question, "What that say?" until he'd exhausted every bit of text on the page, before moving on to the same question again, "What that say?" repeated until the text on the next page was exhausted, etc. ... Torture!
To accompany the story of Finn's reading, here is a picture of Finn being a book fanatic, even if it means that we have to wait to leave the house as he reads one last book - this is the sort of thing which happens if you get him ready and then let him out of your sight for the 30 second it takes to get your shoes on!
Since that's a picture of Finn evidently being silly, it's probably opportune to report a couple of July's other sillinesses. One is his not taking out cars or trains to play with from his toy boxes (one for cars, one for trains), but instead he tips out the entire box into a heap on the floor. (He will then sometimes shout at you if you try to put anything back into the box that he's not playing with!)
That's kind-of silly, but we found it especially silly when he then decided that it tipping was clearly something that a digger would do, so he then began to call himself a Yellow Digger, making tipping and dumping noises as he tipped out the toys. Odd-ball.
We don't have a picture of that, but we do have a picture of Finn looking oddly pensive for a moment as he sits in his "car" that he'd been scooting himself up and down the corridor on (a "car" even though he was clearly rowing it with that oar/stick of his!):
Between silliness of Yellow Diggering out the toy boxes and rowing a car up and down the corridor is Finn's strengthening obsession with queues or traffic jams. It has come to the stage where Finn will not really play with his cars at all, but will, immediately upon getting them out, lay them out end-to-end in a "traffic jam."
Here is a nice illustration of it, where the town-mat roads were evidently too limited to contain the full reaches of the traffic jam that Finn needed!
Because the weather was so incredibly hot, Finn needed shorts that we really didn't have on hand. So Cori sewed some up in order to get by. The trouble is that Finn is a bit amazed by the sewing machine and 'making things' so whenever she gets it out he wants to 'help.' As helping goes, it's probably as far from actually providing assistance as you could possibly imagine. In reality he just gets to hold some of the fabric with one hand and with the other push the button that 'makes it go' (obviously it is actually a button that does nothing) but it's still makes a simple process seriously more difficult - though the joy of him putting on the shorts afterwards and proudly showing off that he 'made them' is worth it in the end.
The other eventual/major thing that happened in July was that Lily departed for three months to Taiwan with her parents, who got art commissions/exhibitions/residencies out there. It is sad to say goodbye to such good friends for so long - by the time we see them again, Finn will be three, and his baby brother will be around!
But at least Finn and Lily got to see each other quite a bit before they went, including a trip to ours:
So, onto the main event: the trip to Shropshire.
This was to the Holiday House, as Finn soon termed it, a house that Finn's grandad and gran rented for the week. We three Londoners went up to stay for a long weekend, and Finn's cousins came over from the Isle of Man to stay as well.
"Holiday House", grandad, gran, Heidi, Dean, cousins - Finn had an amazing time!
There are a lot of pictures to prove it, so we might leap into a photo-fest...
The journey up went wonderfully smoothly, with some well-chosen books to read, and draw in, and toys to play with. And all this proceeded by our having breakfast on the train - a breakfast of "snails", which is Finn's mysterious word for croissants, we discovered. We didn't know it was his term for them - we just thought he was being silly - but when we happened to treat ourselves to croissants and he happily tucked in with a shout of "Snails!" we worked it out. (We guess that the rolls of pastry perhaps look a bit like a snail, in some way...). Anyway, here's the pictures of the train journey:
We arrived and there were the cousins, all there merrily playing in the hot sunny garden of the house near the canal. Finn was in heaven - he immediately ran out of the car screaming and rolled over in the grass in excitement. His excitement levels rarely came down from that high over the next few days, especially since he was never taken away from his cousins in all that time, unlike in the Isle of Man where we have to leave them to sleep etc. He would regularly just go and hug them, or sit on them, or lie on them - anything to get out his excitement at being around them:
It was also great fun for us to hang out with Finn's cousins - you can do a lot more fun things with older boys, like play rounders!
It was hot though, all that playing the garden malarkey. Finn, also known as The Sweat Monster, showed himself true to his moniker:
Note also that, despite the facial expression here, Finn is not carrying a heavy box full of "garden rounders set" - he is in fact carry an entirely empty box. But it was still hot work, which requires lots of water (with cousins):
We got to have lots of exciting trips out and about, such as to go and see some canal locks, which was a surprising success amongst all the boys (and grandads). It was also something that happened to look very "British", especially with Union Jacks flying in the background!
(they're not just posing here - some kind people let them have a go helping to operate the locks!)
There was also a football area, which we had a great time on, until Finn got in the way of one of my legendary mega-kicks and had to go off crying to his mum, and also until Jake got in the way of another of my mega-kicks and had to go off to his mum, and also until Oliver also got in the way... etc. But at least Thomase was ok, and at least my team won.
But Finn was most pleased to be able to go on the dodgem cars with his cousins:
Although there were less crashes, Finn also loved to drive in the car. It sounds boring to say it, but since it was one of the main pleasures of the trip, it would be wrong of us not to remember it here:
It's just a shame that he was often too played-out to enjoy it fully (as was his dad):
Also on the motorised transport theme, we took a trip over the border into Wales to take a ride on a miniature steam train.
The train track even had a tunnel, which Finn was very excited about... (he wasn't terrified of it - despite the picture's suggestion):
And, because the weather was so hot, there was the pool - the star attraction of the trip:
Yes, that is Finn laughing and having fun as he's sprayed by a hose spraying cold water! - Finn has come on a lot since last summer!
That second picture is also very telling of how Finn expresses high levels of excitement or happiness; by running. So, after a while playing in the pool, Finn climbed out of it and then proceeded to just run around and around the outside of it laughing and smiling. Happy times!
After running round the pool for a while, Finn would clamber back in again for a quick top-up of being near his cousins, before he'd clamber out and run around again. Eventually he got tired and ended up slung over the side licking the pool, as you do. This is a picture of the weirdo-licking in progress:
There could be more to say on our time at the Holiday House - such as how much we enjoyed being with everyone - but we've probably used up too much space with pictures to allow any more words. Never mind. It will be more of the same when it comes to the next update, covering the trip to the Isle of Man. Apologies in advance.
But, as a final gesture, here are some of the curiously curious family photos that we took just before we left:
Until next time!
