June's highlights included trips to Southend, Kew and Greenwich, photoshoots, the first trip to the dentist and more. But first, here are the monthly side-by-sides:
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| 7 months |
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| 8 months |
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| 44 months (3 years 8 months) |
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| 45 months (3 years 9 months) |
Orry updates: Allergies, eating, testifying, (not) sitting up, playing rugby and waving
It's probably worth starting off by making the observation evident from the above monthlies that Orry is getting more and more boy-like. As he begins to smile more and interact with people, he is striking us more and more as a little boy and less and less as a baby. Sigh!
Orry's skin began to improve immensely in June, as we all got used to what it meant to have no diary in the diet. Things got under control and Orry started to look good for the first time. It wasn't quite there, but it was a lot closer. He also began to evidently feel a lot better in himself also, and he became altogether more lovely by the day, even if rather noisy:
This video also serves to show why we have now taken to simply feeding Orry from the table itself, since the green cover thingy which worked so well for Finn is just being torn up to be chewed banged of otherwise thrown on the floor - none of which are very useful.
To keep Orry's skin under control, we've been slathering him in cream, all over, morning and night. He hates it, obviously, and he will cry and wriggle throughout the application, which makes it all rather painful for all concerned. But at least the end of it is in sight...
At the end of June we actually finally got Orry to the allergy expert. Apparently they had somehow lost his name from the list, but, once it was back on there, Cori got to take him in and spend a long long morning in there with Orry and Finn going back and forth between the waiting room and the doctor's in order to give him a dose of something and then report back in once it had had time to take effect. The results are that Orry is allergic to the following:
As we do, Orry is becoming a great eater - in both his range of stuff that he eats and also in the volume! He certainly has preferences, but he will not at all turn his nose up at anything that is put in front of him. Whether it is chewy pork, cold broccoli or even a piece of lemon, he will gnaw away happily at it with his seven teeth. If he is being whiney or irritable of a morning before Cori wakes up, I can easily extend him another 30-45 minutes by plonking him in his chair and letting him eat. It is pretty much the only time in which he will regularly allow us to leave the room for over a minute at a time. Food - the centre of Orry's world...
This has meant that Orry relies less on breatfeeding than he did. He will now come with Finn and I to Dad's Club and end up not drinking any of the milk that we have been sent with, much to Cori's frustration! When she took him to visit a friend of her's far north of London in June she ended up not breastfeeding him for the entire seven hours during which they were out of the house. - It was quite the revelation to realise that this was the case when she returned.
In June Orry also backed off needing to feed to sleep. He still does so often, but it is clear that he is frustrated at needing to, and is desperately trying to stay asleep himself without outside intervention. This is all very promising, but a "good" night is still with three wakings in, and a 6am awakening for the day... And very few night's are "good"!
Another good update for Orry is his beginning to impersonate speaking, which is very encouraging. Admittedly, it is still very far from speaking, but it does certainly come in the context of conversations and he is clearly trying to do what we are doing in speaking. It is unclear, though, whether he understands that he's supposed to be communicating anything by it. But, regardless, it is rather mesmerising to see, and very odd for outsiders to come across, especially with the raised hand occasionally banging down for good effect. We think it is not too far removed from a good Baptist Minister testifying to the Good Word:
I mentioned Orry flipping about to get off us or whatnot. A regular action of his is to jerk his legs up and flex his back at the same time, in a whole-body lunge thing. He will do this out of boredom, out of excitement - such as at seeing one of us - but most often these days when he wants out of my hands and to Cori. Even though it is entirely lost on the Americans amongst us, I cannot but be reminded of Rugby League players trying to get their tackling opposition player off them quicker so that they can get on with the play...
We seem to have taken a heap of videos of Orry during June - sorry, but there is one more. It is of one of the things that we find the cutest of him these days - his waving.
The great thing about it is that he seems so vague about doing it, and yet he is clearly so pleased that it is seemingly the correct response to us. His doing it is so ponderous, and so lovely. It is, I would think, the first clear and tit-for-tat interaction-communication that we have had with him, and it really shows in how pleased he is about it:
Finn's updates are more a series of the happenings and doings, but they begin with some tattoos...
Weeks after our Manx friends, David and Leanne, left at the end of May, Finn one day got out his pens and gave himself some rather attractive drawings on his arm. In red and blue, the effect is very tattoo-like, which is probably what he was thinking of. (He doesn't know the word, "Tattoo", but, of course, he does see them often on people). When he came in to show us he declared that he wasn't going to wash them off because he wanted David to see them because he would like them. We hadn't been speaking about David at all beforehand, so it was rather out of the blue. Luckily we were able to convince him that pictures would do for David and that he should wash off the (thankfully very washable) pen off. So, here are the pictures of Finn studiously showing off the arm-drawings for David's benefit:
A curious offshoot of having friends with international parents is that Finn is, much to our misery, one of the very few mono-lingual children in his nursery. This means that, unlike most of his friends, although he has a very good awareness of the existence of other languages, he has a very vague idea of what they are all about.
It is a regular game to annoy him (an age-old dad enjoyment, I believe) by counting things, or counting down to things, in languages other than English. (Even if some of my 1,2,3,4,5s in various languages are quite ropey, at least the toddler isn't going to correct me!) Finn's reaction to this is always a humoured "No, no, nooo, Deee-dah. Read it properly." (For Finn, speaking is still generally "reading"). So I have to do it again, starting over from the beginning, in another language, to which Finn complains again and we do it over. Depending on his mood and our rushing to do other things, the game can be extended by then landing in English and doing it in a series of odd voices until finally doing it "Normally, like I'm doing it," says Finn. - Great times, annoying my child!
His good friend from his nursery class, Gabor, is half-French and half-Hungarian. Having hung out with them enough, Finn knows that Gabor's granny lives in Paris - brilliantly, pronounced by Finn as per the French, as he had heard it from Gabor (and perfectly aligned to a pompous mono-lingual Londoner!) - and also that he speaks French. This idea of speaking French has crept towards being Finn's catch-all description for anyone speaking anything other than English.
This is perhaps how he can claim to speak French to us on rare occasions, before talking gibberish. Here is a good, though very short and shy, example caught on film:
To keep Orry's skin under control, we've been slathering him in cream, all over, morning and night. He hates it, obviously, and he will cry and wriggle throughout the application, which makes it all rather painful for all concerned. But at least the end of it is in sight...
At the end of June we actually finally got Orry to the allergy expert. Apparently they had somehow lost his name from the list, but, once it was back on there, Cori got to take him in and spend a long long morning in there with Orry and Finn going back and forth between the waiting room and the doctor's in order to give him a dose of something and then report back in once it had had time to take effect. The results are that Orry is allergic to the following:
- Dairy
- Soya
- Nuts: especially peanuts, hazelnuts and cashews
- Eggs: especially runny raw egg
As we do, Orry is becoming a great eater - in both his range of stuff that he eats and also in the volume! He certainly has preferences, but he will not at all turn his nose up at anything that is put in front of him. Whether it is chewy pork, cold broccoli or even a piece of lemon, he will gnaw away happily at it with his seven teeth. If he is being whiney or irritable of a morning before Cori wakes up, I can easily extend him another 30-45 minutes by plonking him in his chair and letting him eat. It is pretty much the only time in which he will regularly allow us to leave the room for over a minute at a time. Food - the centre of Orry's world...
In June Orry also backed off needing to feed to sleep. He still does so often, but it is clear that he is frustrated at needing to, and is desperately trying to stay asleep himself without outside intervention. This is all very promising, but a "good" night is still with three wakings in, and a 6am awakening for the day... And very few night's are "good"!
Another good update for Orry is his beginning to impersonate speaking, which is very encouraging. Admittedly, it is still very far from speaking, but it does certainly come in the context of conversations and he is clearly trying to do what we are doing in speaking. It is unclear, though, whether he understands that he's supposed to be communicating anything by it. But, regardless, it is rather mesmerising to see, and very odd for outsiders to come across, especially with the raised hand occasionally banging down for good effect. We think it is not too far removed from a good Baptist Minister testifying to the Good Word:
Orry still wasn't really sitting in June. Certainly nothing like crawling - nowhere near! Cori spoke to the health visitor about it and they said that it would be something to be concerned about if nothing had changed by the next time we saw them. We're not really worried at all though - Orry is far too bright and engaged to be at all troubling. It is not as if he is uncoordinated - he is very dextrous now with his hands and can be very good flipping about with his body to get off us to to get to Cori etc. - it is more that he simply hasn't cottoned onto the fact that there is such a thing as sitting up yet. He'll get there, eventually!
I mentioned Orry flipping about to get off us or whatnot. A regular action of his is to jerk his legs up and flex his back at the same time, in a whole-body lunge thing. He will do this out of boredom, out of excitement - such as at seeing one of us - but most often these days when he wants out of my hands and to Cori. Even though it is entirely lost on the Americans amongst us, I cannot but be reminded of Rugby League players trying to get their tackling opposition player off them quicker so that they can get on with the play...
We seem to have taken a heap of videos of Orry during June - sorry, but there is one more. It is of one of the things that we find the cutest of him these days - his waving.
The great thing about it is that he seems so vague about doing it, and yet he is clearly so pleased that it is seemingly the correct response to us. His doing it is so ponderous, and so lovely. It is, I would think, the first clear and tit-for-tat interaction-communication that we have had with him, and it really shows in how pleased he is about it:
Finn updates: Tattoos, speaking French, gardening and e-mails
Finn's updates are more a series of the happenings and doings, but they begin with some tattoos...
Weeks after our Manx friends, David and Leanne, left at the end of May, Finn one day got out his pens and gave himself some rather attractive drawings on his arm. In red and blue, the effect is very tattoo-like, which is probably what he was thinking of. (He doesn't know the word, "Tattoo", but, of course, he does see them often on people). When he came in to show us he declared that he wasn't going to wash them off because he wanted David to see them because he would like them. We hadn't been speaking about David at all beforehand, so it was rather out of the blue. Luckily we were able to convince him that pictures would do for David and that he should wash off the (thankfully very washable) pen off. So, here are the pictures of Finn studiously showing off the arm-drawings for David's benefit:
A curious offshoot of having friends with international parents is that Finn is, much to our misery, one of the very few mono-lingual children in his nursery. This means that, unlike most of his friends, although he has a very good awareness of the existence of other languages, he has a very vague idea of what they are all about.
It is a regular game to annoy him (an age-old dad enjoyment, I believe) by counting things, or counting down to things, in languages other than English. (Even if some of my 1,2,3,4,5s in various languages are quite ropey, at least the toddler isn't going to correct me!) Finn's reaction to this is always a humoured "No, no, nooo, Deee-dah. Read it properly." (For Finn, speaking is still generally "reading"). So I have to do it again, starting over from the beginning, in another language, to which Finn complains again and we do it over. Depending on his mood and our rushing to do other things, the game can be extended by then landing in English and doing it in a series of odd voices until finally doing it "Normally, like I'm doing it," says Finn. - Great times, annoying my child!
His good friend from his nursery class, Gabor, is half-French and half-Hungarian. Having hung out with them enough, Finn knows that Gabor's granny lives in Paris - brilliantly, pronounced by Finn as per the French, as he had heard it from Gabor (and perfectly aligned to a pompous mono-lingual Londoner!) - and also that he speaks French. This idea of speaking French has crept towards being Finn's catch-all description for anyone speaking anything other than English.
This is perhaps how he can claim to speak French to us on rare occasions, before talking gibberish. Here is a good, though very short and shy, example caught on film:
Finn enjoys gardening with Cori. Having planted things when spring began (and let them die through plant mis-management, and got new plants and started again - as per the way with Cori!), things are going well in the balcony garden. When Finn is in the mood, generally for the week or so after he has helped Cori do some tending of the plants, he will ask to go out all of the time to check on how the plants are doing. He insisted on on pulling up one of "his" carrots weeks after they first started poking their leaves above the soil - just to check on how it was doing. The spindly root had thickened to about two millimetres wide at one point and changed from white towards a faint orangey colour. He ate it, and proclaimed: "Mmm, it's good." Liar. He wanted to save one to take to his Grandma in America, but we managed to persuade him to leave it in the soil.
Anyway, I only really tell this of Finn because in June he was using "checking on the plants" as an excuse to put off going to bed. So he would often try to get onto the balcony after all of the processes towards bedtime had taken place. Or, even, in one memorable instance, in the midst of the preparations, such as when he went AWOL as we gathered his pyjamas after a bath and we found him tidying up outside, as you do:
Anyway, I only really tell this of Finn because in June he was using "checking on the plants" as an excuse to put off going to bed. So he would often try to get onto the balcony after all of the processes towards bedtime had taken place. Or, even, in one memorable instance, in the midst of the preparations, such as when he went AWOL as we gathered his pyjamas after a bath and we found him tidying up outside, as you do:
(I hope you like that tasteful covering of decency - a good model-director's touch, that, I thought!)
One of the great things that Finn has cottoned onto, as mortifying as it is for us, is e-mailing from our phone or tablet. It is rather mortifying as it is a result of our looking at our mobiles in his company and his jumping over the see what we're doing, and us throwing him off the itent by saying that we're e-mailing - better parents probably would have their children in blissful ignorance that mobile phones existed! Regardless, Finn has picked up on this and started, inevitably, to write his own e-mails on our phones and on the tablet. In June this developed such that, without a phone in sight, he would ask us to get one out so that he could write an "e-mail." Naturally, when we did allow him to write an e-mail, he would generally lean towards the emoticon end of things. For example, this is an e-mail that I had the pleasure of receiving from Cori's e-mail address when at work one day in May:
He doesn't do this e-mailing very often now, but at one point we had to watch him hawkishly near our phones to make sure that he wasn't sending gibberish to random people in our contact lists on our phones!
Firstly, Finn and Orry had their first ever trip to the dentist in June. You are told to do it as soon as your child has their first tooth, but we didn't do so with Finn because he got his teeth so early, and we didn't see the point, and we didn't really like our dentist then, etc. Then it took until now to get round to it really.
We did a lot of preparation with Finn, talking to him a lot from the day before about how dentists work and what they do. We read the Peppa the Pig story of her visit to the dentist, which we then took along with us on the day. He seemed completely at ease with the whole idea and was quite happy and jolly all morning and in the waiting room etc...
But when we were called in we ascended the stairs, turned the corner and Finn caught a sight of the dentist in his room filling in a form or other and immediately burst out into fearful shaking and tears. He was clearly terribly afraid and very upset by it all so we had to back off back to the stairs where we sat down, him on my knee, until Cori joined us (having been detained in finishing off the last bit of the form). We had not seen it coming at all, but he was terrified. It took a lot of convincing to get him into the room and he initially wouldn't even look at the rest of the room as he cowered in the corner in Cori's lap. But by the time I had had a go, and then Orry, Cori had convinced him enough to sit in the chair and let the dentist "count his teeth."
At the end of it Finn was still weary, but happy enough in the space. He was, inevitably, delighted to receive a sticker at the end, and also, because he wanted one, one of their disposable face-masks. The face-mask was then added to Finn's "doctor" kit, which was then the toy/game of choice for the next week as he bandaged our legs and plastered our hands eagerly for the next few days.
As a special treat after the dentist trip, we found that we were perfectly timed to go round the corner for Beauty and the Beast. Brilliant! Although Orry fidgeted a bit and forced Cori to be walking in the aisle some, Finn was absorbed throughout. That was then the story to be told for the week afterwards also, especially with the drawings that we made of the cast, in order to help our retelling of it for his benefit. (Sadly we didn't get a picture of them, but just imagine them as highly accurate renderings of the Disney original!). It was nice to tell that tale, especially in the Disney version, since the plot was hung on the journey of the Beast to control his beastliness - which is probably a very good message for young boys to learn!
June also saw the first time that Finn had ever deliberately hurt Orry. Now that he is rolling Orry can really get around a room, including into Finn's chosen activity. Often if they're left alone Finn will quickly shout "Mama! Get him away!"
But this day there was no shout. Just a thunk and an almighty wail. Cori ran in to find Orry with a bleeding lip and Finn's toy next to him. It was a wooden box that holds Finn's toy chopping vegetables. She scooped Orry up and asked Finn what happened. He was noticeably upset and said the box hit him to which Cori asked if it was an accident or if Finn did it on purpose. Finn very sheepishly said "it was on purpose." Cori didn't shout but had a very serious conversation about being bigger and taking care of people and being kind etc etc. Finn was very serious and seemed to understand. Then Cori says "are you ever going to do it again?" And Finn bursts into tears and says "probably!" Cori tried very hard not to laugh at that. But he has been wholly careful ever since.
One of the great things that Finn has cottoned onto, as mortifying as it is for us, is e-mailing from our phone or tablet. It is rather mortifying as it is a result of our looking at our mobiles in his company and his jumping over the see what we're doing, and us throwing him off the itent by saying that we're e-mailing - better parents probably would have their children in blissful ignorance that mobile phones existed! Regardless, Finn has picked up on this and started, inevitably, to write his own e-mails on our phones and on the tablet. In June this developed such that, without a phone in sight, he would ask us to get one out so that he could write an "e-mail." Naturally, when we did allow him to write an e-mail, he would generally lean towards the emoticon end of things. For example, this is an e-mail that I had the pleasure of receiving from Cori's e-mail address when at work one day in May:
He doesn't do this e-mailing very often now, but at one point we had to watch him hawkishly near our phones to make sure that he wasn't sending gibberish to random people in our contact lists on our phones!
Happenings: Dentist, films and hurting
Now that the individual updates about the two of then are done, now for the happenings that concerned the both of them (before going onto the usual Doings, and then a photoshoot to finish on)...Firstly, Finn and Orry had their first ever trip to the dentist in June. You are told to do it as soon as your child has their first tooth, but we didn't do so with Finn because he got his teeth so early, and we didn't see the point, and we didn't really like our dentist then, etc. Then it took until now to get round to it really.
We did a lot of preparation with Finn, talking to him a lot from the day before about how dentists work and what they do. We read the Peppa the Pig story of her visit to the dentist, which we then took along with us on the day. He seemed completely at ease with the whole idea and was quite happy and jolly all morning and in the waiting room etc...
But when we were called in we ascended the stairs, turned the corner and Finn caught a sight of the dentist in his room filling in a form or other and immediately burst out into fearful shaking and tears. He was clearly terribly afraid and very upset by it all so we had to back off back to the stairs where we sat down, him on my knee, until Cori joined us (having been detained in finishing off the last bit of the form). We had not seen it coming at all, but he was terrified. It took a lot of convincing to get him into the room and he initially wouldn't even look at the rest of the room as he cowered in the corner in Cori's lap. But by the time I had had a go, and then Orry, Cori had convinced him enough to sit in the chair and let the dentist "count his teeth."
At the end of it Finn was still weary, but happy enough in the space. He was, inevitably, delighted to receive a sticker at the end, and also, because he wanted one, one of their disposable face-masks. The face-mask was then added to Finn's "doctor" kit, which was then the toy/game of choice for the next week as he bandaged our legs and plastered our hands eagerly for the next few days.
As a special treat after the dentist trip, we found that we were perfectly timed to go round the corner for Beauty and the Beast. Brilliant! Although Orry fidgeted a bit and forced Cori to be walking in the aisle some, Finn was absorbed throughout. That was then the story to be told for the week afterwards also, especially with the drawings that we made of the cast, in order to help our retelling of it for his benefit. (Sadly we didn't get a picture of them, but just imagine them as highly accurate renderings of the Disney original!). It was nice to tell that tale, especially in the Disney version, since the plot was hung on the journey of the Beast to control his beastliness - which is probably a very good message for young boys to learn!
June also saw the first time that Finn had ever deliberately hurt Orry. Now that he is rolling Orry can really get around a room, including into Finn's chosen activity. Often if they're left alone Finn will quickly shout "Mama! Get him away!"
But this day there was no shout. Just a thunk and an almighty wail. Cori ran in to find Orry with a bleeding lip and Finn's toy next to him. It was a wooden box that holds Finn's toy chopping vegetables. She scooped Orry up and asked Finn what happened. He was noticeably upset and said the box hit him to which Cori asked if it was an accident or if Finn did it on purpose. Finn very sheepishly said "it was on purpose." Cori didn't shout but had a very serious conversation about being bigger and taking care of people and being kind etc etc. Finn was very serious and seemed to understand. Then Cori says "are you ever going to do it again?" And Finn bursts into tears and says "probably!" Cori tried very hard not to laugh at that. But he has been wholly careful ever since.
Adventure Days: Kew, Victoria Park and Greenwich
As always, we got out and about a lot in June, especially with the advent of the good weather. Most of this was done by Cori with the two of them, going out on their "Adventure Days." These are Thursdays or Fridays, when Finn is not in nursery but I am still in work. - Finn will ask what sort of a day it is over breakfast and they are one of three types of days: a Nursery Day, an Adventure Day, or a Whole Family Day. He likes the latter most, thankfully!
Adventure days included more things from Cori's family-outing To Do List, including, impressively, Kew Gardens. At just over an hour away, and with a lot of walking inside, it is quite the epic trip, but Finn had a great time. Highlights included...
The treetop walkway, over which Finn was inevitably fearless:
The hothouse, which was hot:
The play area, which Finn adored:
A picnic, which is always a favourite with Finn:
And, most of all, the "Road-Train" - Finn loves trains, whether on rails or not.
Apparently Cori had to rush onto the train and so the driver told them to worry about the tickets at the next stop, but they changed drivers at the next stop and so Cori was never asked to pay. It was great that they didn't have to pay (for us - not for Kew, admittedly), but Finn was included in the non-payment episode and so it developed for him as the story of Kew - that they went on the road-train and that they didn't pay for it. Cori was a bit mortified that this was the take-home story!
They also got to Victoria Park in Hackney, which is brilliant on a hot weekday day. It is a park legendarily set up to accommodate children really well, which is does. Finn had a great time playing on the amazing play area, but also the water area, which had a great section for Orry just to sit in and splash. When she was gathering things for the trip she discovered that Orry was too big for his water outfit. Luckily Finn has two - and one of his fit Orry rather well (to be fair it is 3\4 length on Finn and full length on Orry, but still).
Another great outing was to Greenwich, to, at last, meet up with Lily again, back at last from Taiwan. Great times were had, with a picnic in the park, Finn's new kite, a trip to "the Pirate Museum" (aka the Maritime Museum), some great rolling down the slopes of the old Naval College...
The best thing of the trip was Finn and Lily's impromptu "performance", conducted in the avenue of the old Naval College, with us sat out on the grass. The performance mostly consisted of the brilliant opening - "Ladies and gentlemen" - and followed by a song - either a vague rendition of The Yellow Submarine (which we had been introducing Finn to only a couple of days before) or else some of Lily's nursery's nursery rhymes. Finn even told a joke or two, though it was only his parents who got it, unsurprisingly!
Then we had stories, to finish off the good day with (before the weeping and heartache at leaving each other in the tube!).
There were probably other Adventure Days - probably to the Bus Museum (aka the Transport Museum), but there are no photos to tell me what they got up to in my absence, so I will leave it with a couple of the rather nice pictures that we took of Finn while at Greenwich:
We were all very excited, although we weren't quite keen to get going as soon as Finn awoke, at 6am - his usual waking time. It has somehow worked out that Finn will accept, once he's gone to the loo, that we stay in his room for a while and I have a quiet snooze on the floor using his duvet and pillow as he quietly plays for 30 minutes. This generally works perfectly, though it can sometimes go awry when Finn is being particularly noisy, but, to be honest, we're all quite amazed that he lets me get away with it, so I can't really resent him not allowing me to do it. Anyway, very occasionally he will crawl into my on-the-floor bed with me with the claim that he's going to sleep and, even more occasionally, he gets over his initial five minutes of fidgeting and actually sleeps. This is what happened on the Southend Day, when Cori took this rather unflattering picture of our awkward sleeping:
Once we did get up, at Orry's bidding, Finn was very pleased to present me with his specially-written card, which is pretty good, I think:
But, to get to the Southend theme, we had a great day: after a brief dance on the train platform, we began with some fish and chips overlooking the funfair, which Finn spent a long long while pointing to everything and declaring, "When I'm older, I'll do that... Deedah, Deedah, when I'm older I'll do that... Deedah, Deedah, when I'm older I'll do that" etc.
... Then we saw the pier...
... which was long. In fact, it was very long. It wasn't that it was a particularly long way to walk, but just that it was a particularly long and boring way to walk, which made us glad to be able to take the train back:
After which we hung out on the beach for a while and Finn got to ride in a helicopter and also sit in a deckchair, both of which was on his To Do list:
And the fun even continued once back in London, when Finn and I serenaded Cori and Orry with an improvised song about our day out, thanks to some "street guitars" (which irritated Cori by delaying our return home, after which we were delighted not to have to make good on our promise to do it again at the next guitar we found, as we thankfully avoided all the others on the way to our bus stop):
But, perhaps most excitingly, we were surprised to be confronted by a Spurs shop on the high street. Perhaps I don't understand Essex, but it seemed very odd to have a North London football club's shop in Southend. But I was excited to go in, and Cori was understanding enough to allow me to buy Finn his own Spurs kit. He was very excited to try it on when we got home - he was excited to go and get the ball and to pose as "a football teamer" (though his coordination at standing with one foot on a ball left a lot to be desired!):
But, since there might be the final image to leave you with, here is one from a recent trip to the swimming pool. Finn and I thought we'd climb up and impersonate the javelin thrower statue for the benefit of Cori and Orry - I think we look pretty good!
Adventure days included more things from Cori's family-outing To Do List, including, impressively, Kew Gardens. At just over an hour away, and with a lot of walking inside, it is quite the epic trip, but Finn had a great time. Highlights included...
The treetop walkway, over which Finn was inevitably fearless:
The hothouse, which was hot:
The play area, which Finn adored:
A picnic, which is always a favourite with Finn:
And, most of all, the "Road-Train" - Finn loves trains, whether on rails or not.
Apparently Cori had to rush onto the train and so the driver told them to worry about the tickets at the next stop, but they changed drivers at the next stop and so Cori was never asked to pay. It was great that they didn't have to pay (for us - not for Kew, admittedly), but Finn was included in the non-payment episode and so it developed for him as the story of Kew - that they went on the road-train and that they didn't pay for it. Cori was a bit mortified that this was the take-home story!
They also got to Victoria Park in Hackney, which is brilliant on a hot weekday day. It is a park legendarily set up to accommodate children really well, which is does. Finn had a great time playing on the amazing play area, but also the water area, which had a great section for Orry just to sit in and splash. When she was gathering things for the trip she discovered that Orry was too big for his water outfit. Luckily Finn has two - and one of his fit Orry rather well (to be fair it is 3\4 length on Finn and full length on Orry, but still).
Another great outing was to Greenwich, to, at last, meet up with Lily again, back at last from Taiwan. Great times were had, with a picnic in the park, Finn's new kite, a trip to "the Pirate Museum" (aka the Maritime Museum), some great rolling down the slopes of the old Naval College...
The best thing of the trip was Finn and Lily's impromptu "performance", conducted in the avenue of the old Naval College, with us sat out on the grass. The performance mostly consisted of the brilliant opening - "Ladies and gentlemen" - and followed by a song - either a vague rendition of The Yellow Submarine (which we had been introducing Finn to only a couple of days before) or else some of Lily's nursery's nursery rhymes. Finn even told a joke or two, though it was only his parents who got it, unsurprisingly!
Then we had stories, to finish off the good day with (before the weeping and heartache at leaving each other in the tube!).
There were probably other Adventure Days - probably to the Bus Museum (aka the Transport Museum), but there are no photos to tell me what they got up to in my absence, so I will leave it with a couple of the rather nice pictures that we took of Finn while at Greenwich:
Southend-on-Sea
As a special treat for Father's Day, Cori found some Special Offer train tickets out of London, so we decided to go to Southend, mainly so that we could go on The World's Longest Pier.We were all very excited, although we weren't quite keen to get going as soon as Finn awoke, at 6am - his usual waking time. It has somehow worked out that Finn will accept, once he's gone to the loo, that we stay in his room for a while and I have a quiet snooze on the floor using his duvet and pillow as he quietly plays for 30 minutes. This generally works perfectly, though it can sometimes go awry when Finn is being particularly noisy, but, to be honest, we're all quite amazed that he lets me get away with it, so I can't really resent him not allowing me to do it. Anyway, very occasionally he will crawl into my on-the-floor bed with me with the claim that he's going to sleep and, even more occasionally, he gets over his initial five minutes of fidgeting and actually sleeps. This is what happened on the Southend Day, when Cori took this rather unflattering picture of our awkward sleeping:
Once we did get up, at Orry's bidding, Finn was very pleased to present me with his specially-written card, which is pretty good, I think:
But, to get to the Southend theme, we had a great day: after a brief dance on the train platform, we began with some fish and chips overlooking the funfair, which Finn spent a long long while pointing to everything and declaring, "When I'm older, I'll do that... Deedah, Deedah, when I'm older I'll do that... Deedah, Deedah, when I'm older I'll do that" etc.
... Then we saw the pier...
... which was long. In fact, it was very long. It wasn't that it was a particularly long way to walk, but just that it was a particularly long and boring way to walk, which made us glad to be able to take the train back:
After which we hung out on the beach for a while and Finn got to ride in a helicopter and also sit in a deckchair, both of which was on his To Do list:
And the fun even continued once back in London, when Finn and I serenaded Cori and Orry with an improvised song about our day out, thanks to some "street guitars" (which irritated Cori by delaying our return home, after which we were delighted not to have to make good on our promise to do it again at the next guitar we found, as we thankfully avoided all the others on the way to our bus stop):
But, perhaps most excitingly, we were surprised to be confronted by a Spurs shop on the high street. Perhaps I don't understand Essex, but it seemed very odd to have a North London football club's shop in Southend. But I was excited to go in, and Cori was understanding enough to allow me to buy Finn his own Spurs kit. He was very excited to try it on when we got home - he was excited to go and get the ball and to pose as "a football teamer" (though his coordination at standing with one foot on a ball left a lot to be desired!):
The final bit
The final bit I wanted to put in was actually the cutest bit - the pictures that Cori took of the two boys foolin' about here one day in a "photoshoot," however, it is already much too long, so I might save that for another post, just so that we don't feel that we need to be conservative about the number of pictures we put up.But, since there might be the final image to leave you with, here is one from a recent trip to the swimming pool. Finn and I thought we'd climb up and impersonate the javelin thrower statue for the benefit of Cori and Orry - I think we look pretty good!
