June #2: Finn convinces us to move to the Isle of Man

Having already done most of June already, this post is just for two things: one is the fine display of art; the other is the story of how Finn came to convince us that we should go to the Isle of Man...
But first, the side by sides, which were forgotten before!

19 months old

20 months old

56 months (4 years 8 months) old

57 months (4 years 9 months) old

We might as well make a sandwich of it, and start with just some of the art:

I am afraid that we've forgotten what this one was of, which is a shame, because they are often of fantastic things, like this one, which we felt deserved to have its name recorded beneath the thing itself:

Of course, most of the "what it's of" attributions come more like titles for the pictures, given long after the fact of having drawn the thing. Not all though, some are very deliberate, such as these depicting the story which he made up at nursery and which they diligently wrote out:

It is probably worth stating that one of the nursery workers has a baby on the way, and one of Finn's friends there has a mother who has just given birth - which explains Finn's odd idea of adding a baby to his mother's "tummy" - this is not news announcement here!
We don't really know any context to the story and it's pictures (the one of the family is, of course, drawn mostly by Finn's key-worker), or any idea what is going on, but we are glad that they thought to record them.

The story of Finn's convincing us to move to the Isle of Man is a strange one.
We had resolutely avoided telling him about leaving London, knowing that it was (on child-terms) a very long way away, and that he would not want to give up London and all that he gets from it. We felt sure that he would be positive about the Isle of Man, but that he would absolutely give a fight in being asked to give up London for it. He gets so much from his friends at nursery, his nursery, our family adventures, Dad's Club etc. He seems fully engaged in his life, which is fully embedded in London.
We'd envisaged having to seek out the specialist children's books for those who are moving, or create for ourselves various activities that Finn could engage in the move with. It would take a lot of hard work, but it would be worth it to overcome any negativity or difficulty about the move.
This idea of Finn being against the move, however, was a false assumption.

We don't know where he got the idea from - we don't think that he ever overheard us speaking about it. We did allusively speak about it in his presence at times, but there was never a time that we we ever really clear enough for him to understand even if he was listening, and there never was a time that we felt that he was listening. (He is quiet clear when he overhears something - he will go quiet and evidently concentrate on what's being said, and then burst out into some question or other about this or that term we might have used).
Rather, it seems more likely that it all just comes from a children's TV programme which he'd watched the week before or so. It was one which showed a child packing and preparing to move, as the programme guided the viewer through all the different steps of the process.
This then started a sequence of questions about our old flat, which we'd been living in when he was born. Finn ended up being strangely sad to not have seen it, and to not be able to go back there and play with all his old toys. We tried to explain that we'd brought all the toys here with him, but he was still mysteriously upset about it. He felt sure that we'd somehow left a box of toys from that home there.
But this died down within 10 minutes of talking about it and we heard nothing more until a week or so later...

Cori was on the way back from the doctor's with Finn (about his hearing) on a weekday, and he suddenly returned to a sadness about never having moved before.
"You have moved - when we came to our new home from our old home," said Cori.
"Oh, not that. I want to move again."
It could have gone badly wrong if he'd picked the wrong answer to the question, but Cori thought to ask: "If you could move, where would you move to?"
"Ah!" Finn said in a shaft of inspiration, "I've got it! I love granny. It would be nice if we could be close to granny. We should move to the Isle of Man."
Cori kept her cool and played it perfectly, commenting: "That's quite far away, what about London. Don't you like London any more?"
"I do, but we can always come back and visit. I think it would be nice to live in the Isle of Man."
"I think that's a really good idea, we'll have to ask Deedah about it. He might have lots of questions, so we'll have to think of what he'll ask and what he'll say."
This was about as far as it got before they were at nursery, returning him there for a few hours to claim something of her day. With the door to the room of his friends and nursery workers, Finn ran in shouting "We're moving! We're moving!"
The nursery workers already knew, of course, about the move, and so they turned to Cori to congratulate her on telling him, but Cori pointedly said that it had been Finn's idea and that it was not definite until Finn's Dad agreed also. Finn agreed.
It was a Tuesday, which meant that Finn had his dance lesson, so Cori got a long time to talk it all through with him on the travel to and from the dance studio down by the canal on Shoreditch High Street. Cori began by explaining that I would probably have a lot of questions to ask, and that it would be good if they thought through all of the answers before they spoke to me. Then began a wonderful and impressive exchange where Finn dealt positively and logically with all the possible problems that he and Cori could think of (and, most impressively, coming up with problems himself, and then providing his own answers to them):

Finn: "He will probably say, what if we miss our friends"
Cori: "And what will you say?"
Finn: "I will say that we will make some new friends. But if we miss our London friends, we can write them a letter, or we could visit them, or they could visit us."

Cori: "What about your new school?"
Finn: "It's ok, because I can find a school on the Isle of Man to go it, and it will also be very nice."

This went on for quite a while, covering everything from school, Dad's Club and Dance Lessons to friend, houses and jobs. It even included such important discussions as:

Cori: "What if Deedah gets sad about leaving Orry behind?"
Finn: "Oh, mamma, don't be silly! Orry can come too!"

It ended with the final concluding catch-all reason as follows:

Cori: "Those are all very good ideas, but what if Deedah ends with, I just don't know, Finn?"
Finn: "I will say, Do you love granny, Deedah, and he will say, yes, and I will say, granny is in the isle of Man and if we move there we will be close to her and that is a good thing."

Having been fore-warned by Cori about what was coming up when I returned home, we ran through the questions again, with me asking them directly to Finn and him coming back with the answers (though often calling on Cori to provide the good answers they'd come up with before). After such an onslaught of rational argument, picking off my counter-arguments precisely and one-by-one, I had no leg to stand on and we had to submit completely to Finn's idea of moving to the Isle of Man.
Getting Granny's agreement to it the next day was simple enough, and then it was all clear and simple from then on (at least in terms of the family buy-in anyway!)

One draw-back of this otherwise-brilliant method of getting Finn on board is that Finn subsequently believes that the idea is wholly his, and, therefore, he gets to make all the important decisions. Such as whether we live in a house or in a flat, have a garden or not, what colour the car is, whether the car is convertible or not, what the car's name is etc.
... You will note that there are a lot of car decisions being tampered with by Finn. It will be hard news for him to take when he discovers that we are not going to get a yellow convertible car named Polly!

And now for the second half of the art, beginning with the things Finn helped cut out at nursery in one of their games/activities which really impressed us towards the end of that week at nursery:

The activity was for the children to cut out objects for the home from magazines, and they to arrange them inside blocks which they had set up in the rough shape of a house floor-plan. It was, obviously, a great thing for everyone to play, and Finn especially loved it. As you will note, they also printed out a map of the British Isles, just so they could tell everyone (and probably inform themselves!) where the Isle of Man is.

I don't really know what these people are, or why one is split in two, but at least the following is clear (and clearly marked!)

It's not clear where Orry is, but never mind. For those interested in Finn's artistic development, you will be pleased to know that below our heads is a neck - obvious on Deedah, but less so on Mama - and on our body is a belly-button - it wouldn't be very realistic otherwise!
And, to finish with, Finn's excellent picture of a giant (named Finn Boogee Franklin), the sun (named Finn Sun Franklin Juan), light, a rainbow, a waterfall, Finn, Mama, Orry, and me - a masterpiece: