This was a trip out to leave Cori some time on her own at home (much needed after all week with Orry constantly and Finn mostly). It turned out to be our last time on the train for 2017, and a great time was had by us all, including a quick trip into the museum in Port Erin and a (rare and much-appreciated dairy-free) cake in the cafe before getting onto the train:
The trip to the train did not include the playground just next to the station at Port Erin, but we went back again the week after just to do that, as a whole family, which they boys were delighted about:
But we were actually out and about in the South in order to visit Castletown to search for the 'fairy doors' which had been put around the town in a trail, which got us out perfectly to explore the town we don't know very well (note the door in the wall below the sophisticatedly-reclined Orry):
Castletown is not a place we've ever really explored before, and we have never been to the Old Grammar School before - we didn't even know it was there, so it was great to be led to it to check it out:
We were back in Castletown soon afterwards for a party, held, fantastically, outside in the lovely park there with a bike track etc. Everyone had a great time, even Orry, who barely got on his bike at all - but that was perhaps mainly because he got a medal (like all the children) and his own special dairy-free bike cake!
It's probably time to break things up with another video. This is of Finn demonstrating the (actually very cool) feature on the pink piano which Orry successfully won on a trip to the tip (by refusing to leave until it had been put into the car with him!):
The big event in this month, as mentioned at the start, happened at dancing:
Finn joined in!
We have been going along to Manx dancing for at least five months - five months! - without Finn getting up to dance. It was all the way back in May that Cori made her first appearance in the group, and she had only fallen into it by going along with Finn. Effectively all of Finn's school-mates go, but he was set against joining in at all, to the point that we were too frustrated to take him again, but then he would be filled with regret and self-reproach about not joining in. This was especially so as we had floated the prospect of going away with the group on their trip to Cornwall in November. But, despite this, he was still not bringing himself to join in.
But in September he did, so very easily and simply in the end. And the trick was the dance leader announcing one week at the start that she had a medal that she was going to give out to the best or best-improved dancer each week. Without even a moment's pause, Finn announced to me that he wanted to win it and so he took off his coat and stepped in line with everyone else to start dancing.
Amazing!
He enjoyed it too, and got a great sense of achievement from joining in. It was also good that he had been so long before as he picked up the dances really quickly and he was very soon dancing just as well as some of the other children. I felt very proud of him, and he of himself.
I was there with him alone as Cori was home with Orry, and I walked him home up Castle Street on my shoulders, wishing to meet people I knew so that I could show off to them about Finn's first joining in at dancing. Wonderful stuff!
There isn't a picture of it, sadly, but here's a happy one which will just have to do in its place:
Another happy picture is Finn and Orry by their excellent sunflower, which is now enormous - so much so that we can no longer tie it to the drain pipe as it's too high to reach!
Another happy/silly image is Finn as a milk carton, courtesy of the Food & Drink Festival we went to (with Cori dancing):
Rather less happy is the enormous bump Finn got on his head while playing at his friend's house. He was going down the zip wire when their dog ran underneath him. Finn was worried he would hit the dog, so just let go - but this meant that instead of riding to the bumper at the end and bouncing back, he just carried on with his momentum straight into the pole. Unfortunately we didn't get the best pictures of it, but it is still enough to show how scared we were by it all shortly before:
Also not good is this:
Amazingly, this was the work of Finn and his friends who were playing here (on the fairfield) after school one day. The great thing about when the kids play here is that they are so wonderfully free to run around and do their thing with all the parents hanging out and chatting safe in the knowledge that they are safe and sound. However, this does mean that they are not watched all the time in everything they do. So, in the time they were not checked-up on, over the other side of the walkway and so out-of-view to the parents, the children ended up in a game which was to smash the blocks of slate from around the 1975 Millennium monument. Not good.
The story was that they were there fooling around and discovered that the slates were loose. One dropped and part of it shattered off, so they decided that it would be more impressive if they dropped it from higher up. And so they formed a chain of children, directing, pulling up the slates, passing them up to on top of the stone, and then letting them slide off to shatter on the ground below. Not good.
It was, in fact, really terrible. And this was not helped by most of them being too young to really get what was wrong about it, and that not doing every step of the process doesn't mean that they didn't do wrong. But at least there were one or two older children there who were horrified at what they had done, which was much effective for Finn and others to see and learn the meaning of it all from, rather than just being told off again by their grown-ups.
Seeing that it was criminal damage, and knowing that the Isle of Man is quick to Facebook, they reported it quickly in case it was spotted by someone and rumours grew and an investigation began into the 'vandalism'. Cori was the designated parent to call in to tell the police in Peel, and she took Finn with her. The police officer did a great job of taking on the role perfectly of telling Finn off and showing all due gravity for the situation, before telling Cori that it actually wasn't that big a deal and not to worry about it too much. Phew!
So, to give some release from the tension of this to-be-learnt-from event, here is a picture of Finn being silly with his tortilla:
In contrast, someone who is not learning from their ways is Orry, who seems immune to tellings off or to Time Out on the bottom step of the stairs. So, even after repeated warnings not to worry Cori's yarn she was working with just before, we discover something like this, and him at the end of it brazenly unbothered by it all:
But, in case you thought that such naughtiness was cute, we've another video to demonstrate how unpleasant being around Orry can be at times. He's recently been increasingly difficult for Cori to leave behind. Even if it is just out to the shop outside for bread or the like, Orry has taken to gripping to her and wailing, and then wailing throughout her absence. Very painful for everyone involved, as this video might show:
However, it's not all doom and gloom with Orry. He is full of joy outside of his naughtiness, and is the height of cute delight to everyone around the school gates, even if they don't see him dressed up this:
It's probably the smile which does it:
The bed was the scene for our reading James and the Giant Peach, which Finn adored. We'd never read any Roald Dahl, and we'd let reading fall back somewhat lately from the volume we once did, so it was nice to delve into it. We would go and clamber in to be warm in our bed to read the book and it was really rather lovely. It was especially nice to have Finn eager to read more each time, and be eager to get back to it, and also to be so proud of how much we'd read - great fun:
The final pictures for the month illustrate Orry's shyness. He continues to be very difficult to get into spaces where not-known people are which he is going to have to interact with. So it is easy enough for him to go into shops and the like, where people are anonymous, but incredibly difficult to meet friends of ours or even, to our surprise, to visit his cousins & aunt/uncle. Even though he knows and really likes them all, he hadn't seen them for weeks and had grown suspicious of his aunt. So, when we got out the car and Finn ran in to see everyone, Orry spotted them and hid behind their car out of sight:
We got over it and he got to be a part of the fun, but only after 30 minutes or so of coaxing and taking small inroads into the space. It is different to normal child 'shyness', and certainly different to how chatty Finn was. We can't complain too much though - it reminds us most of all of how we sometimes feel. Sigh.
We normally have a cute picture to finish off each month with, but this time we've a video instead. It was European Languages day or the like in September, so I had Orry say 'Moghrey Mie' (Manx for 'Good morning') for the sake of social media. However, Orry being Orry, he added in a 'biscuit' at the end, as you do...
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