We knew about the storm. It is the work of Noah. He is in a bad mood.

With us both being off this week, Noah's sleeping pattern has been altered slightly. This means that he sometimes has become very excitable or annoyed when he has become over tired. Or we will play with him until he is so exhausted that he has no choice but to sleep for 12 hours.

The thing is, we are not talking about a normal boy. This is a boy who summoned storms in the latter stages of Cheryl's pregnancy and then in the first couple of months of his life. When he becomes annoyed, there becomes a storm.

So when we saw the news of the worst storms to hit in a couple of decades, we were not the least bit surprised.

Here is a video of Noah becoming annoyed. It won't be long before the BBC picks up this story.

Grandma's birthday continued

A lovely day was had by all, as you can see from the following pictures. The particular highlight was the shameless bonobo pulling apart its vagina and rubbing it against a shelf. Luckily, Noah didn't see that bit.

Oh, and another favourite bit was learning about what Raiden is up to now. He always used to be my favourite character on Mortal Kombat so I was interested in what he went on to do next.

Thank you, Twycross.

Grandma's birthday

As an earlier post mentions, it was Noah's English Grandma's birthday this week. After spending an age doing the photo shoot with the card, we decided it would be nice to take Grandma and Grandad to Twycross zoo to watch all the animals.

We can see a mischievous streak a mile wide in Noah and that is growing daily. It was only when we were at the zoo that the genetic source of this streak became apparent. It turns out that Grandma is a rule-breaking maverick. If the sign says, "PLEASE DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS" do you think Grandma will heed this warning? If Grandma wants to feed the animals, then Grandma feeds the animals.

In fact, in the first video, she makes a shocking confession. It is Butterkist related. Yes we have passed it on to the authorities at Twycross, don't worry.

In fact. Let me make a new sign for Grandma so it is abundantly clear:

The day we went up Brum

There seems to be an explosion in Noah's brain. This metaphorical is not stroke related, nor is it terrorist related. No. This is a 'development explosion'. What this means, in practical terms, is that Noah is coming on leaps and bounds in his understanding of the world. Once upon a time, we would show him something remarkable (like an emu or something) and he would look everywhere and anywhere else. Now, though, he is interested in everything! It is such an exciting time. 

With this new found wonder for the world, we took our perfect little family to the one place that could satiate all of his inquisitive needs. A place that needs no introduction. A place where dreams are made.

Birmingham.

We visited the Birmingham museum and art gallery and had something of a city picnic.

The best two bits were when we saw a man hit his child in the street for no reason and when we saw a pigeon with one leg.

When he's on one, he's really on one

Sometimes, the boy is naughty. We filmed this little outburst, catching the end of what had seemingly been going on for a dozen hours at least.

Jap-pun

Cheryl wants to start a business selling stuff that she can make puns for. It turns out, most of these things are from Japan. She has been building her business plan based around the premise that all the stock she would keep would be pun-based. So far, all she has is a slogan.

Interestingly, though, it's probably one of the best puns on the planet. Here is is:

"For all of your Jap-pun-needs"

Here's a video of Noah.

PS, some of the stocklines at Jap-puns are: Japancakes; Japots and pans; and Japankle protectors.

Peek a boo

Noah grasped the basic premise of peek a boo at 5 days old. By 11 days, he was instigating the game in his crib. Now he's just annoying. You can't have five minutes' peace without Noah bouncing his bogey encrusted face in front of yours, expectantly, arrogantly waiting for you to play along.

Yawn.

A simple birthday message

It's the first time Noah has been alive and his grandma has had a birthday on the same day. To celebrate this fact, Noah insisted on writing a card for her. Considering his age, his hand-eye coordination and firm grasp of the English language is baffling and we're proud. If only he would hold still to take the picture...

Noah loves sandwiches. So does Teddy, Noah has decided

A couple of pictures of our family as we breeze past the security of month 11 into the depths and unknowns of month 12

Poorly boy

A couple of weeks ago, our boy became poorly. Properly poorly. Not just a runny nose and a bobby nappy, but poorly with a high temperature. In fact, his temperature got to 39.2, which, we are told, is really quite high. We had done all the other proper things like fed him Calpol, gave him an ice pole to help to lower his temperature and showed him the National Accident Helpline advert to lift his spirits, but nothing seemed to work. What made it worse was his behaviour. A poorly boy, I imagine would be crying and whinging. Instead, Noah turned his cuteness up past eleven. He was super cuddly and drowsy because of the crippling temperature scorching up his baby body.

After calling 111 and before the emergency doctor's appointment that they arranged, we took the following video and picture. Be prepared to cry.

Personal grooming

Noah is a bit of a weird baby in some ways. Sometimes, when you want him to to be still so you can relax or just cuddle him, he is not interested. Changing a nappy? Not today! Dressing? I don't think so.

But some things, no matter his mood, Noah stays nice and still for. When Cheryl took him to the Doctor's they did their checks and warned her that Noah might try and wriggle away. Instead, he just sat very calmly and allowed the Doctor to do whatever he does.

The same goes for his ears being cleaned with earbuds and his fingernails being cut. Wriggly and excitable as he was this morning, he stayed perfectly still when I trimmed his nails...

Some reluctant showing off with mummy

Reluctant because the iPad was looking him in the face, that is. Cheryl did a good job here, though, getting him to perform some of his latest tricks.

Walt Disney himself couldn't have created such an impossibly cute face...

Boom!

Pow!

Zap!

Noah singing

There have been several attempts to capture the boy singing but as soon as we get the camera out, he is only interested in the iPad because he thinks we are going to be putting the National Accident Helpline advert on. We did manage to get a little bit of singsong out of him here, though.

Some pictures of Warwick (The place, not Warwick Davis, the dwarf)

Ahh, go on then:

Milestones

It's odd. When Cheryl was pregnant, we both sort of prepared ourselves for the first few months of Noah's life. Not the huge difference of having a baby to keep alive now, but just the inevitable boredom we felt was coming our way from a human being that could do little more than breathe, eat and make poo. In reality, that boredom never came, much to our surprise. Even though he couldn't really do much for ages, we were so utterly in awe of him that any boredom of his lack of ability was washed away.

Now, he is getting really exciting. In the past few weeks, it just feels like he is making huge intellectual and physical leaps. This despite the fact that he did get a bit poorly and keeps having the odd bout of explosive diarrhoea (and subsequent nappy rash).

The fear of us forgetting the sort of timings that he hit certain recent milestones has encouraged us to write them down here (as best we can remember).

Nothing for ages...then
4 months: initiating a game of peepo with his blanket
4.5 months: bottom teeth
7.5 months: top teeth
7.5 months: saying 'mama'
8 months: standing up in cot
8 months: crawling
8 months: offering food to you
8.5 months: saying 'mama & ag'
9 months: gave kisses
9.5 months: first unaided steps

In the past few weeks, his tenth month, he seems to really have developed lots and lots. Now, he is waving goodbye and saying, "Ba-baa". He is saying "Flower" although it sounds more like, "F-wow-er". If you ask him where your nose is, he will point to it. The same goes for your mouth. He zooms up the stairs. He turns on the iPad and swipes through the screen. He makes a mean cup of coffee.

Everyone thinks their own child is a genius. Ours just happens to really be one.

The day we went to Warwick

A more detailed blog will inevitably follow to fill in the information and paint the pictures of our day in Warwick, but meanwhile this short video sums up our little family and its experience in the historic city. We only wish we managed to get a picture of the man...