"Painting"

Emma who looks after you at nursery handed me this pile of dog turd on Thursday when I picked you up. You were pissing about in the sand or something. I asked you why you are so inept at art but you couldn't or wouldn't give me an honest answer. All you said was: "Painting. Painting."

"If you want to call it that." I said, with a roll of my eyes as I punched your work into your Spiderman backpack.

"Noah, why do you hate us?" Asked Mummy when I showed her what you did.

We took this picture of it before spitting all over it and putting it in the black bin (we wanted to ensure that it went into landfill; it didn't even deserve going into the the blue, reclycling bins.)

Self awareness.

"That means he's cleverer than a dog now, doesn't it?" Said Mummy. She was talking about the fact that you had just shown your first true sign of self-awareness. Now, when we usually show you a photograph of yourself and ask you who it is, you usually reply in the third person, saying: "Noah."

But today, something remarkable happened. We showed you the picture, asked you the question and in response, you put your hand on your chest and said: "Me!" We hadn't taught you that, Noah! You just picked it up somehow. 

So we grabbed the camera and got you to do it again.

What a boy!

You're like fucking HAL.

Dinner, ball-pit, canal boats, driving, bed

What a day.

You even fed a baby swan breaded scampi.

You're in the (nursery) news again

'Here we go!' I thought, when your mum text me to say you'd made the nursery news page. 'They've finally realised your utter genius and got you to solve a Rubik's cube or something.'

Turns out they just used a picture of you painting. 

What a beautiful boy.

Daddy's 30th birthday

This month saw the day that Daddy turned 30. The turning 30 part itself was really quite painless. Mummy had spent ages and ages organising a surprise party! She'd somehow managed to keep it entirely to herself (causing huge amounts of stress at different times leading up to the event). We had arranged to go out for a meal in town and have a few drinks afterwards. You were staying at Great Grandma's with Alex and Charisse. 

Anyway, after eating a huge meal and having a number of quite big drinks, your Mummy and I stumbled into The Exchange bar in town. YOU were there! Along with loads of Daddy's friends and your family. It was a fantastic night. Lots of people bought Daddy lots of drinks.

The next day, I thought I was going to die. I didn't do a very good job of looking after you. I kicked Adelaide in the right temple. She sprawled on the floor. 

Ducks

As well as duds, you also love ducks. I mean, love ducks. Even then, you love pigeons. Your grandma and grandad love taking you to feed the ducks.

Dud

When it rains, all of the duds come out. They go all over the patio and leaves and things. You spotted a dud and wanted us to know about it.

Changing cat

You always look after Cat. Here you changed his heavily soiled nappy. 

Me and my dad

At the minute, you're being a real daddy's boy. It's one of those unfortunate things because your mummy does all of the heavy groundwork, taking care of you on her days off while I'm at work. Then, when works done, I swoop in and take all of the glory off of poor mummy. A couple of weeks ago, you started saying, "Go away, mummy," when I'm holding you after work. If your mummy gets within a metre radius whilst I'm holding you, you get genuinely upset about it and angrily tell mummy to go away.

It makes mummy feel really special. 

It also explains why your favourite book at the minute is called, "Me and My Dad." It's a first person reflection on all the reasons why this baby bear loves spending time with Daddy Bear. The opening line is:

"My Daddy wakes me up/

In the morning like this/

He tickles my nose/

And gives me a kiss."

As the book continues, it explains how the mummy had suffered some sort of mental breakdown due to heavy drink and drug abuse. It talks about her battle in the court system to try and retain custody of the baby and subsequent loss. There's a chapter dedicated to the mummy sleeping through christmas after a tragic relapse on christmas eve.

It's a great book.

A sunny day in May, eating olives in my pool, in my castle

The title sums this one up nicely. One thing I will add is that this was in the shade. Your mummy's pale...your daddy's pale...this makes you PALE, SQUARED!

Sorry.

Gangsta up the park

At this point, you are too young to understand that it is embarrassing for mummy and daddy to write gangsta with an 'a' but who cares? What you don't see in these pictures is that you've just taken a swig of White Lightning on a bench.

You insisted on wearing your cap backwards. 'Like Holden Caulfield?' Said Daddy, hopefully.

'Like Harvey from East-17, more like.' Replied Noah, arrogantly.

More lambing videos

Just look how desperate you are to get inside the pen and bother those sheep.

Then when you were in there, you wouldn't shut up about it!

A busy day farming

We aren't the most naturally outdoors kind of people, Noah. We are doing our very best to remedy that by forcing you outside at any opportunity. You seem to love it outdoors. Good for you.

Recently, then, when we had a barbecue on Mark's farm, you shat yourself with excitement. You ran around screaming at horses; pointing at dogs; battling angry cockerels and running after lambs. Not one of the days you've had so far in your short life will register in your long term memory, but I've got to tell you that this was one of your favourite days so far:

The thing you can hear daddy talking to Mark about making at the start (with a corkscrew or 'punching a hole in it') is a lamb. It got born without a bumhole so Mark had to cut one for it.

Ladybird, ladybird fly away home

Usually, with anything to do with nature, you are quite the ham-fisted child. The first time I showed you a woodlouse and put it onto your hand, you seemed amazed and happy for about 30 seconds, then you put your thumb through its delicate back and wiped the juice on your jeans. 

Now, though, you have a new found appreciation for insect life. 

Twinkle twinkle little star

A very strange thing happened last week. We started singing twinkle twinkle little star to you and then, because we wanted to have a more multimedia experience, we found a video on YouTube of that same song. Here is that video (link probably dead in the future...)

After a couple of watches, something must have happened in your brain. For some reason, when the owl and star were waving goodbye to each other, your face started getting upset. First it was the trembling lip, then a tear...and then a torrent of tears. It took about five minutes to eventually get you to stop crying. Your mum managed to capture the moment that you started to lose emotional control:

Needless to say, we spent the rest of the day trying to capture the same moment on film, but your stoicism had somewhat returned and we couldn't get any more real tears.

Shame.

This was the best we could get:

A lazy month so far

This month, Noah, your mummy and daddy have been very lazy bloggers indeed. How on earth are you supposed to account for this lost time? Well, some of your recent highlights are summed up in the collage below, but there is no real news here. So let's put in some real news from the the real world. 

Yesterday this man won the European elections:

This man stabbed up his mates then did a massive drive-by shooting in America:

And this man turned 30 years old:

BOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!

PS, we dead hope the future aint racist.

Happy birthday McGandand!

Noah wanted to apologise for his lack of attention on the phone to you earlier. He had been trying to call you during the morning but you were at work. By early evening he was very busy test-driving his new car. 

"Tell him I'm sorry for being so rude please, Mummy," he said as we put him to bed. "And tell him, 'happy birthday!'"

Men's spring/summer fashion 2014

The fashions have probably changed quite a bit by the time you see this and perhaps this look that your Daddy is rocking here might not be in fashion anymore. Needless to say, right now, he is one cool customer.

We were just bobbing out into the garden to see your new car - for an interview, I'd probably wear a tie.

Poor happy

You are utterly relentless with Happy. Whilst he doesn't actually appear in the first picture, it is the moment Happy catches your relentless, all-seeing eye in the garden. What follows is a pretty typical day in the life of poor old Happy.

New car. For 'adding.'

Today you got a new car. You were mid-nap when it arrived so we woke you up and took you in the garden to check it out. You loved it. What is funny is that you rather enjoy pushing it around the garden rather than actually driving it. You also spend a lot of time opening the door, getting in, opening the door and getting out again.

The whole time you just keep saying, 'adding...adding...adding!' (This means, 'driving.') We think this series of photos rather sums up your experience with your new toy: