Braggy park with Noah and Rodney

Today we went to Bradgate Park. Both your mummy and I loved it when you begged to be put down on the floor and then decided not to walk anywhere. We loved trying to convince you to stay on the path rather than wander onto the grass going in our opposite direction. But most of all, we loved your uncanny ability to stand in all the deer shit on the ground.

It was a genuinely lovely day.

It was the first time we all got to meet Rodney.

Washing up

This is your new favourite thing and we struggle to stop you from doing it. "Wash hands, Mummy! Wash hands, Mummy!"

We think it's adorable when you get water all over the fucking floor.

AWWWwwwww! Etc.

Noah's best friend

Every time you see Niall, you always seem to be utterly gravitated towards him. We don't know whether it's because he is a giant or what but you were fascinated. Always are. 

In mummy and daddy's bed

You don't sleep in our bed. Ever. The other night, in the early hours, you woke up and seemed distressed. We think you had had a bad dream so you came into our bed. Then, somehow, we managed to get you to sleep. You look lovely.

Memes

We made some memes. Here they are:

A grammatically correct boy

In a new school year, I have been decorating my classroom. It has this picture of you and next to it there is a speech bubble. Inside that speech bubble is an explanation of how to use a semi-colon in a piece of writing. 

You are an inspiration and a source of knowledge for my students already.

What a special boy.

Happy Birthday Bruxy

Happy birthday, uncle Bruxy! The big 3-0. When my daddy turned 30 he began eating more ice cream and complaining more about the world. I told him, "Cheer up Daddy. Think of it this way, in another 30 years, you'll be 60!"

That made him feel better.

Thank you for all the beer you let me drink at the BBQ. It was dead yummy.

Come round and see me soon.

Love from Noah.

World Orangutan Day

This month saw World Orangutan Day. At Twycross zoo they were giving free entry tickets to ginger people. Or if you dyed your hair ginger or wore a ginger wig, you also got in for free. 

At first, I thought, as everyone else did, that this was some sort of novelty and it's all very funny hahaha don't we have funny coloured hair etc etc.

Then I thought about it more.

I came to the conclusion that this phenomenon in our culture of everyone having a lighthearted dig at ginger people is the last bastion of legitimate racism we have in our society. Generally - indeed, arguably exclusively - racism and all racist remarks are considered off bounds, politically incorrect, unacceptable. Rightly. Our country has grown richly enough to unanimously agree that racism doesn't have a real place at the table of a progressive and modern society. 

Gingers are different. No, 'ginger' is not a race. However, having ginger hair is not a choice, it is something you simply are. This is an important distinction. It is important because, like your race, gingerness is not something you can simply choose to be or not to be. Not in any genuine sense of the word, anyway.

So the fact that it is still socially acceptable to have a cheap and easy laugh at someone who is ginger is, I would argue, tantamount to racism.

Saying this sounds flippant and silly. A great number of people would say 'you need to get a sense of humour,' or, 'It's just a joke, sheeeeeeesh!' But I think we are better than that. I'm talking about society here. As a society, I know we are better than that. 

We didn't take you to Twycross for free on that day Noah. We didn't.

That's not because we are principled. Holy shit, no. If it's free, we're there. We just didn't hear about it in time.

Auf Weidersehen

A couple of days ago now, we said auf weidersehen to Germany. Overall it was a very nice place. The food was great, the people were lovely and all round, it felt like everything was efficient.

Our flight home was delayed by a couple of hours, so we had to keep you entertained in the airport as you became more and more tired and less and less patient. It took a lot of energy on our part but we kept you appeased. On the flight itself, we had recorded an episode of In the Night Garden on the iPad which helped to keep you calm. Overall, you enjoyed charming everyone on the flight as best you could. You kept waving at people and saying, "Hello lady." This made ladies do big smiles at you, which you returned.

The landing of the plane was ropey, to say the least. We seemed to drop suddenly and land at a funny angle. The pilot then seemed to be fighting to keep the plane in a straight line once it had touched down. It isn't an overstatement to say that there were gasps and sharp intakes of breath all around the cabin as that happened.

You were oblivious.

Anyway, here are some pictures of our last day. Your suitcase is on wheels and we could pull you around. This caused two quite heavy falls for you whilst in the airport. You survived though. It's alright.

Oh how you love your ice cold, "Very hot," milk

Here is your honest assessment of your ice cold milk:

Extreme bubbles

One thing Germans do well, it turns out, is making bubbles. The one thing you screamed about louder than a little water pond thing, was bubbles. There was a German man, making these bubbles on the street in return for money.

Money that Daddy was not prepared to part with.

This was an intense 30 minutes or so. It doesn't really show it in this short video. But holy crap was it busy. There were wasps everywhere. Thing is, we don't want to show you our fear of wasps and make you fearful in return. So we have to remain calm in the face of seemingly certain stings. 

And we were eating chocolate crepes. Wasps favourite food is chocolate crepes.

And there was a rally going on nearby so rally cars were screaming in a nearby street. Then a huge boat - a hotel on the water - did what looked like an outrageous three point turn in the water. It was a real sight to behold. 

With all of these things happening, at some point all at once, it felt like a very hectic time. 

Paddling video

This is further to an earlier post where we talked about you wading through the water like a chimp. It was so tricky teasing you out of the water. You love water so much.

When you saw this little water bit with the children playing in, you literally screamed. Then laughed and pointed because that's where you wanted to be. 

Our favourite part of the video is when you finish your song really quickly.

"Man. Money in box!"

The buskers in Germany seemed much classier than back home. You were spellbound by these buskers so we gave you a "Pound" and told you to put it in.

Whenever you recalled that memory over the following few days, you kept saying: "Man. Money in box!"

It wasn't a pound by the way. It was 20 cents. About 16 pence. We aren't made of money.

German Sliding

We found a play area in Koln and took you to it.  You loved picking up handfuls of sand but more than that, you loved the big slide. You'd never been on a slide remotely this big before, so it was a real experience for you.

You also love eating sand.

Mummy's birthday

Today was Mummy's birthday. I got you to say 'Happy Birthday Mummy' this morning, which you did perfectly. And gave mummy some kisses.

We are a pair of very lucky boys, Noah. 

Your mummy is perfect.

By the time you read this, you will know that anyway.

Such a gorgeous face

Goodbye Cologne

Tomorrow we fly home. Before you went to sleep, I explained to you that we would all be on a plane tomorrow. Whenever we tell you anything, especially with some sort of real detail, your eyes always suggest that you are taking everything in. We are sure that in this short time we have been away, we have seen some further leaps in your understanding and your ability to vocalise your thoughts.

You've learnt how to play hide and seek, although you are rubbish at it. When you are doing the seeking, you say where you are looking and whether you can find us there. For instance, you will open the cupboard and ask, 'In the cupboard?' Then answer your own question: 'Nooo...Under the bed? ...Nooo,' etc.

You read your books really well to yourself. You describe the pictures and remember lines better and better. You even quote Peppa Pig. Every now and then, we will ask you what Mr Bull says and you put on your best gruff voice and say, 'Dig the road up!'

Anyway, here's a couple more pictures of Cologne for you to enjoy. Not that you were much bothered when you were here. I pointed to the Dom and said, 'Noah, isn't it amazing!' You were staring intently at a man in a wheelchair and you asked, 'Man doing?'

Your first passport stamp

Your passport will only be valid for five years. This is your first stamp. Sorry we couldn't get one for Luxembourg. The lady at immigration said she shouldn't really be stamping this one, but we asked so nicely and got you to smile at her so she stamped all of of our passports.

We got you to say, 'Bitte,' to her.

Currywurst

Before you say anything about the 'typical English tourist food' we are raving about here, we have to tell you something quite surprising: there really aren't many English tourists here at all. This food is typically German.

And it's delicious. The pommes frites are so much better than any back home and the sausage is really German. Currywurst is German sausage in some tomatoey kind of sauce with curry powder, served with gorgeous fries. We had this twice. With Kolsch. Kolsch is beautiful, ice cold beer. 

You didn't have any of that.

We bought you an ice cream to make up for it.

Villa Mathilde

We read on trip advisor that this place did amazing waffles with cherries and cream. So we tracked it down. It was such a perfect, quaint little cafe. There was some sort of kid's birthday celebration going on, which made it all the more beautiful.

It begged for Instagram. Mummy obliged.

In a way it was a shame that the food was so nice. We had to snatch opportunities to eat it whilst you kept insisting on running down the street or petting a dog or screaming at a balloon etc.