Abbey Park

Abbey Park, for the uninitiated, is a staple of Leicester life. Sure, some of it smells of piss but generally, on a good day, it's pretty special. First of all, here I am doing stunts off of the budget roller coaster (swings).

Despite Noah's miserable looking face he had a blast. He wouldnt shut up about it for days. He kept going on about aunty Dawn pulling loads of funny faces

Noah loves mummy so much

Writing this as Noah's dad, I know he loves me. When he sees me after work, his little face smiles and his legs go mental and he looks all excited. But he loves his mummy a thousand times more. I'm absolutely fine with that. It is lovely to watch him watch her float around the house doing mummy things. If she leaves the room, he will look at the door, or try to look round it. Then when she comes backhe forgets about anything else and stares at Cheryl. So this blog is dedicated to that love.

Our family

A bit self-indulgent. Sue us.

Andy Murray wins Wimbledon

We got some historic footage of this event (by accident, whilst filming the boy).

There is also a portrait of Murray's success by one of our favourite artists (Chris (Simpsons artist))

Noah has bean eating

Bean-eating is Noah's new favourite thing. His mummy prepares some lovely dishes: chicken dinner; mackerel and potato; spaghetti bolognese; and loads more. Yet there is nothing he likes more than beans. Cheapo, Lidl's own brand from a dented can and no ingredients information beans. Nom nom nom.

Cheryl was plying Noah with budget beans the other day when the doorbell went. After the Jehovah's witness had explained why we are all sinners and will all soon die, Cheryl returned to Noah and there was chaos. Here is evidence of said chaos:

Daddy Monster

Sometimes, when it's been a long day and I want nothing to eat but baby flesh, I turn into a monster. Daddy monster. Noah is learning how to deal with this psychological anomaly in my brain. It's like budget Jekyll and Hyde in our house. Here is some footage of the flesh-eating daddy monster.

It's been a long, busy old month

Friday was the last day for me at my old school. Having managed to get a job at a school that I can literally see from my house, I will no longer have to commute for 2 hours every day. With that said, it's not ever easy leaving a school. There is so much to do to make sure loose ends have been tied up and then there is the problem of saying goodbye to everyone. Luckily for me, about a thousand other people left as well so the limelight wasn't solely on me. It was still quite an emotional time saying goodbye to some people.

Meanwhile, back at home, Cheryl has been stoical as ever with Noah. This week, she really needed to be. He's lucky we love him so much because, at times, we could have happily dropped him off at Tesco's and let him be raised by part time till staff and trolley collectors. 

It has not all been for no good reason, though. This week, Noah has stepped it up a gear in terms of development. His top teeth have finally broken through and yesterday...he started crawling. 

Don't believe us?

A lack of blogging

In our minds we had set out to be quite prolific with Noah's blog. We wanted it to be witty, up to date and entertaining. Recently, we realilse that we haven't been particularly prolific or entertaining. With it being Noah's birthday today (8 month and 1 day birthday) we wanted to turn over a new leaf and be original, consistant and non-lazy.

With that said, here is a a short video that taught us how we should wean Noah.

Educational and informative.

Crawling. Or not.

You can hear him blurt out a frustrated scream about half way through.

Screaming at a balloon.

Enough said.

Culturals learnings of a 7 month old boy

We are very keen to give Noah a breadth of various different cultural experiences. We try and read him important literary works like I Want my Hat Back or The Tiger Who Came to Tea:

We like to share classic, important films like Citizen Kane (in Noah's opinion, Welles' performance is sublime and it is, without doubt, the greatest film ever created.)

On his mobile there is Bach and Mozart; he will be the boy who knows that the capital of St Kitts and Nevis is, in fact, Basseterre; he'll have an opinion on the political problems in Egypt and he'll have a solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict etc etc. He especially loves Jeremy Kyle:

So, with his new found curiosity for all things great, he asked his mummy and I what we thought was one of the best live performances ever. We showed him this, and he loved it (as you can see):

What a great mover.

Development of the boy

Noah is just under 7 and a half months and his development seems to be on the verge of some gigantic leap. It feels as though he has reached the base camp at Everest and he is preparing for a mighty climb. Constantly unhappy with what he has in his hands and always, instead, wanting whatever is just out of his reach, he is living in something of a perpetual, frustrated limbo. He has reached the point where he knows that he can do things and eat things and engage with things but he lacks the mobility to get them for himself. He is strong and squirmy and currently virtually impossible to hold for more than 5 minutes because he wears you down with his relentlessness. He's like the terminator in the first film after he's been chopped in half. Sadly, unlike the half-terminator, Noah cannot crawl. He can sit up straight and  reach for things with his hands like a 60stone bedbound American woman, but any kind of true mobility continues to evade him.

This, of course, has been a brilliant source of fun for Cheryl and I as we leave things just out of his podgy reach and watch his frustration (and skills) blossom.

Drinking problem

Noah has recently learned to sip water from a cup but he won't stop there.

Talking to a balloon

Ooooooh buh

Travelling Noah

Noah has mixed reviews about his home city of Leicester.

Collection of adorable faces

Give the people what they want.

Duncan Goodhew

When he's not in the bath, Noah is badgering us to take him to the swimming pool. He loves, loves, loves the water.

Awwwwww

Fine dining, pint of gubbins and Bob Dylan in a bin

Daddy decided he would take mummy away for a night. He told me she had complained to him, telling him that she was 'sick and tired' of me. To be honest I had also been worried we had been spending too much time together so was also grateful for a break. It's boring watching Jeremy Kyle and listening to her cry all day. So they packed me up as quick as they could, punching nappies and bottles into some carrier bags and left me at the G's. I had a lovely time but it seemed no sooner had they left me, they were back to collect me.