Who wouldn't be impressed by giant dogs that carry christmas trees to your car?

Well I was and daddy was.

Noah took some convincing but got there in the end.

"Tom"

Whilst Dawn, Tom and Charlotte were up from dahn sahf, Noah found a new best friend. Well, Tom had bought some Phileas Fogg crisps and Noah, it turns out, loves them. These two vital ingredients made it easy for us to teach Noah how to say, "Tom". He said it loads to get crisps. This trick also got him an endlesss supply of carvery from the pub and too much ice cream sundae.

And now he's morbidly obese. Thanks, Tom.

Mon dieu!

Apologies for the lack of blogging but Movember was all about growing this bad boy...

Thank you auntie Caz, grandma and uncle Oscar

The best birthday cake...ever. Three tiers: one orange, one lemon and one regular sponge. It was adorned with loads of fun things. Best of all was Underdog from the National Accident Helpline adverts...

3 days later, Noah ripped Wallace's head off and we found Nemo...he was in half on the floor. Dead.

Happy 1st birthday baby Noah

For Noah's first birthday, we had a few people over to celebrate. We didn't really want to do anything, but Noah insisted. We simply cannot lavish him with enough attention, it seems. He needs it from all four corners all the time. Here is is looking long, being held by cake extraordinaire auntie Caz.

Perspective is a funny thing. I know Noah doesn't have a head the size of a planet and I know Adelaide doesn't have a head the size of a chick pea. Neither of these facts appear obvious from this photo.

There's no skew of perspective here, though. That is a pea head if ever I saw one.

Back to normality. Noah and Adelaide chilling out.

Gerard Butler waits patiently in the wings while Adelaide does her finest Captain Jack Sparrow impression.

Despite sounding a bit poorly...

Noah always finds the ability to smile and laugh. This was taken on the same day Cheryl and I tricked Grandad to take him for his 1 year jabs. We didn't let on that he would have to have three separate ones in both of his legs and an arm. Phew.

The smiles weren't around on Thursday evening though. Noah was watching the news as it broke about Nelson Mandela. Cheryl and I shared a glance as he played on the rug before the headline was announced. We knew Noah was not going to like this one. He said, "Mummy, is Nelson Mandela really dead?" Cheryl said she was afraid he was and that it was a very important, very sad day. There was a long pause. "Mummy, can we watch The Shawshank Redemption later? That's my favourite Nelson Mandela film." We stifled a smile at his confusion.

Something incredibly creepy about this 2 second video

Not only does he look possessed by some demon, but he also looks as though he is possessed by a dwarf. Pause the video and stare at him. You will be amazed at how weird he looks.

Our first bout with croup

Sunday morning. Noah's auntie Dawn, uncle Tom and cousin Charlotte were up from Brighton. 6.30am, we were woken by a strange cry coming from Noah's bedroom. He seemed a little distressed. By the time I threw a dressing gown on, auntie Dawn was in his room holding him. By the time I got to him, he was very red, somewhat shaky and struggling to breathe. He was able to cry outwardly but when it came to breathing in, the breaths were shallow. Usually, if Noah takes a fall, or hurts his fingers on something and he starts to cry, we can just do a funny dance, take him outside or point him towards a mirror and the distraction works for him. Holding him in front of the mirror did nothing. He continued to cry and struggle for breath. I passed him to Cheryl and called 999.

Two minutes later (literally) the paramedic on her last call for the night turned up. Fortunately, by this time, Noah wasn't quite so manic but his breathing still seemed laboured although his crying had abated. She did her tests and requested the ambulance to come out. Cheryl and I climbed on board with Noah and we spent the the next 4 hours in hospital. By the time we got there, Noah seemed much more himself and spent the time wooing all the nurses. After a few more tests and a brief inspection by the 12 year old doctor, we were informed that it was croup. This is one of the reasons it has been a long old month...

Croup is this: inflammation of the larynx and trachea in children, associated with infection and causing breathing difficulties.

This is one of the reasons it has been a long old month. There's nothing like the adrenalin shot that comes from thinking your baby isn't breathing.

A long old month

'Old' is the proper quote here, too. Noah turned 1 year old and he's had a real blast. He's seen so many people and he has been so incredibly spoilt by everyone. That is, except us.Mummy and Daddy are shrewd, Noah. We know your ability to distinguish between cheap and expensive presents is currently piss poor. So if we half fill an empty value cola bottle with tesco basic dried pasta and sell it to you as a present, you better believe that we can convince you it is an amazing gift. Even if we can't, you aren't making memories yet. In the words of Louis CK, you're memory is like an etch a sketch that we shake clean every day.

It leaves us more money to spend on honey flavoured Jack Daniels. My god that drink is unbelievable.

Noah the Movie with Russell Crowe... as Noah

Noah the movie is edging ever closer to the release date. There is a full trailer here and Noah looks as badass as biblical Noah did. We were discussing this and are interested to see whether Aronofsky will include Noah's alcoholism or the bit where he is so out of his face that he got his cock out in front of his son.

Probably not. 

We are both quite excited about the Noah movie. Or rather, we are full of intrigue as to how it will pull off the story. Being that the story of Noah is so impossibly flawed, we want to see how Aronofsky manages to square the numerous circles that will be present throughout. I mean, come on!

Words. He's like a flippin' human Scrabble board!

The boy is becoming a master mimic. Any simple words we say to him, he tries his best to copy. Here are a few example words we managed to capture. Don't worry, all the videos are short so stop panicking; we aren't going to waste loads of your precious time. Jeez.

"Bubble"

"Oh wow!"

"Fwower"

"Tiger" (just)

"Yesss!"

"Mama"

"Birdy"

And Noah's personal favourite word...

Meat in bread: Noah's favourite meal

Recently, the boy has been on something of an eating rampage. He has an insatiable appetite. Even after feeding him a Henry VIII sized portion of food, he still turns to our plates like a heat-seeking missile and says, "Mmmmm-mmm". Here he is destroying a meat sandwich:

At the end, he is pointing at Cheryl's plate.

Miserable boy with antlers

Pretty self-explanatory, really.

A glitter bob

Picking Noah up from nursery on Thursday, we were warned he may do a glitter poo. He had been playing with the glitter at the nursery and, apparently, did nothing but eat it. All day.

The next morning, this was in his nappy.

For christmas, we are going to get him to eat a santa hat...

Noah with the Gees and a witch

Noahzilla on a rampage

"What did you see, old man?"

"Noahzirra"

"Noahzirra"

"Noahzirra"

Noah told us a funny story

We're pretty sure you can follow the gist just by looking at his expressions...

Noah doesn't much care for masks

Nor does Noah much care for bike helmets.

These are facts we know about our boy. When faced with someone in a bike helmet or wearing some sort of mask, Noah gets very upset and clings to his mummy or daddy until it goes away.

So when we got to the Gees' today, I immediately asked Grandad to dig out the horrible witch's mask to see how Noah would react.

Turns out Noah couldn't give two shits:

Which is ironic because he literally went on to do at least two more shits to round off the day.

Tally's disk

We popped over to the Gees' today. Noah was chatting away from start to finish. He has always liked Tally but usually Tally is, heartbreakingly, indifferent to him. Today was different. First, Tally made Noah laugh:

Then Noah said Tally's name!

Now they are bezzy mates.