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:

Pickles and olives

Given the opportunity, you would exclusively eat olives and pickles. Or chocolate.

Someone's got new pumps. And socks.

Yesterday a package arrived of some of your new clothes. You are currently coming to the end of your 12-18 months clothes. We will persevere to make as many of them last as possible - turning trousers into shorts and whatnot - but a trip to H&M online has been on the cards for a while.

Look how excited you look as you have a fantastic time playing with your bus! 

VVVVRRROOOOOOOMMMMM!!

Counting toes

You are beginning to really get your head round counting to ten. When you are in the right mood, you count most of the numbers to ten, and even when you can't exactly remember what comes next, you will mumble some sounds where a number should be.

Yesterday you sat there and, whilst you thought no one was looking, you started counting your toes. It was so amazing but we didn't get it on film. By the time you were aware of us, you were reluctant to do it again. We still got these couple of videos, which are still lovely.

"Noah" deleted scene

This is a deleted scene from the new movie, "Noah." The voice you can hear is the voice of god and the camera is showing all the different animals that made it onto the ark. There is even a brief shot of Noah himself (obviously, played by Russell Crowe).

Mean mummy and daddy

This morning, you went to your room and for a quite a while you were pulling books off your shelves, reading them, then choosing another book. The whole time, you were talking away to yourself. We watched you for ages and admired you; our hearts were melting. 

Then after a bit - and you must believe me that this was instigated by Mummy - your Mummy gave a sly look over her shoulder to me and with a whisper and curl of her lip she said, "Do the lion."

You are going through a stage of being fascinated by animal sounds and a little scared (though equally fascinated) by the lion's roar. Whenever we do it (and it is both of us who do this to you) you come running up, throw your scared arms round our shoulder and say, "Lion. Lion," as if you want us to reassure you that you aren't about to be eaten. 

Back to this morning.

After a lot of persuasion, Daddy did the lion. And we filmed it. For you. Because we love you and we want to document your early childhood. Memories are precious. And long-term memories, like phobias, aren't easily forgotten. Enjoy!

More bath time good times

You love the bath. We can't really stress that enough. What is funny is how you ask for the bath. Sometimes you say, "b-ar-th" with the longer 'are' sound in the middle (like Mummy says it) and sometimes you say, "b-A-th (like Daddy says it). At the minute, the split is about 50/50. It will be interesting how you say it by the time you are reading this...

Baddy leaves (and then returns)

Ever since the school holiday a couple of weeks ago, we've been letting Baddy outside. He wanders round the garden, thinks he's a big man now then wanders back in. We kept him in at night time. Then, Daddy got brave and allowed him out for the night. We kept the window open so he could get back in. The morning came - no Happy. I went to work, came back about 4.30 - still no Happy. We immediately panicked: registered him as missing with the company who tracks him on the chip thing; prepared a desperate Gumtree ad, pleading for his safe return; wandered the streets shaking a pack of treats and shouting your name to the empty heavens. Nothing. 

We put you to bed and all seemed lost...then Mummy spotted him out the window, over the road. He came back. Panic over.

The next day, we bought him a better collar and had a tag engraved with his name and our number.

Considering how much you rave about him, you didn't even seem to notice he'd gone. I said that would be pretty much the same response if your mummy and I were to put you up for adoption - you wouldn't care. Ungrateful.

"Noah" by Daddy

Daddy rules at Hectic Space

Mummy was so impressed by Daddy's score that she insisted that it went onto your blog. I said that might make me look a bit sad but she insisted that it would just make me look cool. So here it is.