Kiss mah teefs

We know how controversial this post may be insofar as we have shunned every comment so far that Noah might be teething. This has been suggested for several weeks since Noah started chewing his hands a lot and dribbling all over the place. Well, about a week ago, we noticed his cheek had begun to go red. He had been a little more restless in the early evenings but otherwise a very good boy indeed. Then, on the journey down to Scotland, Noah was biting my finger and I felt two sharp little gnashers. That's right, our boy got teefs!

The Gee Gees

Noah loves it at the Gee Gees. "It smells funny round there," he says with s smile, "But I like Great Grandma and Great Grandad's stories." He thought about it before adding, "And I like it when Tally and Charlie bark." With that said, he demanded we take him round there or he would "Scream the house down."

We obliged.

Impossibly beautiful

Being biased, we are always going to say how ridiculousy, insanely, impossibly beautiful our boy is. But he is.   Here is the proof of this beauty in all its glory:

Noah's book review: I want my hat back - by Jon Klassen

The premise for this epochal story is simple and told on page one: "My hat is gone. I want it back." The protagonist, a bear, whose name we never learn, sets the scene. The power in the simplicity of the two opening simple sentences is telling. This is a character who knows what he wants and we get the sense that he will do anything to get it back.

As the story goes, the bear confronts a number of different characters and asks for any details that may reunite him with his hat. With each character he meets and each negative response he gets, the audience is invited to share in his ever-spiralling despair. Despite this, we are shown a warm and selfless side to the main character. A tortoise, who cannot help him with any clues about his hat's whereabouts, we learn, has, "Been trying to climb [a] rock" all day. Seeing an opportunity to aid the stranger, he immediately offers to lift him on top of the rock. Klassen has not missed a trick here. His protagonist had, up to this point, been proven to be rather two dimensional. This act of kindness develops the bear into a more complicated, three dimensional character. There is more than meets the eye to this bear and, as a reader, you can't get through the pages fast enough to learn more about him. What else motivates this guy? What pushes his buttons?

The bear reaches breaking point and when all seems lost, the deer is a beacon of light and wisdom, encouraging the bear to solve the mystery of the missing hat himself. Klassen's deer is to the bear what Obi-wan Kanobe was to Luke Skywalker, and I dare say, in time, he could become just as iconic.

Without giving too much of the roller-coaster plot line away, I will say that the surprise of the plot twist will hit you like a freight train. You will, I guarantee, be left wide mouthed and breathless at the climax and conclusion to this tale.

The verdict: it makes it onto Noah's Ark: 5 stars. A rip-roaring story that you simply have to have on your bookshelf. I make my mummy and daddy read it to me dead loads.

Bath time madness

Noah goes nuts about some blow up thing with bells in

Mummy makes Noah laugh

More snoah

'I'm sick of the damn garden daddy' complained Noah. 'Take me to the park.'

Snoah

Noah was pretty nervous when he heard the snow was coming.

However, when he woke up the next morning he climbed up to the window and screamed with excitement. 

He slipped into his snow suit and insisted daddy take him straight out.

Talking with Daddy

He can also play Karl Pilkington. And fat.

We aren't saying that Noah always looks like Karl Pilkington, but he was doing an impression of him here and it was pretty good.

The other one he is getting better and better at is playing slightly fat. Just look at the size of that brick head. He can do that on command. It's like a shit X-Men skill: Fat Head Boy.

The many faces and acting skills of Noah

"Mummy? Daddy?" Noah asked, thoughtfully, "I think I could be an actor." We shared a smile and encouraged him to tell us more. "Well. I can already do loads of faces, so I think I would be suitable for a whole host of different roles." He paused and looked around at the animals in his farm: bear, dog, cat, dinosaur, "It's my versatility that is my strongest asset. I'm like Daniel Day-Bloody-Lewis when I get going." We vehemently reminded him that we don't say 'bloody' in this house, and with that, we agreed to take some pictures of Noah doing lots of different emotions and acting skills..

Shocked

Happy

Cheeky

Melancholy

Realisation

Slightly retarded (slobbery face on demand)

Action

Flexibility for stunts

Me and my dad

Noah misses his daddy when he's at work, so when he comes home Noah just wants to be on him or near him.

Second sleep

Noah tends to be a little more civilised after his second sleep.

A worm's eye view

A worm looked at Noah and this is what it saw.

Milestones

I completely appreciate that the milestones of other people's children is something everyone pretends to be interested in. It's an evolutionary trait - and one that has allowed homo sapiens to thrive - that we pretend to give a shit about other people's children. It's this sense of society and caring for one another that has made us the dominant species - I get that. I also therefore get that, when Noah consciously touches his own feet for the first time, it is truly a groundbreaking, earth-moving milestone for us to watch as his parents and for him as he comes to terms with his body and all the undiscovered things he will slowly learn to do with it; but not everyone at work appreciates it quite the same as me. After regailing the staff in the dinner hall for the five hundredth time that "Noah has started splashing in the bath now", I almost want to apologise to everyone for boring them with yet another inane story (to them). After all, they are just doing what humans have learned over hundreds of thousands of years to do. I know all these things and I still don't care. I am so proud of my boy that I will continue telling everyone every last detail until the caretakers have turned off the last of the lights and the last of the people have left the building.

And so, good people, here is a picture of Noah touching his toes.

Tummy time.

Midwifes and other baby-related nurses are always banging on about stuff we need to be doing and we take no real notice of it. Things like, "Feed him properly; make sure he's warm; stop feeding him skittles; blah blah blah". Yes, we know you've got your precious qualifications but we think we know our baby better than you, we made him, afterall. So if we want to feed him olives so he has a sophisticated palate or give him a "I love mummy and daddy" tattoo then that's what we'll do, thanks.

That said, 'tummy time' is something we kept getting told to do. "It's simple" said Johnny Know-it-all at the Doctors' surgery "You just lay him on his front and put his toys around him - it encourages him to crawl." Anyway, we did it to shut everyone up. Here he is having some tummy time. He actually quite likes it.

The boiler man: late and smelly.

There was a brief cold snap that started last Sunday - don't know if you remember it. I remember it for two reasons:

1. I had to play football in it. It felt like I was a minor character in the movie Alive.

2. The boiler broke down in our house and it got cold.

"Don't worry Cheryl," I said, with a wink of the eye as my phone rang up Scottish Power, "We've got Noah; they will be out here in a shot. They have to be, he is under six months." Two days later, after the boiler started working again on its own accord, in walks a smelly, creepy plumber, clutching his spanner and tool belt with his sweaty, greasy hands. He was like a shit Mario.

This is a convoluted way of getting round to adding the following picture of Noah, wrapped up as warm as we could make him in the baltic living room...

Dog and bear were doing their bit to keep him warm.

Parenthood: the story so far

Noah is nearing the four month mark. He has turned our lives upside down and inside out and yet we feel nothing but a raw, primeval, ineffable, unfathomable, impervious love for him. For anyone who has had children, you will be giving a knowing nod of the head but for anyone who hasn't, you honestly have not got a clue what we mean, with all due respect. You will, of course, know on the day of your first child's birth.

Right now, Noah is upstairs, asleep in our bed after having screamed the house down for a while. At first we were relieved to have him asleep but soon enough we missed him. Genuinely missed him.We sat at the computer and watched videos of him and flicked through our pictures.

There is no real point to this entry other than to say our lives will never be the same again. Ever.

And that's just fine by us.

Noah Webb: Chatty man