Callum's developing social graces

We went to Alan and Alison's for a BBQ this Sunday. Cracking day, far too hot, and the boys were enjoying playing in the garden while Alan did his manly thing with charring bits of meat over the flames. After the Bash had eaten about four sausages, he sat down for a bit, holding his belly, then turned around and asked "Dad, why are we still here?". That's my boy, fill your boots and leave!

How to run a successful cafe?

"Is that panini too burnt for you?"

I think she'd answered her own question to be honest...

Sport Induction 201

Callum's first class obviously being the Rugy World Cup in 2003, which he didn't understand, but probably got thrown about a lot.

'Dad, why are they having a cuddle?' after Fred scored Brazil's second against the Socceroos.

One

Took the boys to Chessington World of Adventures, courtesy of Tesco's vouchers. Good day out, Big Sausage was covering his eyes on the bigger rides, like the Runaway Train, but they both seemed to have great fun. It wasn't too busy either, given that it was half-term.

First steps

Connor's strang seven or so steps together today, just before his first birthday and in time for the grandparents to see at the weekend.

House-trained!

I was stayed with Jon and Jay at the weekend up in Sheffield, as part of a climbing trip with Scottie and his mate Dan. I bailed staying in the flat that Scott had sorted out when Andy and Emma were due to come back. Five people into a two-bedroom flat doesn't go for me; I'm getting old and like my creature-comforts.

Jon offered me a blue towel and a white one, then snatched the white one back, saying that he was going to put a coloured wash on in the morning! That boy's changed from when we shared a house post-Uni...

Genius

Al has this mannerism of stating Genius! as a thinly veiled sarcastic comment. Now so does the Bash. He was asking one night where his grapes and milk had gone, and Al told him that we'd taken them downstairs since he hadn't appeared interested in them. His response? Genius! :-D

Spoonerisms

Callum sucks his thumb. Neither of the boys were, or ever will be, given dummys, so now we have this habit to break. Allison told him to 'stop thumb-sucking', but got a little mixed up. 'Stop some-fucking', whereupon we both collapsed. The Bash didn't pick up on why though, otherwise he could have been repeating some choice words in nursery.

What's the Story, Morning Glory

Al was traumatised today when she went to wake up Callum and he had a humdinger, but he wasn't really aware of it. She caught sight of it and hastily put him on his potty and ran away! I had to explain to her that Morning Glories aren't just caused by waking up to an obviously very sexy wife, but also because a male is bursting for the loo. Nice.

Calcutta Cup

What a day to go to Penny Hill Park with a load of Scots! We've got the in-laws down at the moment, and took them to Penny Hill Park for afternoon tea. And met half the England team. I'm surprised the Andersons were as restrained as they were!

Party Animal

Went out for Dave and Helen's thirtieth last night. I was about five hours down on sleep before going out, missed my window for kipping in the afternoon and then couldn't sleep on the train. I soon fixed that by having four pints and going for a kip in the toilet of the bar until closing time. Classic!

Continuous development

I'm continually amazed by how the boys acquire little skills, so that I'm playing with them and then suddenly tweak "hello, how long have you been doing that?"

The example that prompted this was Connor's habit of insisting on having one of the train letters for his name when he's getting dressed after bath-time. I noticed he has awareness that he can hold it with one hand while I get his other arm into his sleepsuit, then he needs to swap the toy over from one hand to the other when I want to get the second arm into the sleepsuit. Clever!!

Dinosaur hunt!

Family trip to the Natural History and Science Museum today. Callum loved the animatronic T-Rex! It was nice to go around the place; I'd not been for ten years or so, when I went to London Village to meet a friend who was studying at Imperial.

And so it begins (again!)

Connor's started crawling a good 'un. And he's not content with just that. He's gone from the expected commando shuffle crawling to trying to stand up already, and with his strength I don't think it will be too long before he's up and running around playing football. The cheeky little mouse is already trying to climb up the stairs!

Basher - potties

After a lot of sniffing about, but no real interest, we've got Callum to start using his potty more. It took a lot of bribing by Al to give him sweets if he used it for a pooh, but he's finally there. It seems like the boy has inherited his father's ability to do sixteen inch poohs, so obviously I'm very proud, especially as I'm the one emptying the potty. Need to get him on the trainer seat quick sharp!

Vicarious pleasures

Spent the weekend with a load of mates celebrating Julie's thirtieth. Had a cracking time with all, and I had the personal bonus that it was an outdoor activities weekend. I found it quite interesting to view the experience very intensely written on other people's faces as they experienced fear and pure joy going into these unusual situations. It's very weird since I've been doing that sort of thing since I was two, so I guess I don't have the fear or newness to contend with. But it was great to see other people going through that experience, purely as an observer!

I noticed something about myself as well. I wasn't very patient. I guess it comes from being so au fait with all the activities, but I really struggled hanging around waiting for a group of twenty bumblies (to use Mick Ward's anthropological chart). I think it partly stems from being so independent and used to having my autonomy, not reliant on others to do stuff, but I caught myself a couple of times jumping in when it probably wasn't my turn, but I couldn't stop myself from bursting then. I hope I can be better with the boys when the time comes for them to try climbing and everything else Competive Dad wants them to do!

Connor - M'HUNGRY

He's a big lad, and we've had to start weaning him now, since he's started waking up too frequently for Al's liking during the night. So today, he started on solids. That means tomorrow, we get the results of that!

Plumbing pains (part two)

The water drainage into the lounge wasn't too bad and we were confident that it would dry out and not require too much redecorating, which the plumbers had said they would cover. They finished off connecting up the systems.

But the next day, we noticed that there was a large leak in the utility room. Followed shortly by a similar leak down a wall in the lounge, which was soaking the carpet. It turned out that in the course of drilling a hole in the external wall, they had accidentally drilled into the Soil and Vent Pipe for the house, so that was leaking down the side of the internal walls each time we had a shower, or potentially flushed the loo, but we don't want to think about that too closely at the moment.

Plumbing pains (part one)

So we've got some plumbers to do the job (Al's selection criteria was particularly rigorous - are you Scottish?). First day in and the new pressurised thingy (obviously I'm very clued-up when it comes to plumbing) was in place. The guys told us not to use the central heating, but we could use the hot water. Bit of a pain, but it's not quite winter draws yet, so we thought it was managable.

After the hot water had been on a little while, we heard a loud depressurising noise, so hastily turned off the hot water system. Had a poke around, but couldn't see anything obvious, so we just left it.

The next day, we noticed that there was a large puddle forming in the lounge ceiling, since the hot water hadn't been connected up, and every time we turned it on, it just poured straight out of the pipes onto the floor in the water tank housing, and then drained into the lounge. Class. We put pots down on the floor to collect it and waited for the plumbers to return.

Building pains

So we're having this loft conversion done, to give us more space without having to move and pay the iniquitous stamp duty. But it's not been a pain-free process.

Originally, we were specc-ed to have the squat cylindrical tanks sitting in the middle of the loft altered to be coffin tanks sat in the eaves. But first day on the job, the builder stated that coffin tanks wouldn't fit into the space allocated by the architect. We had a few plumbers look at it and they all concurred. So we were left with the option of stopping completely, or upgrading the entire system in the house to a pressurised one, at the increased cost of a few thousand. Ouch! The loft conversion company refused to meet us half-way on this one, so we're taking the hit ourselves. Key learning number one...