Separation Anxiety

Al's away at the moment and phoned tonight while Callum was still in the bath.

Callum : 'Was that Mummy?'
Me: 'Yes, and she says she loves you very much'
Callum : 'Yeah, but I've got a bouncing frog!'

Maybe you had to be there.

Post-Project review - North Wales trip

1. If you arrive in the Pass and it's dry, go climbing. The BBQ can wait, but tomorrow will probably bring rain.


2. A bunch of Sarf London market boys will not be able to thrash up Snowdon in proper Northern rain that hurts, Wayne and his brother excepting.


3. Never go hill-walking with a fell-runner. Doing the Llanberis track up and down in a little over three hours is going to hurt later this week.


4. The Vaynol is very good for supping - good choice with the campsite, Mr Velupillai.


5. The campsite was basic and I'm probably needing my creature comforts more in my old age.


6. The Vaynol sucked for food. They got my order wrong, brought the food out cold and is was generally unimpressive. I made up for it by drinking lots of Robinson's. (c.f. point 4)


7. Not doing any climbing for a while over the hot summer months leaves Fairy Liquid soft hands and flabby muscle which doesn't cope well with the Cromlech boulders.


8. Whereever you go climbing in the world, you will bump into people you know from Sheffield. Mr Busby looked far too fit and strong for my liking, so I'm going to have to start getting thin so that I can be good enough to hold his rope next time I see him at Rubicon!

Australian influences

So my brother and his family visited, and I didn't write anything at the time. The one thing that sticks in the mind is his son, and my allusion to Beaker.

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!