Biking up the road!

A while ago, we bought Jack a funky-looking trike – bright colours, bigger wheels, the lot.  It took ages to put it together and then he didn’t use it, as it was a struggle to climb on to it, because of it’s size in comparison to him.  It’s really good, as it’s even got a handle on the back for us to push with, but it also twists too, which controls the steering – fantastic!

Anyway, now he’s a bit bigger and a lot more sure of himself, he’s able to climb onto the trike much easier than before, even though it still looks like a struggle to me!  So, we’ve been pushing him around the inside of the house, and was ok with it, but not entirely sure, as straight lines can be a bit boring.

So today, to liven things up a little, I put Jack’s shoes and coat on him, sat him on his trike and strapped him in (using the built-it seat belt – safety first and all that). He looked a bit worried as I pushed him out the front door (i.e. down the step!!), but he looked a little better when we started to go around the back of the house on the brick patio, occasionally off-roading on the grass for a bit more excitement.

Making full use of his baby-sign language, the two hands come together to make the expression of ‘more’, meaning “don’t stop now, Dad!”.

All went well, so I upped the ante a little, and I pushed him out through the gate and onto the front garden, making circles around my car and various stones for a bit of extra ‘spice’, as it corners quite quickly.   Again, the baby-hands come out to say ‘more’, but this time, he’s pointing down the road, as if to say, “Take me that way, peasant!”.

And so, I did.

We were off up the road, made a quick u-turn on the pavement a good stone’s throw away from our house, and then back, stopping occasionally to check the expression on his face, as although we’ve simply gone a little further than before, the stones on the pavement shake the plastic-wheeled trike, but he’s still held on.  When I’ve checked his face, he’s got a beaming smile on, from ear to ear with his eyes wide open! He loves it.

‘More, MORE!’, as the hands come together with a bit more force.  Back past our house, to the same distance the other way, again, beaming smiles whilst the wind rushes through his little blonde hair, as by now we’re walking at a decent pace, too.

I originally put the seat-belt on, as a means of slowing him down in case he wanted to get off, buying me enough time to grab him before he stacks himself on the floor in a heap.  The fact is, he didn’t even need it, as he didn’t want to get off – he was holding the bright yellow grips firmly in each hand, letting go to wave at the occasional artic lorry that goes chugging by.

Incidentally, it’s a bit weird when your toddler son waves at an articulated lorry that’s coming towards us as the road bends through the village, only to see the cab-filling-driver inside waving back, floppy-armed mimicking the way that Jack was waving at him! 

Embarrassed, I waved back, smiling as if to say, “Erm, yeah, hi.” 

Why are the TV remotes in the fridge?

…because Jack put them there!

Of course, it makes perfect sense really. If in any doubt as to what happens to a Sky+ remote, simply check the fridge, as Jack is in the habit at the moment of storing random things in there.

I’ve got a little beer fridge in my office downstairs and some of the things I’ve found in there also extend to those little pinSentry devices used for internet banking, so it’s not just limited to infra-red-based devices.

It’s not a problem, and I don’t think that anything has been damaged a result of his storing them in the chiller, but I thought it was a funny/strange/odd thing to do, and worthy of being mentioned here!  Must be something from his mum’s side!

Walking Wonders (cont.)

Since the blog post about Jack’s walking, he’s getting better and better as each day passes. 

His confidence in himself is probably what is increasing, as I think that he’s physically been able to walk for a little while now – when we used to hold his hands, he’d be fine, but he’d start to panic as soon as you let go, even though he was fine.

Either way, his walking is fantastic.  It means that he can make the other side of the house before you know that he’s gone, which is a worry!  People used to say: “ooh, when he can crawl, then you’ll be on your toes…”, which later turned into “ooh, when he can walk, you’ll be on your toes even more..!”  True to form, now that he can walk, he’s off.  But it’s actually ok, as it’s as though now that he can walk, he’s expanded the horizons on where he can go, in that, beforehand, we didn’t really want him crawling on the grass, but now that he can walk, he’s able to wander over to the trees in the garden, or chase Alfie (the dog) around, albeit slowly and with arms flapping around.

Also, the fact that he’s up on two legs now rather than crawling around on all fours, instantly makes him look… more grown up? Does that make sense?  Obviously, he’s still garbles his words and dribbles a fair bit, but the walking thing certainly helps.

The Beach
Friday afternoon, as the weather was really nice and we were both off work, Claire and I decided to take Jack and the dog to the beach for a walk.  We weren’t expecting a great deal, in that we took the buggy/pram too, expecting to have to push Jack along the beach, but getting some fresh sea-air in the meantime. Yeah… he was off, and wasn’t hanging around for us!

I think he really liked it, as we let him wander off where-ever he wanted to go, as there wasn’t anything (or anyone) around to bother him, except of course the billions of litres of sea-water that was gradually coming in-land.  Other than that, he was fine, occasionally tripping over something that wasn’t there, but that was probably because he was trying run after the dog and that his flappy little feet couldn’t keep up with his head!  I don’t think that the dog who wasn’t overly impressed about it all though.

We also took his shoes and socks off and he and I went into the sea. He was splashing around, getting wet, getting me even wetter, all whilst giggling about it the whole way through.  He kept trying to go towards the crabs that were floating in the shallow waters, but they still looked quite alive to me!

The weather there was brilliant that afternoon.  The sun was shining, but it wasn’t baking hot, there wasn’t very much of a breeze at all, and the best thing was that the beach was empty!  We kept Jack’s coat on in case of him getting cold, but in fact it more helped in keeping the sun off his head more than anything!

Also, true to form, we did manage to take about 200 photos that afternoon, the better ones of which Claire has uploaded to Jack’s mini-site.