A few nights ago Oliver woke scared in the night and told me that The Joker had been under his bed and was going to "joke him". The Joker also apparently had smoke bombs in his hands. I think perhaps that Batman book should no longer be read at bedtime!
But Oliver himself can be a bit of a joker. A couple of weeks ago in the park he tagged along with a crowd of boys aged 13. There were girls there too (asking Oliver "which of us do you like the best", we could hear from across the playground!) but Oliver was only interested in riding round the playground on his bike with the big boys and proclaiming his football alliegance. They were really nice lads and one of them said to us that Oliver will have lots of friends at secondary school because he's cool!
Today Oliver was playing to the crowd again, this time with his antics climbing a tree. He got up there OK, but he got all, well, "hung up" about coming down. But it was so funny after it happened accidentally the first time, that he repeated the performance several times to an excited audience of his peers. See for yourself.
(By the way, it was all quite harmless and safe. He's dangling by his coat around his waist, with several adults also enjoying the spectacle just off camera.)
Today Lucy is 2 years old. To celebrate we arranged a fab picnic party in the park. Of course, thanks to our wet summer we ended up having the picnic on blankets in our living room, but hey, that was great fun too!
But before all that we started the day by coming downstairs to find the living room decorated with balloons which Lucy immediately spotted. Oliver then made a bee-line for the small pile of presents that I had intended to leave until Hayley got up (as Saturday is her lie-in and having got up to wish Lucy a happy birthday she had gone back to bed after an hour or so). Oliver then offered one of the presents to Lucy so I let her open it. It was a rather cute matching necklace and handbag which Lucy immediately put on for our Tesco trip.
After breakfast we came home and helped get ready before the party kicked off at 11am. There were 16 kids, some Lucy's age and some Oliver's age, but Lucy thinks she's four anyway so that doesn't phase her. When food was served it was in their picnic boxes. Lucy settled her Mama dolly down on the blanket.
She then presided over proceedings as well as getting some food herself.
The picnic boxes consisted of some sandwiches, raisins, crisps and a fruit shoot.... amazingly some sandwiches got eaten, albeit with a little persuasion from the parental overseers.
Then there was some games of pass the parcel. Two in fact: one for the two year olds and one of the 3 and 4 year olds. Stopping the music to make sure everyone gets a go is not easy with two games on the go.
There was pin the tail on the donkey and a rather splendid round of musical bumps reversed, where the kids sit down to dance and then have to stand up when the music stops. The last to stand up is "out" and gets a sweet. Everyone's a winner!
Lucy was a doll all afternoon. Here she is presenting Nanny with some chocolate.
Finally Lucy was presented with her cake.
To our surprise, one guest, Amber (a little girl Oliver's age who Lucy loves) turned up with her Mum half an hour after the end of the party. It turns out that Hayley had been in "wedding mode" when writing her invitation and had accidentally put the start time as 1.30pm like the wedding! However, all was not lost, as we had more fun with the few remaining friends and kids, including indulging in some ice-creams, ever popular with Lucy.
And anyway by this point the sun was out, so we eventually headed off to the park where Lucy had a great time with Amber.
We had a great day and more importantly the little lady loved it too. She got lots of nice presents, favourite amongst which was undoubtedly the ceramic tea-set in a wicker picnic basket.
And with no nap all day, she was out for the count after her bedtime milk. Probably dreaming of a picnic with her tea-set.
Not only does my local Decathlon store provide a good supply of reasonably priced sporting goods, but in the winter months it provides a spacious place for me and the kids to go and amuse ourselves. I check out the cycling gear and sometimes buy them clothes, while they try out the various balls, flip-flops, gloves, torches...
And of course there's plenty of space for them to run around. But today we took Oliver's Islabike. Here he is practicing his balancing skills. (Out of shot, Lucy is on her push-along trike which I am trying to manoeuvre, hence the occasionally wobbly shot.)
I had been intending my first public performance on my ukulele to be a well rehearsed and polished little show, possibly even premiering one of my own compositions.
However, tonight after I persuaded Oliver to leave his bath by coming and playing ukulele with Daddy, Hayley turned up with a camera and captured our fun.
As Oliver is so fond of Gus and Fin's version of Blitzkrieg Bop, he had no trouble dropping in on cue when I started to mimic it. And his cuteness hopefully makes up for the fact that I haven't learned all the chords nor half the words.
(And yes it is very dark. We don't live in a cave, the light was dimmed a little for bedtime.)
I have already lost access to my ukelele, at least when the kids are around. Oliver in particular has really taken to it. "Can I play your teeny guitar?" he asks in his cutest voice.
He watched the YouTube video of Blitzkrieg Bop played on ukeleles that Dan posted the other day. Watching has now become a nightly ritual. Here he is playing along with Lucy dancing on Mummy's knee in the background.
The funny thing is that I once saw The Ramones in concert in the mid-80s and they played everything about twice as fast as on their records, which is more or less what these guys are doing. The difference is that it really works on ukeleles!
Sadly, my camera phone does not really do justice to the degree to which Lucy jigs about in my arms during this clip. You can just about make out that she is shaking her head at times. She loves dancing with me to this tune and when Mummy joins in too she goes crazy.
Of course Lucy is Lucy and she amounts to far more in her own right than just being the product of her Mummy and Daddy. But she does have some traits that are unmistakeably derived from Hayley, the cutest of which is the way she wrinkles her nose when she chuckles. Don't blink at the start of the video above and you'll see what I mean.
PS. I know this video could have been kept down to about 3 seconds in length, but until I find some free video editing software that can handle .MP4 files, you'll be getting unedited clips only.
Lucy has been a real cutie this weekend as she recovers from her week-long illness. She has even started to tilt her head to the side when looking at us sometimes, as if trying to be even cuter.
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