In about ten days’ time you’ll be here. I can’t quite believe it. Actually I can’t believe it at all!

You’ve been here all along really, right there in your mummy’s tummy house. (That’s what your older brothers call it – we read about what you’re up to in their favourite book There’s a House Inside My Mummy every night at the moment). But I suppose those few centimetres between in there and out here make quite a difference.

Your mummy is probably looking forward to meeting you the most, and your brothers say they are too although once you start playing with their toys they’ll realise what having another brother actually means.

I’m not so sure though. Of course I’m excited to see what you look like and find out what you’re like, but I’m also a little worried about it. It’s not your fault: I just hope I can be a good dad to all three of you. I haven’t got the hang of it yet but hopefully by the time you’ll be able to read this I will have.

We’ve called you baby Sen so far. Soren is adamant that’s your name, and it is nice, but your mummy and I have got some proper names lined up for you. We’ll wait till we meet you to finally choose.

See you soon little boy.

Love,
Papa xxx

As we get older we naturally start to lose enthusiasm for birthdays. In an effort to rekindle this enthusiasm I’ve invented a special Birthday Looker Forwarder™ technique.

This is the first year I’ve employed the Birthday Looker Forwarder™ technique. For its first outing I’ve employed the technique by not shaving or trimming my beard since Christmas. To start with it wasn’t anything different, but as the weeks passed my beard grew and grew until it has became the ridiculous hillbilly face-full of fur it is today, or was this morning I should say. It wasn’t as uncomfortable as you might imagine; the hardest part was people looking at me as if I was an extra from the film ‘Deliverance’.

But today is my birthday! And that means I can finally trim my beard!

It feels soooo much better. For reference, the hair grew to an average length of 12cm and, shaved off, weighed 4g.

I’m not sure what I’ll do for next year, but given the success of the Birthday Looker Forwarder™ technique I shall definitely be employing it again.

I really like crisps. As a crispophile, moving to France was not a brilliant idea as the range available here is pretty poor. Luckily they have Pringles, but otherwise it’s mainly ready salted, balsamic vinegar or peanut. Yup, peanut. And for some reason the supermarkets organise most of their crisps into the aperitif aisle. Excuse me, but I think you’ll find crisps are more of a main course.

Anyway, that’s not really what I wanted to tell you about. What I wanted to tell you about was the contempt in which we consumers are held by the people who decide what to put on the packaging.

Look at that picture above. It’s a bag of crisps (quite nice, although the crisps are unsatisfyingly thin and the flavour slightly too acidic) with a picture of some crisps in a bowl and two crisps casually excluded from the bowl party. That’s fine. I mean, I wouldn’t put crisps into a bowl as they come in a perfectly usable bag, but I understand if you wanted to share your crisps you might serve them in such a way. But hang on a minute, what’s that little bit of writing up the side? ‘Suggestion de presentation’ (Serving suggestion). Oh, they actually are suggesting we should do this; empty the contents into a pink bowl and then pop two of the crisps just to the side.

Huh?

Before writing this I did a little Google research and it seems I’m not the only one to marvel at the moronicness of ‘serving suggestion’. And there are definitely more dramatic examples involving, for example, bananas. But isn’t it just stunning: we, their customer, have just bought their product and they thank us by saying, ‘Hey retard, you’ll never figure out how to eat this, not in a million years, so we’ve made it easy for you – look at the picture.’

Or am I overreacting?

Happy birthday!

Today you are 2 years old; a walking, talking, funny and fun blue-eyed tiny bundle.

It’s been a busy year for all of us, and particularly for you. You’ve grown into a little boy who runs fast, jumps (just a few centimeters), talks in complicated sentences, plays lots of fun games, and eats food (at last) including fruit! You insist that you’re ‘a tiny boy’ even though we think you’re probably now classed as ‘a little boy’. The other night you even woke up in the middle of the night to scream it three times at the top of your voice before going straight back to sleep: “I’m a tiny boy. I’m a tiny boy! I’M A TINY BOY!!!”

So you’re a tiny boy, a strong and brave tiny boy who’ll happily go off and explore the furthest reaches of the garden on your own, with a ‘bang’ (hammer) in one hand and a ‘see-saw’ (saw) in the other in case there’s something to fix. Even if there isn’t you’ll crouch down and bash on a fence post or a stone; you’re always so busy doing stuff. On Christmas day you spent four hours putting sand into the trailer of your new tractor; you had such a nice time.

I’ve been upstairs the last couple of months converting the loft into bedrooms, one of which is for you and your brother. You’re always desperate to climb up the ladder to do some work, and on the rare occasion when you’re allowed up there you grab a piece of wood, the tape measure and your ‘bang’, pop a pencil behind your ear (like papa) and get straight to work. When asked what you’re doing you say, without looking up, that you’re making a new bedroom for baby Sen (what you and your brother call the new baby due in May).

You don’t just copy what we do though; the inventive little games you come up with are amazing. The other day I watched you get four empty storage boxes and the laundry basket, line them all up, then climb into the last box, pretending to be in a carriage on a train. You’ll lie on the ground playing with cars, knocking them over and saying, “Oh no! A disaster!” Whispers under blanket dens, unintelligible shouts as you sprint around the garden following some made up rules, peculiar conversations between your toys: all your own doing, all mysterious, all awesome.

When we get you dressed to go out in the cold, you love to have your mittens on. However, as with everything else in your life, if they’re not perfect you’re paralysed until the issue is sorted. “Baby Fred! Baby Fred!” you’ll cry, pointing to the loose thread. Everything’s fine once it’s been snipped off. Sometimes, however, the issue triggers a terrible tantrum and you scream and cry and go stiff as a board for 5 to 15 minutes. It’s horrible and there’s very little we can do to help you so we just put a cushion under your head and reassure you that everything’s alright, and eventually you calm down. It’s always little things that set you off such as losing a small piece of green felt or actually wanting the stick that you just threw into the lake. We feel bad for you as you clearly can’t help it, and hope this phase passes quickly.

We just had your birthday dinner – pizza and ice-cream – during which you had this conversation with your mummy:
Milo: “Wow, listen!”
Corrie: “What is it?”
Milo: “A dinosaur, outside.”
Corrie: “What’s he doing?”
Milo: “Just walking.”

You have this very cute habit of whispering “Wow!” whenever I give you something. The thing itself is almost always utterly mundane but you’ll greet receiving it with secret enthusiasm. Everything’s amazing to you!

You’re so smart little Milo, so able, so quick to get how things work. You enjoy doing stuff that your brother does and nowadays you’re not too far behind him. You draw really well and although the results are dense black scribbles in the corner of the paper, the effort you put into them and your ability to use the pens and pencils means you can enjoy doing what Soren does. You can’t ride a bike yet like Soren, but you can race along in his wake on your (4-wheeled) bikey: it looks like fun.

You play so well together now, you and your big brother, genuinely having a wonderful time playing silly games, wrestling, jumping off stuff, wriggling under stuff, pulling each other along on stuff, or simply watching a DVD together and offering your interpretation of what’s going on. This often leads to Soren getting annoyed with you and punching you, as with ‘Totoro’:
Milo: “She’s fallen over.”
Soren: “No, she’s asleep.”
Milo: “She’s fallen over.”
Soren: “No, she’s asleep!” Punch.
But he doesn’t mean to be horrid to you, he’s just trying to help you be right.

You’re absolutely awesome little Milo; slightly mental, but incredibly funny, and really good fun. I’m so proud to be your papa, and I love you very, very much.

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Sorry Milo; I’m not sure what happened this month but I’ve only got 3 photos of you this time!

And to make things even worse I’m running out of new things to say about you. Which I suppose is normal as your development is becoming a little simpler and straightforward.

You’ve got the hang of walking and running and riding your bikey and the other dangerous things that are available. You are very keen on talking (in English and French) – mummy understand you, I get most of it, and everyone else struggles a bit to be honest. But it won’t be long before you’ll be chatting to everyone.

You play well with your brother these days, coming up with silly games and funny noises. Often he’ll end up punching you and you punching him, but up until that point it’s lovely to see you two getting on so well.

You’re still happy and laughing one minute and screaming with rage or crying in mortal pain the next. It’s probably a little tough for you but at least you’re getting to experience everything life has to offer. And unlike your big brother at your age, you don’t get frustrated with things rather than the situation: if it’s not how you want it to be it’s the end of the world. For a minute or two anyway.

You’re sitting quietly playing with a basket of toys as I’m typing this, occasionally coming over and saying ‘cuddle papa’ with your arms up-stretched. It’s amazing how independently you can play and I’m very proud of how inventive and ingenious you are, but I’m also glad that I still have a role to play, at least for now.

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Milo is mainly about talking these days.

Sure he climbs up stuff, slides down stuff, runs past stuff, rides stuff, falls over stuff…. But that’s old news. And talking is old news too, but he now does it so much, and in proper sentences too! It’s awesome; one word at a time, but strung together to tell us exactly what’s going on. “Soren. Hit. Milo. Hurt” for example.

Coupled with this is his new attitude. “What do you want for breakfast Milo?” “Nothing.” It’s cute, but doesn’t get us very far. He does counter this with a positive approach to some things. “How’s your Milk Milo?” “Licious.”

Milo and Soren are getting on really well these days. They play together, making up silly games and making each other laugh; it’s delightful and makes us smile. And even though Soren’s much bigger, Milo gives as good as he gets if things go too far and Soren starts getting aggressive. At this stage Milo’s punches are cute but I suppose it’s not something we should be encouraging by our stifled giggles.

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Now you’re running! We had a load of family over  in July and your slightly older cousin ran everywhere – you copied him and now jog all over the place. It’s still with a homeboy limp, but you can go quite fast now. You can go up and down steps pretty well, and are attempting to master the stairs. It won’t be long before nothing is an obstacle any more.

You’re definitely a master of your little bike and can bomb round the bumpy courtyard, screeching round courners, zooming down hills.

Everything you hear you try to say. Your latest word is ‘buggerbike’ (motorbike) but there are countless others: tractor, mushroom (badger badger), bonne nuit, bonjour, Sonn (Soren), look, shoes, bikey, I love tractors…digging… sand, baby…sad…crying, mnilk (milk), nothing, no mine, wee wee, hiya mum, dar (car), duddle (cuddle)….

You and your big brother play really nicely at the moment, although Soren sometimes has trouble sharing with you. Chasing or running games are your favourite and you make Soren absolutely crease up!

So far you’re not really what we’d call ‘an eater’. Or what anyone would call ‘an eater’ actually. You’re big and strong for a 19 month old, but it might be an idea if you started eating proper food sometime soon, please.

You’re really good at playing with things on your own, picking something up and making car noises as you pretend it’s a car driving it over the furniture, or making something, or bashing pieces of wood with a hammer. You’re inventive and confident and happy to try stuff to see what happens.

Every day is filled with you being incredibly cute and charming and then incredibly whingey and difficult. The trouble is you’re trying to do stuff a 4 year old would find tough so it’s no wonder you get frustrated. Once you get the hang of whatever it is though it’s all good… but that can take a while and until then it’s A DISASTER!!!

We watched some old videos of you when you were much littler: you’ve changed so much in the last few months! Talking and walking and playing and wondering around doing stuff on your own. You’re a beautiful brave little boy and it’s fun being your dad.

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Four years old, eh! Before too long you’ll be able to actually read these blog posts :-/

Most of your third year was spent living with grandma as we’d moved out of our rented house and were waiting for our French adventure to begin. You loved it there because you love your grandma so much. Every evening you’d welcome her home from work with an ear-splitting ‘GRANDMA!!!!’ as you ran down the hallway to the front door to meet her. You’d play games with her and go for walks on the cricket field behind the house or go to the playground through the woods.

At about 3 1/2 you turned ‘normal’ and started having little bouts of rage. This wasn’t too bad for us – you were still an absolute delight most of the time – but you seemed to struggle. So screaming and crying and being grumpy and mean were all added to who you are. You still do all these things but we can tell that you’re more in control of your feelings these days and they don’t seem to rule you so completely as they did in those early days. Well, not all the time anyway. It’s not easy growing up is it.

Of course your language has greatly developed, and you often regale us with your hilariously enthusiastic tales and funny made up words. You recently explained to us all that ‘A petit ba is a broken frog with its toe in the road’. Since moving to France 6 months ago I’ve failed to teach you much French. You’ve mastered ‘oui’ and ‘non’ and ‘bonjour, ca va?’ and ‘un, deux, trois, soleil!’, and can speak in what sounds like French but is actually just French noises, but that’s about it. I’ve got a couple of months until you start school to teach you more.

Physically you’re strong and energetic and love climbing, dangling, swinging, jumping, dancing, running…. You can easily walk 3 or 4 miles if we’re going through the woods; you’ll climb over fallen logs or throw twigs into the river or trail a ‘fishing stick’ with you (inadvertently hitting us with it as you spin round). If the walk is a little dull however, you’re forever backing up in front of me demanding ‘shoulders’ – you’re getting too heavy to carry for too long I’m afraid. You became too heavy for your bike seat a while back so we got a tag-along bike which you love! We go out for great bike rides on your ‘mini bike’ and go pretty fast down the hills shouting ‘woo-hoo!’. When you’re in your ‘why’ mode it can be a pain having you right behind me – ‘Daddy, why are cows?’ – but I know you’re just excited and having a nice time.

You’ve made lots of nice friends here in France, and can get along with different types of children pretty well. Girls who boss you about are the ones you seem to like the most, even though you eventually go in a grump if they don’t let you do what you want to do some of the time. Running around screaming nonsense, digging in the soil, bouncing on the trampoline, riding ponies, splashing in pools… you have lots of fun!

You’ve been a big brother for a year and a half now. At the beginning it was easy, but for a while, when Milo started getting in your way, you couldn’t help but whack him all the time. He’s now a source of great amusement for you and creases you up every day. You teach him new words – ‘Say ‘mushroom’ Milo’ – and play silly games with him such as ‘sinking sands’ (taking off the armchair cushions and getting stuck in the rubber strips underneath) or run round the garden holding hands and then falling over laughing as he clambers over you. Your games almost always end up with Milo hurting himself and crying, but it’s ok, it’s not your fault.

You don’t notice but Milo thinks you’re awesome. You do something and 3 seconds later he’s trying to do it. You’re a very strong little boy and you can jump very high. Milo’s only little and when he copies you he can only just about manage to get off the floor. No matter what it is that you do you have a little boy following close behind you. It’s lovely to see, and you’re a wonderful role model for him, however it does mean that he’s attempting some things that even you find difficult. Luckily you’re always there if he ever falls and hurts himself… to stand and watch as he cries. You’ve only recently started trying to help him out and give him a kiss if he cries.

It’s so difficult to summarise your entire year. Mummy would probably do a better job as I seem to forget the details. However I do know that it’s been a year in which you’ve grown up an amazing amount, becoming a complicated, funny, opinionated and strong little boy. As always it’s a pleasure to be around you, even though sometimes you’re really hard work. I think that’s probably me though: I’d never spent all day, every single day with you before we moved to France and I suppose I’m probably really hard work most of the time.

Your 4th birthday party was ace. You had loads of friends round including granmy and gunda, and it was a hot sunny day. We swam in the pool (you floated nude on your pirate boat for about an hour), made butterfly and bug wings out of cardboard, ate delicious mushroom birthday cake that mummy made, ran around in your new ‘S’ t-shirt looking at bugs in your bug viewer…. It was a wonderful day.

I feel like I should go on to list all the things you do now, such as riding your balance bike downhill for ages with your feet up, riding Hip-Hop standing on the saddle, ‘helping’ me lift heavy things and making the appropriate accompanying noises, drawing cool creatures with fat bodies and spindly legs, drinking a cup of chocolate milk and then just chucking the cup on the floor, excitedly pointing out wildlife and making up names for them (buzzards are called gliders), watching loads of DVDs, playing peculiar silent games with French children you meet when we’re out and about, sleeping sideways on top of the covers quietly snoring, using a fork to pick food up from the plate only to then take the food from there to your mouth using your fingers, instinctively reaching up for my hand when we’re out together….

Suffice to say you’re you, a lovely little boy, a lovely little son. Love you Soren.

PS Stop growing up so quickly!

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See all of Soren’s photos

There’s not much new to tell you about this month. Walking and talking are the main things you’re up to, but you’re also: swinging from your big brother’s trapeze swing; riding your bike around the courtyard, garden and field; climbing up ladders at every opportunity; watching ‘The Gruffalo’ from start to finish, transfixed; making us all laugh with your funny walks and silly faces; nodding your whole body when we ask if you want something like ice cream….

You’ve always had a temper but recently it has blossomed into genuine fits of rage accompanied by primal screaming, lying face down on the floor, and a letterbox-red face. You do struggle if things don’t go to plan but I must admit I do too, although I tend not to go so red.

You’re coming up to 1 1/2 years old and I don’t think I’ve made the most of your babiness. You’re amazingly cute, terrifyingly temperamental and already nearly a little boy.

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Milo’s walking!

Milo’s talking!

It’s been a particularly lively month.

Once he’d taken his first steps it wasn’t long before he was off exploring the furthest reaches of the garden on his own, often carrying a shovel or a sharp stick with him, just to make it a bit more interesting. He’s very capable and can go up and down steps, across gravel, bumpy grass and crumpled carpet with ease, but when he does fall it tends to be with his head against something made of concrete. It never puts him off though and he’s often seen toddling around with fresh tears still on his cheeks.

From a distance you’d think Milo was talking English but if you get closer (if you can catch up with him as he’s zooming off into the workshop to fetch a saw) you realise it’s just noises that sound like real words. A lot of these noises are those strange clicks and gurgles African tribes use: maybe he’s a natural linguist and we’re too stupid to recognise what he’s saying. They are delightful noises though, and he makes them whilst looking at you with a slightly furrowed brow and an earnest expression – it’s as if he’s trying to tell us something. Corrie’s got a long list of all the words he can say, the different insects he can point out, the places on his body where he’s injured himself: it’s awesome how smart this tiny tanned blond creature is.

So walking and talking eh. Whatever next!

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