(Sorry British readers, but your American blogger just can’t bring himself to call it ‘football.’)
Nevertheless, this past Monday was a public holiday here in the land of ‘football,’ and it was a lovely warm late summer day. We took the young man to the park a few times, trying (and succeeding!) to tire him out before bed. Here’s a trio of videos of Nyan, budding footie star. (The first two are rather short, as we were having minor technical difficulties, but worth a quick watch.)
Yes, he needs to work on some, or all, of his skills. But the kid’s got heart!
Here’s a treat: a mass dump of lots of recent photos of the young man, having fun. Mostly from when Grandma and Grandpa were here a few weeks ago. Check him out as he does the robot, draws chalk on the sidewalk, hangs out at the playground, lazes about shirtless in the heat, and generally just enjoys life. Not a bad way to live, eh? (Click any photo to enlarge/start a slideshow)
A couple weekends ago, Nyan took Daddy, Grandma and Grandpa to a place called Mudchute Park and Farm. It’s a pretty good sized area just south of Canary Wharf — that is to say, pretty much in the heart of London — that’s got acres and acres of forest, hills, and grazing land for a bunch of animals. Nyan had been to a farm or two in his day, but he’s getting more comfortable around the animals. Not entirely so, but getting there.
Here he is, feeding the goats with Daddy. Note that Nyan won’t hold the grass himself, but rather guides Daddy’s hand Read the rest of this entry »
It’s a big day for Nyan Thomas: it’s his last day in the “Yogi Bear” room at his nursery – the one for 1-to-2 year olds. Starting Monday, he’ll move to the “Paddington Bear” room, where the big boys and girls (the 2-to-4 year olds) spend their day.
Not unlike his parents, our hero is, how shall we say, not always at his best in the mornings. A little grumpy at times, a little touchy now and then, usually takes a little while to get going.
But not today. This morning, we thought he was sleeping late when we suddenly heard a noise through his closed bedroom door. Not crying, or calling out for a morning cuddle. We tip-toed to the door to have a listen:
He was singing.
Nyan was quietly singing “Frere Jacques” (one of his current faves) to himself. We listened for a minute, then gently, quietly, opened the door. He couldn’t see us because of a blanket draped over the side of the crib, but we could see part of him: he was on his belly, butt up in the air, just happily singing to himself. Then the door hit the wall and made a little noise; he instantly stood up, saw Mommy and Daddy, and burst into a big smile. “Cuddle!” he said. He got plenty of ’em.
So he was definitely off on the right foot. And it only got better. Here, a few minutes later:
That’s Nyan pointing out Mommy and Daddy’s car, parked in the street below, to his pal Bo the Cow. Nice way to start the day, for all three of us.
Long-time visitors of this blog – and we have one or two – may recall some videos from way back in the day that showed young Nyan Thomas getting extremely excited every time we’d turn on the vacuum cleaner (a.k.a. hoover, for our British readers). Well, tonight he took it to a new level:
Yes, while we were vacuuming up the kitchen floor – where someone, not naming names here, had thrown a bunch of noodles and other food bits — Nyan cried out “Help! Help!” That doesn’t mean he needed help; that means he wanted to help. The kid’s got skills! Now if we can only teach him how to unload the dishwasher. (Actually, he does try to do that, every time the dishwasher is open. Sadly, we can’t let him do that, what with the knives and all. Maybe someday.)
One of Nyan’s favorite things to randomly say is “Train coming!” It’s often heard while he’s playing with one of his toy trains, but he’s just as likely to say it when there’s no train around. Odd kid sometimes. In any case, he does love trains – so he’s always up for a ride on the Tube (that’s the London subway, for you Yanks). Here’s just a few shots from a recent trip on the Tube. Note that on one particular ride, he insisted on sitting in a seat all by himself.
(Click any photo to enlarge and start a slideshow.)
Our boy loves to dance. Here he is, out in front of our new house the other day, dancing and snacking, as Grandma works on the flowers:
Remember a few months back when he was dancing to the Rubber Ducky song? Here he is dancing to the same song, but with a whole series of new moves. And singing along a bit too:
He bumps his head toward the end there, but no harm no foul:
And finally, a bonus video. He’s not dancing, just playing. But still a fun little video:
A couple weeks back, when we picked up Nyan at school, he mentioned something about yoga. He babbles a lot of words, so we thought nothing of it. But when we got home, he showed off…. a yoga move. The downward dog, to be precise. We were certainly impressed by his skills, and figured they must have done yoga at school. (Yoga at a daycare/nursery? Pretty progressive, thought we! Well done, nursery.)
The next day, we casually mentioned his moves to the ladies at the nursery and said how cool we thought it was that they were teaching yoga to two-year-olds. They looked at us like we were crazy. “We didn’t teach him that. He just started doing it the other day, and saying ‘yoga.’ A couple of the other kids followed him and started doing it as well. We just figured you had taught him that at home.” Uh, what?
We figure he must have seen Mommy do yoga once, and instantly picked it up. Nothing gets by that kid… in any event, he has been doing it quite a bit lately, and we caught it on film:
Okay so he’s easily distracted. But hey, he’s two. You’ll notice in that video that Mommy and Daddy (Grandma and Grandpa too) are encouraging him to close his eyes and say “Ohmmm,” the universal sound of meditation. Here we are doing it again, as he sits in his high chair:
And finally, here we have Daddy and Nyan doing some yoga poses together, followed by Nyan being Nyan, strutting around the place, being silly, and stalling because he knows it’s time for bed. (The lighting is quite poor at the start; it improves a little ways in, once we flip a switch and turn on the light.)
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