Finally – finally! – we got some real-time summertime weather in these parts. In fact, it rained on July 2 – and then, not a drop for the next 20 days! Warm (and even mid-90s hot on a couple of days). All the residents of Nyan Thomas World Headquarters were quite pleased by this. Including our hero, who thought it a fine way to celebrate his last month as a one-year-old.
June was a busy and fun month, with lots of visitors and activities outside of the house and the introduction of Nyan’s favorite new thing to do: the Robot.
We’re not sure what the Robot is, or where it came from, but it’s pretty adorable, we think. Check it out in this (blurry) video:
As for activities, one highlight was a one-day visit mid-month by Uncle Jeff and Aunt Michelle, who were visiting Paris from Texas and popped up to London for the day. Read the rest of this entry »
Nyan got a bus on Saturday.
He loves buses, just like he loves helicopters, tractors, cars, trains, planes… But this is a special bus: it came from Uncle Jeff, who — with apologies to all the other uncles out there — has, for now at least, taken the title of Favorite Uncle, I think it’s safe to say.
Daddy’s cousin Jeff lives in Austin, Texas, USA with his wife Michelle. They came to Paris for an anniversary trip and came up to London for the day, as you do. It was of course great to see them – it had been several years – and I think it’s fair to say that Nyan had a blast Read the rest of this entry »
Sundays are fun. Here’s a look back, through video and photographs, at three recent ones.
Last Sunday, Aunt Zuzu and Uncle Iain came to visit. It was a lovely warm sunny Sunday, so we headed down to the high street for a Sunday lunch at a pub. We’re quite happy to report that our boy ate very well (in fact, touch wood but he’s been eating very well for several weeks now – a great change from his tendency in the past to just not eat very much. Here’s hoping he keeps it up). Some photos from the pub:
On the walk back, Emerald pushed the stroller, and Nyan demanded that someone hold not just one of his hands, but both of them. We were all happy to obliged, of course. Spoiled much?
Later in the afternoon, Nyan showed off his latest dance moves, busting a rug to one of his favorite tunes:
Emerald and Iain stayed over and kept Nyan out of school on Monday, instead taking him on numerous strolls around the neighborhood, the back yard, etc. He had a blast, but by early afternoon he was completely tuckered out – so much so that he just passed out on top of his buddy Yum Yum, the stuffed elephant.
A week earlier, young Nyan Thomas took a Sunday afternoon walk around the ‘hood with Mommy and Daddy from a week before:
And was there a cat on the street? There was:
Finally, a video from just today – it was a cloudy, lazy Sunday, and Nyan spent part of it by hanging out with his books, listening to some tunes. Not a bad way to spend the day.
A few weeks ago, the United Kingdom celebrated what’s called the Early Spring Bank Holiday – a public holiday, held on the first Monday of May each year. (Most of Europe closes down on May 1, May Day, but England I guess didn’t want to be associated with that socialist day, so changed that public holiday to a few days later. Something like that.)
Regardless, it ended up being a lovely warm-ish early Spring day, so we loaded up the car and headed for the county of Kent, also known as the Garden of England, about an hour to the southeast. Our destination: Leeds Castle, a beautiful thousand-year-old castle on several hundred acres of land and lakes. Here’s Nyan after we strapped him into the car, clearly excited:
We weren’t the only ones with the bright idea of visiting Leeds Castle that day; the parking lot was packed with hundreds of cars, and the line to get tickets was about 45 minutes long. Read the rest of this entry »
Our boy’s hair seems to grow pretty quickly. Especially the bit above the middle of his forehead, which doesn’t take long to turn into a unicorn horn. So on Sunday, we skipped swimming lessons (he’d been fighting a cold, and had a slight cough, and as you may know we are very protective (overly so?) when he’s got even a hint of a cold) and headed to Walthamstow, a nearby neighborhood that’s home to an ugly brick 1980s-style shopping mall with a Supercuts inside. (The same place, as it happens, where he got his first official professional haircut back in November, and where he also took his first official (if tentative) steps).
This time around, he was very dubious and withdrawn, almost shy, even though his stylist was a young blonde bird. Usually, of course, he’d be flirting up a storm. But this time he pretty much just sat there, looking concerned and grumpy. He squirmed just a little bit, but not bad, and mostly passed the time (all five minutes of it) by looking in the mirror at the woman sitting in the waiting area and feeding spoonfuls or something to her baby in a stroller.
By the end, Nyan was fine, and even gave his stylist a friendly bye-bye wave as we left. Here, a slideshow of pictures that Daddy took during the haircut – and after, a story about what happened after we left Supercuts:
So we wandered around this mall for a bit, mostly to find an ATM to get some cash. We headed for a bookstore – Nyan loves books! – but just outside was one of those stalls they set up in the main walkway of shopping malls. This one sold toy cars, toy trucks, toy keyboards – all of it at toddler-eye-level, and cleverly and cynically designed to ensure that a toddler – say, a toddler who just had a haircut – would see the toys and not be moved until he played with all of them. So that’s what we did. Cars, trucks, helicopters, you name it. Finally Daddy was able to drag Nyan away (to be more precise, Daddy was able to carry a squirming, unhappy Nyan away) and into the bookstore.
We lasted about a minute in the bookstore before he toddled off, out of the store and back to the toy stall! Their ploy almost worked; Daddy was this close to buying a cheap electronic keyboard, but good sense won out. We managed to get him back in the bookstore long enough to buy a couple new books, and then Daddy carried and expertly distracted him as we walked out and passed the toy stall (‘Ooh, buddy, look in that store! Look at that – it’s a shoe store! Look at all those shoes! Oh, wow, and check this out: a woman’s clothing store! Isn’t that a lovely dress?”) Hey, you do what you have to do.
Another one from a while back: Nyan Thomas being taken for a stroll by his cousins, Hetty and Pops. Taken in mid-July in Colchester – around 8pm, if memory serves – back when the sun would stay up until 9:30 or 10pm.
As you probably know, our boy turned one year old last week, and we had a brief and modest ceremony with some aunties and uncles. Were there plenty of cameras? There were. Here, then, some video.
First up: behind the scenes as we light the candles on his birthday cake.
And here, the main event: the singing of Happy Birthday to a slightly confused Nyan Thomas!
After the cake, his adoring fans demanded a speech. Young Nyan Thomas was more than willing to speak up.
Today is the day: one year ago this very day, our little boy was born. It’s been a wild ride, as you’ve seen in thes pages; if you haven’t been on this site in a while, make sure you poke around and check out the posts from the last 12 days – we put up one post each day taking a look back at a specific month over the last year. It was a fun trip down memory lane to put it all together, and it was a great reminder of just how much fun and joy the little guy has brought us.
(If you care to read up on those very first days, check out these posts from a year ago: read about Day One, here; Day Two, here; Day Three, here; and Day Four, here.)
We’re a few days late with this one, but: last Sunday was Mommy’s first Mother’s Day, and we celebrated with a delicious dinner at cousin Brian and Hannah’s swank high-rise apartment in Fort Greene. First off, check out those views!
Here’s Daddy and Nyan Thomas:
And Aunt Hannah and Nyan Thomas:
Now to the video. Here’s our boy, waving around a wooden spoon like it’s a light saber:
And here he is getting a piggyback ride and responding by (a) gouging out Daddy’s eyeball, and (b) poking a finger deeper into Daddy’s ear canal.
Here he is with Aunt Hannah again:
And a couple more featuring Brian and Hannah’s cool coffee table. It’s an old rail cart that they found in an antique store. Here, Nyan Thomas examines the decades-old wood and iron fittings:
This is the boy coming face to face with Smudgie, the legendary 15 year old cat. Nyan Thomas, you see, loves to crawl under coffee tables. (Don’t ask us why; he finds amusement in the simple things.) This one had the added bonus of an iron axle that he could slobber onto, and also a mellow creature that he could check out.
Finally, check out the flowers that the young man bought for his Mommy for Mother’s Day. Such a sweetheart!
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