Italy

We brought you to Italy for Easter. We spent 9 days in Rome, 4 in Florence and now 3 in Venice. You have learnt a little about the ancient Romans, a little more about Renaissance painters, something of Greek mythology and more about Christian mythology and you have been up and down the canals on water buses in Venice. You've had a ridiculous amount of ice-cream and have kept a diary/scrap-book of the days' happenings.

You've also become really into telling stories. Ostensibly, I am supposed to be telling most of them, but you take over and supply all the detail. Stories with themes like "under the surface" (digging tunnels and building cities), "under the sea" (seeing sea animals), "the show" (music, singing), "space story" (going round the solar system) and "dionsaur story" (from 'dinosaur cove', going back to one of the three dino eras) often have similarities: breaks in the activity for you to check if all your friends  need to go to the toilet, an impromptu party including food and games, bedtime and now chess moves. These stories can easily last an hour. You have never talked so much. It's lovely (and a little tiring).

V for...

We were at Air and Rod's house on Saturday, about 18 days after your third birthday. You picked up one of their coasters and said "water lily pond". Jan saw the coaster and was half-amazed, thinking you'd stumbled across the name of the piece of art it showed by dint of knowing the plant name. I asked you who painted it. "Monet" you said, confidently. This caused quite a reaction.

Jan asked you who'd painted another of the coasters. It was a self-portrait by Van Gogh, but not the one "~with a bandaged ear" that you know. I tried to help out by giving you the first sound, "və".

"Vermeer," you guessed. I think this caused more of a reaction than getting the answer right would have done.

Later you identified a painting (Primavera) on a cup as by Boticelli and The Great Wave on another cup as by Hokusai. Jan thought it was Horoshige. 

Tee hee, you clever little boy.

Love my life

I don't write about you as much as I intended too. I love you so much and the time we have together is great. You always have some new way to surprise me. It is often a sudden flourish of chat but can be your climbing and jumping skills. Today, when you got back from the London Transport Museum ,you told me that you "walked, jumped, drove a train, walked some more, got in a bus and did some more walking". It was so cute, my nearly-three-year-old son, that writing it down cannot do it justice.

Later you went up onto the back of the armchair and jumped down in a continuous cycle. Your mother's heart stops often, but I love it.

Lego boy

Happy New Year

My beautiful boy, it is 2014. You are chattier than ever and currently excited by art and specifically the art postcards we stick to your wall every day. There are 25 at the moment and you know the name of the paintings and artists of each.

You love your Lego Duplo and received more for Xmas. You also got money from Auntie Rosemary and "Auntie" Julie. It will go into your account this month. You probably have a present or two to come.

We have been contemplating moving. We even had an offer accepted on a four-bedroom house in Watford. In the end, we were unable to leave London for the sticks. The space was good, the local school (Nascot Wood) outstanding. I want you to be a London boy, though.

Hospital visit

I was out when you banged your face against the bed frame this afternoon. Your mum called me to tell me to come back. When I got home, you were asleep and your blood was on your mother's clothes. I lay next to you until you woke. When you did, drowsy, you put your hand down my t-shirt as you often do, and realised I wasn't your mum. You wanted her.
We talked - you are becoming so articulate and words I haven't taught you are used correctly in whole sentences - and then I saw blood was still coming out of the cut above your teeth. We took you to the hospital - an idea you enthuse about - but a reality you weren't so keen on as the nurse, doctor and specialist looked into your mouth.
Everything was okay, which is what I thought (you can't be too careful) and we can mark it down as another experience. You have a fat lip but it worries you not. I'd put you in your new wellies so you splashed around in puddles just outside the hospital when we got off the bus and later outside the Indian restaurant we ate in on the way home.
There are three Indians on Grey's Inn Road by the bus stop called King's Cross station. I'd been into none of them in the fourteen years I've been around here but have visited all three in the last month. You have delighted waiters with your knowledge of the cuisine (poppadom, mango chu(k)ney, pilau rice, nan bread are staples of your vocabulary) and we give you mild curries and a bit of tarka dal.
Son, you are two years and nearly three months old. Your language skills are phenomenal and you motor skills (which I'd worried about because as over-eager parents we may do too much for you) are catching up. You are putting Lego (duplo) together yourself now and 80 more bricks arrive tomorrow. You will always be my special boy.

Hey, playing guitar!

Hackney WickED

Arty open day in East London. Your favourite parts were sharing three ice-creams and dragging three pieces of wood over a large sandy area.

Birthday Party

You had a birthday party at Barnard Park with a bouncy castle and most of your and our friends. Your nanny and granddad came, as did your uncle Trevor and cousin Kasey. Great aunt Rosemary had been in hospital and we'd visited her the previous weekend. You were given money and lots of presents, including a dumper truck and recycling truck that you have played with ever since.

Nanny, Kasey and Rock on the bouncy castle

Rock and Kasey

You had two cakes! Mummy and daddy bought you a cream cake with lots of fruit and daddy's friend Hanka made another. You enjoyed them both.

Blowing out the candle on your birthday cake

A second cake from Hanka

The party went on till late but you went home with mummy about 8.

Joker

You're a funny boy. For a while, you've "teased Daddy" by purposefully changing words. "Miho", which you can say perfectly well, becomes "yoyo"; "Deyika", "gaga"; "Maka Paka" is "gaga gaga" and recently "peanut butter" has become "barnard butter". Your best practical joke came this week. You asked me to inflate my cheeks - as you do - so that you could "pop" them to a raspberry sound by slapping them. You said "again" twice and slapped the air out. On the third time, you got me to inflate my cheeks, made to pop them and then  feigned popping before poking me in the glasses to much hilarity. Today we have laughed about your imagining of alternative police vehicles. This consists of you putting the word "police" before various modes of transport: "police taxi", "police double decker" etc. You're a  little joker.

Bridges etc

For a long time, you have enjoyed little conversations that proceed along the lines of me asking you questions and offering response after response as a suggestion that you say "no" to until I ask the question again and you reply. First of all, this was "Who...?" and the response you'd give was "Baby Rock". We still do this: "Can daddy sit on the chair?", "No," "Can mummy sit on the chair?" with everyone you know (nainai, yeye, Alicia, Ayaka, Deyika, Faisel, Emiko, Julie etc) and more recently, it revolves - as I've said before - around taking a number 17 bus to London Bridge (you love bus rides). "Shall we go to Tower Bridge?" "Shall we go to Millennium Bridge?" ... "Where shall we go?" Rock: "London Bridge". "How shall we go there? Shall we go there by train?" "No" "Shall we go by helicopter/ambulance/truck/motorcycle etc?" "How shall we go there?" "bus". "What number bus? Shall we take the 205?" etc. "What colour is the bus? Is it dark blue?" You get the picture. You enjoy the conversations and so do I, son.

Joining Daddy on his latest interest

Ca-ter-pil-lar

Your first four-syllable word is caterpillar. Your development thrills me and your mum. In the last couple of days you've started using "another" (pronunciation will improve yet) and love talking about the bridges over the Thames you've been to. "Number 17 bus London Bridge" is a favourite little phrase of yours after successive weekend visits to the river.

Creative

You are 20 months old. After your bath today, you wanted the sponge. When I gave it to you while your mummy was drying you, you squeezed it in the middle and said "ba". "Ba" is the Mandarin word for 8, which a squashed-in-the-middle sponge looks like. However, you still say "ba" for a butterfly, which I've been trying (especially in the last couple of days) to get you to say the whole word for (and you've done so very well). I asked whether you meant "butterfly" and you replied "ocho" (Spanish for 8). You are not only multilingual and creative, but able to adapt to what you understand my perception of what your understanding is.
Your mum has called you a genius for a long time. I have been more cautious (babies learn lots and fast). Today I thought your mum could well be right. You can count to 10 in 4 languages and know colours and body parts in the same. We use your the names of your "teachers" to get you to speak different languages. For example, "What colour is the sofa?" "ojo" (your "R" is not very good, yet). "Ayaka (your Japanese teacher) iu to?" and you answer "aka". We just need to keep the stimuli going. You are doing amazingly, son.

Kick ball

Your first verb and object combination.

RongJu

Your mum has pretty much settled on a Chinese name for you, meaning "flourishing wisdom" because you're so smart, our multilingual son.

Natural History Museum

18 Months

First holiday

We had a great two-week holiday in the Jaz Mirabel Park resort in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. You loved the infant pools and the sea and got to see fish and a ray and to ride a camel. You developed so much in the time: your language improved and so did your social skills (you started saying "hi" and "bye", the former especially to children).

It's not the sort of holiday I'm used to (having spent years backpacking) but it was a great way to have some lovely time together. Your mum wants to go away again this month.

Happy New Year, my beautiful son.

Runaround