Press A To Jump

Here’s a tip when you wake up at night: don’t hang around in bed, just go looking for Mum..

I’ve been trying to drop my daytime nap, as it impinges on valuable playtime. I always answer the question of “A little sleep?” with an extremely emphatic NO! but sometimes Pee or Emm makes me do it anyway. I kick up a fuss, but if they take me up generally I really do need a sleep and after a bit of a cry I’m ready. Mind you, they don’t let me sleep very long, up to an hour in the morning but only 40 minutes in the afternoon and never after 2 O’Clock.

We have a babysitter tonight for the first time, she is called Annie and we met her yesterday. This is the first time Mum and Dad have been out since before I was born.

I took a dive off my Lightning McQueen ridealong on Sunday, and landed on my forehead which rose up into a fearsome lumpy hematoma. It’s died down to a yellow blob now. On Monday I was walking along the brick walls in the back garden when I fell off and landed on the concrete steps, this time I landed on my head so I was OK (Pee and Emm think I may have Homer Simpson Syndrome, usually after I reverse head-butt them and then act as if it never happened while they are weeping and clutching their wobbly teeth)

Anyway, we were telling Grandma about my scootering and she thought I should wear a helmet; I have got one, it’s Daisy’s old one with the pink and the flowers, but Emm doesn’t think it’s suitable for a boy: Grandma said I should wear the helmet in the garden! It’s a bit cumbersome to wear all the time, maybe I should get one of these headbangas.

We all went swimming yesterday. I was cautious at first, resulting in here-he-goes-again-with-the-not-liking-swimming looks being exchanged, but then it clicked and I spent the rest of the time climbing out of the swimming pool and jumping back in again, going down the little slide, treading water, going down the flume, round the rapids, jumping in again.. I had a great time. Afterwards we all went in the giant family dryer, which was fun too. We didn’t have a ‘chittering bite’, we went straight out to GBK for a dinner of milkshake and chips (well, that’s what I had).

I’m having to use Dad’s iPod touch, as all our other Macs are in use – Daisy is doing a picture in TuxPaint, the noisiest drawing program ever, Dad is addicted to the Never Ending Music Quiz on Facebook (where’s my Facebook, web developers?) and Mum has many interests but I don’t quite know what they are as as soon as I see her using a computer i jump on her lap and say ‘Do Choo Choo, Do Choo Choo, Do Choo Choo’, the phrase doubling up as meaning “Please play some online games for me”, Thomas obviously, also Go Diego Go on Nick Jr website.

When I was younger I didn’t really like marmite but I have scrounged so much marmite-toast and marmite-bread and marmite-and-ham from Daisy (who would probably bleed the stuff, especially if you could have it with pasta & cheese) that I have grown to like it: for a while, it was my generic name for food, I would be jumping up and down pointing at the fruit saying “mar-my, mar-my” until I was offered and chose an apple or banana or pear. Now I’m a bit older I ask what I want straight away – apuhl, nana, though I might still wait and select from what’s offered.

Mum’s friend Claire gave me her son Ben’s wellies he’s grown out of. They have Thomas The Tank Engine on them! Life just keeps getting better and better.

We went to the Eastbourne Miniature Steam Railway today – real miniature boy-sixed steam trains and carriages you sit on, they go round a lake and through a tunnel (there’s a movie – we had to download it to view it properly) and over a little wooden bridge and it steamed and whistled and we had an unlimited pass so we went on a few times, once we went right up the front so the steam was going in our faces. It went through a forest and it was sunny, the lancing beams of sunlight through the steam were very aesthetically pleasing. Not that I noticed at the time!

I was free to get in but I had to wear a sticker to show I was ‘paid for:’ to stop me pulling it off this was stuck on my back. They had miniature engine sheds, a turntable, lots of steam engines and the odd diesel around (steam only and open at weekends during October though) and the engine had teeny little gauges and the cutest firebox cover (which would surely only take one medium sized lump of coal) and tiny levers and switches..

I’m never allowed to take toys to bed on the grounds that I won’t go to sleep while I have something to play with, but tonight I was allowed to take two of my little wooden trains, and I happily fell asleep with their sharp edges digging into me.

I’ve been watching Daisy do somersaults (aka “RolyPolys”) and I’ve figured it out. Mostly I skew off sideways but sometimes, just sometimes, I do perfect forward somersaults on our wooden floor!

Mum took us to the pier on Wednesday afternoon, I went on one of the wobbling car things for my one ride (well, 3 for a pound!) and Daisy went on the Barbie car  on the kiddie rollercoaster as usual, I’m still not big enough for that.