Lots of changes have happened in the past month or two, in relation to Jack and us as a family, in a positive way.  Hopefully!!

The big thing (previously unmentioned on this blog) is that Claire is expecting our second child in January..!  

Yes, yes… I know exactly what you’re thinking. “What is this going to do to the title of the blog..!”

The same thought had crossed my mind, and so I’m going to be adjusting the overall theme of the site to cater for both kidders. And Jack’s website, which is *way* out of date. And the photos website on SkyDrive.  (Just realised that I’m going to have to rename my folders of the 6000+ photos of Jack that we have. Nightmare!!)

Anyway, so yes, another child and it’s another boy! This is great news, as we don’t have to go and buy loads of new girly-looking clothes, as being a boy, he’s inevitably going to get the ol’ hand-me-down-clothes treatment..! To be honest, the relatively little amount of time that Jack has spent in any of his clothes mean that they may have been washed lots, but worn very little, so they’re still very good. And to be even more honest-er about it all, it doesn’t matter if they were thread-bare, he’s going to have them!! (evil laugh…)

Jack is really not how I expected him to be about all of this baby-lark.  Being aged 2 (ish) I was expecting him to be all mardy about sharing stuff with a new baby, such as his toys, books and even his mum. (Didn’t expect him to be bothered about me!) But, on the contrary, he’s being fantastic about it all. He keeps talking to mummy’s tummy, saying hello to the as-yet-unnamed baby and kissing it before speaking. Really funny to watch.

More stuff to follow shortly, I hope.

For the past couple of weekends, men in yellow ‘hi-vis’ jackets that appear from nowhere have been putting up bunting and signs around our village advertising the Carnival day. They pretty much shut the whole village down in terms of traffic, as the floats come all the way through from the middle, turn around and then go back to the furthest point from there, so everyone gets to see and hear it.

It’s always a really good carnival, lots of floats for a small village, Samba bands, bagpipes, dancers and so on.

Claire, Jack and I got all sun-creamed-up and set out literally at the top of our road to watch the carnival procession with a lot of our neighbours and friends from the village.

Part of the same day, is the Sports Day element, which we’ve never really attended as much, which is held on the big football field. As Claire’s not working Saturdays any more and Jack’s old enough, we’ve been asking him all week if he’d like to compete with our friend’s son, Kieran, in the running.

Now, I’ve not seen Kieran run until yesterday, but I have seen Jack run in short bursts, and thought it might have been an even contest, but Kieran (almost exactly the same age as Jack) is like a whippet in practise whilst we were waiting for the floats earlier in the day!

When it came to it, the Boys under 4 years event was filled with about 5 boys with a few mums/dads behind to make sure that they ran – myself and Adam (Kieran’s dad) included.

“Ready…”

By this point Jack’s got the idea on what to do, but wants to go now.

“Set..”

I’m having to hold him back at this point.

“GO!”

And they’re off. 5 flappy-paddle-feet kids are now running a short length of the field, and are probably doing so because their over-competitive parents are gunning heavily for them to win, without a clue as to why exactly they’re doing it.

Some of the older kids came in first, which was an obvious point. Whippet-Kieran was off and did well, I think. Jack would have been last if I weren’t behind him, but to be honest, I wasn’t racing, so yes, he was last, but he did really well!  I was really surprised that they both ran consistently for that length, keeping up the flat-out pace all the way, as normally, they’re running around the house to get something or someone, negotiating corners and toys that they’ve dumped there just moments ago.

And yes, I was both impressed and dead-proud at the same time. He got a medal for participating, which is good, but I’m sure that we’re now in training for next year’s event, so watch out Kieran!

If you’ve read some of my older blog posts, you’ll recall that, particularly during the first few weeks/months of us having Jack, I went through a phase of having a bad night’s sleep, due to wandering around the room/house because of Jack..!  Anyway, if you didn’t know, well, I did, and sort of grew-out of it, partly due to his track-record in sleeping, but also partly due to the baby-gate we put on his room, meaning that he’s confined to that room!!

So, with that in mind, imagine my horror when we (Claire, Jack and I) stayed in a hotel near Peppa Pig World in Southampton, to be woken up at midnight by Claire saying that she can’t hear Jacks’ snorting and breathing coming from his bed just feet away from ours.

At this point, I was shattered, and genuinely thought she was going mad, but, being married to her, I humoured her all the same and went over to his bed to check it out.

She was right, there was no sound, so I thought he must have slipped under the bed-sheets, and as kids can’t regulate their body temperature as yet, they sweat. Big time.

So, there’s me; in the nod, in the pitch black room, leaning over a double-bed with my little boy in it, pulled back the bedsheets to find…. he wasn’t there!

Seriously, I woke up within one of those heart-beats that I’m sure I skipped. It was like an absolute instant hang-over cure.

“How the… hell… do you lose a child in a one-room room!?!” was going through my head.

Logic set in - The hotel room door was heavy, even for an adult, but it was also double-bolted shut anyway, so he simply couldn’t have left the room not without making at least a little noise… yet that didn’t stop it being the first thing that came to Claire’s mind!

Turned out, Jack must have slipped out of the far-side of the bed, between the bed and the wall, and was curled up in a heap under the window! 

Panic over. Call in the search party, cancel the helicopters and give the dogs the rest of the night off.

He was a bit cold, but in a deep sleep somewhere in nod-land.

Incidentally, there wasn’t a thud, or noise, so we can only assume that he did it himself… although, thinking about it now, those floors are made of concrete, with only a bit of carpet on top for decoration, so maybe we wouldn’t have heard it. But then, surely, it would hurt, induced crying and maybe that would have woken him and us!?!

At that point, Claire and I actually debated – and this might make us sound like bad parents, but we’re not!! – about leaving him where he was…(Yeah! I know!! Crazy…) What we didn’t want to do, was to wake him and then struggle to get him back to sleep.

But I did. (Pick him up, that is!)

Partly to get him back to somewhere comfortable, loveable little chap.

Partly to feel a bit better about myself for not leaving a darling little two year old asleep, cold, on the floor.

And partly to see if he could be woken, by way of some sort of childish means of getting him back for the panic he caused us. (ECG results are fine, by the way!)

But no.

Little man just kept snoring, grunting and farting occasionally, indicating that normal service had resumed.

The sheets on the bed muted some of the somewhat-missed sounds, but not as well as the entire bed did when he was on the floor, preventing almost all sound from him! Could/should put him back on the floor but, I suppose, there’s always next time.

Jack was asking about twenty-thousand why/who/what questions the other day, about something or other to do with my work; when he asked where I was going today, rather flippantly, I said ‘Switzerland’. It wasn’t true, but it was somewhere that wasn’t where he’d know, but it (almost) had the desired effect, as he paused for thought about it.

“What’s that?” came the reply, in keeping with the rest of the conversation, and so it went on until  I asked Jack if he could say ‘Switzerland’. 

He tried a little and failed after a decent attempt, bearing in mind that he’s only two years old. And so, Claire stepped in to help him with his pronunciation.

“Swit. Zer. Land" – she said.

Quick as a flash, the little blue-eyed monster replied, “Well done, mummy!”, clapping his hands with a look of happiness across his face.

Made us both laugh, although Jack was looking at us in confusion, as mummy had, indeed, said it correctly.

Priceless.

For those of you that do not know who Peppa Pig is, then here’s a quick lo-down, according to the gospel of Wikipedia:

“Peppa Pig is a children's television programme. Each episode is approximately 5 minutes long. The show revolves around Peppa, an anthropomorphic female pig, and her family and friends. Each of her friends is a different species of mammal - their first name starts with the same letter as the type of animal they are. Peppa's friends are the same age as her, and Peppa's younger brother George's friend Richard is the same age as him. Episodes tend to feature everyday activities such as attending playgroup, going swimming, visiting their grand parents, going to the play ground or riding bikes.

 

The characters wear clothes, live in houses, and drive cars, but still display some characteristics of the animals on which they are based. Peppa and her family snort like pigs during conversations, the other animals make their respective noises when they talk, with some exhibiting other characteristics, such as the Rabbit family's enjoyment of carrots. The Rabbits are also the sole exception to the rule of human-like habitation, in that they live in a burrow in a hill, although it does have windows and is furnished in the same way as the other houses.”

Anyway – recently, Claire and I took Jack to Peppa Pig World, which is a new addition to Paulton’s Park, based in Southampton, and I was bracing myself for something painful.

It turned out to be really good, much to my surprise! Peppa Pig is great for kids, I mean, Jack loves it. For the adult, it’s not so bad, unless you have seen the DVD over and over and over again, and then feel the need to buy another so that there’s some variation in the content!

Peppa Pig World opened only recently, from what I understand, but it was heaving with children and their parents, all pandering to their kids’ desire for the pink pig.

True to the cartoons, the park does offer helicopter and balloon rides, rides on boats, cars and dinosaurs (don’t ask – it’s part of the cartoon), all of which are safe for a two year old to go on, along with his parents!

The rides are (or were) in immaculate condition and the attention to detail in the park was phenomenal. From the music, to the rides, the background scenery, everything really looked great. Not that I was looking to, but I couldn’t find fault there, really.

Being as though it’s a few hours away from our house, it was a bit of a trek; We got there in the afternoon mid-week, had a couple of hours inside there before it closed for the day, and then bombed-out back to a hotel for the night, and then returned the following day to pick-up from where we left off previously.

Apart from the trip to the bottom of the country to go there, I can honestly recommend it as an enjoyable time, particularly for smaller children. The rides would have also entertained slightly older kids too, but much older kids would still have fun in the rest of Paulton’s Park, as it’s all contained within the same theme park.

Just thought I’d tell you that really – won’t bore you with the details, but it was good.

That’s all he does. He jabbers on about all sorts from the moment he wakes up.

Some things that are totally ‘in’ the flow of the conversation but, occasionally, when you think he’s waffling on about something unrelated, he’s usually just working off at a tangent, but the point of what he’s got to say is bang on the money.

He’ll tell you that he’s needs a drink, wants to watch ‘Peppa Pig’ on TV (or DVD!!), that he had cried at nursery that day, that he loves you, or even that he’s grumpy. (But he will not admit to being tired!!)

Over the past several weeks, Claire and I have noticed how well his ‘jabbering’ has improved on a weekly basis. That’s to say that this week is much improved on last week, and that on the week before and so on.

Sometimes his pronunciation is a little off, but he’s trying! (And he is only two!)

Jack is now speaking in sentences, rather than just mumbles, grunts and one-word-burps. He asks for things, tells us things and everything, which may sound perfectly normal, but I still do not have a benchmark to compare Jack to, as I have never spent any significant time around any kids of friends or family. I don’t know what age they’re meant to be able to do something, or say something, etc, so to me, this is as it comes.

It’s the speed that his little brain is soaking up the information and processing it, that gets both Claire and myself. It’s fascinating to watch unpeel before your eyes, really.

One of my lecturers at university said, within an Artificial Intelligence module, that if we wanted to create something that could learn organically, then we should simply “have a child”.  And he is/was right, as the mind boggles at how much computing power and software creativity would be needed to create a computer that could do what Jack’s brain is doing, as well as being able to swing arms and legs in a motion that we call walking or running.  Computers can learn a specific task by repetition and trial/error, but seeing something, learning the word for it, and then being told that it relates to something else and understanding what is going on… remembering where he is, without a GPS device… asking questions about new things, or saying sorry for hurting someone else… that’s crazy-computing-thinking.

My first car was a beaten-up Ford Fiesta which boasted lugged around a 950cc engine, which was only just bigger than the engine on my lawn mower now, and that’s not to say it’s a very big lawn mower..!

One of the quirks of that car, was that I am sure that it had an odd-shaped petrol tank, as the (leaded) petrol in the first three quarters of the tank appeared to be used proportionally to the miles travelled in the car, whereas the final quarter seemed to run out disproportionally to the miles travelled.  All of a sudden, you’d have next-to-no petrol left and find ones’ self searching around for a juice-station.

The reason that I am telling you this boring detail of my car, is because that is how I can best describe what’s happened today with regards to young Master Rigby – he’s been on top form all day, racing around like Lewis Hamilton, inside, outside, upstairs and down, and then all of a sudden, whilst eating his lunch, he’s obviously gone into the last remnants of the final quarter-tank of petrol and he’s nearly fallen asleep in his chair. 

Complete power-down situation. He’s not miserable in this state, but very funny to watch, as his eye-lids look like they’re lead-lined and a struggle to keep open, especially when he appears to be diverting all available energy into the mouth department to continue the eating motion.

I wasn’t expecting him to need a nap this early in the day, as it’s normally after 13:30 these days that he needs a quick power-nap, but he’s caught me off-guard today!

Made me smile, as I’m poking him in the cheek to try to keep him awake.

If you recognised that quote from a movie, then well done to you!

It was, indeed, a quote from the 1986 movie entitle ‘Crocodile Dundee’ and is the new phrase of choice of Little Riggers, as taught to him by my father, aka Grand-dad Riggers.

Jack has got one of those Little Tykes cars that is a bit like a Flintstone’s car whereby peddle-power makes the world go round, and inset in the steering wheel, is a little horn.

Well, partly through that and him driving my boy around their garden in his 4x4, Jack now know that if you pip the horn twice, the next thing you do, naturally, is to say “Get out the way, dopey!”.

He also tends to justify his actions with “Grand-dad says!”, which is great when people here him say that for the first time, such as in Tesco’s the other day, as I was pushing him around in one of those trolley’s with a kid’s car stuck to the front.

“Thanks, Pa.”

… but it is very funny. Makes me smile just thinking about it.

If you ask any parent, there’s a good chance that they’ll backup my claims that it’s absolutely crazy about how the human brain learns. You can see this process happening over the course of days, weeks and months in a small child, by simply watching and listening to them and the things that they do.

Note: I cannot, nor will I try to, compare Jack to another 2 year old – the ‘About me…’ part of this blog is still true, in that I am still new to this baby lark and have only ever spent any proper time with him. So, my observations are directly as a result of him and his actions.

The things that he remembers is quite extraordinary; when we’re talking about something, he’ll throw something completely random into the conversation, but if you pause and think for a moment, you can ‘see’ the conversation links that got him from talking about this, to what he’s thinking about that.

What I mean is, I mentioned in the last post about the conversations that we had about his Grand-dad and his whistling, but as well as that, he actually understands what you’re talking about and is thinking through from one topic into another, but remembers details about things too, that I certainly don’t expect at the time!

A few weeks ago, Claire had to go into work last minute and so couldn’t take Jack for his swimming lesson in Peterborough, so I took him, but my dad brought Jack from our house to my work in Peterborough so that I could take him. Yesterday, when Jack and I was talking about something or nothing, I mentioned Peterborough as Claire and I were going out for the evening. Instantly, he mentioned that daddy works in Peterborough, and that he’d been to my workplace and that his grand-dad brought him, and without very much pushing, he remembered that we went swimming too.

This might all sound a bit ‘yeah, so?’, but it’s amazing about the things that he picks up and why. And how! For instance, I’m a software developer at heart, and the basic idea is that the program that you’re writing does nothing by default, until you make it do it. But his little brain is learning as each day passes. All those little neurons are firing and connecting as his brain develops over time. Relating it back to the techie-world again where my knowledge is more in-depth than babies and the like, trying to get a computer to learn at the rate a child does like that is almost impossible! Computer processors can ‘learn’ but that’s not even the same thing, as they’re coded by a human to learn in a specific way.  This is organic learning as a result of evolution or something, and not some Hollywood sci-fi movie where robots learn ‘stuff' instantly.

I know that you and I went through this process ourselves, which is part of what makes us human, but to see it unfold before your eyes is very interesting.

In the past month, Claire and I have noticed how much Jack’s ability to talk has improved – not just in the ‘he can say this’ sense, but also in his awareness of using the power of verbal communications to get things done. Yes, I’m saying that he can not only shout, but shout well.

Some of the things that Jack says now surprises us, as to how he knows about such things, or when he says something, there’s a connection back to something that you have previously told him about.  For instance, the other day whilst changing his nappy, I was talking to him to keep him from wriggling his way off the changing worktop, and was getting him to also make noises and so on when I whistled badly a tune to him, and tried getting him to copy me.  He couldn’t, as he’s only two and hasn’t mastered the art of talking properly yet, but anyway, I told him that his Granddad David could whistle really well and that he should ask him next time. End of.  Anyway… several days later when collecting Jack from his Grandparents, and bearing in mind that he’d been there all day, Jack turned to me and said ‘Granddad, whistle!’ – which threw me to begin with, as I had forgotten this entire conversation that I had had with him!

In terms of his shouting ability, this morning would be a good example.  Claire was downstairs getting ready to go to work, Jack was up a lot earlier than normal, so I got him changed and ready for him to go to the in-laws/nursery for the day. He whispers to me about waking mummy up, and when I said that she was downstairs having breakfast, ol’ rent-a-gob shouts at full volume ‘Mummy!! Doing?’, so loud and working so hard at it, that you could see the little vein in his neck pop-out.  Claire then replies from downstairs, encouraging the situation further and then I’m stuck in the middle of the multi-planed, top-volume pleasantry-based conversation between a mum and her son.  Made me smile though. Kept him still too, for me to change his nappy, as although he’s two years old now, changing his nappy can be a task!!