Charlie's first wind-up

When I picked Charlie up from nursery today I had placed 4 little foil wrapped chocolate eggs on his car seat. I asked him not to throw the wrappers on the floor, having cleaned my car for the first time in approximately 18 months (after having difficulty identifying the whereabouts of the steering wheel) I am now going through a ‘keep it tidy’ stage. Charlie said in an offended manner, ‘I iss not frowin’ it on da floor, I iss frowin’ it on da seats’. I promptly passed him a rubbish bag. He happily tucked into the eggs but after a while started asking for my help. I explained I was driving and it was a little awkward and asked  what the problem was. ‘Poblem  iss diss’  he repeated various times telling me nothing. I took a quick glance round (and nearly swerved off the road so not to be recommended) and was met with Charlie thrusting a partially melted egg imbedded into a yellow foil wrapper at me, ‘diss iss da poblem - iss stuck’. I returned to looking at the road and said that I would help him when we stopped and he replied, ‘Iss alright I okay now’. I was puzzled and asked how he had managed this, ‘put it in da mouf mummy – I eat it - yum’. I asked whether he had eaten the whole thing and got a  tentative ‘yesss’ I once again asked if he had eaten it, he had obviously noticed that my tone indicated that I was not particularly enthusiastic about his foil consumption and this time was met with , ‘Nooo’. I tried again and this time he said ‘Da man ate it’. He then elaborated but first adopted what he obviously thought was mysterious zombie like/ ghostly voice (Scooby-doo is to blame) ‘Da man mummy, da uva man ate it, not Charlie, da uva man in da car’. I started to get marginally pissed off as despite Charlie’s best efforts I was well aware there wasn’t a zombie in the back and it was clearly Charlie who had eaten it. I questioned him all the way back and he refused to supply me with any more information. When we got back I climbed into the back of the car and asked him again, he started singing ‘Yummy, yummy, yummy I got rubbish in my tummy’ (which I thought was genius). He then produced the wrapper which he had hidden behind his seat.

Haircut

Charlie had his hair cut again on Saturday. This time he took a (toy) gun with him. There was a miserable old git having his hair cut first and Charlie stood in front of him looking very serious and pointing the gun at his head repeatedly saying, ‘I goin’ a shoot you man’. The fact that the man in question wasn’t remotely amused made it fantastic to watch and pleased Charlie enormously. When the victim got up from the chair I immediately noticed that he had an huge bottom as did Charlie who walked behind him to have a better look – Charlie looked at me and grinned whilst I mouthed to him, ‘please Charlie no, don’t say it’, he thought about it and then came to me and whispered it instead. He then shouted at the man’s back as he left the shop – ‘SHOOT YOU MAN!’  After this he went to the hairdresser pointed the gun at her and said, ‘Cut mine hair’ and as an afterthought ‘PLEASE!’  After his haircut we walked round the shops with me holding Charlie at gunpoint at his request. He had quite a lot of hair chopped off and looks slightly like a young Hitler (as well as sounding a bit like him) which is unfortunate.

Short break

Charlie will be taking a short vacation to Centre Parcs and; due to his mummy's inability to utilise her iphone to its full potential, will not be blogging this week. He hopes you have a good week.

En guarde

Charlie walked into the kitchen holding two miniature copper saucepans of my mum's. He was holding them very carefully and walking very slowly. He held them out to me looking serious and said in hushed tones 'They iss vewy old and vewy 'pecial'. He then handed one to me and said 'hold like 'iss' so I was holding the bowl bit and the handle was pointing forward, he did the same and suddenly thrust it forward and shouted 'FIGHT!'

Cheeky sod

My sister; Lucy and I went to get a kebab on Tuesday evening, Charlie (in his pyjamas - post food, bath and teeth brushing) accompanied us as apparently you should not leave small children at home alone. As soon as he saw the massive menu on the wall; which had various ‘delicious’ looking photos of fast food on it, on he starting asking for various dishes (he loves fast food leaflets with photos of greasy burgers and pizzas and if he finds one will look at it for ages sighing and licking the pictures occasionally) ‘Mmmm, burger mummy – wiv some cheese on it for Charlie’, ‘Mmm fink Charlie wants a bit o’ pizza’ no 'fink burger - oh yum, mmmmm' etc. I reminded him that he had already eaten and he certainly didn’t need another meal. He went quiet and then suddenly prodded Lucy in the back and said, ‘Oh come on darlin’ I want one o’ dem!’.

In the car yesterday we decided to call each other different names for a laugh (he may have found it marginally funnier than me)  ' you are grandma' Oh hahaha - 'you are daddy' Oh hilarious hahahaha - 'you are Joseph from playgroup' Oh good one hohoho etc., we had been through, parents, grandparents, siblings and then out of the blue Charlie to me ‘You are Shrek’. Cheers.

Tea and bacon

Charlie has developed an obsession with tea. There is something very amusing about a 2 and ½ year old little boy asking for a cup of tea. He sits with his Pooh bear cup and slurps away, pausing only to say ‘cheers’ and clunk cups. We (Me, Charlie and mum) went to Felbrigg Hall (National Trust property) yesterday for a walk and to feed the donkeys, we ended up in the tea shop afterwards. I had a lemonade and Charlie and mum shared a pot of tea.

I really like taking Charlie to new places and one place we have recently visited is The Bucks Goat Centre. It was really lovely and Charlie decided that after the dilapidated trampoline his favourite things were the goats (this may sound obvious but despite the name there are various animals there). He got to feed a 2 week old goat and then made friends with two 6 week old goats named Lola and Rose. They are allowed to wander round and Lola decided that Charlie was her permanent companion for the day. Charlie managed to appropriate a Little Tikes ride-on motorbike and was flying round the goat barn with Lola flying after him. Every now and then he’d stop and shout, ‘LOOK AT  MINE BABY GOAT – I LUFF HER!’ At one point he decided to have a chat with one of the pigs – his name is Bertie Bacon and he was re-homed at the centre as he was out of control at his previous home. He lived with a family and would raid the food cupboards then fall asleep on the sofa. Anyway, Bertie’s pen was next to 2 lady pigs (often referred to as sows) who were on heat. This resulted in Bertie getting a bit frisky. Unfortunately when Charlie went to say hello he (the pig as oppose to Charlie) barged the gate so hard it was dented and Charlie jumped so high he virtually hit the ceiling. Charlie had a huge row with Bertie which involved much angry finger pointing accompanied by shouting ‘YOU IS A NAUGHTY PIG – I IS JUMPIN’ ‘ACOS O YOU PIG!’ etc.

Charlie in da house (mummy in da garden...)

On the way to nursery yesterday morning Charlie pointed out some piebald (black and white in this instance) horses galloping about, ‘Look at dem cows – dey is quick cows’ I said ‘That’s because they’re horses Charlie’. He has been confused about this before. ’No mummy, ‘dey is black an’ white – dey is cows – quick cows’. Charlie clearly believes it is the colour that makes the animal as opposed to the shape.

He’s currently playing on his bouncy castle. He took his Space Hopper on to it (my suggestion) but soon ran into problems. ‘I can’t get on it mummy’. I told him not to bother and as expected he ignored me and then became progressively frustrated and finally fell off. This resulted in him having his face pressed against the netting so he resembled one of the locals from  ‘The League of Gentleman’. I found this very amusing and asked if he was from Royston Vasey – he obviously had no idea what I was talking about but knew I was laughing at him. He was furious. He shouted ‘ISS NOT FUNNY!’. I told him he was mistaken, it was funny. He suddenly lobbed the space hopper off the bouncy castle and furiously kicked it down the garden, when he reached the bottom he stopped and said  ‘’ats better’, smiled and went off to play in the sand pit.

I had to pause momentarily from typing this as Charlie just managed to lock me in the garden and himself in the house. He was delighted with this achievement and was so busy being pleased that he failed to maximise the opportunity and raid the bread cupboard; which is a recent hobby – he attempts to select his own inappropriate breakfast ‘Iss?’ (rice crispy bar), ‘Iss?’(Tracker bar) etc.  He instead concentrated on dancing to the Kings of Leon and shouting, ‘CHARLIE IN DA HOUSE!’ like some sort of eighties rapper. I managed to get him to open the door by threatening to pop his bouncy castle. 

Rubbish runner

I was running again this morning and have now ‘upped my game’ (as they say on various reality TV shows – the alternative being ‘stepping up to the mark’) and am doing nearly 3 miles (ish). Sometimes I find it fairly pain-free and other times it is debateable whether I am going to survive the last half mile. The latter was true today and when I got back I sat on the front step coughing (and heaving occasionally) for a couple of minutes. I composed myself relatively quickly and sat for a while in what I thought was a fairly serene way, enjoying the sun and watching my feet steaming (they really were) and generally feeling quite pleased with myself. Then this chap walked past (I had passed him some time ago during my run), stopped and looked at me, shook his head and said, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get better at it’. Cheeky bastard. 

Shoes and Films

Today, Charlie and I went shopping as he needed some new trainers (his were banished to the garden due to dog poo and then forgotten about until after it rained - a lot). He selected a pair of Nike, and, whilst in his pushchair; on the way back to the car, enthusiastically ripped off the shoes he was wearing, flung them on the pavement then attempted (after getting them out of the bag and disposing of that and the box on the pavement) to ram them on his feet. When we got back to the car and I had assisted him in putting them on the relevant feet (and picking up everything up from the pavement) he stared at them lovingly then started kicking the passenger seat as hard as possible. I asked what he was doing and he replied 'I excitin 'bout 'eese' (pointing at his feet and kicking madly) I excitin 'bout mine noo soose!'


We then went to the cinema to see 'A Turtle's Tale' (which is pretty dire but I don't think it's necessarily aimed at my age group). The last time we went to see a film ('Rango' which was great) it was disastrous - I ended up chasing him around the cinema, so I approached today with trepidation. However, he was really well behaved and only started getting fidgety about 20 minutes from the end. There were only 2 other mothers with children there and after sidling  up to one lot, sitting with them and checking out their sweets, he got bored and decided instead to squeeze himself down the side of the seats row by row. He was three rows down and stopped. I was quite pleased and for the remaining 10 minutes of the film kept sticking my tongue out at him and shouting 'Hello' as he shouted  'Mummy!' and waved. When the lights came up I walked over to him and it was immediately apparent that the reason he had stopped was because he was firmly stuck between two seats and the word 'Mummy' had also been accompanied by the the words, 'Help me!'. It took me over 5 minutes to free him. 

Mornin'

Charlie woke up at about 3.30am today. He started whimpering and urgently shouted ‘Mummy, Mummy, mummy!’  I leapt out of bed to see what the problem was. He was sitting in bed looking forlorn pointing at his leg, ‘Mine leg hurt’ he said pointing to a completely healed injury (a small graze) sustained last week. 

After being so rudely awoken (he was up for quite a while) I was rather tired when I went for my run this morning. A mile or so in I passed a rather rotund (very large) individual with a fag hanging out of his mouth staggering up the hill puffing and panting who said to me in all sincerity, ‘I couldn’t do that’. No shit Sherlock. 

Mother's day

I got my mother's day bounty this morning. I was spoiled. I had a gift from Space NK and beautiful card as well as 2 lovely cards Charlie had made, he had also decorated a little pot and made some biscuits. Given that he made these last week he had little recollection of doing so and seemed astonished when I told him he had made them. 'Charlie make dem?' I said he had, 'Oh - Charlie eat dem den - dey Charlie's' grabbed the biscuits, rammed one in his mouth and walked off.

Nosy child

On the way to the local shops there is a house that has recently had their garden gravelled and a gate fitted, much to Charlie's delight they managed to deploy the services of a local tractor. We spent many an 'exciting' hour watching the bloody thing go backwards and forwards and when we weren't watching it, we were discussing it. The work is now long finished and there is a large padlocked gate so you are unable to see into the garden. This does not deter Charlie - every time we walk past he gets to 'the tractor house' lies on his stomach and shoves his head under the gate. He then gives me a blow by blow account of what's going on, 'Iss a digger over der, iss a cat wiv stripes like George (our cat), iss a man walkin' mummy come here - lie on da tummy and look at da man in da garden, MAN, MAN wot you doin'?'