I was on my way across the park to fetch a couple of takeaway coffees, when I glanced over my shoulder and saw the boys sharing jokes at the swings. I immediately back-tracked a bit until I could frame them better, because I thought there was a nice blippable image to be had from the scene – and here it is.
The Boy Wonder was on good form today, giving out lots of cuddles when we arrived this morning, and getting up to all manner of (luckily mainly harmless) mischief. To my frustration I failed to get him to engage with the concept of lunch (he’s already honed the male skill of completely blanking any question or instruction he doesn’t want to hear to a rapier point), until I hit on the magic formula: “Would you like some smoked salmon?” It turned out that smoked salmon is very much what Tiggers like just at the moment, and he proceeded to demolish an adult-sized portion, followed by a banana. Then we went to the park, where he played very happily for a while until suddenly announcing that he was cold and wanted to go home.
The most amusing part of the day for R and me was when the Boy fetched one of his parents’ wedding group photos, and we explained to him the relationships between the people in it. When I said that his Uncle H was my son, B was incredulous. “No he isn’t!” he said derisively (“no” sounding more like a long drawn out “nooooow”). “He’s not your son! I’m Daddy’s son!” “Yes you are,” I replied, “and Uncle H is my son, and your Mummy is my daughter.” “Mummy can’t be your daughter,” said the boy with impeccable logic, “because you don’t live in my house.” In order to persuade him I found a couple of ancient videos on my phone, of H aged four singing You’ve Got a Friend in Me, and L at five singing a song about a wizard that she’d learned at school. He was especially fascinated by the film of H, to whom he bears a noticeable physical resemblance, and I had to play it several times.
We ended our day by watching the animated version of The Gruffalo on iPlayer, which B loves (and to be fair, we enjoy as well). It’s rather sweet that even though he’s seen it at least a dozen times by now, and knows perfectly well that it all turns out fine in the end, his suspension of disbelief is so good that he still has to cover his eyes at the scary bits.
