Rhapsody In Buloo

Freyja is obsessed with 'Waybuloo' on cBeebies but the theme tune is a proper earworm and has been bugging me for weeks.

Finally, this morning over breakfast, I worked it out. It's the strapline from the "Where in the world" PC World TV advert over 'Hong Kong Garden' by Siouxsie and the Banshees mixed with the in-game music from 'Crash Bandicoot'.

I really need to get out more.

Play Park(ing)

It's a good job I have a decent amount of IKEA self-assembly experience. Theo received a wooden garage for his birthday and I've just got round to putting it together. It's beautifully crafted but I'm fairly sure I spent less time building two beds, a wardobe, a chest of drawers and a bookcase when we moved in here :)

Anyway, some how-to photos (and you may catch a glimpse of my junior construction assistant who was mostly helpful, when she wasn't hiding key pieces under the sofa and trying to keep a straight face when I couldn't then locate them).

And, after he woke up from his nap, the happy recipient:

Coining It In

I have a new project.

I am trying to collect a full set* of the new-style UK coins which I think Freyja would really like.

She's very into her numbers, loves completing jigsaws and is also (judging by the disappearing loose change on my bedside table and the colossal weight of her piggy bank) rather fond of money:

So far, the 20p, 10p, 2p and 1p were easy to find but there don't seem to have been as many sightings of the 50p and 5p and the £1 is positively elusive - all donations gratefully received :)

UPDATE 1: I now have the £1 coin - thanks, Solveig!

UPDATE 2: I now have the 50p - thanks, Alex!

UPDATE 3: I now have the 5p - thanks, Christine!

So that's the set collected, via the power of the internet. Photo of them in situ to follow...

* yes, I know you can buy a set from the Royal Mint, but that's no fun now, is it?

Overheard #75

Parenting 101:

"That chicken is to eat, not to run your bus over."

Overheard #71

(Not technically 'overheard' as it was addressed to me personally, but too good not to share...)

Meeting my family off the plane from Dubai after their 10-day break; a period in which I took it upon myself to attempt to grow a beard, as one might. Out of the baggage reclaim area they come, blinking in the uber-bright all-glass Heathrow Terminal 5 sunlight. Freyja sees me and runs over to give me a hug with the following greeting:

"Hello, Daddy! Have you had your face painted?"

Classic.

Change 30

Today's change was the bed. Not just any bed, but the transformation of Freyja's cot into a little single bed, complete with duvet and pillowcase adorned with Russian dolls. No more baby sleeping bags or having to bring her books and drinks. She's all growed up now.

Oh.
Hang on.
No more Saturday morning lie-ins for us either...

Change 22

Today's change was the arrival of my parents for the weekend, who were greeted by the sight of a very excited Freyja in a vest, performing some modern interpretive dance in the hallway (either that or she needed a wee).

Jack It In

You can see why I may have found this funny:

Twenty Fork Handles

And on that little amuse bouche, I bid you goodnight; for Mister Father Christmas* flies tonight!

* (c) Freyja Sallie Lightly, 2008 -- she's awfully polite, dontchaknow...

Benny Who?

UPDATE: IT NOW SPEEDS THEM UP!!!!

It's a bit dark, but this makes me smile:

Freyja gets Benny Hillified

(and you too can 'Benny Hillify' any YouTube video here.

Some thoughts

Today I was idly flicking through some RSS feeds trying desperately to catch up with the 834...835...836 posts I had missed. This caught my eye and I lobbed it at Instapaper to read later:

Psychology Today: A Nation Of Wimps

A short time ago, having finished dinner, I was perusing bookofjoe which threw up this:

Thudguard Infant Safety Hat

I mean, really?

As a father I find myself lurching inside, heart-in-mouth as Freyja hurls herself across the living-room/garden/stairwell yet again. But she manages to miss all the hard/pointy/sharp stuff with an insouciance born only of youth. I know I'd hate her to misjudge it and meet the still-about-to-be-painted skirting boards at pace. But I'd hate it more if she grew up not knowing what it was like to learn that life has 'bumps' and she needs to develop the skills to deal with them. And yes, I'll always be there when she needs me, but it's up to her to decide. With #2 almost certainly days away, she's going to have to learn to share a whole lot more; be that our time, our affection, our attention or our biscuits.

I'm utterly besotted with my family and completely up for the challenge of guiding her and the rest of our brood into, I hope, wonderful people who make judgements and mistakes but at the same time learn perseverance and independence. It's at times like this that you start to realise what your own parents went through and if I can be half as good as them, I reckon I'll be on the right track...

April (Snow) Showers

The barmy weather continues - is someone playing 'cloud bingo'? We've had tic-tac sized hailstones, full-on thunderstorms, umbrella-busting gale force winds and now 3 - three! - inches of snow, all in the last month. Still, we wrapped Freyja up well and lobbed her into the garden for her first real lark about in the white stuff. She absolutely loved it.

Cheered me up after Arsenal's (second) feeble 1-1 draw with the Scousers. We've been linked with Quaresma again, who is worth ~£5m of anyone's money; come on Arsene, get the chequebook out...

Eee We Go Again

Whilst I generally leave the Freyja updates to Solveig, as she does them so much better than me, I couldn't help but feel I ought to bring this to the attention of my fellow gadget-loving dads (=>'dadgets'?):

Asus Eee + BBC iPlayer + cBeebies = Bye bye, Daddy; see you later.

Hang onto your Eees, chaps!

This was a public service announcement brought to you by The Concerned Dadgets Association of Great Britain.

Recurring Theme

So Freyja was given a very nice box set of Charlie & Lola books as a ChristBirthdayYuleMas present and they have soon become her bedtime book of choice (with the collected adventures of Mog a close second).

Anyway, contained within the package was an audio CD of the aforementioned stories, read by the actors children who voice the TV series. And preceding each story is the theme tune to that TV series. And having had this on all weekend, much to Freyja's delight, I now can't get the blasted thing out of my head. It may well be a perfectly tuneful ditty with a definite hint of late-70s sitcom...


...but when you are whistling it at 7:15am whilst waiting for the coffee machine at work, you know it's going to be a long day. All together now, dah pappa dah dah pah-de-pah, de doo pappa...

I think I possibly need to say that the Charlie & Lola theme music is (c) Tiger Aspect but if anyone from Tiger Aspect is reading this I shall be (a) amazed and (b) offering my services to do a hardcore rave remix...

Ready, Steady, Mech

Flatpack creatures to download (PDF), print out and build!

Perfect for those wet winter (and, to be fair, summer) Sunday afternoons, fellow Dads :)

Readymech Series 002

(My favourite is Tentaclopse...)

Surreal Landscape Of Nostalgia

No, not Milton Keynes, but an interesting dissection of current parents' favourite, In The Night Garden on StrangeHarvest:

In the Night Garden - Surreal Landscape of Nostalgia

Not sure he needed all the screenshots, but my curiosity was piqued by this paragraph towards the end:

"The history of children's TV echoes throughout. There are references to the Magic Roundabout in the bandstand, to Camberwick Green in its mechanics, to Thunderbird 2 in the Pink-Ponk's [sic] green livery, to Trumpton in the echoey naive folk music. The texture of the image is made just as rich by combining live action, rickety stop-frame and gradient perfect CGI, and the soundtrack whose organic sci-fi squelching might have arrived fresh from the Radiophonic Workshop. The programme construction is perhaps the most sophisticated on British TV. And the effect is fantastic."

Blimey. The Pinky Ponk is Thunderbird 2 - look:

Fuzzy Felt Fries: Slight Return

Amazing what you can find to go with your cheeseburger, isn't it:

French Fries Puppet

"French fries puppet features 4 wiggly fries with friendly faces perfect for story telling..."

Fuzzy Felt Fries?

After the plush meat, this is the obvious next level:

Interactive Cheeseburger

"This Interactive Cheeseburger plush plaything is 100% fat-free but full of fun! Activity cheeseburger teaches building skills and stimulates baby with textures, crinkle, squeaker, rattle, button, and Velcro. 5" tall."

Yes, even in his/her earliest months, your child can start practising for that McJob :)

Freyja The Jackal pt II

Following on from my recent post, I was watching the little one play happily with her maracas this morning when it suddenly dawned on me that she was in fact channelling the mighty Bez* from Happy Mondays, the 'singer' of which was of course Shaun Ryder who then went on to form Black Grape who released "It's Great When You're Straight, Yeah" which featured none other than Carlos The Jackal on its cover:

Coincidence? You decide...

* who I've just remembered we also bumped into in Ibiza airport in 2005 - when Solveig was pregnant with Freyja!

We're On Our Way To, Er, Cardiff...

I have just about recovered from the drama of the extra-time win over Spurs at the Emirates last night. We had decent seats just above the losing visiting supporters in the new South Bank and the atmosphere was amazing for a midweek Carling Cup match; the noise never relented (OK maybe a smidgeon, shortly after they equalised with five minutes to go...) Anyway, our 'kids' are in the final against Chelsea on Sunday 25 Feb and Arsene has promised to stick with the team that has got this far (quite correctly, in my humble opinion).

Goooooooooooooners!

So to celebrate all of the above, here is Freyja having a little dance:

FreyjaTube is 1 too (free)

As well as flooding the interweb with pictures of our offspring, we have also been uploading (to the ubiquitous YouTube) some short videos of her variously gurgling/rolling/crawling/shouting over the last year. These will prove invaluable when embarrassing her in front of future potential suitors but for now will serve as an excellent way for those family and friends in far-flung places (Dubai, Toronto, Sydney, Watford...) to keep up with the bumptious bundle of busy that is Freyja Sallie Lightly :)

Here is the latest one - apologies in advance for the out-of-tune singing:



And here are the rest, unless I have done something particularly dumb:

FreyjaTube