Hank’s Weblog

i know it’s bragging. and i know it’s the annoying, no-one-cares-except-his-mother sort of bragging. but i simply can’t help myself: hank WENT OUT IN UNDERPANTS today! no nappy…and no accidents! and we stayed out for over an hour: went to the post office and then for a run round the park. OOO he could set fire to the house today and i’d still consider it a great day…

on our recent visit to the charente, we happened to stumble into a dinner party at cellettes castle. the hosts (the owners of the chateau) were very gracious about it, and served us coffee and desert. they presented hank with a very lovely chocolate ice cream and biscuit treat, which he enjoyed very much. the treat, however, was quite large, and so before it could be eaten, it melted into something of a chocolaty lump in hank’s hand.

meanwhile, hank has been on the outer edges of potty training for some time now. and this has involved a lot of talk about wee and poo. among other things, it’s been necessary to clear up the matter of where each of these substances comes from. hank seems to have been under the impression that his poo comes from the nappy, rather than going into it. as if, the nappy is the pooer, such that, if one could simply not wear the nappy, one would avoid the unpleasantness of poo. so, he and alex, in particular, have had many quite frank discussions lately about the origins of bodily waste.

so when the pretty chocolate treat became a gooey chocolate lump in hank’s hand, it was only natural that he should shout out–in the middle of this pretty french dinner party; with glee, loud enough for all to hear–that IT’S COME FROM THE ANUS!!

our ground-floor neighbour is called ’susanna’. she is nice, but we don’t see her very often. more often, we see her door and her mail. when we find mail for susanna on our way out of the house, hank is in charge of toddling it up to her door mat. he likes this: “take it to anna! put it anna’s door!” etc.

this week, dave the carpenter is re-building our garden steps. they’re two stories high, and until they’re at least half-way built, the only way that dave can get out to the garden to work on them is via the door at the back of susanna’s flat. susanna is, as was said, nice, and also she likes dave (as do we all), so she simply leaves keys with him and lets him go thru as needed.

hank is very keen on dave, and has taken, lately, to spending all of his time playing with his toy hammer, clearly in an attempt to be like dave. but the odd thing has been the way hank has taken to referring to him. and we’ve finally figured out why he’s saying it: we very rarely see susanna. but hank knows that the door on the ground floor is ‘anna’s door’. and dave has been in and out of that door lately. further, we took hank out to see the garden for the first time, and dave was the one who led him thru susanna’s flat.

so, i suppose it’s no wonder that hank’s belief cannot be shaken. our carpenter, it seems, is called ‘anna’. we introduced him as dave. but hank wasn’t fooled. he is anna. the carpenter. anna the bearded carpenter.  

we’re getting ready to leave for bruges tomorrow. it’s all very exciting: taking the train! riding bikes! good stuff. only one problem: SHEEPY.

 i picked hank up from nursery this afternoon around 5. many of the children are on easter holiday already today, so monika (hank’s very fav nursery class assistant) reported that all the remaining had had an excellent, relaxing day. hank even slept for an hour and 45! so in short, it was the perfect friday to cap the week off before a nice weekend getaway. except that once we got home; after hank had his bath; after he got his jammies on; after he ate a bunch of midnight houmous; after brushing teeth; in fact, at the very very very last minute, it hit me:

I  LEFT SHEEPY AT NURSERY! 

 GOOD GOD!

we’re not back from bruges until late tuesday night! so, NO SHEEPY UNTIL WEDNESDAY! hank’s going to fire me for sure.

but on a bright note, this prompted alex to get involved in the long-running search for a backup sheepy. he had the good sense to type ’sheep’ into amazon’s search engine, and lo and behold:

there she is.  why didn’t i think of that?!

sheepy’s real name is ‘fatties lamb’, and she retails on amazon for £8.99.

i ordered two.

express delivery.

hank’s most complex sentence yet:

Oh no: the beer’s all gone!

what a confusing day hank has had already, and it’s not even dinner time.

[yammering in bed this morning...]

 hank: what’s this? [points to toenail]

lindsey: that’s your toenail.

h: toenail! [begins to tug on toenail.] toenail? take it? take a toenail? 

l: it doesn’t come off, hank. it’s attached and you can’t take it off. 

h: take it off? help take it off?!

l: sorry hank, i can’t help you.

h: HELP! TAKE A TOENAIL OFF!

[etc. and then hunger made him forget his toenail worries...]

h: porridge? have a porridge?

l: yep. we’ll go out to the kitchen and cook some porridge.

h: [pointing to a stack of nappies] nappies! nappies like a porridge!

l: your nappies like porridge?

h: no. no nappies like porridge.

l: i see

h: [pointing to a stack of underpants] pants! pants like a porridge!

l: pants like porridge?!

h: yeah!    

l: got it.

 [later...]

h:[pinches his pram] ouch! hurt the pram!

l: no, the pram’s not hurt. you can’t hurt the pram, it’s just an object. it’s not like the cat, or papa.

h: no hurt the pram.

l: correct.

h: kect.

[and later... hank hits mama's thigh]

l: ouch. no hitting mama, hank.

h: no! no hit mama! hit the mama TROUSERS!

l: but there’s mama under the mama trousers. so you hit both mama and the mama trousers. no hitting mama.

h: no hit mama. trousers.

hank appears to have had his first nightmare. last night, he awoke crying terribly around 3.30. i assumed that it was because of the cold he’s had lately, but when alex went downstairs to see to him, i could hear him–from one floor up and thru two closed doors–shouting at alex: ‘DARK! DARK! hank scared! the puffins! the– the PUFFINS!’ poor hank!

also, hank has taken to periodically informing us of the emotional status of various of his toys, with respect to the puffins. it goes something like this: ‘teddy scared! teddy scared the puffins! [hugs teddy tightly, rubbing its back] aaw. poh teddy. teddy scared.’ yesterday morning over breakfast, he gave a full report on the same, this time concerning his american relations (using as visual aids the photos of each that hang above the kitchen table):

‘POP scared the puffins. fatach [fletcher] scared the puffins. grammer scared. teff [steph] scared. corey scared…     …corey…corey mucky! the corey face DIRTY! oh my. corey dirty…’

(corey hadn’t shaved in a couple of days when the photo in question was taken. he was on his honeymoon. he should really be more conscientious about his appearance.)  

(uncle) corey and (auntie) stephanie gave hank this excellent talking book of north american birds. He’s ever so slightly afraid of the puffin. alex often imitates the puffin’s call, whereupon hank usually replies “NO PUFFIN!”, followed 5 minutes later by “papa: puffin?” the woodpeckers, on the other hand, he LOVES. he saw one in colorado, and ever since loves to chat about ‘peckers’. in particular, hank loves to imitate a woodpecker pecking. it sounds something like “BANG BANG pecker! BANG!”

We had an excellent time in Colorado this Christmas. Hank enjoyed the snow very much...

…so long as he didn’t have to touch it or step in it…

(let me in, my feet are FROZEN!)

But, simply being in Colorado with family was what he really liked best…