Me wearing daddy’s hat

I’ve been practicing and practicing with help from my baby-walker, holding hands with someone or using the furniture to stop me falling over. I’d even taken a couple of steps here and there on my own.

We woke up early and there was a white blanket of frost on the ground. Daddy and Darragh went into the garden to cut down a couple of trees. One was dead. One was a very odd shape and in the way of some work we have to do, so they needed to come down.

In between trees and during a chainsaw re-fuelling break, mummy said “Hey, come and look at this!”

I’d been walking between mummy and Kate, when suddenly I took a notion and started walking around the kitchen table. Daddy grabbed his iPad and filmed me – everyone was in stunned silence as I showed off my new prowess.

I’ve been walking pretty much all day so, from here on in, I think I might be joining the bipeds!

Walking on sunshine from Faolán Smith on Vimeo.

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Darragh pulling me and Kate on the sledge

I haven’t seen it before, but the rain turned cold and white at the end of the week there – apparently it’s called snow!

Winter 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 had cold and snowy spells with temperatures much lower than usual here in Ireland. No such luck last winter, when Kate and Darragh got a sledge for Christmas!

But it’s finally had its cobwebs dusted off and been dragged around the field behind our house, carrying some of us. There wasn’t a huge amount of snow, but just enough to enjoy and for me to wear my new, all-in-one suit, which kept me warm and looking like a baby seal!

Here’s a quick video of us in action…

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Me and Alex in the bath

Me and mummy have been in England for a couple of days now. We flew over a couple of days ago to visit my cousin Alex and his mum and dad.

They all moved over to England just before Christmas as Alex’s daddy got a new job there. We were sorry to see them go, but the Irish economy is, shall we say, struggling, so even England appears a better bet to many people!

Yesterday we went to Brighton to visit friends. It was cold, but nice and they have a lovely pier.

We’ve a couple more days before returning to Ireland – hope the snow holds off until we’re back!

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Me and my mum out for a walk

The weather was lovely today. Cold, but clear and sunny. So we went for a walk.

Nothing unusual there, you may say, but this was the first time I walked all by myself! I had some help – I mean I wasn’t toddling properly, but used my ‘walker’ to help me stay upright. So, nobody was helping me – it was all my own work.

I’ve been spending quite a few weeks practicing, getting used to this whole walking business by doing laps of the kitchen table. But this was a big step, literally, as I walked a couple of hundred yards up the road and back down… it’s a very quiet road and I had mummy and daddy on the lookout for any cars that might have come along… only one did!

Check out the video to see how I got on.

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Watching ‘In the Night Garden’

I am such a great sleeper now. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve not always been such a good sleeper!

I’ve become more active, running around with the help of my ‘walker’, so I suppose I’m more tired when I go to bed. I haven’t quite slept right through the night, but I’ve had one or two nights where I’ve been close.

Before I go to bed, I like to watch In the Night Garden. I’m not a television watcher at all, preferring to play with my toys, but there’s something about Iggle Piggle and friends that makes me drop what I’m doing and sit with mummy or daddy, or sometimes quite happily on my own, and watch!

The main reason I might wake up in the night now is either because I’m teething, or because I’ve a cold and it’s hard to breathe! I’ve got five teeth now…

Mummy and daddy are so grateful that I’m sleeping better, you can almost see the difference!

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Me and grandad

My grandad is really old. I mean, my brother Darragh is old. Then there’s daddy. Then there’s grandad!

I don’t mean that in a bad way, but I’m only a year and a bit old (check the line above, just below the title of this post to see exactly how old I am) and everyone seems old to me.

Grandad isn’t a very ‘photographic’ person, but we caught him today – we happened to be watching West Ham almost beat Manchester United in the FA Cup, and daddy managed to take this one of us together, which is even rarer!

Today was the day that we took down our Christmas tree too as it’s the twelfth night. Daddy thinks this is the ‘proper’ twelfth night, but there’s confusion as…

It is defined by the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary as “the evening of the fifth of January, preceding Twelfth Day, the eve of the Epiphany, formerly the last day of the Christmas festivities and observed as a time of merrymaking”. There is some confusion these days, however, as to which night is Twelfth Night: modern practice is often to regard the night of Epiphany itself (sixth of January) to be Twelfth Night. The older tradition of Twelfth Night being the 5 January stems from the medieval practice of the day beginning at sunset, rather than at midnight as it does now. Thus Twelfth Night falls on 5 January, ahead of Twelfth Day on the 6th.

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Kate playing horsey with me

So, another year over, a new one just begun!

It’s 2013 and we’ve come through 2012 unscathed. A little bruised perhaps, mostly caused through a lack of sleep for the grown ups, but no more than that. In fact, daddy’s wee website business goes from strength to strength, the garden is becoming productive and the house improvements carried on apace… Mummy is very involved in the arts in Inishowen through the Inishowen Rural Arts Network and (almost single-handedly) ran the wonderful Our Colours, Our Sounds project – all that while looking after me!

So, we hope that 2013 is equally successful and happy for us – we all get a bit more sleep – and for you! Happy New Year!

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Christmas Day with two of my new toys

It’s Christmas Day and we were up at the normal time (for me). When we came downstairs, there were piles of presents in the living room and under the Christmas tree.

Kate and Darragh were very excited – although Kate was, perhaps, the most excited! They unwrapped the gifts that Father Christmas/Santa had left the night before and seemed to be very happy with what they found!

I got lots of things, but the two I played with most can be seen in the photo – a Henry Sit and Ride and a noisy, bright, spinny, music thing that straps to the back of a chair. I spent the morning whizzing around the kitchen table, stopping each time to have another go.

Anyway, we wish you all a very happy Christmas!

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Me and mummy enjoying Kate’s play

As is now a tradition, Kate’s Christmas play is followed by lunch at a nearby restaurant with the local family.

This year was no different as Kate was the star of this year’s show “Hey Ewe!”. Based, unsurprisingly, on the Nativity, the story followed the birth of baby Jesus through the eyes of some sheep – possibly those of the shepherds, but the play leaves us to decide that for ourselves.

The play took a musical turn with a variety of numbers from all corners of the cast. Kate’s so taken with acting right now, that she’s joined the local drama club and is going to be in a local version of “Oliver”. Next stop Broadway… via the Colgan Hall!

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Me and my Santa hat

It’s coming up to Christmas, the tree is up, shopping has been done, presents wrapped and a lot of other things I can’t remember!

As I mentioned earlier, I don’t like some hats that people put on me – although I liked this one – but the Santa hats fits into the ‘dislike’ category.

I think it might have been because it was too itchy – all that white fluffy stuff…

I’m zooming around the house now supporting myself with a ‘walker’. It helps me stay on two feet, although I can do it on my own with just a little support. Nothing below table height is now safe and new shelves are going up to keep things out of my reach.

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