Life in the fast lane... and the bus lane

Last weekend we went to watch George's uncle drive a Ferrari 360 round a race track (a 40th birthday present). When we arrived there were a row of supercars – Lambourghinis, Ferraris, Aston Martins, an Audi R8 and the like. George watched curiously, intrigued more by the throaty roars of the engines than the sleek beauty of the cars' lines.

After George's uncle had been on an orientation lap in a Subaru to familiarise himself with the track layout, we watched him accelerate away on his two Ferrari laps. Well, most of us did – George got excited when he spotted a Chrysler Voyager and happily shouted "van, van, van" (I suppose it's a lot easier than shouting "Lambourghini").

He got even more excited a little later on when, after the "racing" was over, we all boarded a minibus back to the car park. It was like two special days in one – George's uncle got to drive a Ferrari and George got to go in a big white minibus.

Now there's a gap in the market... minibus experience days!

Uncle Matt gets revved up during his briefing

"...and this is the button for the deceleration parachute"

He is going fast... he's just a long way away

"Yes, Ferraris are nice, Grandad, but I think I can see a minibus coming"

Catalogue time

I don't think I've looked forward to Christmas with this much excitement for about 30 years. I know it's only November and Christmas is five and a half weeks away, but I remember as a child, that one of the best things in the run-up to Christmas was looking through the toys in the catalogues.

My mum used to have the Grattan catalogue which seemed massively bulky and you'd have to turn over hundreds of pages in great wads to get to the toy section at the back, which I'd pore over for hours on end. Then I'd make a list to send to Santa, I'd probably check it twice and revisit the catalogue a few more times to make sure I hadn't missed anything.

I don't know if Grattan catalogues are still around, but we've got the Toys-R-Us catalogue and a good one that came through the post from the Great Little Trading Company, and they have become the reading material of choice in our house.

George will be 19 months old this Christmas, but I've found myself salivating at toys and then getting disappointed when it says 'for age four or five and above'. Still, there's plenty to get excited about for children George's age and plenty to look forward to for future Christmases.

One of the things I would like to do – but mummy says I've got to finish the fence first – is build an outdoor play area with a slide and swing and steps and stuff... you know the sort of thing. The last time I did something like that was before George came along and I built a dovecote. They were £200-£300 in the garden centre and I think I spent about £65 on materials – although it took me about four full weekends to complete.

So, by the time I finish the fence and get on to building a swing and a slide, George will probably be wanting a car and some driving lessons for Christmas.

Simple pleasures

As the saying goes, the best things in life are free, and we enjoyed a lovely, sunny autumn morning at the park at the weekend – kicking up leaves, watching the ducks and spotting squirrels. Car parking (not one of the best things in life) was £3.30.

Anyway, we took a few pictures of George, so this week's blog has more of a photo album feel...

Beds and a wetting

Mummy changed the bed not so long back. Not that there's anything special about that, after all, whatever you may have heard, it is quite a regular occurrence. Only this time the pillowcases looked decidedly different... yet comfortingly familiar.

On my side was a pillow with a picture of Paddington Bear, sat with his suitcase and marmalade sandwich at Paddington Station. On mummy's side, the pillowcase was decorated with a small woodland scene including hedgehogs, rabbits and owls.

A little bit faded, they were the bedding of choice when I was a toddler and were among the items my mum had saved and returned to me as an adult – and now they have a new purpose in their existence, as every morning George likes to point at Paddington and shout "bear!" into daddy's ear.

I thought this might stop when the sheets got changed back to the ones with the miminalist dot pattern on, but he just points at the dots (which look a bit like chocolate buttons) and shouts "bear!"

One of the other items from my childhood was a porcelain cereal bowl with a Peter Rabbit picture on and a quote around the rim, but after surviving 40 years of life with me, it only made it through another 17 months with my son.

The other day we got caught in the rain and being only a few hundred yards from home decided to make a dash for it. We pulled the canopy of the pushchair over George's head and began to run. It was a matter of seconds before the rain soaked our clothes, drenched our scowling faces and began to trickle down our necks. However, George seemed to quite like the whole experience – I'd have loved to have been able to see his face as he soaked up the excitement of our mad rush – it must have been like being a Formula 1 driver on a wet circuit. Either that or he was just laughing at us because we got wet and he didn't!

How sentimental can you get?

There's no avoiding being a little sentimental when you first start a family. Over the past 17 months we have collected all sorts of things.

We have saved the outfit George wore the moment after he was born; we have his first pair of booties and his first pair of shoes; we have his first hand painting (which, being in red paint, looks like a mini murder scene); we have his first toy and even his first lock of hair from his first hair cut.

There are other little mementos we have kept too, such as all his first Christmas and birthday cards and tickets from his first miniature train ride or trip to the zoo. Some of it's a bit daft really and we'll probably have a sort out and wonder why we kept much of it. In the meantime we tend to keep lots of things – just for sentimental value – but it's knowing where to draw the line that can be a little difficult.

The other day we were rummaging through the kitchen cupboard, certain that we had some couscous (we regularly buy and use couscous and couldn't believe we might have run out). At the very back of the cupboard – a little too high for mummy to reach – I found the box of couscous. On closer examination it appeared to be one that had found its way to the back of the cupboard and had been overlooked as newer boxes took its place at the front of the cupboard. However, we could hardly bring ourselves to throw it away we noticed the 'best before' date. "Aaaah, look, couscous with George's date of birth on it."

Well, if you're wondering whether we kept it or not, I can tell you that we now know where the line is drawn... couscous box went in the bin.

In a bit of a spin

We're all in a bit of a spin this week and that's why 'blog day' is a day late. It's all because mummy swapped her day off which meant George and I spent all day Wednesday together instead of our usual Friday.

Anyway, everything is settling back down again and we're looking forward to a straightforward weekend when George will be visiting his friend Noah – where he'll probably get to show off his new dance moves... and speaking of spinning, that's exactly what George's new moves involve – spinning and grinning until he lands in a heap on the floor.

George and Noah... and some kind of hat dance

The good thing about George's dancing is that it doesn't require good music (or any music for that matter) – George even likes to dance to the sound of the cows mooing in his animal noises book. It all hinges on a happy moment and if George is having a sudden burst of happiness he'll partake in a spot of spontaneous dance.

Occasionally, I like to join in, and so does mummy, although I do have difficulty in finding the rhythm in cows mooing. However, I have discovered that modelling my dance moves on Iggle Piggle's groovy gyrations is most successful and a darn site easier than attempting to emulate the moves on a certain Saturday night celebrity dance show – which, of course, George wouldn't appreciate that kind of effort anyway. Besides, Iggle Piggle always gets his girl, so he's certainly doing something right.

Strange thing is, George will watch Boogie Beebies – the excruciatingly grating children's dance show with moves based on everything from fruit to pirates – with utter indifference (that's if I haven't turned it off first). Which makes me think he does actually have some taste in his dancing accompaniment.

One of the programmes he will stop doing almost anything for is 'Numberjacks' – a show about number characters who live in a sofa and put a stop to all manner of numerical mayhem. So... with this in mind, when we were at the supermarket I spotted some 'Numberetti' spaghetti shapes and after checking the tin to make sure it passed our 'is-it-good-enough-for-George-to-eat' test, we popped them in the basket for George's tea, thinking he'd be well impressed by food that's made of numbers.

They went in his mouth with the toast (brown bread, of course) and somehow he managed to eat the toast and the spaghetti sauce and deposit the numbers on to his chin. Needless to say, daddy had the pleasure of eating the remaining half a tin of Numberetti spaghetti – well at least I had my five a day that day... and my six... and my seven... and my three... and my eight... oooh, and my nine.

Making friends is easy

George doesn't have to try too hard to make friends, mainly because he goes out of his way to wave at everyone and everything with the sincere expectation that they will wave back, smile, say hello or pat his little head. He looks genuinely concerned, if not a little dismayed, if someone doesn't acknowledge his wavy greeting.

Our week in Corfu was a bit of a waving success with a high rate of returns. There were waiters to wave at in the tavernas – they always waved and smiled, and even better, they brought humous, tzatziki, moussaka and fresh bread to the table. There were boats and waterskiers to wave at in the sea – and sometimes it was just as much fun waving to the sea itself... the sea always waved back. There were cats – many, many cats – to wave at around almost every corner, and they were such fun to chase too. Then there were other little babies to wave at, or perhaps shout 'baba' at.

Baby Mabel was particularly taken with George and tried to follow him as he went on a mission to investigate a parked car, and little Lauren happily played with George until her parents called her away when she followed him to his highchair in a beachside taverna as we sat down for lunch (I think I see the makings of a little heartbreaker!).

But one day George will have to learn that not everyone or everything wants to be a friend, or even friendly – I don't know who had the luckier escape when George picked up a wasp to befriend... George didn't get stung and the wasp flew away unharmed.

For the moment though, this age of innocence is a time to treasure and I'm quite happy to keep an eye on George as he makes friends with everything from penguins to vacuum cleaners.