National Railway Museum

Last week being half-term, there were more entertainment options than usual for my two days of the week at home with G. On Thursday, swayed by a leaflet Mrs J had picked up somewhere, I decided to take G across the Pennines to York, for her (and my) first-ever visit to the National Railway Museum.

I was a bit apprehensive about this. York is, after all, a good hour-and-a-half away by train, which makes it a three-hour round trip. That's nothing if you're in the car in the evening and G can snooze away in the back seat, but trying to keep her entertained for that length of time, without becoming That Guy With The Annoying Toddler, looked a more challenging prospect.

As it was, the journey over was fine. We had a table to ourselves, and when she wasn't staring wistfully out of the window (as shown in the picture above), she kept herself amused by pointing out all the things she could see. Despite having lived near the Standedge Tunnel for a couple of years, she was completely baffled by it when the train passed through ("We're in a tunnel daddy! Why?"). Eventually, she gave up trying to make sense of the outside world and started playing hide-and-seek, which was about as successful as it normally is.

We got there, and the museum being helpfully located right next to the station, we were soon here. I let G wander off to explore a bit.

Along with all the old trains, there were various child-friendly activities on offer, which helped explain the rather unusual museum clientele which seemed to consist entirely of retired folks who like to trainspot, and under 8s. One of these was a model Thomas The Tank Engine display. As G pushed her nose up against the glass, the woman said to the children assembled: "Look, there's a blue engine down there, that's Thomas". G replied, insistently: "No, that's Thomas over there, he's got the number one on him!" I think at G's age that still counts as cute rather than irritatingly brattish, but I accept it's a close call.

We looked at other trains, both model and real, and rode on a steam train (green, so inevitably, "Percy") in the goods yard. The BBC's Thomas rival, Chuggington, was also well represented. Once G saw the play area full of various Chuggington track and trains, I had to write off the next part of the afternoon.

With time before our return train ticking by, the only way to get G to leave was to promise to buy her something from the museum shop on the way out. "I want Annie and Clarabel!" she announced within about 1.7 seconds of browsing the toys (keen observers will know that they are Thomas's coaches).

And so her wooden train set at home is now busier than ever. But considering she had been beautifully behaved all day, and the museum only cost a £3 donation to get into, I'd say investing in a couple of little carriages was a small price to pay.

Shaky Ladder

Mrs J was away last weekend, so it was just me and G on Saturday and Sunday. Not that this is particularly unusual, given that I've looked after her for the last three-and-a-half years, and still have her at home with me a couple of days a week. But when you've got to stretch solo toddler entertaining to an extra couple of days, you have to ration your standard activities out slightly.

On Saturday morning, I took her dancing. This was the first time I'd been, and predictably enough I was the only dad in an ante-room of 15 or so mums, waiting around for our children to do their ballet class next door. Not that I could really hear what was going on, the overwhelming noise from another neighbouring room was of a group of eight-year-olds learning how to street dance to the Macarena. I don't think I'd heard the Macarena since about 1996, and it seemed pretty old hat to me even then. So goodness knows what today's pre-tweenies make of it. Perhaps it's this generation's Agadoo.

I decided to save a playground trip for Sunday, not least because the forecast was good. And it turned out to be beautifully sunny. Sunny enough in fact to take along G's bike, which she rode very slowly along the path to the playground in Parr Fold Park. This was clearly far too much like hard work, and she bounded off and ran towards the big climbing frame as soon as we got near it.

Then she stopped, puzzled as how to actually get up. Possibly aimed at slightly older children, the only ways onto the frame itself were via a couple of shaky rope ladders, which G didn't much like the look of at first glance. I encouraged her up one, step by step, lifting her foot up each time while supporting her back. Eventually, she scrambled up, slowly walked over to the slide, then came down. This was much more fun.

So much fun in fact, that she quickly forgot about any danger associated with going up the rope ladder, and trotted straight back to it, climbing up herself. She repeated this process about 38 times, briefly stopping once so I could take the photo of her peering back down at me. It all helped tire her right out, which as any parent will tell you, is always the most important thing.

Day Out On The Railway

We had a long weekend away in Shropshire from Friday to Monday. The destination was chosen partly because it's close to where we live and could be reached easily enough on a Friday evening, but largely because we we near the Llangollen Heritage Railway, which was holding a Thomas The Tank Engine day on Sunday.

I was quite looking forward to this, but G's excitement was on another level. Kind of like her birthday and Christmas put together. "Look, it's Thomas!" she shouted as we walked through the town to the station and saw an engine painted bright blue. It wasn't difficult to see why she was so impressed. With lots of noise and steam everywhere as he trundled up and down the track, he certainly bore a much stronger resemblance to what the real Thomas might look like than supermarket Santas do to Father Christmas.

Thomas was doing short rides up and down the station, but we also went on a longer journey on a different train. The picture shows G with it. Because of the vaguely green colour she immediately decided this was Percy, and did "choo choo" noises much of the way.

Trying to get G to leave at the end of the afternoon was a bit harder. Traditional inducements, in the form of a promise of a "special treat" or even some chocolate were met with a firm "no thank you". I told Mrs J to bring out the secret weapon: "If we leave now, we can go and get some ice cream" only to get another "Um... no thank you!" in reply.

So, there were inevitably some tears, but G had got over it by the time we walked across the road to the sweet shop. And, equally inevitably, she talked about Thomas all the way home.

Crumpet Sandwich

G has had a long-standing interest in crumpets, dating back almost to when she could first manage solid food. Ever since it's been a reliable snack food to serve up for her, even on the rare occasions when she throws a tantrum about something and says she won't eat anything.

These days, G is at an age where her independent streak makes her very specific about what she does and doesn't want. So, even the simple task of putting a couple of crumpets into the toaster for her has to be done in a particular order. She has to drag a chair across the room, stand on it, open the bread bin, and get the crumpets out. I'm allowed to actually put the crumpets in the toaster, but in the meantime she has to open the fridge door, point at the cheese triangles (it's almost always cheese triangles), which I then have to get. But she's got to open the little box, pick out the triangle she wants, then fiddle about with the little red cord until it opens. I then put the cheese onto the crumpets, and help her do the spreading. Then, finally, it's snack time.

Or at least it normally is. The other day, G kept on pointing at the crumpets, and asking for a "sandwich". I opened the bread bin to show her that there wasn't any bread, and that she was going to be having crumpets instead. "No daddy, like this," she said, and stuck one crumpet on top of the other, before biting into it. And so, the crumpet sandwich was duly invented. Or should that be discovered?

Art Gallery

Art is not really my strong point. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it is one of the things I actively avoid doing, along with going to drum and bass nights and visiting the Trafford Centre. Occasionally we do a bit together at home, but whenever G asks to get her pens out, I normally manage to get out of it by immediately suggesting something much more fun, and train-based. So most of what G knows about drawing and painting she's picked up from Mrs J, or at nursery.

But Thursday was cold with snow in the air, and I knew we were probably going to be stuck inside all day. So I got G's arts and crafts box down from the shelf on request, curious as to what she'd come up with.

She began with a series of drawings on coloured paper, like the one at the top of this post. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that it's a picture of me. I had to help her to glue on the goggly eyes, which she correctly pointed out were green instead of the hazel eyes both me and G have.

After drawing most of the extended family in similar style, she moved on to a stack of paper plates to do some faces. Again I had to help her get the glue out of the bottle, but my role was limited to squeezing in the appointed places, under her strict instructions.

The one below is, as I know you will be able to guess, a self-portrait. A bit of work required on the composition, but I'm glad all the faces she draws have such big smiles.

Living Room Ballet

Despite being initially sceptical about ballet, or at least the bit that involves putting on a pink dress, G seems to be getting into it. The other day, she gave me a demonstration of some of her moves in the living room. Not quite sure the big finish went exactly as planned, though.

The music is Down By The Water by The Decemberists, which remains her favourite song almost a year after she began to insist on hearing it during every car journey. I don't think that's the kind of thing they dance to during the actual ballet classes, however.

For this week, the girls were asked to tell the teacher the name of their favourite Disney princess. Given that Disney princesses and all things pink are not exactly high on our home entertainment agenda, this meant we had to train G to say the name of the least lame female Disney princess we could think of. So if anyone asks, G likes Rapunzel, from the movie Tangled.

Obviously the character was originally created by the Brothers Grimm, but I imagine this kind of literary pedantry is generally frowned upon in children's dance lessons.

Little Dancer

Long-time readers of this blog will know that I've always had a policy of avoiding dressing G in pink as much as possible, because I'm not keen on gender stereotyping. This also partly explains why I enthusiastically embrace her current excitement about trains. She doesn't have to grow up to be a Pendolino driver, but as long as she knows that she can, that's ok by me.

But G also likes dancing. So much so that Mrs J recently volunteered to take her to a dance class on Saturday mornings. After going to one which contained elements of doing street dance to One Direction (wrong on so many levels), Mrs J tried a more conventional ballet class last week.

G had fun, but was the only little one there without a pink costume, so I had to relent and let Mrs J pick one up for this week. As you can see, G was initially unimpressed.

Maybe she'll get used to it. Alternatively, she'll be the only girl with a blue ballet outfit. Which wouldn't bother me at all.

The Real Percy

They were running steam train rides at the Museum of Science and Industry over Christmas, and we decided to take G along for a go on one. The trains were only going a short way, along the track in the old goods yard that is now the museum, through the former Liverpool Road station platform, then backing down another bit of track, before retracing the route to the start. But that was more than enough to get G very excited.

Our engine was green, and G quickly assumed this was the real-life Percy. It's Percy who, according to the song now permanently seared into my brain, always brings the mail on time in Thomas The Tank Engine.

"Look! Percy's going!" she said as the engine moved off and the steam poured out all around us, with the sort of excitement little girls usually save for fairy princesses, or One Direction. I may have to give in to Mrs J's suggestion that we start taking her to dance classes, if only to balance things out a bit.

Christmas With Thomas

This is what we spent a good deal of Christmas Day doing. That is, sitting around on the floor, playing with trains. Having repeatedly shown over the past few months just how much she likes trains, and Thomas The Tank Engine in particular, G's stack of presents from Santa had a certain loveable blue character as a prominent theme.

It actually started the night before, as G got some new Thomas pyjamas. She liked these so much, she didn't want to take them off on Christmas morning during the serious business of present opening, as shown here:

She was full of energy, largely because she didn't actually wake up until 8:30am. Having completely missed the stocking beside her bed, she sleepily trudged into bed with me and Mrs J as she often does.

"Has Santa been?" asked Mrs J. In response, G looked rather blank. "Do you want to go and see if Santa's been?" G trudged back to her bedroom. Then, eventually, "Oh! Santa's been with my presents!" Maybe next year she'll cotton on a bit faster.

Besides Thomas, Mrs J saw to it that G received a lot of arts and crafts, and she was eventually persuaded to leave her now-much larger train set alone for a while to do a bit of drawing.

There's no doubt who G's biggest hero of the day was. She didn't even need any prompting to do this picture of Santa in one of her new activity books. Although having coloured in the hat and shoes in an appropriate red, she then scribbled his face in red too. Maybe he just seems completely red to her, because the rest of us are so pasty-faced from staying in every day to avoid the Salford rain.

After the trains and the pictures came the food. This year, G was particularly fond of the sausages and the parsnips, but wasn't tempted by any sprouts. She cleaned everything she had on her plate, as you might expect.

It's a good job she likes Christmas food, because we've still got a fridge mostly full of the stuff. It seems we over-catered for our own stomachs just as much as we over-indulged G's interest in Thomas. Not feeling too guilty about either though.

Antlers On The Dancefloor

We went to a wedding this week. Thoughtfully, the happy couple had laid on a babysitter, so G and the other little ones weren't buzzing around pestering everyone (but mainly Mrs J and me) during the ceremony and food. This also meant that by the time the evening party started, G wasn't already overexcited and tired, and could have a bit of fun with everyone before bedtime.

There was one of those comedy photobooth things, and a dressing-up box for guests to take advantage of. G immediately zeroed in on a pair of festive antlers, then proceeded to trot around showing them off to everyone. The picture shows her explaining patiently to me why they are essential dancefloor wear. G also had a reindeer-style dance move to go along with her headgear, which basically involved moving her hands forward and down in the generally-accepted gesture for 'lion', and grinning like a loon. I'm not sure that's what reindeer actually do, but whatever.

After cutely showing off for a bit, we decided to get G to bed before she outstayed her welcome, or threw a tantrum about something. Besides, the babysitter was staying on until the end of the wedding, so we were able to have an always-welcome evening to ourselves. Well, us and about 100 other people. But you get the point.