Sleep Interrupted

Today is Ben’s second birthday! Yesterday, all his grandparents and aunts came over to tea. Today, I took the day off and we all went to Odds Farm, where Ben got to do all sorts of things like ride on a tractor, feed goats and bottle feed lambs — something for which the term “ravening hoards” is not an exageration. Here are some photos:

A couple of other exciting points: Firstly, the card Louise made for Ben was read out on CBeebies! Secondly, we’ve just found out that Ben shares his birthday with Johnny Ball!

While I’m here, I feel I should do a linguistics update for Ben. He can now manage words of up to four syllables, although the pronunciation is still off in many areas. He can string three or four words into sentences like “more juice please” and “mummy tea all gone”.

Keeping track of his vocabulary is almost impossible now, as he’ll attempt any word you ask him to say. He can also count, but only up to two, before starting again at one: one, two, one, two, one… Strangely, though, if you keep counting with him, he picks up again at seven and make it all the way to ten. Most recently, he’s started singing, songs like “The Wheels On The Bus” and the theme tune to Balamory. He may just have hit critical mass on the cuteness scale…

Ben celebrates the new Star Wars film with a tasty biscuit!

Anyone who’s talked to me for more than 5 minutes on the subject of computers will probably already know about Firefox. It’s a web browsing alternative to Internet Explorer, the program you’re probably using to read this blog.

If you use Google and have a middle mouse button — this includes a mouse wheel, because you can click with that too — you should find out why Firefox will make your life better. And that’s not even counting the built-in pop-up blocker, toolbar search, or any number of other improvements.

Now, if you’re already using Firefox, listen up! Go to the Help menu and select About Mozilla Firefox. If the version shown is below 1.0.4 you should upgrade immediately — your computer may be at risk if you don’t.

Hello, gentle reader! I would very much appreciate it if you would visit the Make Poverty History web site, follow the Join Us Now link, and sign up. Thank you.

Thank you to everyone who came to Louise’s birthday party on Saturday, we both had a really good time. As Louise commented, it shows how old we’re getting now that we stay up late talking about children, politics and despairing over the youth of today. Perhaps turning into your parents isn’t all bad…

On the subject of birthdays, I’ve hatched a cunning plan in the last few days for my 30th birthday celebrations. Earlier in the year, before Jessica was born, Tim was trying to organise a Lord-Of-The-Rings-A-Thon, whereby we watch all three films (extended edition, naturally) back to back. Given that my birthdays have aquired something of a tradition around the Lord Of The Rings films, I think watching all three films at once would be an excellent way to say fairwell to my third decade.

I’m starting the planning nice and early so that all interested parties can make a space in their diaries during December. We’ve got to pick a date, a location (probably my house), a schedule, a menu… Guys, if you’re reading this, please leave any suggestions or requests in the comments of this post.

I voted on the way to work this morning. This meant I was the second person into the polling station. We had to wait for a couple of minutes for the officials to finish setting up — strangely parchocial. I was disappointed to see that there was no Green Party candidate; while I’ve always gravitated to the Liberal Democrats, I’m coming to believe that none of the main parties have a radical enough approach to climate change.

Unlike, it would seem, most of the population of the UK, I actually enjoy elections. Or more precisely, I enjoy watching the results coming in. Two elections ago, I stayed up with Neil and Tim late into the night and we had a great time. Best of all, we got to watch live as Michael Portillo lost his seat.

So here I sit, when I should be in bed, watching the BBC’s coverage. Only two seats declared so far, but it’s starting to look interesting. I had to smile when I saw that BBCi has a dedicated Peter Snow channel — wall-to-wall CG swingometers!