Tigers are a Boy's best friend

I've written about Naughty Tiger before, and if you've ever met Boy, you'll have heard all about him.

Naughty Tiger lives in a magical land where absolutely anything is possible, which must be nice for him. It's also a convenient - and very commonly used - comeback for Boy for pretty much any argument.

What do you mean, the car can't fly to the moon? But Naughty Tiger's can.*
You want me to wash my hands after I go to the toilet? But Naughty Tiger doesn't have to.

The other day Boy wanted to know why we didn't have a car park at our house.
We don't really have that many cars....
Well, Naughty Tiger has a car park at his house.
Really, how many cars can he fit in it?
As many cars as there are trees in the world.
(Daddy commented that he probably would have had to clearfell quite a few to fit the car park in...)

Recently Boy went shopping with his grandma. Naughty Tiger went along too. He was up to a bit of mischief though, snatching things off the shelves and trying to take things from grandma's trolley.
NO NO NO! Yelled Boy. No Naughty Tiger, put that back. That's not yours!

And today Boy had to yell at Naughty Tiger again: No Naughty Tiger, NO! Don't drive your car on the footpath.
Mummy, I just had to tell Naughty Tiger not to run his car into that man on the footpath.**
Is he coming to the shops with us?
No! He's going that way. [shakes head]


*In point of fact, Boy has a magical car that will take him into space, but if you want to get to the moon or Mars or somewhere like that, you will need to take the helicopter. Der.

** Said man did look a bit worried about it all.

Babies are just all right for Boy

We were out to dinner when Boy handed down his verdict on girls.

Girl babies are just all right for me. But when they are little girls they are not all right for me.

Us (taken aback): Why?

They are just too distracting for me when I'm trying to do something.


One of our hosts noted that this was probably going to be a bigger problem for him as he gets older.

Backseat babbler

Boy (from the back seat of the car): No! No! No! No!

Me: What's wrong sweetie?

Boy:  Nothing's wrong. Why are you asking me if anything's wrong?

Me: You said No no no no no. I thought you were talking to me.

Boy: Nooooooo. One hand was just saying that to the other one.

Me: Oh. Right.

Boy: Now they are fighting.

Ninja strike

>>>This post contains no mention of Boy.*


I put a tired Justababy up on the bench so I could cook dinner. She enjoyed that. She also enjoyed dropping things over the edge.
Turns out she quite likes the sound of glass breaking, but isn't so keen on the vacuum.

Anyway, I decided to move her away from breakables to another end of the bench. All good.
I forgot the fruit bowl was right there.

The final score
Justababy: 5 (didn't get a shot of the nectarine she demolished, these ones were too hard you see)
Fruit: ..... will get their own back later

Can't wait till she gets molars! There'll be nothing to stop her then.



* Except that one

Down on the farm

Boy likes to play pretend. He has quite a vivid imagination. He also has a farm out in our backyard. He has sheep and cows and grows wheat.*

Daddy is currently trying to bring order to the chaos that is our backyard, er, farm, and part of that naturally involves shoving any potentially dangerous junk behind the shed.** Boy, however, objected to the idea of putting up barriers to stop him clambering over the junk pile.

Daddy: But there are spiders and sharp nails in there.
Boy: It's ok Daddy! The cows will chase away all the spiders and pull out all the nails.
Daddy: Errr, no, look....




*Actually he recently told his grandparents that he didn't keep animals, just grew food to feed his family. Tomatoes in fact. Which is sort of true.

** No, he can't just throw it away.

Boy's imaginarium

I'm not quite sure where Naughty Tiger* came from. But somehow he has become an important presence in Boy's life. Boy knows Naughty Tiger is imaginary, but.... he's also getting more and more real.

Just a little while back, Boy was pretty scathing of Grandma when she wanted to know what Naughty Tiger looked like - He's IM-AG-IN-ARY Grandma!

And now suddenly he's there - Right there, behind you! - and joining in on Boy's little adventures. The other day we took the train to visit Boy's second cousins. Naughty Tiger met us at the car park - See! There he is - having parked his car down a drain. Boy made him stay right there though, and wait for us, as he couldn't be trusted not to eat his cousins' toys.

Naughty Tiger is an electrician, like Boy's uncle. And he lives in Africa. In a 4-wheel drive. A magical, flying 4-wheel drive to be precise.

He has a friend who lives in a very scary place - it's called Savos Land and is on a hill. It's scary because of the trees that thump the ground.

His family includes Sific Tiger - we wrapped a christmas gift for him this year - and Nice Tiger and Cheeky Monkey.

Oh and we just had his birthday - and a meltdown that there was no cake for when he came over. He turned 1.

He's done quite a lot for a one year old.



*He's not actually naughty, that's just his name.