£20

Twenty pounds is ridiculously cheap for all the entertainment the Boy Wonder gave us today - he could have charged three times that sum and I'd have paid it happily. The weather was rather less amusing, it must be said, so R and I came up with a game plan that allowed us to have B out and about for much of the day (allowing his mother time to go to the gym and then do some work) without the three of us getting repeatedly drenched.

After the BW had grazed his way through several small breakfasts and helped us take in and put away the supermarket order, our first trip out was to the garden centre, where I wanted to buy some bird food. We also walked around the remains of the Christmas decoration display and admired all the lights and shiny things, and B found a humongous sequinned reindeer (who buys these things??) which he thought was quite impressive. As we were waiting by the till to pay for our purchases the heavens opened, and I feared that the game plan was about to fall apart, but R simply ran with the trolley at speed all the way from the garden centre to Coffee#1, with the Boy sitting in it, shrieking with laughter. I followed at a more sensible pace and got extremely wet, but was revived by coffee and a Danish pastry. B enjoyed his first babyccino of the day, with a chocolate chip cookie.

By the time we came out of the café the rain had more or less stopped, and  the Boy was able to noodle up and down the concourse for a while, checking out the best puddles. He no longer just stamps in puddles: these days he runs through them full-tilt, which caused me to think how big a difference there is between eighteen months and two years, in terms of attitude and confidence as much as physical ability. I have a photo of him travelling back towards me down this slope, in which there's only the toe of the left boot on the ground, his hair is blowing right back off his face, and he's wearing the expression of a boy who's about to take flight. Which, inevitably, is what eventually happened, but he landed on paving rather than in water, and though he agreed on being picked up that yes, he'd had a bit of a shock, he wasn't upset enough to cry about it, and walked back to the car quite happily, holding both grandparents' hands.

After B's lunch we went out again (devising a circuitous route to Stratford that was long enough to allow the Boy to nap in the car), and took him to the Butterfly Farm. R and I both had our doubts about this project - I've certainly seen enough children (and even a few adults) have screaming fits of the vapours in the flight room to know that it doesn't always go well - and we were prepared for the possibility that we'd be leaving again in short order if he was distressed by the proximity of flying insects. But after a period of insisting that R carried him, and being clearly taken aback when a butterfly would flutter close to his face or land on one of us, he got his head around the scenario and began to enjoy it. It probably helped that they have water in the largest room, flowing under bridges and down artificial rock faces into a large central pool with some big koi swimming lazily around in it: B is fascinated by flowing water, and by the time we left he was running around the building from one bridge to another, pushing past adults who were moving more slowly than he wanted to go (that's my boy!), and only pausing momentarily if a large butterfly fluttered across his path.

After the Butterfly Farm we walked across the Old Tramway Bridge into town, and went to Carluccio's for coffee and a second babyccino for B. This happened during the hiatus between the end of lunch service and the beginning of the evening rush, so the restaurant was quiet and the staff had time to make a huge fuss of the Boy Wonder. He enjoyed the second babyccino (which came dusted with chocolate) so much that he asked for another, and the only issue we had came when he got bored with that one half way through, and said he'd had enough. Given how kind the staff had been, I thought it was a bit rude for him to leave it, so I said, "If you don't want any more, may I drink it please?" and (assuming a positive response before I'd actually received one) took a mouthful. The boy was outraged. "MINE!!" he roared, and indicated with a furious gesture that I should return the milk to the cup. I apologised, but explained that I couldn't put it back because I'd already swallowed it, at which point the face crumpled, the lip came out, and tears of rage flowed freely. I was distinctly persona non grata for a couple of minutes, but he allowed R to soothe him, and then ran happily off to say goodbye to the waiters and exchange handshakes, high-fives and fist bumps - by the end of which he'd forgotten all about my solecism.

He then trundled around the Bancroft Gardens for a while, with R and me simply tracking him and heading him off any time he got too close to the edge of the Basin, before stomping over the lock bridge, and back across the Old Tramway to the car park. Back at home we had time for an hour's indoor play before dinner, then more play, bath time, and bed.

At times today the little man has put me strongly in mind of the Duracell Bunny. My own batteries, I fear, may have reached the point at which mpb would describe them as having "poor recharge performance", and it's possible that I'll be spending a good part of next week horizontal.