Pushed

Today was a bit of a red-letter day, as R and I made our first trip to Wales in over eight months. We managed to get there early enough to have some time with the Baby Brother before going off to fetch the Boy Wonder from nursery school, but for the first few minutes of the visit Grandson Two looked at us as if we were staging a home invasion, and we thought we might have to beat a hasty retreat. Luckily he decided on mature reflection not to scream the place down, and eventually warmed up enough to show me his new party trick, which is waving. I clapped my hands, and he looked bemused, because obviously that isn't how waving is done. But it is how banging flat surfaces is done, and when he realised that he could combine waving with banging by smacking his hand down onto mine, he was delighted. I nodded enthusiastically through all this, to show my approval, and after a few minutes he started - carefully - nodding back at me. I was surprised to hear that this was the first time he'd ever demonstrated nodding, but pleased to realise that I'd helped him achieve another new skill.

The Boy was very happy to be collected from school by us, which was charming, and kept up a breathless stream-of-consciousness chatter all the way back home. After lunch we suggested a trip to the playground, and he happily reintroduced us to all the usual activities - while scorning the notion that he might still need grandparental help going up the ladder onto the climbing frame, or getting on and off the rope roundabout. He's a very inventive child, and made up an extremely complicated game on the climbing frame, which he informed us was a machine for "recycling" potatoes, with all the different elements having particular functions in terms of cleaning and sorting.

Later, at the café, while B was drinking a babyccino and sharing a flapjack with R, we asked him if it was true that a dentist had come to his school that morning, and he said it was. "Did the dentist examine your teeth?" said R. "No," said the Boy. "They project them." R and I exchanged a glance, semaphoring bemusement with our eyebrows. "Protect...?" said R. "Do they put something on them to protect them...?" "No - PROJECT," said B. "How do they project them?" "With a mirror. And some orange stuff." "Ah," said R. "Disclosing stuff. Do they paint it on?" "It's like toothpaste," said B, "but it isn't toothpaste, and then they use a mirror and project them." "And what did the dentist say about your teeth?" enquired R. "Did he say there were bits that needed extra brushing?" "No," came the matter-of-fact reply. "He said they were fabulous."

Shortly after this the flapjack's sugar content sent the Boy so feral, we had to let him rampage around the shrubbery for quarter of an hour before coaxing him into the pushchair and taking him home. I can only hope that his teeth are still fabulous the next time the school dentist comes to call.