30/07/2007

No content was harmed in the making of this post.

We've had stomach bugs and several blackouts here over the last few days, so no posting (and even without those things Asher practices his burgeoning tantrum skills if I dare sit at the computer these days) so this is a content-free post. Instead of actually saying anything I'm going to suggest you check out the pics of Asher on Flickr and then head over to the OMSI playground (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) and make some flubber to play with as a much more tactile way to waste time than reading blogs (This link brought to you by Lifehacker).

20/07/2007

We're moving!

I haven't said much about this for fear of jinxing things, but finally the other party signed and contracts were exchanged on our new home today. We got the call at about 5pm that it had finally happened after we signed exactly two weeks ago. I won't say much about the place until we can get in and take photos except for the fact that it's a 3 bedroom unit in Cammeray. It's a bit dark inside, but has a really great south-east facing terrace and I'm really looking forward to having a larger living area and an extra bedroom (CLA! can come and stay). The complex has a pool too, which should be great over summer. Anyhow, we had pre-emptive champagne when we signed and now we just have to start planning to move when we settle in 10 weeks.

Clare is back!

The lovely Clare (or "CLA!" to Asher) is back, and while I realise I haven't mentioned here that she was going having her back is so exciting I need to post! Asher grinned and flailed his arms and legs about when he saw her, so he was obviously happy to see her too. She got back from the Students of Sustainability conference in Perth in the early hours of yesterday morning. Because I locked myself out of the house (again) she came over with spare keys to let me in and she is bubbling over with enthusiasm and ideas. This was her first big trip away without family - a group of Sydney students drove a bus over to Perth for the conference and camped the whole time, not bathing for the entire trip. Clare says they are all really great people and really inclusive, but I think the need for complete consensus for all decisions would get to me before we even got half-way across the Nullabor.

She was at a protest that got pretty full-on, with cops in riot gear using their truncheons and capsicum spray and arresting some of her chilled out hippy mates. She was careful enough not to get arrested, but hearing her stories brought back memories of when I used to do stuff like that. Her current obsessions are with the mining on indigenous land and sexual violence - I think. I'm really glad she's back safely and is going to come with us when we go to Canberra in early August (and I can't wait for the photos! She promised to put some up on Flickr).

In other news, Asher is now completely over his mystery illness and once more our happy boy and he cut his seventh tooth yesterday. He is still being fussy about food though - am I a bad mother for feeding him a slightly stale prawn cracker and half a banana for dinner? He wouldn't eat any of the vegetable pasta I prepared (or the other half of the banana)....

15/07/2007

Congratulations Bruce and Fiona Trickett!

The lovely Fiona married my dear friend Bruce on Friday. It was a lovely wedding, the bride looked stunning, the church was beautiful, the religious guy up front said really nice relevant things and then the reception at very special Trickett's guesthouse (where we spent our wedding night - a gift from Bruce!) was great fun with lots of dancing, lots of food and because it was not a sit-down event, lots of chance to chat to everyone.

Our gift to the new couple was to make wedding cupcakes for them. I discussed colours etc with Fiona beforehand but she basically let me have my head and do what I pleased. I'm sure there are 'proper' photographer-taken pics of their wedding cake, but just to introduce recipes and food chit-chat to this blog I thought I would post briefly about the process of making their wedding cupcakes here.


First we made the decorations (seeing as they last just fine). I coloured and rolled out prepackaged 'plastic' icing and used little letter cutters to cut out enough 'B's, 'F's for all 150 cupcakes and a few love hearts.







The next night we made 75 'Red Velvet' cupcakes using the family recipe of an American friend of mine (Thanks Kay!!!). The night after that (the night before the wedding) we made 75 regular cupcakes and one extra big cupcake (using a special waxed paper cake 'tin' from a specialty catering shop) to be the cake that gets romantically cut after the speeches.




On the morning of the wedding I made butter icing and iced all the cupcakes and topped them with a cute little 'F' or 'B' but by this time we were, unsurprisingly, running out of time (having told the bride that I would get the cupcakes there by 11:30 or so).


Fortunately Fran and Jim came to the rescue and picked up the cake boxes that I'd been unable to get in the few days beforehand because all my day time was taken up with a sick clingy baby. The cupcakes were delivered to the venue just after midday and they looked pretty good. They were by no means professional (although when we delivered them someone asked me if this is what I do for a living - very complimentary!) but the good thing about cupcakes is that they always look better in a big group* as small imperfections in icing or little bits of cake cooked on to the colourful papers seem to vanish with the overwhelming number of cute little cakes.


Here they are all pretty and set up at the venue. The other hundred or so are in big shiny white cake boxes somewhere cool and out of the way. Despite the bride asking for no love hearts I think they look appropriate and not too lovey-dovey. Next time I think doing something like this is a good idea can someone either beat me over the head with a mixing bowl until I change my mind. In fact, it wasn't too bad, and would have been fun and less stressful if Clare hadn't decided she needed to go to a conference (and therefore couldn't babysit and help out with Asher the few days beforehand) and if Asher hadn't been unwell and clingy for the whole week. Big thanks to Marg for looking after a grouchy baby the night of the wedding and to Sanjay for helping tirelessly with everything, despite not having any say in whether or not we took on this project.

09/07/2007

New tricks!


Bathtime
Originally uploaded by karmakeda
We have a perfect prompter for a general baby development update - today Asher took his first unaided step! But since he let go of my hands, stepped forward and immediately fell flat on his face I'm pretty sure this isn't the start of walking. Actually, he isn't showing that much interest in walking generally, although he likes pottering around the room kicking his balloon while keeping my fingers gripped tightly in each of his little fists.

His communication has come along in leaps and bounds recently - as well as waving goodbye when he wants to leave, or when he wants someone else to leave, he now hisses when he wants more of something (particularly food) and has a funny open-closed hand gesture to indicate when he's finished eating something. He did it the other day when he'd finished breastfeeding on one side and wanted the other one, which was really weird, although I can't pin down exactly why. He's making some new sounds ('la') and putting together proto-words a bit more and I also think that sometimes he says 'ta' when I hand something to him, but I'm not completely certain. Some of my family hate the 'ta' thing, far preferring a proper 'thank you' but with little kids I really don't care and having him say anything that is his version of thanking someone is just fine with me.

He still loves his bath, and when he's ready to get out he starts stacking up his bath toys on the side of the bath. Sanjay, who still does 99% of bath duty tells me he can only get the plug out when the bath is part empty, but he can put it in. After his bath Sanj puts his PJs on and there is a little more play before he gets put in his sleeping bag, has a breastfeed, a story book and then gets put to bed. He generally goes to bed without complaint now, and although we sometimes hear him singing to himself for a little while, he generally drifts off by himself and doesn't wake until a relatively civilized 7am-ish unless he's sick, cold or otherwise upset. Last week he slept til 7:30 and Sanj was late for work. Of course, it doesn't always work like that -on Sunday morning woke at around 4am and needed to be cuddled on the lounge for hours. Why did it have to be the morning after Sanj had been to a bucks night and I had been solving the worlds problems with my dad and several bottles of wine?

His day sleeps are all over the place. He seemed to be transitioning to one sleep a day, but has had two sleeps for the last few days. Perhaps the one sleep a day thing was just a hiccough or perhaps he needs a little extra sleep this week because he has a bit of a cold still/again. It seems that all the little ones I know have colds at the moment so I've resigned myself completely to wiping runny noses and dealing with a slightly 'off colour' child until the weather changes.

There probably won't be another update this week - I will be baking wedding cupcakes for the lovely Bruce and Fiona who are getting married this Friday. Wish me luck, because I'm definitely going to need it!

05/07/2007

Quick update

So, I didn't realise how addicted to our routine I was until Asher decided to change it! He's starting to not want two sleeps a day, and considering how poor I am at recognising his tired signs this makes it really hard for me to do anything without have a kid is is tired and grouchy. I'll use this as my excuse for recent lack of blog posting.


And so, as you can tell from the pic (or possibly your calendar!) it was Asher's first birthday last week. I meant to write a dooce-like letter to him here, but I feel so strapped for time at the moment. If he's awake I can't easily use the computer (or the phone for that matter) because he wants part of the action. Speaking of, there is a vacuum cleaner just started up outside in the stairwell and it seems to have woken the little guy up, so I'll go and get him and then we'll be off and out of the house. I'll try to post soon about all his new and cool tricks!