When my grandmother was alive she used to love reading the births, deaths and marriages section of the newspaper. She used to read out loud any notices that really caught her eye and used to call the section of the paper 'hatch, match and dispatch' which I thought was hilarious when I was a little girl. Someone speaking so irreverently of Such Important Things! Imagine! Anyhow, today I'm doing my own little notices section here.
The Birth: The most recent baby to arrive in my circle of friends is the long-awaited Otto. He was born on the 14th of November after what sounds to have been a really tough labour. I really wish his parents were still in Sydney rather than in Dunoon so I could smell him, but his daddy's blog is as close as I can get at the moment.
The Marriage: Yesterday, we went to what we thought was going to be a housewarming for our dear friends Niki and Ryan but it turned out to be a surprise wedding! It was one of the loveliest weddings I've been to - relatively small and, since it was disguised as a housewarming, it was in the garden of the couples lovely house. They just looked so happy! (for photos click on the Flickr link in the sidebar).
The Death: Well, it isn't much of a death really, but here at Palais du Chhabra we're really happy about the end of the Howard government. It's looking like The Greens didn't do quite as well as I'd hoped (a landslide victory in both upper and lower house) but given the situation in Australia at the moment the result is pretty much as good as can be expected. We now get the joy of watching the Liberal party implode in the vacuum left by John Howard. Check out the Political Compass if you're still feeling the post-election glow and don't know what else to do with yourself for five minutes.
26/11/2007
18/11/2007
A photo at last
The irony of finding my camera but not being able to find the battery charger is almost too much. The camera had a tiny bit of juice so we took it when we tried Asher in the apartment block's pool and spa. He preferred the spa because it was warmer, but I think he liked all of it.
I think I've decided to upgrade from our very old Canon PowerShot S45 though, since it really is about to fall apart (the screws that hold it together are slowly dropping out, among other problems). I want a point-and-shoot rather than an dSLR and the Canon PowerShot A720 IS looks like it'll do what we want it to do pretty well, without being too expensive (we love our mortgage, we really do).
Three things:
I felt kind of ashamed of how bitter I felt earlier this week. We met up with one of the mothers from our original 'New Parents Group' Organised by the Early Childhood Health Centre. She has just had her second baby so she had one little girl who is 18 months old (in daycare when we met up) and one 10 day old baby girl. She was telling us how easy her second baby was, how the little girl just slept for three hours at a time and how easy it was for her to go to the gym because…. At that point there was the sound of our collective jaws dropping because not only was this woman out in public, wearing proper clothes and makeup, at ten days post-partum but, just like with her first baby, she had ALREADY BEEN BACK TO THE GYM (after a vaginal delivery). I think all of us felt a strange mixture of jealousy, bitterness and a strange smugness. I'm not sure where the smugness came from, perhaps we felt like she was missing some parenting rite of passage? Maybe it was like that wistful feeling you get when you feel that 'kids these days' have it so much easier with their mobile phones and internet and never having to walk to school in the snow, up hill, both ways…..
I also discovered something much nicer, yet possibly also more scary. Asher is a water baby! A few of us went to the beach on Friday afternoon and the kids were pottering about playing in the sand and we were sitting on our rug chatting and watching them. Asher and one of his best little mates started to head toward the water and as I was starting to get up to follow the other mum told me that her little boy always stopped at the very edge so I paused and watched as Asher, ignoring the other little guy who did stop kept walking into the warm calm water until a tiny wave and the uneven sand conspired to trip him and he landed on all fours. I was racing the few metres down the beach by this point to rescue my 'little darling' who was completely calm and desperate to get back in the water when I hauled him out (hey, I thought he was going to need me to comfort him). Anyhow, he spent the next hour naked just walking around in the shallows holding my hand, pointing to and exclaiming over the water, the sand, twigs and leaves, litter, our shadows, lumps and dips in the sand and our own toes, under water and half buried in sand. It was absolutely delightful and he sleep like a log afterwards, but his complete lack of fear means that I am going to have to be beyond hyper vigilant over summer when we are anywhere near water. I might try him out in our pool tomorrow (our block of apartments has a pool - photos later, when I have a camera).
In other news - our outdoor table was delivered today. Apart from our qualms about the likelihood of it being made of Indonesian rainforest, we really love it. It will easily seat eight, the chairs are pretty comfy and its raw teak and smells just wonderful. Thank goodness we can eat outside now (the old table was plastic, and it's legs were so dodgy it would wobble every time you tried to use cutlery. Happiness! (Except no photos because I still don't have a Camera. I want a point-and-shoot digital for less that AUD$700 which gives me really good image quality, minimal lag between pressing the shutter button and the picture being taken, the ability to use manual controls and a decent optical zoom - any ideas?)
I also discovered something much nicer, yet possibly also more scary. Asher is a water baby! A few of us went to the beach on Friday afternoon and the kids were pottering about playing in the sand and we were sitting on our rug chatting and watching them. Asher and one of his best little mates started to head toward the water and as I was starting to get up to follow the other mum told me that her little boy always stopped at the very edge so I paused and watched as Asher, ignoring the other little guy who did stop kept walking into the warm calm water until a tiny wave and the uneven sand conspired to trip him and he landed on all fours. I was racing the few metres down the beach by this point to rescue my 'little darling' who was completely calm and desperate to get back in the water when I hauled him out (hey, I thought he was going to need me to comfort him). Anyhow, he spent the next hour naked just walking around in the shallows holding my hand, pointing to and exclaiming over the water, the sand, twigs and leaves, litter, our shadows, lumps and dips in the sand and our own toes, under water and half buried in sand. It was absolutely delightful and he sleep like a log afterwards, but his complete lack of fear means that I am going to have to be beyond hyper vigilant over summer when we are anywhere near water. I might try him out in our pool tomorrow (our block of apartments has a pool - photos later, when I have a camera).
In other news - our outdoor table was delivered today. Apart from our qualms about the likelihood of it being made of Indonesian rainforest, we really love it. It will easily seat eight, the chairs are pretty comfy and its raw teak and smells just wonderful. Thank goodness we can eat outside now (the old table was plastic, and it's legs were so dodgy it would wobble every time you tried to use cutlery. Happiness! (Except no photos because I still don't have a Camera. I want a point-and-shoot digital for less that AUD$700 which gives me really good image quality, minimal lag between pressing the shutter button and the picture being taken, the ability to use manual controls and a decent optical zoom - any ideas?)
05/11/2007
Camera - still no pictures
Yay! I got my camera battery charger back! Boo! I can't find my camera in the midst of all the half unpacked boxes. I'm slightly nervous because I haven't seen it since we moved, but it must be around here somewhere. I'm going to look for it tonight because I want to take some pictures tomorrow - a few other mothers are coming around with their kids to watch the most overrated horse race of the year and I'd love to be able to take a snap or two.
BTW how long do I have to lose it for before I get to buy a new camera? What if I tell you it's on it's last legs - the sliding lens cover which turns the power on and off is really loose and feels like it's about to fall off and the camera is almost five years old....
BTW how long do I have to lose it for before I get to buy a new camera? What if I tell you it's on it's last legs - the sliding lens cover which turns the power on and off is really loose and feels like it's about to fall off and the camera is almost five years old....
02/11/2007
We've Moved
I've been waiting to post until I could include a pic or two of the new place but I left my camera battery charger at Sanjay's parents house on the day of the Mundan and my camera has no juice left, so I'll have to settle for a picture of the packing.
The move went as well as could be expected, considering we weren't really packed up properly. The movers came at 2pm on Friday and finished at 9pm and we did 8-10 car loads over the weekend. I had some wonderful friends looking after Asher on Friday afternoon and my mother was around for much of the afternoon ferrying people where they needed to be, keeping us fed and calm and helping out with Asher for the bedtime routine while Sanjay was back at the old place helping the removalists get the second load on the truck.
Asher was just amazing. I credit his general amazingness and also our repeated conversations about how 'mummy and daddy and Asher and all our things were all going together to the new house' but we also worked hard to keep the routine as normal as possible, just in a different location. Our little boy who has never slept at all well outside his own cot in his own room has had no sleep disturbance and he has not been any clingy-er or less cheerful than usual. Although the little guy doesn't say that much he certainly understands a lot!
I think perhaps I'm having the hardest time of any of us with the settling in. I have the shits that everything is everywhere, that I can't find things, that home smells so different, that the new dishwasher doesn't clean as well as the old one, that despite living almost on the ground floor I'm still struggling with the pram and the groceries when I get home, that I feel like I'm getting no help with getting unpacked and organised (Duh! Sanjay is at work during the day and can't help Keda!), that we've got so much to do to make the place ours and the list goes on. I realise that these are all pretty petty complaints but added together they seem almost overwhelming to me at the moment. I suspect I'm far more a creature of routine than I like to think I am. I'll update next week with how I'm feeling about it all once we've had a weekend together to get a bit more settled - I expect things will be a little more positive by then.
The move went as well as could be expected, considering we weren't really packed up properly. The movers came at 2pm on Friday and finished at 9pm and we did 8-10 car loads over the weekend. I had some wonderful friends looking after Asher on Friday afternoon and my mother was around for much of the afternoon ferrying people where they needed to be, keeping us fed and calm and helping out with Asher for the bedtime routine while Sanjay was back at the old place helping the removalists get the second load on the truck.
Asher was just amazing. I credit his general amazingness and also our repeated conversations about how 'mummy and daddy and Asher and all our things were all going together to the new house' but we also worked hard to keep the routine as normal as possible, just in a different location. Our little boy who has never slept at all well outside his own cot in his own room has had no sleep disturbance and he has not been any clingy-er or less cheerful than usual. Although the little guy doesn't say that much he certainly understands a lot!
I think perhaps I'm having the hardest time of any of us with the settling in. I have the shits that everything is everywhere, that I can't find things, that home smells so different, that the new dishwasher doesn't clean as well as the old one, that despite living almost on the ground floor I'm still struggling with the pram and the groceries when I get home, that I feel like I'm getting no help with getting unpacked and organised (Duh! Sanjay is at work during the day and can't help Keda!), that we've got so much to do to make the place ours and the list goes on. I realise that these are all pretty petty complaints but added together they seem almost overwhelming to me at the moment. I suspect I'm far more a creature of routine than I like to think I am. I'll update next week with how I'm feeling about it all once we've had a weekend together to get a bit more settled - I expect things will be a little more positive by then.
23/10/2007
Not a baby anymore
On Sunday when he had his Mundan saṃskāra Asher officially left behind his baby self. The wonderful Rami (The same pundit who officiated our wedding. He has his own website if you want to know more) explained to us that this was the beginning of his spiritual life and the official end of babyhood. It was a lovely ceremony, Asher was amazingly calm and good (which I attribute to Pundit-ji's chanting) and afterwards we ate great food from Billu's catering and chatted while kids ran around and pestered their parents to be allowed in the pool. I think that as far as these big Indian parties go it was fun, and everyone seemed to be having a reasonably good time. There will be photos up on Flickr in a day or two.The actual hair removal happened after the ceremony - Tim used Elia's clippers to give Asher a 'Number 1' but the lack of sleep, heat and scary buzzing was a bit to much for Asher by that point so the haircut's a bit patchy. I'm going to drop into my hairdresser this afternoon and see if we can't smooth it out a bit - we don't want the little guy looking like he has mange!
He does look quite different now though - less like a little Martin child, like me at the same age, and more like a Chhabra. His head is larger than I thought it was and his jaw is somehow fuller. At first he felt a bit like a stranger and I think it's going to take me a few more days to get used to. * * * * *
Tomorrow we get the keys to our new house. I would say that posting here is going to be patchy until we settle in but it's already so patchy that I can't see anyone even noticing. I'll let you know what I think of the new place once we've moved.
15/10/2007
The kindness of strangers
Today is Blog Action Day and unfortunately I don't have the energy to get serious writing about an environmental issue. When I've got so much else on my mind (Asher's Mundan, parental birthdays, moving house, not to mention the election) I don't have anything left over for the bigger issues (but please, reduce, reuse and recycle while thinking globally and acting locally) so I want to take this chance to thank some people that I've been meaning to thank for ages now.
'Trail angels' are those who help people when they are walking a trail. This help is unexpected but greatly needed and I believe the consensus is that 'you know one when you meet one'. I heard the term first referring to the Papua New Guinean 'Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels' who helped Australian soldiers on the Kakoda Trail during WWII but I have since learned that long distance hikers often refer to unexpected helpers as trail angels (Google yields results). Since I've been travelling on public transport with Asher I've met my fair share of Public Transport Angels.
Today was a perfect example - on my way into the city to meet Bindy for coffee with a fairly grouchy and recalcitrant child a guy helped me lift the stroller onto the bus. It took him a few seconds and not so much physical effort but it saved me getting Asher out of the stroller and convincing him to stand and hold onto me while I packed up and then carried toddler, bag and stroller onto the bus. Help on and off the bus is great, and I don't think people realise how grateful I am when it happens but I've also had people entertain Asher when he and I are both tired and over it, a friendly but scary looking guy with tattoos help me carry the pram down flights of steps when the lifts were out of order at Central Station and on one notable occasion I've two very kind Islander women help me get Asher in the sling when he was very sick and I was debating getting off the bus as we passed Royal North Shore Hospital (they did fret about him being cold and tried to get me to put more clothes on him).
So next time you see someone struggling with a pram or hear a child complaining loudly on public transport instead of silently hoping that they will get out of your way and keep quiet please, if you can, offer your commiserations and ask the parent or carer what you can do to help - you may just make someone's day.
'Trail angels' are those who help people when they are walking a trail. This help is unexpected but greatly needed and I believe the consensus is that 'you know one when you meet one'. I heard the term first referring to the Papua New Guinean 'Fuzzy Wuzzy Angels' who helped Australian soldiers on the Kakoda Trail during WWII but I have since learned that long distance hikers often refer to unexpected helpers as trail angels (Google yields results). Since I've been travelling on public transport with Asher I've met my fair share of Public Transport Angels.
Today was a perfect example - on my way into the city to meet Bindy for coffee with a fairly grouchy and recalcitrant child a guy helped me lift the stroller onto the bus. It took him a few seconds and not so much physical effort but it saved me getting Asher out of the stroller and convincing him to stand and hold onto me while I packed up and then carried toddler, bag and stroller onto the bus. Help on and off the bus is great, and I don't think people realise how grateful I am when it happens but I've also had people entertain Asher when he and I are both tired and over it, a friendly but scary looking guy with tattoos help me carry the pram down flights of steps when the lifts were out of order at Central Station and on one notable occasion I've two very kind Islander women help me get Asher in the sling when he was very sick and I was debating getting off the bus as we passed Royal North Shore Hospital (they did fret about him being cold and tried to get me to put more clothes on him).
So next time you see someone struggling with a pram or hear a child complaining loudly on public transport instead of silently hoping that they will get out of your way and keep quiet please, if you can, offer your commiserations and ask the parent or carer what you can do to help - you may just make someone's day.
08/10/2007
Blog Anniversary!
Well, the anniversary itself was actually a few days ago, and considering my tardiness generally with this blog, I think that five days late is perfectly acceptable as 'on-time'.
I was lying on the couch a few minutes ago (feeling terrible - I'm coming down with something that feels like the Black Death. I hope Asher doesn't get it from me), and wanting to get up and blog but only having an amorphous swirl of ideas of exactly what I wanted to write about, when I started wondering why I bothered writing here at all. Now, although that sounds like a terribly melodramatic and depressive thing to think it actually wasn't, because I recognise that I get something out of blogging but I'm really not sure what. Anyhow, I thought drag myself from the couch to the computer and check when the anniversary of the blog was so that I could craft an excellent 'what I've learned from blogging' type post, but since I'm already late I'll just cobble something together as usual, and probably go to sleep tonight thinking of ways it could have been a better post.
I guess the first and most wanky benefit of the whole blogging thing for me is that I'm slowly, slowly, finding a voice. Since high school some time I've believed I'm a poor writer and although that hasn't gone away I feel a little more confident about getting my ideas across. I wouldn't have been able to start writing if I didn't have Asher to write about - I didn't start this to muse and ponder, just to record the little guy's developmental milestones and perhaps my state of mind, in lieu of a baby book. A budding confidence in writing is a happy side effect.
Ironically, I also have told barely anyone about the blog. In a burst of enthusiasm I told a few 'internet friends' (and IRL friends who I see more of inside the computer than out these days) and Emma and Brendan, because they were away for an extended period of time and writing their own blog, so I thought I could keep in touch and still maintain my record as worst long-distance friend (which reminds me, I should 'fess up to the Irish Cousin about the blog!) but I haven't told my family or anyone else and I avoid mentioning it in front of people (er, not that there's much to mention!). So for all intents and purposes I have no readers, and I can't work out whether this helps me to feel more freedom when I write, or whether it is the overwhelming contributor to my extreme slackness in posting. Perhaps I should open up a bit now? Perhaps I'm concerned that my lackadaisical attitude to posting will irritate or disappoint? Why should I care?
On a completely different note I've also discovered that having a separate blog for dealing with food, wine and cooking is absolutely pointless, so any further discussion on such matters will be posted here. I'll also try and post Asher development updates more regularly - all about Asher's growing vocabulary coming soon!
Sanjay is in the kitchen. He's bathed Asher, read bedtime stories, and put him to bed and has just cooked me dinner - I'll sign off for now, with a small self-congratulatory grin. I'll eat my dinner, watch some TV and worry about how I'm going to look after Asher tomorrow if my headache, aching muscles and oversensitive skin turn into the flu they are threatening.
I was lying on the couch a few minutes ago (feeling terrible - I'm coming down with something that feels like the Black Death. I hope Asher doesn't get it from me), and wanting to get up and blog but only having an amorphous swirl of ideas of exactly what I wanted to write about, when I started wondering why I bothered writing here at all. Now, although that sounds like a terribly melodramatic and depressive thing to think it actually wasn't, because I recognise that I get something out of blogging but I'm really not sure what. Anyhow, I thought drag myself from the couch to the computer and check when the anniversary of the blog was so that I could craft an excellent 'what I've learned from blogging' type post, but since I'm already late I'll just cobble something together as usual, and probably go to sleep tonight thinking of ways it could have been a better post.
I guess the first and most wanky benefit of the whole blogging thing for me is that I'm slowly, slowly, finding a voice. Since high school some time I've believed I'm a poor writer and although that hasn't gone away I feel a little more confident about getting my ideas across. I wouldn't have been able to start writing if I didn't have Asher to write about - I didn't start this to muse and ponder, just to record the little guy's developmental milestones and perhaps my state of mind, in lieu of a baby book. A budding confidence in writing is a happy side effect.
Ironically, I also have told barely anyone about the blog. In a burst of enthusiasm I told a few 'internet friends' (and IRL friends who I see more of inside the computer than out these days) and Emma and Brendan, because they were away for an extended period of time and writing their own blog, so I thought I could keep in touch and still maintain my record as worst long-distance friend (which reminds me, I should 'fess up to the Irish Cousin about the blog!) but I haven't told my family or anyone else and I avoid mentioning it in front of people (er, not that there's much to mention!). So for all intents and purposes I have no readers, and I can't work out whether this helps me to feel more freedom when I write, or whether it is the overwhelming contributor to my extreme slackness in posting. Perhaps I should open up a bit now? Perhaps I'm concerned that my lackadaisical attitude to posting will irritate or disappoint? Why should I care?
On a completely different note I've also discovered that having a separate blog for dealing with food, wine and cooking is absolutely pointless, so any further discussion on such matters will be posted here. I'll also try and post Asher development updates more regularly - all about Asher's growing vocabulary coming soon!
Sanjay is in the kitchen. He's bathed Asher, read bedtime stories, and put him to bed and has just cooked me dinner - I'll sign off for now, with a small self-congratulatory grin. I'll eat my dinner, watch some TV and worry about how I'm going to look after Asher tomorrow if my headache, aching muscles and oversensitive skin turn into the flu they are threatening.
03/10/2007
Bad to the bone!
My child is just like a two foot high redneck travelling somewhere exotic. He complains about the food, he whinges at his tour guide and when I don't understand him he just says the same thing, but louder and louder until, in a burst of parental telepathy I work out what he wants or he dissolves into another tantrum.
At least he's cute. Really really cute.
At least he's cute. Really really cute.
01/10/2007
In the interests of not letting this blog die of neglect...
...I'm just going to mention how much I hate school holidays! I always thought that school holidays only affected parents of school aged children (except for the decrease in traffic and lack of obnoxious high schoolers on public transport int he afternoons) but the affects seem to be much more far reaching than that. Most of the playgroups seem to shut down during school holidays, so the normal pattern of our week is interrupted. The zoo, the indoor playcentres and other fun places to take little kids are really busy and unpleasant because Asher and his little friends practically get trampled by the 'big kids' who are on holidays from their preschools and kindergartens.
We still go to the park or for a coffee in the early mornings (we often leave home at the same time as Sanjay to minimise the opportunity for tantrums) and we still meet up with the baby club gang on Thursdays but we miss our favourite Tuesday afternoon TAFE playgroup.
At least this holiday is only two weeks, and hopefully Clare will come and hang out with us a bit while she doesn't have classes. I wonder what other parents of toddlers think of school holidays? What are the favourite distractions for really little kids that don't involve extra crowds?
We still go to the park or for a coffee in the early mornings (we often leave home at the same time as Sanjay to minimise the opportunity for tantrums) and we still meet up with the baby club gang on Thursdays but we miss our favourite Tuesday afternoon TAFE playgroup.
At least this holiday is only two weeks, and hopefully Clare will come and hang out with us a bit while she doesn't have classes. I wonder what other parents of toddlers think of school holidays? What are the favourite distractions for really little kids that don't involve extra crowds?
24/09/2007
Long time no post!
Well, here we are again, with me wishing that I'd been posting updates regularly, because Asher is growing and changing so fast that I can hardly keep up with the things he can do today that he couldn't do yesterday. He's walking relatively confidently now and yesterday we went and purchased his first pair of 'big boy' shoes. What I mean by that is shoes that are actually designed for someone bipedal, that might protect from a sharp stick or a small piece of broken glass. This whole footwear issue is going to just get more and more expensive I suspect - we got sandals for him for half price and they were still $30 and not particularly fancy.
Enough about the shoes Keda!!! The huge leap we have had in the last few weeks is actually with language. It's interesting that the walking and the language are happening at the same time and I suspect it's one of those development things, and not co-incidental. When we are out and about now Asher will spot a bird, either flying or perched on something, point to it and say "bird!" and while his pronunciation is frankly hilarious he's very proud of being able to name something. He plane-spots too, but when he sees an aeroplane he just says "there!" (more like "dare" really) to let me know that he's seen something, but he knows it's not a bird. I wish I had the energy to teach him a few more signs at the moment because I think he'd be really receptive to them, and very happy about being able to communicate more clearly. I want to do a post concentrating on his language development soon, but I'm not too confident that I'll get around to it.
The other very major thing that's happened over the last week is that he's now completely weaned - no more breastfeeding. The last breastfeed was over a week ago and it's been really easy. He was only having one feed a day, just before his nap, and it seems that he doesn't need a milk feed to get in the right frame of mind for sleep. I put the wonderful Milk Bar pillow away in the cupboard so Asher didn't get have a reminder or an easy way to tell me he wanted a breastfeed and the whole process has been really easy. We've also completed the transition to one sleep per day and, surprisingly, Asher has decided that the car seat and his pram are now acceptable places to fall asleep - and he's OK to be transferred into bed! The child never fails to surprise me!
It's now 8:30pm and I haven't had dinner. I'm so hungry I can't think straight so I'll post this now and try to be better about posting more frequently in future!
09/09/2007
My life's work
For my school's 50 year anniversary I was asked, along with everyone else who ever went to the school, to put together a little blurb about what we "do in the world" now and what we got from the school along with a picture from then and one from now. As I was writing I was overcome with the depressing feeling that what I'm doing looks insignificant and incredibly boring. Despite paying lip service to rights of women to choose whether they worked outside or inside the home, I remember feeling scathing about women who gave up work when they had their kids. I felt like they were taking the easy way and although the work of bringing up children was important it also rotted ones brain and made one insular and concerned only with ones immediate environment. I think I have internalised my anti-full-time-mother stance - as I was writing I kept wanting to defend and justify by talking up the work that I used to do before I became a mother. I wanted to let people know that I used to be well paid and well thought of in the work that I did. This is not the first time I've felt negatively judged or wanted to let people know that I wasn't always 'just a mum' but this is the first time that my internalised mum-a-phobia has been this clear to myself.
I'm not sure where I want to go with this, but I suspect it's time for me to re-read Alison Osbourne's book 'The Post-Baby Conversation' to try and sort through a few things. I wonder what else is on the reading list for the course on cutting oneself a bit of slack?
I'm not sure where I want to go with this, but I suspect it's time for me to re-read Alison Osbourne's book 'The Post-Baby Conversation' to try and sort through a few things. I wonder what else is on the reading list for the course on cutting oneself a bit of slack?
19/08/2007
Toddlerdom development update
Asher is learning and growing every day, and it still amazes me. His walking, in the space of a week, has gone from a few tentative steps most days to suddenly wanting to walk everywhere. Almost whenever he wants to go somewhere no he takes off walking and then after 1 or 5 steps he either reaches his goal or falls to the floor and crawls. My friend K said her daughter A used to do the opposite - stand looking at her objective and calculating whether it would be easier and faster to walk or crawl.
His language development has also come along in the last two weeks. He understands quite a lot of what we say. He finds my nose when requested, can generally point to his ball or his truck (and in fact the other day at the park I wanted to pack up and started muttering "where's your green ball Asher" and he pointed it out to me). He has a sign for "more" which he uses whenever he's hungry (he thinks it means "Food! Now!") and requests various songs by using their actions. He's also just taken to using the imperial point and saying "dat!" and I try to name the things he points at for him. I think he's really thrilled about being able to communicate with us.
He's also obsessed by technology - particularly the phone (which he calls 'Gah!' - I thinks it's from me walking into the room saying "Gah! He's got my phone again"). He holds the phone up to his ear and makes a word that liberally interpreted could be understood as hello. He will also feel around on the table above his head to find the computer mouse and the other day he pushed his little chair over to the table to get at both my phone and the mouse. It was so cute I had to photograph it:
Now he's awake, so I have to turn the moniter off before Sanjay gets him out of bed (he's pretty much transitioned to one sleep per day) but despite how relentless his little demands are, I just love him!
His language development has also come along in the last two weeks. He understands quite a lot of what we say. He finds my nose when requested, can generally point to his ball or his truck (and in fact the other day at the park I wanted to pack up and started muttering "where's your green ball Asher" and he pointed it out to me). He has a sign for "more" which he uses whenever he's hungry (he thinks it means "Food! Now!") and requests various songs by using their actions. He's also just taken to using the imperial point and saying "dat!" and I try to name the things he points at for him. I think he's really thrilled about being able to communicate with us.
He's also obsessed by technology - particularly the phone (which he calls 'Gah!' - I thinks it's from me walking into the room saying "Gah! He's got my phone again"). He holds the phone up to his ear and makes a word that liberally interpreted could be understood as hello. He will also feel around on the table above his head to find the computer mouse and the other day he pushed his little chair over to the table to get at both my phone and the mouse. It was so cute I had to photograph it:
Now he's awake, so I have to turn the moniter off before Sanjay gets him out of bed (he's pretty much transitioned to one sleep per day) but despite how relentless his little demands are, I just love him!
14/08/2007
Welcome toddlerdom
Well, the little dude has just started walking. He took his first few steps on Thursday afternoon and then walked several times on the weekend, including once in front of several people, so I know I'm not imagining it. It's very cute, and timely, at 13-and-a-half months although he still crawls faster than almost* any of the other babies can walk.
Apart from that news it's pretty quiet around here, but in that quiet-before-the-storm kind of way. We'll be moving late September which will be the biggest upheaval since Asher arrived in our lives and I'm not looking forward to it. We packed a few boxes of rarely-used kitchen stuff on the weekend just to test the waters and now I'm dreading it more than ever. But once it's all over it will be nice to have a bit more space. Has anyone got any tips for moving house with kids?
* Baby Miles is lovely, and walked at 7.5 months, so has been running quite confidently for quite a while now.
Apart from that news it's pretty quiet around here, but in that quiet-before-the-storm kind of way. We'll be moving late September which will be the biggest upheaval since Asher arrived in our lives and I'm not looking forward to it. We packed a few boxes of rarely-used kitchen stuff on the weekend just to test the waters and now I'm dreading it more than ever. But once it's all over it will be nice to have a bit more space. Has anyone got any tips for moving house with kids?
* Baby Miles is lovely, and walked at 7.5 months, so has been running quite confidently for quite a while now.
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)....
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.
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!
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!
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!
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!
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