Never drew first but I drew first blood

Oh here we go....

We've just tipped into another classic phase of kiddie development that we were hoping, to be honest, would take a cupla more months to hit us.

He's mobile.
And exploring.

Using the patented and perfected Mike belly flop propulsion method (see movie below), he's now able to propel himself from one end of the (albeit admittedly small) house to the other in only matter of minutes. Or in the case of mothers group, from in front of mum to hiding behind a pram on the other side of the room in the time it takes to say:

"A dingoes got my baby!" (the standard aussie mums "lost baby" cry).

Arguably more of a worry was Mike's keenness to follow the other mum/owner of the pram out the door as she trundled off - apparently he was fascinated with the working of the bugaboo wheels and wasn't going to let such an engineering feat get away without a chase. (A clue to his future profession perhaps?)

Apart from pram wheels his other favourite and often returned-to investigations appear to be:

1. The crockery in the low cupboards
2. The phone books

For the former he gave himself one helluva shock when he managed to pull a set of bowls onto the floor with a humongous crash. (None broken.) So mum put them on the top shelf.

Which only gave her an arguably bigger shock when he was found STANDING UP supporting himself by clinging onto the shelf and grabbing at the bowls again, just prior to falling backwards (nice catch mum).

He was worryingly proud of himself.

For the latter, and in a somewhat bizarre obsession, the lad will happily flop halfway across the house to try and grab the phone books out of the bookcase and... start eating them. (a-la the "book muncher" advert on the teeve - though wasnt that before his time..?)

So far he's only devoured most of the government services section, and appears to have a slight preference for white over yellow pages.

Oh well,... we use the inner-net anyway. The newsprint-lipstick look is a bit of a worry though (don't tell the council nurse. Again).

The explorations, however, have recently taken on a decidedly Transylvanian aspect. Sure there's always been the odd chomp on mums shoulder when he really wants milk but is only getting carried about, but this time it was a little different.

Playing with dads face -as he does- he clearly mused to himself
"Whats up that thing?"
and hence shoved his index fingy clean up dads snoz.

Hooked it.
Stuck the fingernail into the septum.
And dragged down.

"We have claret..." yelped dad as he proceeded to bounce off into the bathroom with his nose pinched and head held back...

Finally, and a little off track but uncannily/arguably accurate...
Dad couldn't help himself slightly editing Sienfeld's interview on Enough Rope this week, and in particular the comments about being married {or in the edited version, having kids) and being single {kiddie free}...

JERRY SEINFELD: Um well to me the funny thing about {not having kids is}, see I had friends {with kids} and I wouldn’t visit them when I was {kid free} because I thought their life was so pathetically depressing.

LAUGHTER

JERRY SEINFELD: And then, now that {I've got kids} and I, I have {childless} friends and I feel I, I don’t really like to be with them now cos I find their lives trivial and meaningless.

LAUGHTER

(and here's the clincher...)
JERRY SEINFELD: And I think in both cases I was correct.

...and they reckon he talks about nothing.

Ok... Mikes flop-propulsion-technique instruction video...

Un Zud

We think the bird made it.

A week in the land of the long white cloud staying at his great-grandad Jacks place and Mike was a new man. Or at least a 3.3% older one, with a spanker of a cold/bird flu and mumbling new sounds (including mummm...mummm..mummmm...mummm, which we will interpret as "mum").

He's also learned forward propulsion.

Its not exactly a crawl though.

Remember back to the bad old days of the breakdancing 80's when those guys would lie down on their bellies and rock themselves back and forwards on their tum in such a way they'd head north? Well thats pretty much what Mike has mastered. More a lunge than a crawl, but it gets him to where he wants to be.

He'll be doing the moonwalk and "ladybug spinning on its back" before we know it.

New Zealand also meant catching up with his grandma, who hadn't seen him since he was a few days old, and meeting the new relatives from Thailand. Which was a boon for mum as the "team of Thai's" did a cracker of a job and gave mum much time off for good behaviour.

As did the waitresses at the Korean restaurant.

No "would you like a high chair" at this place. In the best Kiwi/Korean tradition, they whipped the boy off and played with him in a corner while mum tucked into the kimchee.

Asian culture. Its not all rice and whacking people with big sticks. Its Respect.

Mike also got to catch up with his "third" grandma - Katrina - and one of Mistress P's half sisters, who were all besotted with the lad. And even more so after they all went down to Bucklands Beach and had a windsurfing lesson - Mike included.

The corruption begins.

As one close friend who has paid for much of his sons windsurf addiction in ways not limited to financial warned us...

You'll be sorry! Get him into stamp collecting or bird
watching....

We couldn't do that to him Bernie. We've seen what birdwatching does to people.

As for the aforementioned bird... well as noted in the previous post Mike took great fascination in hunting down this little twittering creature, and hence it soon learned to live on the outside roof of its cage at the furthest point possible from this breakdancing bubster. Still it didn't stop Mike from opening the cage door and tipping the cage over at one stage. All very traumatic for tweety, who at last report was in therapy, but expected to make a full recovery.

The welcome home was magical. Waiting at the airport to collect them dad actually felt a little nervous - he'd never been away from the boy for more than 12 hours, let along over a week. As the doors slid open and mum emerged with boy strapped to her tum looking forward, dad said his customary Mike meeting call....

"Helllooowwwwww..."

Mike turned, looked at dad, smiled, stared, digested, then... did the biggest, cheesiest, overdone "I'm an actor in Neighbours/Home and Away" double take shake of the head including full eyes-wide-open gasp... and beamed.

A bloody heart melter.

(To all those that looked after the lad and made his first OS trip so memorable... A big big... Thank You.)

Mike goes All Black

Theres nothing sadder than waving goodbye to your boy and watch him slide off through the doors and into the unforgiving (and occasionally plastic gloved) arms of... Border Security.

Yep, this was Mikes first trip OS - off to the land of the long white cloud: New Zealand. And despite continued simmering tensions over the great under-arm incident of 1981 (well, Mikes dad was at the game after all), they let him in.

Off it was to great-grandad Jacks place - where grandma was also staying after jumping off her boat fresh from Fiji - and immediately all and sundry were captured by the boys smile. (Well, it is a killer after all.)

Unfortunately the speech training on the way to the airport...
"Can you say... g.r.e.a.t...g.r.a.n.d.a.d...J.A.C.K??"
...didnt quite appear to pay off.

The boy is certainly babbling something though, and making sounds we havent heard before but which do seem to be a little more than just squeaks and squeals. And it appears to make sense to him, or at least the grenadier guard teddy bear he's "talking" to.

(The response...
"Mmmm... realllly...."
from mum and dad appears to suffice as answers.)

So far Master M's favourite things about New Zealand appear to be:

• eating bananas (grandma was caught slipping him the odd contraband 'nana; heres hoping he doesn't get too, how do you say this politely, blocked up...)
  
• scooting around on the floor in his new and somewhat strange lunging/rolling action that now appears to be getting him wherever he wants to go... and attacking the budgie cage. (Mike appears to think the budgie is just another talking book thingy that'll make sounds if he bashes it enough. Mistress P is terrified the bird will have a heart attack by the time they leave. )

On the plus side of learning, the lad has had so many people waving at him that he has, apparently, learned how to wave back. Its pure bubby seduction.

On the negative side, he's learned that he hates stuff on his head, and more to the point, that he can do something about it.

Whereas just a cupla weeks ago he'd happily don his sunnies and hat and head off for a groovy and sun conscious stroll, now, and of course just as we're coming to summer, he's discovered he can rip his chinstrapped sunhat off his own head faster than you can say "heightened susceptibility to skin cancer".

Not to mention the millisecond that his sunnies now remain on face.

(We think the mumblings mentioned earlier sounded remarkably like Right Said Fred's "I'm too sexy for my hat" at one stage.)

Finally, and with a total lack of segue,...

When dad was a lad one of his favourite fillums (Blues Brothers) had a scene where Jake and Elwood met up with the Good Ole Boys, after stealing their gig at Bob's Country Bunker ("We play both kinds; Country and Western") and trying to con them that they were a Mr Stein from the musicians union. The dialogue went something like:

"Spose we aint got no union cards and we go in there and play anyway?
Now what you goin to do about that? Stein?
You goin' to look pretty funny trying to eat corn on the cob with no #$%& teeth!"

And its true.

Mike did look pretty funny eating corn on the cob with no (ok, 5 half thru) teeth : see pic above.

Smiley II

Postscript: Ahhh... bliss.

Not only did the boy go to bed without grizzles, but slept through to alarm time (and beyond) this morning AND self settled when he half woke in the night.

Ahhhhhh...

Mr Smiley

Teeth, teeth, teeth.

The boys sprouting them like they're going out of fashion. Almost as out of fashion as getting a good night sleep.

We're now up to five chompers - three up top and two down below - but the main casualty from all of this appears to be the nights. While the lad is all grins and guffaws during the waking hours, at night he's tending towards mega-pissed off with the whole teething caper and has taken, in the last few days at least, to a return to his newborn ways and is waking every few hours during the night.

Mum and dad are back to being the waken dead. And just slightly scared witless that he's setting a new pattern for himself.

This, of course, all coincided with the annual Melbourne Cup windsurf carnival down at Sandy Point, and hence a weekend away. And three others in the house trying to sleep.

Or four if you count Master Ms newest mate - Master A. Ok, so their relationship mostly consisted of the 9-months older Master A trying to bop Mike on the noggin with his feet, hand and/or toy box lid, but M didnt mind. They were mates.

(Its a guy thing.)

And being the Cup weekend, it was only fitting that Mike not only touch his first horse (a sandy quarterhorse in the paddocks behind town - in fact over the back fence from where mum&dad got hitched) but also ride his first nag.

So it was a hobbie horse and dad was holding on tight, but the lad had the hands and heels action going well enough to make his uncle, Punter J, proud. (Sorry J, we didn't notice if his whip-hand was right or left, so cant comment on his preference for the Sydney or Melbourne tracks. Yet.)

The weekend was also a chance to catch up with numerous windsurfy types, many of whom hadn't seen Mistress P (and for that matter Mike) since last season, when mum-to-be was wowing them with wicked turns on a virtual wave while Mike was still ensconced somewhere between the hip, hooters and harness hook.

As expected, Master M outdid himself, flirting with all the older women, getting pampered by the tweeny girls, and getting dubbed "Mr Smiley" by all and sundry.

And its true. He is Mr Smiley.

Even when getting hit on the head by a toy box lid.

Back home he was again putting the smile into action, and almost (...almost...) scored his first kiss!

While at mothers group (which dad still reckons is more akin to an outlaw bikie gang when it comes to mass pram takeovers of the local cafe's), Master M got up on his haunches (and no, he still cant crawl) and did the wobbly dog + smile to a slightly older miss who had learned to crawl.

Over she came to look.
And they faced off.
And he smiled.
And then they both did the big wide mouthy opening thing like they were about to slop on with a big cavernous Kel+Kath kiss...
...then both got cold feet and just slapped each other in the face a few times.

(Its a bikie gang mating ritual thing.)

The next week, though, is a biggy. Lets just say Mike now has his very own passport (valid till he is five and completely devoid of signature - someone kindly recommended a nappy stain would do but we politely declined) and isn't afraid to use it.

Lock up your women, wider world. Mikes comin'.

The good, the bad and the sideways

The week started badly.

Master M was having a few more teethy type troubles and hence he'd decided that sleeping during the night was clearly the main cause of this gummy shenanigans and hence he wasn't having any of it. Sleep that is. So he put his foot down.

Or rather, his voice box.

And hence every time we attempted to lay him to rest he'd awaken and scream his little lungs out. Which made it rather hard for anyone to get some sleep, let alone just a little relaxation. Kiddies panadol and sedegel did the trick to a degree, but the lad clearly was seeing a correlation between hurty teeth and cot and hence didn't want a bar of it.

Be it 9pm or 2am.

Then, just as quickly as it started it stopped. And he learnt something new into the bargain.

Not only did the boy suddenly go back into his normal dozy evenings and subsequent slumber through (most of) the night, but he also discovered that when you roll over in your sleep you can actually... and heres the tricky bit.... put your head sideways (instead of mouth straight down into non-breathable matteress) and keep sleeping!

Bwilliant!!!!

He's also taken a shine to a) daylight saving (i.e., he sleeps in and dad is now the first to wake up in the house); b) a Growsuit.

The Growsuit is more akin to a sleeping bag, and for some reason he quite likes it. Probably because as he wriggles out of his covers in the bed (and yes, we have no idea how he fails to crawl forward when he is awake, yet mysteriously levitates forward when asleep) he would get colder and colder, but a sleeping bag means his bedding comes along for the ride.

The week wasn't all sleep and teeth and bags though. The week also brought the longest period he had been out of mum or dads care in his entire six months of existence. A full afternoon and evening being looked after by his wanderlusting and birdwatching grandparents. And didn't he show off! Lots of smiles and games and tugging of the Santa clause beard. He was like a pig in poo.

Of course mum and dad were like nervous nellies, and hence wrote up a War-and-Peace-like tome of do's and dont's. A Master Mike user manual. (Can be found on the left hand side of this page, under "Mikes notes".) Which of course was barely needed and mostly served as an amusing read for uncle Jim between sections of the form guide.

Finally, Mike's also discovered two new favourites.

First, a new favourite song. We'd heard that a) little kiddies like rock, and b) little kiddies like moving black and white shapes (the colours on kiddies toys are mostly there to appeal to the parents - tru dinks). Hence when he watches The Hives "Hate to say I told you so" on dads laptop he's transfixed.

Which dad admits probably isn't on the World Health Organization approved viewing list and may well be scarring him for life, but hey... it keeps him off the streets.

He's also discovered rice cakes.

Yes, flavourless, calorie-less, cardboard-like rice cakes. (It must be the hippie blood in him.) Or more to the point, he has discovered feeding himself rice cakes. Which is all kinda amusing when he gets down to the last little bit, and, babies being only able to clutch and yet to learn about pinching things between thumb and forefinger, mean that he still cant work out how to eat that last bit of mushy cake thats trapped in his vice-like fist.

He can hang onto it for hours. (Well, maybe not hours.)

Which of course just means he's kept amused while mum and dad crawl about the floor recovering bits of half-chewed rice cake bits from a one metre radius.

Picking up after kids already.
Hate to say I told you so.