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