Or at least number 41 anyway.
While the rest of the free world was celebrating xmas and taking the traditional January holiday to the beach, Mike was sick. Fully sick.
First a cold, then a virus (arguably picked up from dad, or at least the same xmas party that dad infused it from) and then to rub salt into the gums, teething. Roll that into one big snotty ball and you have - misery.
Slow wailing, moaning crawls from one end of the house to the other, in search of mums (rarely dads) legs to cling to until she lifted him onto her shoulder for a cuddle.
And did we mention the heat? Just when you thought it couldn't get any better, along comes global warming and, in a "we dont have extremes of temperature in a La Nina summer" summer, and in the space of four days, we get three days of 40degC+. Only the little evaporative cooler in Mike's room stopped the house attaining core-of-the-sun status.
There is no god.
All that said, an upside is that Mike has discovered the beach. Ok, at first he did try to eat sand an awful lot, but he appears over that phase now and has discovered how to make great long snaking snail trails by crawling/dragging himself along the sand. Funny how they always end up back at mum, boob end of towel.
He's also discovered the sea. He appears fascinated by the waves - all 2cm high in the shallows - and will hang in mum or dads arms and watch the breakers lap at his toes for hours. Ok, minutes. But theres a genuine fascination there and hence we do believe we have a future Mick Fanning in the making.
Not to mention going in for a "swim".
Like any self respecting lover of warmth he did the little "ohhhhhhahhhhhh" and wriggle as the cold water touched his tummy for the first time, but was soon loving it. Or at least loving watching dad play peekaboo by ducking under the water and resurfacing every few seconds. This appeared to be game of the day, and, along with slapping the surface of the water, was demanded at regular intervals - much to the pleading of dads lungs.
At home, and when the boy has actually been eating (which hasn't been a lot - curse you virus) we've decided that the lad must be, in part at least, Italian. Either that or mum's preggas visits to her old stomping ground in Lygon St (being next to the Royal Wimmens and all that) infused through the belly. Cos Mikes current favourite food appears to be lasagna. Oh, and noodles. And spag bog; basically anything pasta based, to the point where if there are other veges involved he's been known to sort the veges from the pasta inside his mouth and spit the veges out. Lil (smart) bugger.
Oh, the one caveat is Vegemite. Tip to young players - "eating" Vegemite appears only half the fun. The other half is wiping it all over your face, body, chair, table, floor, mum... oh, that and absorbing as much as you can off the bread onto said body parts and mouth, then spitting out a grey-brown looking mush of chewed dough onto the floor for a parent to retrieve before an honoured guest steps in it. Brilliant!
The above is also an indicator that the lad is now pretty much eating whatever mum and dad eat. This, mum and dad reckon, is not only a bit of a time saver but also a great weight loss measure into the bargain, cos they still cook the same amount but now hand a fair portion off to the boy.
Sure beats stomach stapling.
Postscript: Boy feeling better, cool change arrived, common or garden variety chaos resumed. Ahhhh...
Slow sick crawl...
Looking for butterflies...
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