Pandy and Andy create a baby...

Saturday, March 29, 2008

The Colli-Wobbles

Melbourne.
Autumn.
Easter.
The gods have gone crazy and hence its either snowing in the foothills or baking like the Sahara, with nothing in between.

Hence, during a period of the latter dad had taken Mike down to their favourite beach at Ricketts Point, Beaumaris, for a splash about in the shallows.

As Mike was having his requisite pre-paddle crawl about and shell-licking he spotted a little dog, and grinned.
And in turn he was subsequently spotted by the little dogs owner.
Who ran over, yelled "whats his name?" and totally enamored, proceeded to pick up Mike and dance about with him on the beach.

Which attracted her friends.

Suddenly, Mike was surrounded by a dozen Japanese students all oooh-ing and ahhhh-ing, wanting cuddles and taking photos with their mobiles phones (see pic, wonderfully called "cute-boy.jpg" - thanks Martin!).

It was somewhat surreal in a Paris Hilton paparazzi kinda way...

Lets just hope it doesn't go to his head.

While he wasn't pre-occupied with charming the masses over Easter, he was attending his first canoe polo tournament; watching mum compete in and captain the "rest of the world" team (dad tried to convince her to call themselves the Barbarians, after the Rugby side,... it didnt appear to catch on with the laydees...) in the national championships.

And scarily for dads sanity, Mike appears a convert/natural, with mum and dad having to chase him all over the park to curtail his fascination with attempting to clutch and break very expensive carbon fibre paddles, sit on and crush very expensive carbon-kevlar boats, and chucking himself in the river.

After realising one of the strange water creatures in funny hats was mum he was obsessed, even attempting to paddle his pram home. (We'll have to explain to him fluid viscosity...)

At least its a cheaper sport than windsurfing.

By easter Monday the games were over so family tootled off down the coast for a lunch at a quaint little cafe overlooking the bay. Upon entering they realised that tables and chairs were only just wide enough apart for their fancy new pram to maneuver through, narrow as it is.

"Oh,.. sorry", as dad crashed into a table leg.
"WHOOPS", as he crunched the wheels over someones foot.
"Scusi..." as he pushed past a ruffled waitress.

There were a few looks that, somewhat ironically, were perfectly described in The (r)Age the following day by comedian Nelly Thomas:
"One thing I didn't know about having babies is that some people don't like them. You walk into some cafes with a pram and they look at you like it's the Gaza strip and you're carrying a heavy backpack."
The highlight of the visit once seated, apart from gorging themselves silly on an all-day breakfast menu (mmmmm..... a.l.l... d.a.y... b.r.e.a.k.f.a.s.t...) was, of course, Mike. Offering him a snack off mums plate, mum n'dad would blow on his serves of corn fritatta and then hand them across.

Which instead of eating, he'd blow on, then smile for approval of his newly learned trick.
"Go on freddy, eat it..."
{blow blow, smile smile}
"No... eat.. yum yum...
{blow blow smile smile}

Oh well. Its a skill. As well as a dieting technique.

Finally, from the trip home, we give you: How to (nearly) win a Darwin Award (part 1).

Dad, a decent and law-abiding Carlton supporter (ok, lapsed Carlton supporter - he hasn't gone to a game in years, but fondly remembers when he lived across the road from Princes Park and attended nearly every home match... for the last quarter anyway, when the blue-coats would open the gates and you could sneak in for free; he was a penniless student after all), is happily driving the car along the busy four-lane section of Nepean Hwy, minding his own business.

All is calm, peace and light, with bub happily burbling away at the other cars, dad in laid back holiday driving mode, and mum day dreaming about life the universe and everything.

In a sudden moment of TAC-ad like madness, in heavy traffic and with no warning, mum mutters...
"I think Mike should barack for Collingwood."
If not for dads amazing Ninja-like self control, his subsequent Colli-wobble amongst 4-lanes of speeding steel could have been the end of the A,P+M gene pool right there.

(Dont try this at home folks. Seriously.)

Postscript: The top pic is the first ever image of the lad standing unaided. Somewhat embarrassingly (for the boy, at his 21st...) it was taken when he was sprung raiding mums rags,... errrr... female sanitary items, drawer..! Oh.. and if you havent noticed, this is the 100th post on this blog. Crikey.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

3 into 2 wont go

Three (full time jobs; looking after boy and work-work) into two (parents) wont go.

"Get some child care!" I hear you say.

Sure. If only it were that easy.

First theres the decisions - do you go child care centre, family day care, council supplied, private, food provided, nappies included, no nuts, no dairy, ratio of carers... decisions decisions.

Which are all academic anyway cos when you do decide (walking distance council run childcare recommended by neighbours and given the big mum tick) you get put on a waiting list.

Council care booking lady: "Excellent - thanks for choosing us. You're now 231st in the queue."

Mum: "Errr... he'll be five by then and off to school!"

Booking lady: {smile}

In the lead up to this somewhat disappointing moment Mum had done the groundwork checking out all the places. And was somewhat shocked. ABC childcare equated to "A Bit Crappy", as did most of the other private places that ticked the boxes "within cooee" and "financially non-crippling".

In at least one she arrived at sleepy time to find cocoons with babbling and staring caterpillar-like bubs strung around in some form of stasis - was like the starting scene from Alien. She tip toed out in fright.

Then theres the afore-hinted cost.

When we told Mike's Nana the going rate she was so gobsmacked she dropped her binoculars. (Thats the birdwatching-type equivalent of total bowel control loss.)

And then we pointed out that that was a cheap place.

For the one centre that was within a greenhouse emissions acceptable distance with some play area and a policy of treating the kiddies as people and not "units", it was waaaay over $90 a day.

Which if you think about it, means that even for the slightly above-average-pay wage slave working 4 or 5-days a week you're pretty much in the coal mine a full extra day just to cover the care so you can go to work. It'd do your head in.

In the end it was decided we'd go with family day care - where the boy stays with a family rather than in a stalag, the cost is in the $60 a day range (excludes nappies and food), and waiting lists were far shorter. Luckily we'd decided to look at the right time - when kiddies were about to start school and hence some new places were trickling in. But which one?

The first place Mistress P inspected had lots of toys and a nice big yard.

"Oh, he'll love getting outside and playing out there, he just loves being ou..." she said.

"HE'S TOO SMALL - NO OUTSIDE FOR HIM!" said the lady in a Seinfeld soup-nazi-like voice.

Mmmm... ok...

The next lady was very nice and would have allowed him glimpses of the sun, but... no yard at all, and a somewhat Spartan interior and toy count. Much as we'd like to breed a future warrior (preferably of the "eco" type) this really didn't seem good enough.

We wondered what to do. Seemed the options were ultimate bankruptcy, stalag 13, Cell block H or Kapooka.

Then a last call from the council.

"Theres one last place - and its just around the corner from you..."

And indeed it was.

With a great big play room with interactive toys galore, a large backyard, a lady who loved walks to the nearby park and getting outside, 3 young daughters who ravished Master M the moment they laid eyes on him (as do all the laydees of course), a little dog kept outside (both a positive and a negative; Mike loves dogs, but dogs can be unpredictable if they get beaten up by little boys), and lots of older kiddies on her books who get dropped off at kindy in the middle of the day hence leaving M with one-on-one care.

Looked great.

"We'll take it."

And indeed thats now been the case since the start of the year, and will soon be upped from two days a week to three.

A winner all round - to the point that, unlike friends who have to tear themselves away from a bawling kiddie every child-care morning, our lad's face lights up like a Victorian national park in summer when he sees Jackie (his carer) or her girls.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Mistress P
Date: 20 Mar 2008 09:56
Subject: Re: Mmm... its so true...

Hey - I think I had a moment like you had when you picked up Mike that time and he had learnt new dance moves... As we rolled up to the door this morn he started giggling with delight. Then the eldest girl Bridget was holding him, and he was giving her lovely tight hugs, then looking around and grinning at all the goings on. What a fun place they have there. I am so glad he is going there rather than the other 2 families I went and checked out...

love you,
P.
Its enough to make you wonder what we're doing wrong at home.

On the boy front... lots of standing up (including being able to empty the dishwasher without hanging on), a fascination with whats in the toilet (¡Ay, caramba - we have to block access with the change table), some excellent sleeping right through the night, more skinny dipping during the heat, and (it troubles us to write this...) his first baby-cino at a cafe.

3 into 3 for 3

= 3 (happy campers).

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Surfin' Smurf


We appear to have spawned the bookmuncher.

It stemmed from when the lad started getting into all manner of drawers and cupboards. And before you say "get some childproof locks"... well we have.
And he's worked out how to get round them too.
The best thing for keeping cupboards closed, we have found, is one of his mums hair-ties twisted to give optimal tension and looped around opposite handles.

However as dad was in the kitchen schleping through the dishes while mum was away at a big-wig conference in Canberra (which, by the way, was her first night away from the boy since conception...), dad heard a "rattle rattle" of buffet lock picking, a bit of "bang bang" of a buffet opening, and a subsequent "riiiiiipp riiiiiiip" of tearing of the "A", "B" and possibly half of "C" sections of the local yellow pages.

Indeed ripping up yellow pages appears to be his favourite activity at the moment and he can seemingly do it for hours. (A TelstraII shareholder in a previous life, perhaps?)

When he's not creating phone book confetti, he's been pushing his little truck around. Even more. And thats lead to a sudden confidence in being upright.

Hence when dad sprung him tearing into the Yellow Pages once again, instead of looking sheepish and innocent and all "Dolly did it...", he stood up, balanced there holding onto nothing but an advert for concreters (local), and just for a second gave all watching a sudden "ohmigod he's about to walk.." moment.

He didnt...

But indeed the past few days have brought a rapid increase in the lads free-standing hang time, including an impressive 15 second jobbie in the middle of a Sat'day arvo Baby Bunting frantic new-mum shopping frenzy. (We were offering to hire him out to the mums-to-be for product testing, but no one seemed to take us seriously. So we bought him a new ben and jerry... err... bill and ted.... ummm, no... phil and ted's fancy pants pram.)

The lads also taken a liking to eating inedibles. At first it was stones. We think most of them have been retrieved but that damn law of averages thingy suggests that, just like the infinite size of the universe multiplied by the miniscule chance of life elsewhere = aliens exist, well given the volume of stones placed in the mouth X risk of one getting through, there must be a few swishing through the lads intestine.

Where they'll now be mixing with at least one plum pip (whoops! insert "Dont tell the council nurse" disclaimer here), raw green tomatoes stolen from the garden and, after our long weekend at the seaside of McCrae , about a house-builds worth of sand. In fact he tried to eat so much of the stuff we're surprised he didn't start to poop glass.

Instead, given the recent aquisition of an ice cream bucket full of blueberries straight from the Kinglake farm (thanks Matt and Courtney), and the boys insatiable cravings thereof, he's been pooping a sort of sloppy purple.

Its kinda like opening the nappy of a smurf.

The McCrae trip (thanks Bev and Rob!), however, had many a highlight: his first self-held drink from a sippy cup, playing with the big boys (all of 2, 3 and 5 years old), more attempts to crawl into shipping channels (we blame the swimming lessons - he now keeps going even after his head has gone under) and a bit of star gazing - at 3:30am, from inside a pram, as dad blearily shuffled him around the Arthurs Seat lowlands to get him back to sleep.

A bookmunching blue-poo'ing self-standing star-gazing lock picker.
You cant accuse him of being boring.
Just cute.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Truckin' on.

Famous 20-20 hindsight words #1: "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Mum and dad had been contemplating a return to their old life and bike rides down to the beach, and in eager anticipation had been eyeing off bike trailers for Mike. Eventually one came up (thanks Derrick!) and they grabbed it.

A helmet was hunted down (more later), the lad bunged into the harness and off they headed with all the good intentions of joining Mistress P's long lost uni-friends reunion in the Bot gardens.

The grizzles started at the 2.5km mark. So the convoy stopped and reassessed. Oh dear. The Boy was slumped like he'd OD'd on illegal opiate; head down, body contorted sideways, helmet all askew. Any chiroparctor seeing it would have had a fit... of joy thinking about a dead cert future client.

Boy was subsequently slid back upright, belts altered and helmet realigned, but it seemed obvious. He's just too little. So back home it was, with boy sleeping most of the way, but again, in a position that'd make even David Blaine cringe. Total distance 5.5km.

Lets try again in a month.

Oh, and then theres the helmet itself.

When we finally found a size XS (44-48cm circumference with obligatory dinosaurs motif) we were chuffed that the lad a) would actually allow it to sit on his head for more than 20 seconds (as opposed to his sun hat which he tries to rip off instantly), and b) seemed physically excited by it.
Tops.

So on the way home from the bike shop we let him play with it in his car seat.

Now heres a tip for young players... dont.
We arrived home to find chunks missing from parts of the foam, and a very happy lad with bits of helmet being masticated gleefully by his 6 teeth and crusher gums. All i can say is...Lucky it was a short trip: we should have know that for the lad there is not a great difference between toys and food.

Speaking of food, we give you Lemon part deux; The times they are a changin'.

Or at least the boys tastes. See, a cupla months ago we were amazed when we had fish and chips and the bit he appeared to like most was not the fish, or even the chip, but rather the lemon.

Only this time when we had a picnic of fish and chips in the backyard, young Mike did indeed take a greater shine to the chips, but when he spotted the lemon clearly remembered his past fascination, grabbed the nearest slice and shoved it in his gob.

And recoiled in horror.

So he tried it again.

Yucko...

And again.

He appeared totally unable to stop himself yet totally unable to enjoy it. He was, well, stunned.

So he shimmied over to dad, who was lying back on the rug as you do in picnic mode, gazing up at a weather balloon/planet that he had become entranced by ("Well, it was a dot that just sat there a million miles up in the blue..."), and shoved the lemon in dads gob instead.

So much for getting any rest in the great outdoors. Or for that matter, sleep in general.

Ahhh.... Sleep.

It was all seeming so so good again. And then the lad went back into his recent pattern of sleep till 3:30am (note... AM), stay awake for as long as possible necessitating a mum/dad tag team after the first hour, and then attempt to sleep in blissfully unaware of how rooted mum and dad feel as one or both headed off to work. Thanks boy!

Whats funniest(?) is the boys apparent desire to sleep yet inability to kip down.

See, middle of the night theres all this flipping and flopping and arching of the back and "I DONT WANNA GO TO SLEEP!", but put him down on the floor with a couch cushion and he'll take two or three crawls forward till he's over it and
...{slump}...
he flops down and lays there, head all sideways and arms spread and all "aahhh.... sleep glorious sleep...".

Then he realises his reign of terror has only another 83 years to go, and he's up and off again and awake... for two or three more crawls then
... {slump}.
Sleep glorious sleep.

Finally, his latest mode of transportation; truck driving. Well.. not so much a truck as a plastic thing with wheels and a handle. And not so much driving as staggering (those opiates again?). See below... well we're impressed anyway.