Beautiful one day, perfect the next. (Plus fish.)

Well the plague is gone and we're B.I.T (back in town).

That town being... Cairns.

Yup, once again the clan pointed the sloop north and jetted off (apologies to future generations for the 2.7 tonnes of CO2 emitted) to FNQ. Both mum and Dad attended a conference at the very same venue where mum attended one last year and hence we're all, including Mike, feeling a bit like locals. (Go on, ask us... wheres the nearest Coles to city centre...?)

The highlight of the trip was not actually the conference itself, but rather Mike's first boat trip to the outer Great Barrier Reef - Moore Reef to be precise - with "Reef Magic"; basically a very fast catamaran that roared along for 90 minutes then moored at a floating pontoon.

Of course mum and dad panicked the whole time that the newly running man would sprint straight off the end of the boat and be lost forever, but luckily this never quite eventuated. Though not from want of the boy trying.

Attempting to keep him in one place - be it in the cabin of a rather large boat or the confines of a economy class seat shared with mum and dad on a Boeing 767 - is a bittova handful. To say the least.

Still, at sea it meant that the boy entertained numerous Japanese tourists with his laps of the boat's lower deck. Being all batty blue-eyes and blond hair, he appears to present a combination irresistible to your common or garden variety Asian tourist.

(Though the crowd of such which surrounded him on a later voyage to Green Island, then proceeded to make loud proclamations while pointing at the somewhat bemused lad, after which they all laughed uproariously, had us a little worried they were actually taking the piss (scuse-the-French). )

Still, all that running about meant at least one good thing. The boy got to sleep in all the best tropical places. On the deck of the floating reef pontoon. On the pier above the coral and fishies at Green Island. In the depths of the jungle at the Cairns botanic gardens and rainforest walk. Sleeping in paradise - It's some of his best work.

Frankly, the trip to the reef was glorious, and indeed the staff on the boat said it was one of the top 10 days of the year: clear skies, no wind, mild-rather-than-hot temperatures, and visibility of about 30m underwater. Dad saw seemingly millions of fish in all the colours of the rainbow, including one electric blue and orange splotched thingy that looked like a Ken Done painting gone mad(der). Mum went on a guided reef "wall" snorkel in 30 odd metres of water and saw not only giant parrot fish but also a gen-ew-ine swimming, breathing, chomping (well, at some stage in its day we imagine) shark. And Mike got to swim in the kiddies cage in the warm water of the ocean, which he appeared to absolutely love, and also got to watch the fish from the pontoon deck (but more on that later).

And then to cap it all off... on the way home the crew spotted a humpback whale. Which just as its continual water spout blowing got a bit dull, breached just for good measure (though mum was so busy trying to take a photo she forgot to actually look for the whale itself), landing with an almighty skin-reddening backwhacker, the likes of which haven't been seen since dad misjudged a leap from the tower at the Shepparton (a.k.a "Shepp") pool as a 10 y.o.

Anyway; Mike's first whale.

Which got dad to thinking. Mike is now 15.5 months old. He has travelled in planes, trains, cars, gondolas, bikes and boats, and he's seen other countries (if you class New Zealand as "O.S") , the Great Barrier Reef and jumping whales. And what age was dad when he's experienced all this?

38.

Ok, 36 if you take out the jumping whales.
And 30 if you remove the gondola.
And thats in years.
Amazing.

The funniest /saddest part of the whole reef experience thing had to be Mike and the fish.

See, after lunch, Mike discovered that if you looked down through the cracks in the deck of the pontoon where the boat had moored, he could see the fishies!

(We say after lunch, as we suspect the fish have become acutely aware that pontoon floors with gaps in them become, at lunch time, a prime source of food. Like, who needs to spend their life living in amongst the continual stings of a sea anemone just to snap at some chance floating-by piece of parrot fish poo when you can hang around the floor of "Marineworld" and at precisely 12:30 till 2pm each day, get vege lasagne, honey soy & sesame chicken, bbq'd prawns, and a pineapple and cantelope chaser for dessert. Especially if you have little food-spraying boys (i.e., Mike) present who manage to eat half their goddamn body weight in slices of fruit alone. Seriously... dad knows; he fed Mike for a full hour/three platefuls and more to the point, changed the follow-up nappy the next day. A nappy with a stink no man nor beast should ever have to experience. As Kenny would say; a smell that will outlast religion.)

Anyway back to the story; Mike. Fish. Cracks in floor.

Mike's love of the fish meant that he spent the better part of the last half-to-one hour walking about with his head on the floor peering through the cracks in the pontoon deck at the fish massing below. (Probably eying off the little set of pinky toes that were deliciously dangling down said cracks.) The little bendy-over fish watching man was, indeed, a classic.

That said, there was a proper (and free) underwater observatory on the pontoon for which you simply walked down some steps, sat at a window, and instantly had an underwater view of anything caring to swim (or after Mike's lunch; stagger) by.

Herin lies the sad bit, given all the boys crack peering.

As they were boarding the boat to leave, mum turned to dad and said...
"So he must have loved the fish from the observatory!"
To which Dad replied...
"Errrr... I thought you took him down there... "

Whoooops.

(Guess we'll just have to go back.)

Join the dots

The Deathstar (a.k.a Westfield Southland Shopping Centre) didn't get that name for nothing.

There we were happily playing in the kiddie safe area, all happy and smiles and being willed by the dark side of the force to stay another hour and spend all our hard earned, when Mike decided he wouldnt mind a drive of the big red car (slash X-wing fighter).

So he wandered over.

Unfortunately the 3 y.o bogan/muppet driving it saw Mikes approach.
Sat up.
Put on a grimace.
And when Mike got in range... thrust out a hand straight into Mikes chest and sent him flying across the playpen and square onto his bum.

Mike was, well, stunned. (Much like his watching dad, this being his introduction to play pen rage.)

Oh well, just a little shove. Life goes on. No one hurt

Only the stormtrooper bogan decided that if you're on the dark side you may as well prove it.
So as soon as Mike rose to his feet the prince of darkness lept from his cockpit and gave Mike a fair old whack in the head Barry Hall would be proud of.

Little shite. (The kid; not neccessarily Barry Hall.)

Guess you don't gain universe domination by being the nice guy.

Little shite.

Of course this wasn't Mikes only pain for the week. In fact it was just the start of a bad run for the lad.
First he had to put up with dads cooking.

See, there was the poor sap rushing to cook tea before the worker in the family (mum) comes home and hence was taking a few shortcuts when all of a sudden...

"OOOOOppppps!"

Instead of a sprinkle, in had gone half the goddamn chilipowder jar into the spag-bog sauce.

"No worries" mused dad... "I'll just scoop it out."
Which he did, gave it a little more simmer time then and served it up.
Boy first.

"Wonder why he's gone off it and whinging..." wondered dad a few minutes later. "Thats some of my best work."

Taste test.

"Yowsers!!! WATER!!!"

Bugger. (Poor (hot) boy.)
But, unfortunately for the lad, mere culinary scalding/poisoning was nothing.

Apparently at the local day care centre (not Mike's) there had been a notice on the door announcing that "hand/foot/mouth" had gone through the place like a dose of salts and everyone should be on the watch out. Now hand/foot/mouth is a nasty piece of work, leaving spots and blisters all over a kiddies hands, feet, and not surprisingly, mouth.

But it prolly should also have the word "bum" in there. Cos thats where we first noticed it. A spotty arse.

Mum and dad didnt really think anything of it and happily let him play with the other kiddies at the dinner party, but dad felt a bit of a nong cos he'd just told all and sundry how using a new clothes washing powder had cleaned up the boys eczema, but a shirt change had revealed the worst case of eczema+spots known to man or beast.

The next day the grizzles started, the tiredness set in, and misery was commenced. Not to mention a total hatred of food as the blisters started in his mouth. Poor tike. And it was pretty much this way all week.

The coop-de-grass came around 5:30am one morning, when the lad had woken hungry and tired and sick of his spots.

Mum duly rose in the hope he'd relax and sleep a little more before the day of clinging and grizzles started in earnest, but he wouldn't settle even with a belly full of formula (he was popped back onto baby formula to try and get a little energy into him in some non-solid form).

"Bring the boy in here and see if he'll rest in our bed" called out dad.

He didn't... his love of the red LED lights on the alarm clock got too much for him even when on deaths door, so he started to crawl over a dozing dad to get at them.

Or at least that was the plan. Just when his head lined up slap bang with the middle of his beloved fathers somewhat hairy chest, he paused. He raised himself a little higher. He spotted his target below. And...

HHHUUUUEEEEE!!!

Yes. Vomit. All... over... dad.

Who just lay there for a second in the dark... till he could feel it oozing down his shoulder blades.

"Medic!"

(Where's the video camera when you need it?)

Shoes on the other foot now

The boy becomes a man.

Or at least gets around in a bathrobe in the morning, that we like to call his "Heff". (As in Hugh Hefner - who else.)

"Where's Heff Michael?" "Put on you your Heff..."
You get the picture. And its kinda cute, in a wobbly (young) person in a dressing gown kinda way.

He's also had his first ever haircut (mum saved some locks) and now has a slight Gallagher brothers from Oasis look to him. Apparently he breezed through it like an old hand.

And clearly we're feeding him too much. Cos he's grown - heaps. Which we don't discover by accurate measurements from the back of the bathroom door, but rather, by which drawer he can now reach/demolish the contents of.

He's been able to get into the spices one for a while (as mentioned last post) but now he can reach to the back and has the ability to work out how to open things; lets just say we never realised how many bay leaves are in a full packet till we had to pick up seemingly hundreds of then from all round the kitchen. (Mike helped pickup, granted...).

The other worry is his a) love of keys, and b) newfound ability to reach into the key drawer.
We suspect we have battles coming, if not a decided lack of mobility when we find all the car keys are missing. (Maybe he's just trying to reduce greenhouse gases.) Watch this space - we may be in need of lifts.

He's also decided that you can search and destroy so much more if you climb up on stuff.
Now this is a worry.
Whereas his playtable used to be for, well, play, it (and other various step like devices) appear to now be used as a ladder to all things illicit. Mikes stairway to heaven, if you like (only we hope its not literally to heaven of course...).

But his best climbing effort thus far was actually done sans table.

See, he loves a good soak as much as the next bloke, so for some time whenever he saw a full tub or mum/dad in the shower, he'd grab the edge of the bath and lift his little leg as though he was trying to climb in.

Only now... well, his leg had grown long enough that it got high enough, and his arm pushing was strong enough (err... and maybe his head now weighs enough), that he went up, over and toppled in.
Fully clothed.
Into mums shower.
And landed at her feet.

Shocked the bejeesus outta himself. (Not to mention mum.)

Damn growth spurt.

Damn climbing.

He's also perfecting the art of this walking caper, and hence can now go backwards, forwards and even pirouette (which he did several times, with a few added "stand up/sit downs", when mum put on Mozart's Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, First Movement; as you do). And all this can now be done with hard soled shoes.

Which is pretty impressive, especially given that it was only on the 20th time dad put Mike's boots on that mum looked over his shoulder and said:
"You need to lift up the tongue to get his feet in.."
"What tongue? Ohhhhhh... that...."
(i.e., seems Mike's poor feet have been forced to share his boots with a crunched up tongue that dad didnt know existed - surely a modern take on foot binding...)
"Wondered why they were so bloody hard to get on him..." mumbled dad.

Which wasn't the only podiatric related mishap from the Y-chromosome donor, who also discovered he'd put the left shoe on the right foot, and vice versa. (Don't tell the council nurse/mum.)

The culmination of the walking came at Cape Shanck, when Mike decided he'd had enough of the afternoon tea by the side of the walking trail/his parents, and headed off. For about 20 metres before stopping, turning, and waving goodbye. Then another metre forward. Stop, turn, wave goodbye. Then another metre, stop, turn... you get the picture.

Eventually enough goodbyes had been said and he was off. For a good few hundred metres (with parents hiding just behind to see where he'd get to/stop him walking off the nearby cliffs). He'd 'ave surely crossed the Peninsula if not for the approaching dark.

Maybe he's more Mawson than Hefner?
(Jeez, we hope so.)