Walking the walk

Its been a long time between drinks.
Spilled on the floor/over mum/down the back of the couch respectively.

The last two and a bit months (has it really been that long?) has involved a myriad of firsts and adventures.

Arguably the most significant being the girls first step.
At a mere 10.5 months young mind you.

Alll very exciting, and followed on from a few weeks of tottering with increasingly less and less hanging onto stuff - like mums legs, the couch or the underside of the clothes horse with her head covered in dad's Reg Grundies.

Then came the biggy - Five successive steps.
Yes.
Five.
In a row.
And not only did she teeter the five steps in front of mum, but chose the mothers group to take her great walk, and hence had an audience who whooped hollered and cheered her across the room.
And let mum take home cheesecake to celebrate.
MMMmmmm.... cheesecake...
{where were we?}
Yes, teetering tottering little girl.

Dad was phoned soon after to convey the news, as well as to convey that he needed to sneaker-net some data off to a big Bureau (deputy) boss. Which he did, told the story about the girl's mothers group sprint around the room, and was promptly told:
"What are you doing here - go home son!"
{Err... yes sir.}

Upon which the lass did a quick four-step just to show dad it wasn't a fluke.

Well done little Miss S, 10 days shy of her 11th month in the outer world.
That said...

Is she the only person in the world who could walk BEFORE they grew any teeth??

(She has now grown her first chopper. Which she literally uses to chop... or at least chomp... on anything which takes her fancy. She especially likes to chow down on a cup or glass, as it makes a little clinky sound that appears to amuse her no end. Makes it a bugger to feed her a drink, but hey, who needs H2O when you can have clinky-clinky noises?)

The boy has also had adventures.
Not any gamechangers like walking, but still life lessons that will probably stay with/scar him for life.
Arguably the biggest being "the kite".

There we were at Smiths Beach on Phillip Island, flying dads kite. It was fun, but the boy was in severe risk of being lifted into the stratosphere, so it came time to pull out the k-mart special mini kite.

We thought it would last 2 seconds before spiralling into a death dive and burning, hindenburg-like, on the sand.

We were horribly mistaken.

Instead this wonder of modern Chinese aeronatuical engineering flew like a dream on its single string, only slightly deterred when dad accidently crashed his stunt kite into its strings in some sort of stuka attack dive.
But only slightly...

Dad flew his kite.
Mike flew his kite.
There were smiles and grins until...
Suddenly a kite flying sans boy.

"Grab it boy!" yelled dad, as the kite stayed aloft and independant of its pilot.

And started to head towards the grassy cliff.
Which it ascended.
The boy looked pensively skyward...
"The string will get caught in the bushes" assured dad.
It didn't.
Up the cliff it went, higher and higher.
(Those Chinese certainly don't fluck around when building kites.)
And up and up.
Mum grabbed the lass, and with the boy trailing behind, started up the cliff path following the still flying kite.
And on it flew...
Till eventually it's handle caught in the top of the only tree between Smiths Beach and some place in coastal south-west WA.

And still it kept flying.

By this time the family had clambered the several hundred metres up the grassy slope and along the cliff top to reach the still soaring kite.
The boy looked up.
Looked at dad.
Looked up.
Looked at dad, and, with wide and pleading eyes said...

"Lets go to the shop and buy another one."
And started to walk off.

Go to the shop and buy another one?
What in the wide wide world of sports have we spawned?

Dad promptly put plan B (which did not include a shop) into action and layed out his stunt kite, flew it into the sky, and, remembering the earlier beach kite battle, looped his kite over the renegade ones strings and brought it to the ground.

Boy happy.
Dad happy.
Mum pooped fromm carrying the girl up the Hilary Steppe, sherpa like.
(Kite shop, arguably, unhappy from a missed sale.)


Walk on.

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