Why proof-reading was invented

Mr I-Can-Do-It-Myself

I'm inclined to disagree, but he thought it was marvelous.

Mr Very-Pleased-With-Himself

This, he did yesterday. Today, aside from cutting 2 teeth more or less together (one is through, the other almost) which made him very grumbles indeed, he was standing holding onto the couch, turned and held his arms out to me and lurched 2 steps forward into my arms. Sooo cool. Accidental I think, but still awesome!

The latest from the camera

Free teef! There's a top one on it's way through if you have really good eyesight. There aren't too many ways to get a good shot of the inside of the kid's gob, and there's even less in the way of opportunity.

He had him some dirt for a pre-afternoon tea snack while helping Dad in the garden.

Tools!

It was cute till he worked out how to open the toolbox - it didn't take long, and it wasn't that difficult. Gah.

Bein' cute, playin' with his toys.

Bwah hahaha!

Thank heavens I managed a quick head-turn to the right when I stumbled across this whilst spuddling online - I very nearly spat a mouthful of water over my keyboard.

You know it's mine, and the husband has been advised of its must-have-ness.

And yes, yes, I know 60 bucks is a lot for a t-shirt, but it's cheaper than a ladle so shush.

Tricky

If you put the hat on backwards so that he can't see it, it stays on significantly longer.

Also ... little jam sandwiches ... fail.

Rockin' it Euro-Styles

These arrived this morning after winging their way all the way from Uncle Andrew, Aunty Ruth and Cousin Amelia in Belgium. Sooo cute! We'd prefer the cheese-cutter straight, but on his head is a start.

Loooove my kid!!!

Yesterday vs Today

Yesterday:

Analysing about 20 pages of figures for work.

Today:

Sitting on the floor singing made up songs to a 9 month old, with Bob the Builder jandals hanging off my ears.

Tee hee hee

Background - The husband is going hunting early tomorrow morning.

Me to the husband (joking and half expecting a kick in the pants): "Hang on ... If you go hunting, who's going to make my morning coffee??"

The husband (dead serious, before he thought about it) "I should be home by mid-morning or a bit later"

EXcellent.

It was the best of times

Up ...


Up more ... (and then he got all the way up, but the memory card was full, so I didn't get it. Woops)

Happy bath time for the water baby

Veeery happy face!

Jack doing the dishes.

Swim class good times

Tappity tap tap goes the mischief child

The tapping foot that you see/hear is a sign of trouble 99% of the time - it's usually employed to aid his thinking process as he decides whether to execute whatever great mischief is playing out in his little ginger noggin. If you're in another room and you hear that tapping, best you check with some haste what he looks like he's about to do, if he's not doing it already.

In this instance, it's because discovering the dogs' bowl is still new enough that he's not sure if he's allowed to be spuddling in there or not.

Observations from the pool

If you are the NZ Police, taking up 2 pool lanes just to have a general catch up and chat while hanging over the ropes for a half hour isn't reeeeally appreciated by the other swimmers. Or possibly just me, but seriously. When the rest of us are 3 to the remaining lanes because 2 lanes are out of action, it's annoying. It ruined my zen. Made me grumpy enough to do extra laps though, so it kinda worked out. I guess. At a stretch. If I'm trying to re-harness my zen.

If you are flutter-board guy in the fast lane, you might want to toddle over about 8 lanes to the slow lane. Or, even better, the flutter-board lane. There's one of those. It's the one with all the flutter-boards in it.

If you are the guy moving at 100 miles an hour in the slow lane because you're using paddles, you might want to swap with flutter-board guy. Also, just quietly, it was extremely hard to pace off you when you swim half a lap under water, and it's just a little weird when you swim directly underneath me. Of course, in a perfect world, I shouldn't have been in the slow lane either, but that's the Police's fault.

And now, back to attempting to transcribe my Diana Gabaldon interview.

Something weird happened to my kid and other interesting (?) things

He's become awesome.

Seriously. Awesome.

A different, awesome kid. So happy, and, dare I say it ... a bit cruisy. OK, well maybe 'cruisy' is getting a bit excited, but you get the idea. Happy, happy little ginger. Happy, happy big ginger too.

Makes one a bit suspicious, just quietly.

He sleeps, for a start. Twice a day. Every. Day. He hasn't done that ever prior to now. And he's regularish with it - one in the morning, one after lunch. Almost ... dare I say ... a routine? AND, get this! In between, he just careens around the house quite cheerfully, leaving much chaos and kiddly happiness in his wake.

Could be, of course, that now that the crawling is well established, he's just completely knackering himself out getting into mischief?



Or he's getting into some Ritalin somewhere, but who am I to judge? It does make one stop and realise exactly how tough that first 6 to 8 months were with little sleeping, even less settling and much screaming. Poor wee dude.

And now ... news ...

I interviewed Diana Gabaldon yesterday. Of course, I really would have preferred if my brains hadn't fallen out of my ears as I sat down across from her, but there you go. I only feel slightly better because at least I didn't bollocks up anything major (well. ish) like the Radio NZ interviewer who had her before me, and she with loads of experience seemed to have just as much trouble handling her interview as me with zip. I just managed to come across as being a wee tad simple (meh, who am I kidding with the 'wee tad'? I recorded the interview. There's nothing wee, or tad-like about it).

Anyway, I could go on for days, I really could, but ultimately the woman is as captivating in real life as her voice is in her stories. Magic! And I needed hours with her. Hours. I didn't get hours, but I needed them.



(The husband informs me that I don't have a natural camera smile. Apparently I look a little like someone is ripping off my toenails. Still, it had to be posted, in all its dreadful glory, just cos. I probably should've cropped it in half though after taking another look)

Other news ...

The husband, kidlet and I packed up for our first short trip away shortly after my last post and headed off to Gizzy Vegas (home of Muirs Bookshop, excellent coffee, much sunshine and Moko the dolphin for the moment) for a few days. Cuinn was a gem on his first flight - spent the entire duration goobering the laminated safety instructions and making eyes at the girl across the aisle from us. He did so well in the various new environments while we were away too (especially continuing to sleep), and was just generally staggeringly fabulous. Again with the very weird. He did try to bellow the plane out of the sky on the way home, but that was delayed-flight and therefore delayed-sleep related as opposed to anything else.

His tooth count rose to 2 while we were away. Awesome AND cutting a tooth. I swear I'm not making it up ... although I probably wouldn't believe me either.More news ...
The border collie has auto-immune disease of the eyes. Very uncool. She's being an absolute trooper though - anti-rejection drugs into her eyes twice a day and she's sucking it up. Good girl! Kind of extra fortunate because otherwise she'd go blind, but she doesn't know that, so she's just being well behaved because she is.

Fall-off-your chair news ...

I've started doing laps at the pool 3 mornings a week. Yes, I know. Me. Doing anything along those lines. For relaxation and pleasure. Amusing, but true.

I don't go down there for long - the husband is on leave at the moment, so when Cuinn goes down for his first sleep I head out - I just swim until my head is clear (usually from near-drowning related oxygen deficiency, but you know). Nothing but the sound of water and generally pool-y noise. Very restorative. I honestly don't really think about much other than laps, which way I'm going to get from one end of the pool to the other (freestyle, backstroke, side stroke ... avoiding alternating sides with sidestroke because I nearly did drown trying to do sidestroke with my left side and it's a very deep pool ... breaststroke, you know), and the sounds around me. It's potentially helping to wear off some consumed baking as well, because now that the husband has mastered the art of the cinnamon brioche, on top of my raspberry slice and new brownie recipe, let's just say I don't need any extra cushions on the couch. Ahem.

Oooh! Last but not least, we've forgiven the truck driver who annihilated the bridge between us and swimming lessons on the basis that traffic in our area with the bridge out has reduced incredibly, and there's not a boy-racer to be seen. We're a bit sad that the truck driver didn't make a better effort at it, and that the bridge will be back in action before the end of the year.

And lastly, general photo goodness.

We've started letting the kidlet feed himself on occasion. The dogs think it's The. Best. Thing. Ever. Cuinn up-ended an entire bowl of cheese, luncheon and rice crackers in their direction today. We're going to end up with fat dogs, I'm pretty sure. We're also now feeding him on wooden floors.