Alex vs the bear

What happens when a toddler meets a teddy bear almost his size?

Toddler 1 - Bear 0

Gold coasting

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oops... just found a post from November I didn't publish...

Here are some pictures from our (not so) recent trip to visit Amma in the Gold Coast. With special guests Uncle Adam, Aunty Chrissie, Toby & Fudgey (bears) and more...

Not happy with the celebration noises.

Hanging out with uncle Adam

Supporting the GC 2018 bid

Relaxing at Amma's apartment

A bit of driving with Bob

little Hendrix

Wheels

Every day I'm finding out a little more about the little man - a morsel more of his personality reveals itself on the menu of his day to day activities.

I'm not sure how to describe one of the recent discoveries but I'll try. He a 'sticker' he finds what he likes and then he does that one thing - a lot - and for a long time. This applies to a few situations.

For example, there is a playground near our place, he used to be happy playing on the swing, pretending to call someone on the oversized telephone, whizzing down the slide - then one day he discovered, up the stairs, across the wobbly bridge - a wheel! This simple, red, metal steering wheel sits at the top of the highest section of the playground - just near where you would go down the slide. Presumably it's there to keep kids occupied while they wait for other kids to hurl themselves down the slide sideways, backwards all the ways that kids seems to do.

For our Alexander there is no greater pleasure in this earth than standing at the top of the playground turning the steering wheel this way and that. Literally nothing comes close! Occasionally he will press the middle of the wheel where the horn would be and say "beep beep"

Alex with his beloved wheel - one of them anyway

"Do you want to go down the slide now?" we'll ask him after 20 minutes or so of standing and turning the wheel.
"No!" he'll reply with a determined shake of the head
"What about the dinosaur bouncy thing - you used to like the dinosaur bouncy thing..."
"No."

If either of us dare to remove Alex from this prime position there will be tears, flailing of arms and eventually, he will climb back up the stairs, across the wobbly bridge and up to his post - at the wheel, captain of the playground.

Bubbles bubbles bubbles updated

It seems like such a long time ago that we posted this little video of Alex - not even 3 months old - enthusing about these little soapy spheres of fun.

So here is an update, 15 months later... not much has changed

Hopping mad

Mum and baby Roo in the back yard

Last weekend the family and some friends had a long weekend on the South Coast. Before we arrived we'd read that there were kangaroos near where we were staying. "Perhaps we'll catch a glimps of one" we said to each other beforehand, enthusiastically. Alex hasn't see one of Australia's famous bouncy friends yet. Let's not hold our breath we thought, we might see one dart by in the bush nearby.

Well we needn't have been concerned. Driving into the street and past the house we'd hired for the weekend we found a front yard littered - literally littered (which is quite hard to say) with kangaroos. Many of them had joeys in their pouches and concerned protective daddy kangaroos standing guard nearby. The adults in the (human) group were very excited - the smaller member of the crew less so, until one of the little joeys wriggled himself out of his mums pouch and bounced off across the yard and down the road. This was by all accounts one of the most exciting things young master Butler had ever seen. He grinned and giggled as the kangaroo hopped along the lawn and then back to the safety of mum and dad Roo.

A little later in the weekend I decided to try being a kangaroo myself - bouncing around in front of Alex - well this was almost as exciting and he insisted I did it again and again with enthusiastic waving of arms up and down.

It turns out being a kangaroo is hard work. I'm thinking of starting a new exercise/dance graze - "Roomba."

On the beach

View from the house

Beach vegetation

Alex has a new bear...

Stanley (the bear on the left) is new to Alex's posse and is fast becoming one of Bubbas favourite pals.. the bonus is that his bear-crew gets some much needed 'urban' cred...

An offering to the kitchen gods

Not exactly a premium offering...

When we first moved into this flat in Sydney Alex's FAVOURITE place to 'hang' was the kitchen. More specifically he would pull himself up using the oven door handle and, quite literally hang off the oven.

Recognising that we would need to actually use the oven occasionally the next thing us responsible parents did was go out and buy a safety gate so little hands couldn't burn themselves on aforementioned oven door.

Needless to say this didn't go well, and it goes even less well if both mum and dad find themselves in the kitchen with Alex outside.

Recently he has tried a different tack. Whenever I'm in the kitchen for more than a few minutes he starts to bring me presents. I
like to think of them as offerings to the kitchen gods, in the hope that one day the magical gate will open and let him in to experience the wonder and general fabulousness that awaits within.

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Location:Sydney

Getting on

Alex is either starting to settle into a new routine or perhaps discovering a new found independence. Last week - for the first time he didn't cry when I dropped him off with the Nanny. Haydn often finds him playing with other kids and barely acknowledging him when he comes to collect him at Daycare at the end of the day and last Sunday Haydn and I actually went out for the night while baby Alex stayed at home with big Alex and mean uncle hOb. I prepared them for tears, for the throwing of food, reluctance to go to bed, general non-compliance... and what happened? Baby Alex watched us leave the house with not a tear, ate all his dinner and then went to bed happily with a giggle - an actual giggle. And apparently it was the same little man.

Art

Ever since Alex developed his fascination with the iPad we have discovered little digital presents from him in surprising places, for example, I find a message in the notepad application that simply says gfdjkl and nothing else. Occasionally he deletes the notes or actions I've taken for work which is not ideal and I guess the parent equivalent to a "dog ate my homework" excuse for not doing the actions from that particular meeting.

Most recently we have been finding random photos and videos appearing on the iPad, frequently of the floor, or a wall, but sometimes they are amusing or what could only be called art.

I've included a selection of works from Alex's first exhibition which he's calling "gfdjkl"















This series is especially amusing I think...

A few lessons from a Teddy Bear's picnic

A couple of weekends ago (bad blogging practice but I'm at least 2 weeks behind at the moment) we went to little Elliott Cleary's Teddy Bear's Picnic 1st birthday party and learned a few lessons.

The name is Bond...

Attempting to coral the kids and their teddy bears for a photo

1. If you're going to have a party for 20 + kids and parents have it at the in law's house and pray for sunshine
















2. A little plastic tunnel in the middle of the lawn can provide hours of entertainment

Tunnel mission complete M

3. Alex is a bit too young for face painting

Alex and the face painter were not the best of friends

4. You can never be too young for birthday cake - especially when you're the birthday boy!

Elliott birthday boy with mum and dad

Fathers Day Craft

On Sunday Alex explored his inner artist and outer mess maker and produced what can only be described as a creative masterpiece with glitter and paint represented in the form of a fathers day card.

Location:Sydney

One day I'll grow up to be...

A racing car driver?

A DJ?

A dancer?

All three...

At once!

OK... I'll just be a toddler for now.

Kicking off with the hard stuff

Alex enjoying another Alex's 'milky wares'.

Some kids start with a lemonade stand, perhaps some handmade shell necklaces, maybe selling cookies door to door. Alex goes straight for the hard stuff, and, I'd say a more profitable business opportunity at these organic markets in Gladesville.

umm... it's not a "sitting castle"

OK, so he hasn't quite become the entrepreneur at 16 months old, but he did enjoy the baby-cino on offer and we couldn't miss the photo opportunity.

And it doesn't stop at baby sized milky drinks, the markets even have a JUMPING CASTLE! Unfortunately adults weren't allowed on the jumping castle so I begrudgingly stepped aside to let Alex, and our friend Dan's daughter Rachel have a bounce.

Enjoying some quality leave gathering... and some more sitting... with Rachel

 

Saying goodbye to Nanna B

Seeing Nanna off at the airport

 So we're on our own again.

Last weekend we dropped the lovely Nanna B off at the airport so she could finally return home after more than 3 months looking after Alex, and looking after mum and dad as well to be honest.

I had been dreading this week a bit. How were we going to manage? Could we really give Alex breakfast, drop him at the Nannyshare/Daycare, get to our respective works, actually do our jobs, pick him up, feed him and get him tucked up in bed before midnight? Well, so far so good, it might be the honeymoon period but we've managed to survive the week, after lots of planning, preparation of at least two dinners on the weekend, some car swapping, a doctors visit, a little working from home and a take away dinner tonight (well, no one's perfect).

We all miss Nanna but Alex seems to be doing well with the Nanny, Beena which is a real relief he's also enjoying daycare more and more every day.

Alex meets three chilly sisters

Alex poses with the three sisters in Katoomba

This weekend Alex, Dad, Nanna B and I had a lovely relaxing long weekend in the Blue Mountains. Alex got to wear his new lovingly Nanna-knitted hat, cosy jacket and toasty moccasins as we visited Katoomba, Wentworth Falls and a few lovely eating establishments along the way.

We stayed in a lovely old cottage and Alex adapted well to his new environment. The cottage was based around a cosy lounge room with doors going to the kitchen, and both bedrooms. Alex was amused by his, and our, ability to exit from one door and then arrive in the same room by an entirely different door. This from a little man who will basically be programming his own iPhone by the time he's two.

The only slight disaster of the trip was mum and dad forgetting his travel cot. So we unintentionally introduced bubba to sleeping in a big kids bed (thankfully one that was very low to the ground). Results were mixed, he didn't exactly fall out of bed, instead he would sit up in the middle of the bed, look around confused by his new found freedom and lack of bars and then cry.

I'm sure there is a nice parable here about why the caged bird sings but I can't think of it just yet. Instead here are some photos from the weekend.

techno baby

Here baby Alex, all of 16 months, demonstrates his expertise with the iPad at a cafe in the Blue Mountains this weekend. Notice the concentration on the little man's face, and the ease with which he navigates his way around the touch screen.

If the camera had still been running you would also have noticed the tears ad we took it away from him because lunch had arrived.

Toddler fond of throwing his food + expensive gadget = I don't know but I wasn't going to find out.

We will soon be confirming Alex's hourly IT and technical support rates - special deal for family, friends and blog followers.

Determination

Do these groceries seem heavier than usual?

shopping in style

I know what you're thinking, no blog update for over two weeks and this is the best you can do? A photo of baby Alex, sitting in my shopping cart in our lounge room. Well - I'll tell you this.

No.

That's not the best I can do.

The best I can do is give you a video of Alex in my shopping cart, being dragged around the lounge room by his dad.

So there!

Sewing the seeds...

We're already seeing dangerous signs of the future from young Alex. We predict an addictive personality with a potentially unreasonable obsession with all things... Apple.

And unfortunately I don't mean the fruit, or the record label for that matter.

It all started with our iPhone's. Possibly due to him seeing mum and dad using theirs most of the day and night, Alex loves to play with them. He puts it against his ear and says what sounds suspiciously like 'hello,' he already knows how to unlock the screen by pressing the button and sliding the bar across, he has a wide selection of aps installed on Mum's phone and even has his own iPhone (my old 3g from the UK permanently set to aeroplane mode).

We make sure any phone he's playing with is not connected to the network when he's playing with it, to protect his little brain from any wireless nasties and to protect our bank balance from an accidental call to Romania. 

A baby on a mission, so many shiny gadgets so little time

It looks like the obsession doesn't end with the smaller gadget in the range, on Friday lucky mum got an iPad2 for her birthday - it seems that it's really like a birthday present for bubba. He LOVES the big shiny new iPad and is genuinely shocked and mortified when one of the adults in the house wants to use his wonderful new toy.

Mum and dad are only encouraging the obsession by bringing said addict to the source a few weeks ago - by which I mean the apple store in Sydney - where he crawled around the store, blew raspberries on the nice clean glass windows and practised his walking between the gadgets.

We can only hope that by the time Alex is big enough to write his Christmas list to Santa, Apple have gone out of business and colouring pencils are all the rage.

Attack of the tickle monster

Just located, some very rare footage of the little known but much reviled 'tickle monster'. As you can see the footage is a little shaky, no doubt the camera(wo)man got a little concerned for their safety during the attack.

Winter sun

When we decided to make the move from the UK to Australia we often pointed to 'better weather' as one of the big temptations of the southern hemisphere. In my head I guess I'd always been thinking about summer. The English summer is anything but reliable and every time I'd come back home on holiday over the last 11 years, its usually been in February - universally agreed as the most rubbish month to be in the UK, and always guaranteed hot weather in Sydney. 

Over the past couple of weeks I've realised it's not summer that makes the real difference between Sydney and London it is actually winter. The last two weekends we've enjoyed crisp clear blue skies, warming sun and generally lovely outdoor, picnic, walk and ferry catching weather.  And it's the middle of winter!

In summer months we now have to worry about Alex's whiter than white delicate skin, while in winter the sun isn't so harsh and we can spend time outdoors without needing to wrap him up like the Michelin baby to protect him from the wet and windy European winter.

It's a win win for winter!

My future's so bright - I've got to wear Nanna's shades

A lil' bit country...

Alex in his suitable 'country' attire

This weekend Alex and family and a couple of friends left the big smoke behind and headed way out into the wilds of the Australian countryside. OK... slight exaggeration. We drove about 2 hours away and stayed a night in a nice country hotel in Bowral. Where we wondered around the shops, ate yummy food and generally lazed about before packing up the raft of baby related paraphernalia and heading home. But was nice to get away, if only for a night and show Alex and Nanna B that there is more to Australia than the Sydney they've seen so far.

little cat burglar

Kangaroo Valley - Mean nanna won't
let me crawl out onto the street

But I'm over it now

 

Hair harassed

what have you done to me?

Alex had a first visit to the hairdresser this afternoon. And to put it bluntly, it didn't go well. There were tears, there was yelling, there was a look of genuine dismay from the little man towards his encouraging but ultimately useless mother. There was super fast scissor work from the slightly frazzled hairdresser and there were blond curls everywhere!

And we got there - in about 6 1/2 minutes.

And once it was over we were all smiles again.

Alex is now transformed, sans long flowing locks and bouncy curls, into an entirely different baby. I barely recognise the little man whose emerged with the neat (ish) hairstyle and the less girly good looks.

He definitely looks older. Either that or he looks younger. Or it might be shorter and chubbier. One or the other or both.

And you... you're not helping!

All better 5 minutes later