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

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

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.

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.

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

 

The big day approaches

Well, actually there are a few big days approaching, and one is happening today. This morning Haydn (aka Dadda - Alex is pretty good at telling the difference these days) started his new job.

It's great news really, a good company, interesting job and it only took him a couple of weeks to find it which is good for the bank balance.

But it's also the official end to our lovely, luxurious, long holiday together and back to reality. I realize most new families don't get the opportunity to spend such a solid block of splendid, sunshiny time together, without the pesky interruptions of a job and all that real life stuff. Most babies don't get the pleasure of undivided attention from both mum and dad (and various nannas, cousins, aunts and uncles) for close to 5 months. And we SOOOO appreciated it.

I know it's a cliche but all good things must come to an end eventually and more adventures lay ahead. The fact is we won't have as much time with our gorgeous bundle of joy over the coming months, so the time we have together will have to be that bit more special.

A new home... again

Considering we've uprooted the little man once again, introducing him to a new place, a new home, new furniture, a new bed (in his very own room for the first time) he's handled it all pretty well. I actually think he enjoys change, new people, new places more than the same old routine but I know that goes against everything you read about in baby books so I should probably put that uneducated opinion away.

We've had a few bumps along the way - some actual bumps (did I mention the new furniture?) and a brief spell when we first moved into our place where the little man got a touch of the lurgie (not sure how to spell that). It manifested itself with a bit of a fever, a grumpy temperament and a bit of a rash but cleared up after a few days and now he's back to his old self. He's brief illness also made Alex more cuddly than his normal self, usually he'll have a bit of a snuggle then see something shiny in the corner then crawl off to investigate. A bit like the dog from the movie Up whenever he sees a squirrel.

In the picture above Alex spent hours clinging koala-like to his Dad's back - a game than normally gets boring after a few minutes ... Squirrel!

excuses excuses

note chaos of toys in the background

Well... the thing is... I've been a bit busy: moving countries (again), doing lots of admin, trying to get the internet for our new place... and there was all the unpacking and job hunting and illness. OK, so just insert any of the reasons above for why we've somewhat dropped of the blog radar during the past couple of weeks. Very sorry - bad blogger!

Anyway, lots to catch up on which I will do over the next week or so, but the recipe includes a dollop of Alex having his own room for the first time, a few drops of virus and fever, a cup of 'tough love' all on a bed of new routine which today resulted in the little man sleeping for 3 1/2 hours during the day! A world record by any standards - I realise this is probably standard for a lot of 11month olds but it's definitely a personal best for our little man.

So in all the aforementioned busy period I've hardly taken a photo of the little man - how things have changed. So in a fit of sudden guilt I took a few photos of Alex playing in our new lounge room 10 mins ago.

See you soon, won't be so long next time, don't be a stranger, you've changed etc. etc.

The balcony has been a bit too tempting already

Byron Baby

Here are a few photos from the last leg of our Australian trip, where we stayed with Amma on the gold coast, had a lovely trip to a slightly soggy Byron Bay and visited the lovely Kate in Brisbane.


A tasty brunch and the morning papers in Byron


It's never too cold for a quick walk on the sand


A quick visit with Kate in Brisbane

Alfresco baby

Part of the appeal of moving bubba to the other side of the world is obviously the weather and the outdoor lifestyle that comes with more warm months. Given he's not yet walking, or even crawling for that matter (will he ever?) he can't fully appreciate the great outdoors.

One way we've made the most of it is through the great art of eating outdoors, as demonstrated by these photos. As well as being a lovely way to dine, or lunch or breakfast for that matter, the other bonus is it's much easier to clean up the um... slight mess which accompanies the darling boy whenever he has a meal. Win win!

The Family Series: GrandPa

Next stage on our journey was an introduction to GrandPa in Merriwa. A nice, relaxing change in pace from Sydney. A place where bubba got to see real versions of all sorts of animals only previously seen on his peek a boo iphone application including horses, cows, sheep and the very unusual beast which GrandPa breeds almost exclusively, and rarely found outside of the Upper Hunter area, the electric folding bicycle creature. Not to be missed.

Baby Alex seemed to take to his GrandPa with his usual enthusiasm, starting off with staring followed by big smiles and finally random laughing. This despite the cold he acquired during our travels (and promptly passed on to his GrandPa).

The Family Series: Mean Uncle hOb

The self titled 'Mean Uncle hOb' whose name is actually Navin (I don't have time to go into that particular story) is the first in a new series of posts about family members Alex has met in the past few weeks.

It seems Mean Uncle hOb (let's call him MUH for simplicities sake) has not been living up to his title and we were totally spoilt during our time with him in Sydney. He gave up his bedroom for us, drove us around and kept us fed and watered with the best restaurants the Northern Beaches has on offer (he calls them his extended dining room). He's really going to have to work harder at the whole 'mean' thing or a name change will be required.

It was also a good time to stay with health conscious Dr Navin (so many names) as both Haydn and I were in various states of disrepair and needed Navin's potions, pills & healthy food to get us back on the road again. In exchange for his kindness Alex didn't pee on his carpet or throw up on his bed - it must be love!

Alex comes 'home'

OK, technically speaking it's not home for baby Alexander as he's never actually been to Australia before but given he's been to four continents and half a dozen countries in his relatively short life we can safely call him a united nations baby. Where ever he lays his nappy that's his home.

We actually arrived in Sydney over a week ago but both of us have been struck down with a range of ailments preventing us from doing any blog updating, and unfortunately little Alex can't quite reach the keyboard to update the blog himself... not yet anyway.



So far we've had a week being sheltered, fed, watered and generally spoilt by 'mean uncle hOb' whose is not living up to his name so far, we think he might be lulling us into a false sense of security.

We've also caught up with lots of lovely people, most of whom I managed to forget to photograph including: Nat & Miles, Sandra & Ian, Megan & Glenn, Nicole, Dan, Fern & baby Elliott, Lori, Steph, Belinda, Darren and the lovely and very tiny 2 week old Lily and last but definitely not least Rach and the gorgeous Emily. Phew!



Now we are in relaxation mode at Grandpa's house in the countryside. Alexander seems to enjoy staring at his newly discovered Grandpa for extended periods of time. Next we continue, all rejuvinated, up to Amma's place on the Gold Coast.

Current temperature in Merriwa: 24 degrees
Current temperature in London: 8 degrees

So far so good...