Wednesday, October 23, 2002

Nearly 8 months old - christening

The latest excitement was Marcus's christening. Bill and Felicity came down again from Canberra, and Elf's cousin Ashley came over from Melbourne to be godfather. Marcus performed impeccably in church. The service was fairly long, (there was an astonishing amount of incense, bowing and ringing of little bells) but he was very well behaved, and sensible went to sleep once he was safely within the Christian fold. He wore a christening gown that has been in Felicity's family for 127 (I think) years.
After the service everyone came back to our house for a nice babies 'n' champagne party. We had about 40 people including 15 babies and toddlers. I have to thank Ashley for his superhuman efforts cleaning up around the house & garden - we have named the patio the A.P. Banks Recreation Area in his honour.
Marcus is sleeping in 8 hour chunks now - often goes to sleep at 7 or 8 and doesnt wake until 4 or 5. Its not quite sleeping through the night but its a great improvement. He is having 3 solid meals a day, and we're pretty sure that's why he's not waking up as much. Almost all his food is home-made, and Elf is doing a fantastic job keeping the supplies of mushy stuff coming.
In other news: we have a brand new tabby kitten named Hatty/Harriet. I keep forgetting her name and calling her Betty. Gizmo is a little offside but not as badly as when Claude arrived a couple of years ago.

Tuesday, October 01, 2002

7 months old

Its been 8 weeks since my last entry, and they've been pretty busy weeks. It seemed like we were just back from Sydney and it was time to fly to Melbourne for Alex and Suparna's wedding.
To make things interesting we drove up to stay the night at my Mum and Dad's at Turners Beach, then down the next morning to fly in and out of Launceston. Marcus covered most of Mum and Dad's large loungeroom on his belly.
We enjoyed the wedding very much, it was in the conservatory in the Treasury Gardens - very tropical and floral, Alex was dressed like Imran Khan complete with curly slippers. It was good to introduce Marcus to Alex and to John McG, old Tasmanians-in-Melbourne mates from when I was also a T-i-M.
We hired a car and dashed about all over town with Marcus in the back in a childseat. It was so nice to have control of the situation after the Sydney taxi debacles. We caught up with lots of folks - John S & Kristy met Marcus for the first time, and so did Di in Doncaster. The hotel we booked in had tiny, tiny rooms, we could hardly open up the portacot and the walls were paper thin. We received a lot of knowing looks at breakfast from people who were obviously thinking "so YOU'RE the people with the baby". So we moved to another hotel with a bit more space and privacy.
It was a very demanding routine for Marcus, but he rose to the occasion, and he rose even higher in our esteem too. It seems that when things are a bit wild and crazy he's at is best. He had big smiles for every stranger and every relative he was presented to - usually about 2 minutes after waking up from sleeping in the car on the way across town. We think he's a bit of alright.