Friday, June 27, 2003

16 months old

This has been a really good week. Marcus has been healthy and happy and picking new things up all the time. We took him to Salamanca Marcket on Saturday, and he walked all around with us taking turns hanging onto the hood of his jacket. That afternoon we went for a walk without the pram, up to Wellesley Park playground behind our house. We are lucky to have two good playgrounds about 3 minutes walk from the door. We usually go to Cascade Gardens, but now he is so mobile, Wellesley is better because it is surrounded by a huge grassy field and he can plod about from swings to slides as he pleases.
He's been dancing this week, sometimes just when the spirit moves him, but I read something to him about dancing last night and he started jiggling about on my knee, so he understands the word. We've had a devil of a time keeping him away from the rubbish bin, but now he knows that's where fruit peel and things like that go, and he drops them in and closes the door. He's now saying "Giz" and "Hatty" (the cats), "block", "bath", and having a good go at imitating any sound we say to him.
We know now that Marcus has a sibling on the way. Sibling Singleton! Which means its probably time to take down the ultrasounds and so on of Marcus to make way for the new ones. Click here to send us name suggestions that we make no promises to pay any attention to at all.

Tuesday, June 10, 2003

15 and a half months old

Hoo-eee, its been nearly 4 months since my last confession. Life is busy here at work. As this is where I do the website now, (having folded up my home office) the poor site hasnt been getting a look in. Of course its great to be busy, and have a regular dependable income.
Now I have a chance to catch up a wee bit. Marcus, who is the chief subject of this er, weblog, is now terrifically independent and mobile. He strolls around like Walkie Walkerson. His balance is very good and he hasnt yet run headlong into anything sharp, which is a mercy.
Here is his current (intelligible) vocabulary, in reverse chronological order of when he picked the word up. Boots. Sock (actually Ock). The Door (its always The Door). Quaaaaaaaaaaagh(a very realistic duck sound whenever ducks are mentioned/visible). Thank you. Book. Ball. Bye bye. Bee. Mummy. Daddy.
He understands the most surprising things. We can ask him to bring us his boots, to shut the door, or to put his empty bottles in the sink. In most cases he's started doing this off his own bat.
He's eating with us most of the time, which has been a shock to the system for Elf ands I as we find ourselves sitting at the table eating a meal off a plate, like humans.
This breathlessy and brusquely brief update will be added to soon I hope. We have lots of great photos from Easter at Turners Beach, now receding into the past as well, but we'll get them up here soon. Cheerio.

Thursday, February 20, 2003

Nearly 1!

Hmm, I've been away from the diary for a long time. I'm looking after Marcus all day Wednesdays now, and I think its better than the two half days we had last year. Elf is back at work full time, so of course she isnt seeing as much of Marcus as she'd like to, but she will be having 1 day off a fortnight, so hopefully we can make that day a good family day each time.

We've just let the garden go its own way over summer. Because it is so steep, theres not much shade and the grass is pretty yukky, its not a good place to play with Marcus at present, although we have grand plans. And the water restrictions put me off doing much watering. Standing watering the lawns in the evening with a G&T in hand is pretty nice, but its not very baby-compatible. We've been going over to the Cascade Gardens across the street pretty regularly, and M is very at home scrambling around on the grass there now. We've had quite a few barbies, and we always stop off and look at the bunnies on the way home. The Gardens are home to a large mob of very brazen rabbits.

Our trip to Canberra went very well, luckily we missed the fires. It was damned hot though, and we spent a lot of time downstairs where it was 10 degrees cooler. Its a strange feeling climbing the stairs and having your head markedly hotter than your feet. We had use of a car, and one day I took off on my own to revisit Mt Stromlo, where I'd been on the Grade 6 Burnie Primary trip in 1979. The big telescopes have always stuck in my mind. They were just as beautiful as I remembered. A week later they were just twisted scorched metal, so I'm glad I had a chance to see them. Bill and Felicity enjoyed very much having their youngest grandchild around.

We are enjoying Marcus more all the time, which is how people told us it would be. He responds when we tell him NO (usually when he has a handful of cat fur) and we havent had any major tantrums. He's sleeping pretty well, although still getting us out of bed before the alarm nearly every morning. He's eating a wide range of things and its not too far away we'll all be eating basically the same. We are only having to make up 1 or 2 bottles of formula each night now - such a nice change from making 6. We are heartily sick of washing bottles.

Elf's major pastime now is cooking for Marcus. We have never been great cooks on a day to day basis - we just assemble meals rather than creating them usually. To have a good healthy baby-edible meal ready for Marcus 3 times a day, plus snacks, has required a major increase in our kitchen time. Elf has practically done it all, and considering she is working full time its a pretty heroic effort.

We're now approaching the little ningbat's birthday, and feeling pretty pleased to have made it this far with only minor abrasions and no serious mental scars.

Congratulations Jacki, Tim, Pip, Sam and Brin and welcome to the world to Marcus's new cousin Malachy James McTaggart.