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.