Mulberries

We went to a snazzy open home on Saturday, 30 Swan Street in North Hobart. I took a dislike to it though because the kitchen was so self-consiously Jamie-Olivered up. It sold while we were there to a fat chain-smoking guy, so I hope they'll be very happy together.

But - there was a nice big tree shading the back lawn. I could see it was dropping fruit which had got squished into the grass. When i got closer I couldnt believe my eyes - this was a GIANT BLACKBERRY TREE. I tried one and they were fat and scrumptious.

Later Nick told me it was a mulberry tree. He and Anna lived next door at no. 28 for a few years.

Why has no-one told me about mulberries before?

WELL?

Paean to the RCH

Its roughly a year since Michael came home from his three weeks at the Royal Childrens Hospital. I havent recorded here why he was there, so I'll do that briefly.

Michael was born with Transposition of the Great Arteries, which means the aorta and pulmonary artery are reversed. The aorta normally takes red (oxygenated) blood from the heart around the body. The pulmonary normally takes blue blood to the lungs to be re-oxygenated. In Michael the red blood circulated from the heart to the lungs continuously, while the blue blood was pumped around the body again and again, progessively reducing in oxygen. A few hours after he was born, a midwife at the Royal Hobart Hospital noticed his bluish skin, and did some tests to determine the cause. About seven hours later he, Elf and I were at the Royal Childrens Hospital in Melbourne.

We can't really express our gratitude in words, to the RHH, the RCH, and the Tasmanian State Government's medical emergency procedures. Also to our mums who teamed up to look after Marcus for two weeks until I could fly home.

The prompt action at RHH saved Michael's life. The State Government pays for evacuation, medical treatment and accommodation of anyone who has a medical condition that can't be treated within Tasmania. We had no idea this existed until we needed it. A man called Terry who works in a tiny office in the bowels of RHH organised Michael's transfer by air ambulance, seats on a commercial flight for Elf and I, and our accommodation. We did not have to worry about any of those details, which was great as our worry brain cells were fully occupied.

Michael had a temporary operation immediately that allowed some mixing of red and blue blood to happen in his heart. This bought some time until the "arterial switch" could be performed. We thought it would be done straight away, but for a variety of reasons we had 5 days of nervous waiting. The operation was a success. It was a difficult day for us - we ran out of ways to occupy ourselves, and ended up walking in circles around Parkville waiting for the mobile phone to ring.

Michael spent several days in ICU after his initial minor op, and another stint after his major op. A year on I think of the other children who were in ICU at the time and hope they have had successful outcomes like Michael.

The RCH is regarded worldwide as one of the best children's hospitals. People who can afford to, send their children there from Japan, Singapore, the Middle East. We were asked to pay just $75 towards the costs of Michael's treatment, our flights and accomodation. The RCH is a marvellous thing to have in our region. People (including Tasmanians) who say that we have poor facilities or that we are remote and unloved, should remember that if the worst happens with your kid, they can be at the RCH in two hours getting world class treatment.

Peg Boy

Michael is standing up without wobbling pretty well now. It took me by surprise though when I set him down on his feet yesterday and instead of letting himself flop onto his bot, he stayed right where I put him. I felt like I had put a peg in a hole or planted a flag in the snow.

We went to a puppetry day at Tolosa Park yesterday, which was great. Everything from Punch and Judy to those spooky silent 12 foot tall ladies. We went with Anna and Lily (my god-daughter) and it tickled me to go off for a wander with Lily and Marcus - she's a great little girl and I enjoyed looking after her for a little while. There was a tiny 5-kids-at-a-time jumping castle. They get them out at the end of their go by using lollipops as bait. Marcus went off exploring on his own quite confidently which is a great development.

Vegetarian Beer

Well, I never knew there was such a thing. Then I was looking at pictures of sturgeon for work, and one of the uses of the poor old late sturgeon is his swim bladder lining is turned into isinglass which is sometimes used for refining beer. For those who are appalled here is a list of vegetarian- and vegan-approved beers.

A country that starts with "Thene"

As we drove this morning marcus was looking through the flag book for france - I told him the flags were all in alphabetical order, so just go through the alphabet until they start with F then you'll see a red, white and blue one. I was wrong, i forgot that in that little book they are in some arcane order I don't understand - maybe in order of GNP or something. He was gamely paging through looking for red, white and blue flags that start with F - and he started reading out the names of all the flags he found with the right colours. He spelled out D O M I N I C A N R E P U B L I C, P A R A G U A Y , and T H E N E T H E R L A N D S.

I was puzzled for a while by THENE.

I can smell buildings

Lately Marcus has been saying occasionally "I can smell something?" "What can you smell buddy?" In the car the other day "I can smell buildings". Yesterday in the lounge room "I can smell videos".

Last night at dinner he asked "When I put some food in my mouth and my mouth is full, and I shovel more in, thats OK isnt it?" I was laughing too hard to say "no".

We hopped onto the tall ship Windeward Bound yesterday for a look - its a sail training vessel. I am totally un-seaworthy and have no boat-sense at all, but I strove to dodge ropes and hop cat-like from poop to prow to impress Marcus. We both had a go at the helm. I imagined myself in a souwester, a lone hand at the wheel in a force ten gale, the rest of the crew below decks with scurvy etc etc. I don't know what Marcus imagined.

Michael is bursting into jolly laughter at the first line of almost any nursery rhyme. Which is handy.
"Wah!"
"The grand old Duke of York..."
"Haahahahahahah HAH!"

Mouse Lesbians

A story by my sister Sally from a few months back, when she visited Lourdes:

At this time of year Lourdes is a ghost town. More than half the town is closed and the religious fervour is considerably lessened. The hotel I thought I had booked over the web turned out to be closed so we got the taxi driver to drop us off at Hotel de la Gare instead. The train station hotel. TL, being vegan, can not always find places she can eat that are 'kosher' so carries a lot of food wherever she goes. She was awoken by a leaping (actually jumping!) mouse in our room, chowing down on her organic pumpernickel and anything else he could find. Despite her screams I of course slept through this as because of her weird 'white-noise' sleep machine (set to 'running stream') I have been wearing earplugs. I did however examine the evidence with concern the next morning and we agreed to find a new hotel. I also agreed that TL, with a better grasp of French, could try to argue a cheaper or free price for the night.

So it was for the first time we assumed our bad-cop, good-cop roles. I'm the good-cop which means I stand in the background feebly pretending I don't understand French while TL does a maginificent line in "le souris, le souris! Combien pour le souris qui mange sour ma tete!" We still had to pay. They threatened to call the police. TL left her mouse nibblied bread and stuff on the counter and told them to serve it up in no uncertain terms.

Cue the Hotel Flandria, closer to the grotto, cheaper, warmer, bigger room but a piddly shower that you have to hold in your hand. TL suffered for my sake! What a through-and-through Catholic! She is officially WARTIME. Other hotels offers of extremely close twin beds led us to beleive that the entire town believed us to be lesbians. The strange looks we received in some places also led us to believe that the mouse story had quickly spread and that we were being referred to in the Lourdes hospitality industry as THE MOUSE LESBIANS.

Why we call Raef "G.P."

A story from Raef's wedding. Years ago Raef had a more self-expressive fashion sense than he does now. He favoured puffy white shirts and sometimes sported a fairly big bangle-style earring. One day a car broke down near Raef's house, and he helped the guys out with jumper leads or something.

A friend of Raef's was arriving just as they drove away - he heard one say - "That guy was really kind to help us out" and the other said "Yeah, but didn't you think he looked like a gay pirate?"

Woken by grizzling

I was woken at 5am by the sound of Marcus grizzling "I want to go back to the place with the water!"
He was really quite upset.
I picked him up and said "its OK, you're just dreaming"
He was more upset. "No I'm not dreaming, I want to go back to the place with the water."
I carried him back to our bed so he wouldnt wake Michael. After a few more repetitions he suddenly and lucidly broke off and said "You're right dad. I was dreaming."

Michael has a bad cold and touch of fever - I looked after him at home yesterday. Elf has got him all day today - hopefully he'll be well enough to go back to daycare on Wednesday.

Marcus ran around with a big round balloon hanging from a xylophone donger this morning saying "its a lantern" and was miffed that I wouldnt let him take it to "school" to show the carers.

Michael is saying "duck" and also "bear" I think. He has had very little book time compared to Marcus at the same age.

I'm back to work on Dust on my Shoes at Roar Film now. I have some help from Sean and Will for the next couple of months which will hopefully get the timeline back on the rails. I have a poster to do for Anna's exhibition and I must get back to the Factoid project as well.

And I'm worried about a new car. I want leg room but I don't want to drive a monster around town.

Mr and Mrs Sawford get down

Raef and Leah's wedding went off well - they seemed to have a great time which is always the most important thing. They booked out a pub for the night instead of a regular sit down reception which was fun. Jeff, Robbo and I pushed back the boundaries of modern dance. The bar tab was rung up on the registers - it was up to $1870.65 or something by the time we left. The boys went to sleep on cue for Georgia but she didnt give them a fresh nappy beforehand.

Chonk bought us lunch on Saturday at Citrus Moon, Kingston Beach. They have a kids room which is pretty basic but amused the ladsfor a while. I had a brainwave that I might try out on Wednesday - to drop the boys at Allisons at 8.00 then have a swim or a run on the beach before work. It will cost half an hour a week maybe.

Then Chonk flew back to Canberra and we'll not see him now for a long time - Elf quite sad.

Uncle Chonk

Elf's brother Chonk arrived last night to stay a few days. He's an engineer working in Switzerland. Their other brother Fred stayed for a few days after Christmas too - he's a scientist working in Sweden. I've already used the joke about sending their other sister imp to Swaziland to complete the set.

The boys had a great time climbing all over Fred and it seems like Chonk will be just as popular. We are going to Raef and Leah's wedding tomorrow so he might even get a bit of solo uncle work.

As Easy as Falling off a Blog

The D of D surges back to life! Hopefully this will work, and hopefully someone or other will read it.

This will be a brief but hopefully regular journal about family life, recording what our boys (Marcus is nearly 3, Michael just turned 1) are up to.

Marcus: Has mastered small talk. Interrupted Elf and I in the car to say "So Daddy - what have you been up to this morning?"
Has a bad cold at the moment and is barking like a seal. Can we talk about phlegm here? I believe in expelling phlegm from the body (by the spit method, preferably down the drain, quietly and behind closed doors) - Elf thinks you just have to get it out of the lungs and let the stomach do what it likes with it. So - Marcus has had contrasting advice about what to do with his expectorations.

Michael: Is getting curlier and curlier. Says "yes" to questions which Marcus didnt for a long time. He's a top chap. he enjoyed his birthday party weekend before last - which is good going for a 1 year old. Most of them don't stay awake and work the crowd the way he did. He's resisting the cold so far. Marcus is very fond of him and hugs him a lot, but will abandon words and just scream if he is doing something "important" and Michael moves even slightly towards him. Michael is standing up frequently but doesnt look inclined to walk anywhere yet. Teeth are taking their time, still only has the 2.

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.

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.

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.

9 months old - first Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone - you should get cards sometime in March at this rate. Marcus has been a bit crook, with throat and ear infections, but he's going along very nicely now. Since being sick he's lost interest in his dummy, but his sleeping has gone backwards a bit too and we're now expecting him to wake up at about 11 and sometimes 2, and then for good about 5.30.
On the plus side he's developing really well, hair coming along quite nicely, thickening up. Its a little bit, just a tiny bit, sandy - might be Auntie Sally's colour. He is scrambling around with tremendous confidence, but he seems to have a very sensible attitude to his adventures. He is pulling himself up and standing very well, and when he's feeling wobbly or uncertain he kneels back down again, rather than clutch-and-cry or let-go-and-hope which are two other common techniques I have observed.
Grandma Ruth and Grandad John came to visit and looked after a sometimes noisy Marcus while Elf and I went out to dinner with Simon & Mary (whose mum was looking after Miranda). It was terrific to have a grown up evening - we went to the Tandoori house. Its the last time we'll see the grandparents before Christmas because they're off to Sydney for a while. Grandma came with us to the pool and we all had a great time. I have been back since with Marcus and he seems so happy there that we've bought him a wading pool for Christmas.
We have bought a new car, a 97 lantra sportswagon. Its got a/c to keep the little man nice and cool. Anyone who hasnt sat in a car in Hobart on a sunny day, even in midwinter, won't appreciate how hot you can get. I think its the hole in the ozone layer maybe - it certainly didnt seem like this when I was a kid.
Elf went over to Marcus O and Kelly's wedding in Melbourne, leaving Marcus R and I to fend for ourselves. Fend. Its a strange expression isnt it?
The cats are doing a lot of fending at the moment, fending off a small baby who wants to put parts of them in his mouth. Ears and tails mostly. As Hat is always preying on Gizmo as well he is feeling quite put upon and finds new and ingenious ways to avoid all the attention - sleeping on the change mat for instance.
I've just finished and delivered a commissioned drawing. I'm really pleased with the result and pleased to have actually got back to the drawing table. I tried out a few new things like stitching collage to the paper. I can't show the drawing here because its a Christmas present.
We three are off to Canberra for a week over Christmas, to stay with Marki Felicity and Grandad Bill, and catch up with all the other Fullagars, Imp and Ed and Karri who are in Canberra (in Swinger Hill in fact), Fred who's coming back from Brisbane and Chonk who is coming back from Switzerland. It should be a good break, but hopefully not too hot.
Happy holidays all.

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.

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.

23 weeks old

Our trip to Sydney went very well, apart from a few hitches trying to find cabs with child seats. Even if you give the company 24 hrs notice their policy is to start looking for a cab with a seat just 10 minutes before the time you've booked it for. We missed taking Marcus to the wedding (had to leave him with Bill and Felicity) and nearly missed out flight home.
It was great to see B and F who drove up from Canberra for a chance to see their only grandson. They were prepared to be left in charge, and although it wasnt all plain sailing I think it was character building for them.
Andre and Sophies wedding went smoothly, they both looked great and very happy, and we met lots of nice people at the reception.
We spent Sunday with my sister Jacki and her kids. Her husband Tim should have been there too, but he was in casualty having his broken ribs looked at, after falling down the stairs the night before. When Tim turned up he was in good form considering, and cooked up a storm. Brin, Sam and Pip are all "growing like weeds" and they loved having Marcus around. Sam and Brin and I played soccer in the street - Brin beat me 3-1, then I beat him 5-3, then I think the Sam/Brin combo and I were level 1 all when we lost interest and went to talk to a Jack Russell terrier instead. Jacki is having a baby in January, and she's looking great and feeling pretty good.

22 weeks old

We are quite enjoying parenting now - most of the time. We are just starting to feed Marcus some solids - mashed banana and baby food in little jars. He likes the tast of banana but he is much more comfortable with the bottle at this stage. One day we'll be totally onto solids and we can give away the whole bottle-boiling business, amen.
Marcus has had a few colds and he is quite snotty at present, but he's not too cranky. Cranky episodes now are usually teething related, and are usually easily dealt with just by putting some Bonjela on his gums. Mostly we are getting lots of smiles, some cheesy grins, a few smirks, and some Larry Emder style showbiz mugging.
He's quite chatty too - sometimes loud squeals and blatherings, sometimes little quiet cooing noises. He talks to our cat Gizmo a lot - one day it will dawn on him that Giz isnt going to talk back. Unfortunately our other young cat Claude died the other week, hit by a car on the busy road down in front of our house. Claude had just been getting braver about rubbing up against Marcus and letting him "pat" (hit) him.
we're off to Sydney for another wedding this coming weekend - best wishes to Andre and Sophie. Marcus will meet three of his four cousins for the first time, and his Auntie Jacki and Uncle Tim are really looking forward to seeing him too.
PS Marcus goes crazy now for Nigel the Zebra - its like Beatlemania.