Monday 27th August 2007

We had such a lovely day today ... we had a surprise visit from Grandad (Paul) which was really nice! Elliott was very happy to see him. Elliott tried a new food today too - carrot! He loved it (so far he has liked his vegies much more than fruit (although the fruit was quite tart!). He got quite a bit all over his face and in his hair, but enjoyed every minute of it!

Finally, a quick note about Elliott's new play habits ... he rather likes playing whilst using as little energy as possible - here he is sucking on one of his toys without using his hands!















P.S. We had the best night sleep last night for a LONG time! It was Elliott's first night in his own room (on his own) and he slept through from 7pm to 5:30am (no repeat show the following night!).

What is mightier???

Everyone has their opinion on the question: What is mightier the pen or the sword (for the record we'll be teaching Elliott its the pen... better for poking eyes). I recently put a similar question to the test: What is mightier the washing machine or the screwdriver? I accidentally left a small screwdriver in my shorts and it went through the wash! It turns out the little tool took out our machine. I lodged inside, pierced the outter tub and knocked the whole thing out of alignment. So the screwdriver wins! and I loose!

In hindsight I always thought a new washing machine was on the cards, to cope with the extra load (our washing machine, bought when Kel and I moved out together 6 years ago with the help of Sally and Angela, was a very low 4.5 kg capacity). I just didn't think it would be my stupidity that would bring it on! Oh well you live and learn!

For the record our new LG front loading machine has a 7.5 kg capacity, 4 star water efficiency and 4 star energy efficiency. Gee whiz it takes a long time to do a load though, nevertheless, we are doing our bit, one 2.5 hour load at a time. Keep it clean and stay green!

Daddy and Mummies Ebay addiction

Dear all, I just wanted to bring it to everyones attention that mummy and daddy have begun to indulge in some Ebay shopping and I'm a little worried it might get out of control. They have opposite aproaches... Daddy is a cheapskate and has only been successful buying things that appear of no use for next to nothing (the window below cost him $12.50)... while mummy has a taste for a particular line of furniture (Parker Eames Danish style for the record) and she buys things that are admittedly useful for much more (the coffee table below cost her $102.50). So take a look and you be the judge, but I would appreciate everyone keeping an eye on their habits to make sure we don't end up with a house full of junk or not being able to afford nappies!!!!

Love Elliott xxx

Catchup on recent happenings

As mentioned in our last post... things have been pretty hectic at home recently, with the interior decorating etc, but all the while Elliott continues to develop his little personality and pleasantly surprise us at every turn. We're continuing to introduce solids (well puree actually) to him and he's really taken to it! Last week he was having his usual rice cereal mid-morning and then some puree pumpkin in the afternoon... and loving it (see below). As of today we've made it three, two rice cereal and one pumpkin, though we did give puree apple a crack today with some hilarious results. I won't give details of how it went just yet, but we got some video of it all and you can judge for yourself what he thought of the apple when we get a chance to post that footage (next couple of days hopefully).


Another thing we've done recently is to put the swing (kindly donated by Lisa, James, Bianca and Abi) up on the clothes line fo a bit of outdoor fun. We we're prompted by seeing Elliott's little buddy Alfie swinging away with delight... it's interesting that from time to time we need to remind ourselves to try introducing new things to Elliott. It's easy to forget that his likes and dislikes are a moving target I guess. Anyhow, from what we can gather, the swing is considered good fun... for the moment.


Elliott is continuing to catchup with his little buddies Ben and Alfie and there are always priceless photo opportunities. They are all starting to show some interest in each other, the other day when Alfie visited (along with Paul, Beth and Cathy- Paul's mum) Elliott's gaze was fixed on Alfie for quite a while, he then started to flap his arm, like he does, and almost whacked Alfie in the head! The last time the three of them were together, Ben was wearing a Piglet outfit which also caught Elliott's eye. I've always looked forward to being able to play dress up with kids, of course them dressing up... not me... although... anyway, I can't wait to get some fun costumes for Elliott.


Like all babies his age, Elliott uses his mouth quite a bit. He's usually got a fair bit of slobber on his chin, and anything he can get a grab on is straight into the mouth. Some recent developments include: 1) He can now blow raspberries; 2) he seems to prefer putting two fingers in his mouth rather than his thumb (as Aunty Nicole did); 3) He's becoming aware of his tongue (even sticks it out during raspberry blowing occasionally) and sometimes he curls the very tip of his tongue upwards when we are feeding him.


Finally, Elliott is becoming more and more co-ordinated and skilled in his movements everyday. He can routinely roll from his tummy to his back but he has not yet worked out how to do the reverse, or that this is one way he can get around (at this stage he just does it when he gets sick of being on his tummy). He's getting really good at reaching for things and holding then too, after his meals we usually give him the spoon to play with and chew on for a while. He's also getting good with his feet (perhaps soccer will be his sport Paul???), he now kicks his shoes and socks off using his heels! So all in all, life at 50 Mawson st is going along swimmingly, we fall more and more in love with our little boy every day and find it hard to think back 5 and a bit months to a time where he wasn't around.

Long time between drinks (I mean posts)!!!

Well we've had a bit of a drought of posts this last week (despite the precipitation). This can be largely traced to our snap decision to paint Elliott's room last weekend. It all started when I did some major gap filling around the skirting boards in his room in preparation for the big move of his cot (out of our room)... I did a rather shabby job and it didn't help that I used a brown gap filler (logic was that it would go well with the floor boards). Sadly, I got a fair bit of the filler on the skirting boards, which looked very ordinary by all accounts. So, after some debate we decided the only thing to do was paint the room, which after all was a pretty ordinary lavender colour with sky blue window and door frames! Consequently, most waking hours have been spent painting etc... I'm glad to be able to report that the painting is now complete and later this weekend we'll put the furniture back. THe room will need a little airing time, but give it a couple of days and we hould be announcing that 'big boy' Elliott has moved into his own room FULL TIME!

Wonder how that will go???

More posts and catching up will follow soon (including picks of Elliott's room with its new colour scheme)!

Clinic visit 9th August 2007

So we're a little behind on the blogging ... we're yet to write about Elliott's last clinic visit, which happened last Thursday (18 weeks old). As you can see Elliott thoroughly enjoyed himself! He didn't mind getting his gear off and being weighed and measured at all. For the record his stats were:

Weight: 7.6kg (75th percentile)
Height: 66.5cm (75th+ percentile)
HC: 44cm (90th percentile)

He's starting to drop off slightly from the 90th height and weight percentiles but we know that is normal and nothing to worry about, especially as he's a very happy baby and is feeding well. Apparently there are new growth charts for breastfed babies that show there is a plateau in height and weight at around 4 months of age ... must remember to ask Alison about those. Of note is that Elliott's head circumference is still on the 90th percentile (? following in Dad's footsteps?) ... obviously he's destined to be very intelligent.

Visitors from the Apple Isle

This weekend we've been extra lucky because we've had Aunty Alison and Uncle James visiting from Tasmania! They actually arrived on Wednesday and we got to spend nearly all of Thursday together, Friday night and then Saturday lunchtime... before they had to fly off south again. On Thursday they came to Newcastle and Alison, Nicole, Mum, and Kel all spent the morning Wedding dress shopping (for Alison), and although they were a little cagey about the details they apparently had an informative and successful morning. So the rest of us will just have to wait and see what they came up with. James, Elliott and I just hung at the house chatting etc... (you know just guy stuff), actually Elliott slept the whole time. We all then met at Blue Water Pizza for lunch. This was Alison's when Alison first saw Elliott... and Elliott first saw Alison, they were both very pleased to see each other! We had a nice lunch (though poor Nicole was sick) and eventually headed back to our place for the afternoon.


Mum and Nicole went home but Alison and James stayed for dinner and got to witness the full afternoon routine. This included afternoon mealtime for Elliott, he's been having some baby rice cereal in the afternoons for about a week now, mainly because it will be reassuring for both of us if we have established him eating something other than breast milk before Kel starts her new job (only 4hrs/week-but I'll be with Elliott and to date my breast have been extremely unproductive). Anyway, it was great fun and Elliott is really starting to get the hang of it, although from any one spoonful only about 50% stays in his mouth on the first try. We also did bathtime and bedtime, so Alison and James got the full experience of our day to day lives. It was really nice to share it with them. Dan came over after Uni and we had some take-away Thai (from Top-thai).

On Friday evening we made the track down to Killarney Vale to visit Steve and Adel for Dinner. This was Elliott's first visit to their house which was an exciting event. The occasion was in aid of Alison and James' engagement (though they didn't realise until the cake came out with their names on it) and a good time was had by all . Garmey, Sue, Simon, Kate, Jasmin and Kerry were also there and it was really nice for Elliott to be able to meet everyone for the first time. It ended up being a bit of a stretch for him (we are still yet to master sleeping away from home) and he got pretty worked up for a while, but considering it was well past his bedtime he did marvelously well. It was a shame though, that he didn't get to have nurses and cuddles with everyone (next time we promise).


On Saturday we went back to the coast again, this time for a BBQ at Mum and Dad's (Nan and Pa's). It was a beautiful afternoon (it felt like spring had arrived, though there will probably be at least one more cold snap before it stays). Elliott was trialling his latest Tshirt "Give peas a chance", which Kel made using Adobe Illustrator (her first foray into computer graphics). The shirt was a big hit and we are already working on our own diet related catch phrases ("give peas a chance" came from somewhere else). It was great to just hang out with everyone. We spent a bit of time after lunch with Elliott playing on the new rug that Nan and Pa bought so he could play comfortably on the tiles. He was quite the entertainer and even came up with a new trick when he took his first sips out of his trainer cup. This is a revelation since we have failed at all attempts to get him to drink out of a bottle. Finally, the afternoon came to an end and we had to say goodbye.


Alison and James flew back to Tasmania this morning - it was such a nice visit and it won't be too long before we see them again. It was really nice to see Elliott spend time with his Aunty Alison and Uncle James, they're great with him, however if Elliott becomes a drummer we will be blaming his uncle James and he will have to help build a sound proof room (James discovered that Elliott loves it when you tap your knee to a beat).

Getting our teams straight

It's that time of year when the footy in Australia reaches the fever-pitch of finals football and Premier league kicks off in the UK so I though it important to restate our Teams (for Elliott's benefit). Of course at some stage in the future Elliott may choose to rebel against these teams (at his own peril) but from my experience... so long as the indoctrination period starts early enough and is sustained without respite... he'll stick with these teams.

So it should come as little surprise that in NRL we are TIGERS 100%

And since Elliott was born and lives in Newcastle the Knights are our second team.


In the AFL it's the SWANS all the way (being the only NSW-based team... and besides, uncle James works for them).


In soccer we have teams to support in the A-league and the English Premier league! Locally, we are right behind the JETS (of course... since they're our Newcastle team), and in the Premier league we support the Reading Royals since mummy was born in Wokingham and Reading would be the closest team.

Wonderboy Vol. 2

Well folks, I hope nobody has been holding their breath... because volume 2 of Wonderboy has been some time in the making! Finally the truth about how the Pasha Bulka was removed from our shores.

Click to enlarge

My freeware license for Comiclife runs out in 3 days... so tune in next time to see if: 1) I was able to beat the system... 2) I registered my copy... or 3) I gave up and retired from comic making after 2 glorious issues ;o)

In your own backyard

We've been in Shortand for about an year and a half now (and that's not including the year and a half we lived here previously), but it was only recently that we went and explored the wetlands project (which is literally just down the road). It's great! We went for a walk around there to check it out with Elliott, there's an information center, a cafe, plenty of picnic spots, and lots a little walking loops. The down side was that it costs $5 per adult (although it is a non-profit volunteer-based project)... but you can get a family pass for $7... bingo we thought but you need two kids to qualify as a family... we paid the $10 anyway and had a nice afternoon. For future reference, the you can visit the cafe for free and have a great view of the whole wetlands project.

Catchup on the week

There's been a lot to happen since last weekends post. Our week has been pretty busy. Grandma and Grandad (Angela and Paul) visited on Monday, and Nicole came around on Tuesday. We also had our walk with the Stockton Mum's and bubs on Tuesday, then on Thursday we had a GP appointment and on Friday we had morning tea with our antenatal class Mum's and bubs. A full week by anybody book!

Elliott has also had his first cold this week. Luckily for us it hasn't been too bad - on Sunday night he actually slept right through (only the second time ever!), perhaps because he was feeling a bit poorly. He had a pretty runny nose the next day, and that night he worked up quite a snore... to the point that Kel got up and repositioned his head. He's also had a cough that has persisted all week so on Thursday he went for a checkup (just to be sure he didn't have a chest infection). The doctor thought he was doing fine and just had a virus. He's continued to do well, although sadly there have been no repeat performances of the sleep through.

Elliott has also been enjoying standing up the last week or so (with our help, of course!). He gets such a chuffed look on his face that is so cute. Whenever he gets fussy when we're sitting him on our laps it's usually because he wants to be standing up. The other thing of note that Elliott has been doing is getting more and more vocal. He's most chatty just after he wakes up and his latest thing is to go "Ahhhh... ahhhh...ahhhh....etc..." at about two times per second for quite a while. He also lets out these gorgeous satisfied sighs.

Weekend yardwork

The last couple of weekends have been just beautiful! The weather has been great (last weekend it was so unseasonably warm... thongs, shorts and a t-shirt). We've spent plenty of time out in the yard working on a garden bed behind our front fence (made famous by the protracted time course it was constructed over). We've planted coastal (native) rosemary along the inside of the fence line, and we've also cut the path edges (which were heavily overgrown!). It's been great to spend time outdoors with Elliott, and he's seems to have really liked it too!