8 month update

We had a little growth spurt right at the end of 7 months, and today I sat FFM on the electronic scale in the grocery store checkout so our 8 month weight guess is more accurate than our 7 month one. He came in at 12.1kg which is appx 26.5lbs. Length is 29.5 and I think we overestimated last month because he's defintely gotten longer, his shirts all are showing his belly button now.

Favorite foods include homemade beef stew (I know it's summer here but he really likes it!), chicken and peas, and blueberries. Just this past week he got good enough at chewing, still with no teeth, that he can eat whole blueberries. Earlier this month I would puree them with pears but now I get them frozen and thaw them so they're pretty squishy and it's fun for both of us. He's also getting good at toast fingers, although they're better if they've sat out for a few hours and gotten good and hard.

Rollin' rollin' rollin'

8 months is literally around the corner and FFM is mobile! No, not crawling yet but that kid can roll like a west Texas tumbleweed. To and fro and all over the place. Lickety split, too. Here's a diagram of where he rolled yesterday, it took him about 90 seconds to roll around the room, with some stops to inspect interesting things along the way. He ended up between the legs of the desk chair, and from that point he couldn't roll himself out (I'm not sure how he rolled himself in, but it must have involved pulling up his legs at some point), so after taking a few moments to laugh to myself at the silly pickle he'd gotten himself into and then crawling up onto the couch to take a photo, I bailed him out. This new mobility reminded me of a link to some videos that I stumbled across when I was in Dublin. It's a New Zealand outfit that does some nice informational videos for new moms about how to encourage active movement and healthy motor development. Click here if you're interested - Active Movement. I'll also put it on the sidebar under Active Baby.

PS: if you're interested in what my MIL Penny is up to check out her new blog! Penny's Larks and Yarns.

Mooloolaba

Say that three times fast. Mooloolaba Mooloolaba Mooloolaba.

Off to the Sunshine Coast this weekend! North of Brisbane = Sunshine Coast, South of Brisbane = Gold Coast. Mooloolaba was our destination for another weekend beach getaway. Saturday was toasty, somewhere in the 97F range, so we went to Queensland's largest aquarium, cleverly named Underwater World. It was actually pretty good, better than I expected. We melted through most of a seal show (outdoors under a shaded area) but soon retreated back to hotel pool.

Sunday was beach day, we'd thought about it for Saturday but it was really just too hot for FFM to be outside for any period of time. Here we are at the beach. Note the lingering Irish suntan. With the high UV here I'll likely just burn so don't expect anything less than fluorescent white skin when you get to see it. FFM's in his full body rashy aka 'stinger suit.

Mooloolaba's just over an hour from Brisbane so a lot of people came up just for the day. Traffic home on weekends like this one can be similar to traffic about on I-70 after a light ski weekend. Swap the skis for surf boards and snowmobiles for boats and you get the picture. We feel right at home.

We also did a little side trip to the Glass House mountains on our way home. The plan was to have a picnic but when we arrived at the picnic area the only tables available were in the sun. Even though it was cooler today (in the 80s) we can't take our baby-that-turns-into-a-lobster on a picnic when it's that warm unless there's shade. Poor FFM turns into a little tomato head (his little round head turns all red) and it's so sad to watch the sweat drip down his nose so we do our best as parents to do what's good for him and keep him as cool as we can. So we had our picnic in the car.

WHEEEE, step on the gas!

BRAKE, Daddy, BRAKE!

beepbeep, move it Mr.

Hey, that's fun!

No babies were harmed in the taking of these photos. The car was in park, we were NOT driving Britney style with FFM loose. With the back car seat full of piles of maps, heaps of baby bags bottles toys blankets etc, we really didn't want to join FFM back there for our picnic. So Travis sat him in his lap so we could eat.

But we probably are terrible parents for thinking these are funny pictures :)

Bla La La

FFM's been much more vocal these days, in all kinds of ranges. Used to be it was all fairly low, now he's reaching pitches I swear could nearly break glass. Experimenting with the ENTIRE range a la Mariah Carey...

Anyway, when he babbles it's great fun, and often he babbles away and then turns to look at you expecting you to respond. I'm sure this will get more and more deliberate, I remember cousin Ryan (now almost 5) as a toddler babbling away with great concentration and direct eye contact, and he'd get very impatient when you didn't respond.

And the kicking and flapping! This is partly why people who pass us by on the street all get the giggles. When I was pregnant FFM moved around so much that I was worried I'd never get any sleep. True to prenatal predictions he continues his frantic workout every day, all the time. Note, this film is NOT sped up and it's blurry because he's moving really fast! I apologize for the really shaky camera work, I was trying really hard not to laugh and it wasn't working!

My mom and brothers will totally get the following pictures. No matter what we do these days FFM rolls over to sleep on his tummy. I'm a die hard tummy sleeper (pregnancy sucked) as are my brothers. Must be genetic...FFM really is related to me!
And finally, a picture from last week. We had some company and FFM learned that older girls, especially ones that can crawl when you can't, can be tough when it comes to sharing. Even if they are smaller. He did recover. The other baby that came over was even younger than FFM and as he's just barely sitting (still needs a little help from mom) he didn't stand a chance in toy wars!

What goes in must come out

We made it to the real beach this weekend. Brisbane isn't right on the Pacific, it's very slightly inland so we went for a little drive. There are beaches very close by, but we decided to make a weekend of it and we drove down (south) the Gold Coast to Byron Bay, about 2.5 hours south of here. We stayed Friday and Saturday nights and did fun things like shop for rashies, tour the eastern most point of mainland Australia, and hit the beach. (below: Tallow Beach)
This was FFM's first trip to a true beach, one where we let him sit and play in the sand. Just like most everything these days he puts whatever he can reach directly into his mouth, this includes sand. I don't think he ate too much as I haven't changed any diapers full of sand, and it has to come out the way it goes in. We had a great time, the water was pleasant, a little cool which felt good after the hot day, and we stayed in the shallow water and watched the surfers play out in the big waves.

FFM in his rashy. Everyone here wears these. It's not a wetsuit, it's more like an all over swim suit that protects you from the sun. In surfing, a rashy (rash guard) offers protection not only from the sun, but also from irritation and rash caused by sliding up on the board. Travis is wearing his, it's just a shirt. FFM is a great water baby, he and I play in the pool all the time and he's comfortable going completely under. Today we had our first official swim lesson and he 'swam' through a hoop placed underwater. 'Swimming' is simply the instructor giving him a healthy shove in my direction and me catching him underwater while he kicks and wiggles like mad. We'd never done that before, but he came up out of it with a big grin on his little face. I'm so glad he likes the water, I'll admit it would be hard for me (who surely is part fish) if he didn't.

ARGH the computer the computer!

Blogger is baffling me. I'm not an Html whiz, but can muddle my way through some simple stuff. However, something seems to have gone haywire with our posting and, at our end anyway, I can't turn on the 'Posted by' function. Blogger says it's on, all systems go, but at the end of each post where it's supposed to be it's no where to be seen. Travis wrote the last post, and if we're both going to be posting it would be nice for our faithful readers to know whose voice they're hearing! Until I figure out a solution, which may be eons, I'll have Travis sign his posts somehow. Any suggestions appreciated!

Just so you know, spell checker has been on the blink, too, so there may have been more spelling errors than normal. I do know that's an overall Blogger issue and that they're working on it. Not just something silly me did mucking about in the moore cyberspace.

Heavy Frost

No, not in Brisbane - in Colorado. While we have been slowly steaming in the subtropical climes of eastern Australia, Colorado has been getting whacked with heaps of snow. Here's my Mom's house in Silverton. The snow in the front yard is at least 6-feet deep, and it has undoubtedly settled since it was fresh. I think Silverton has gotten over 10 feet of snow so far in 2008.

This photo is of a house one street away from my Mom's house. The snow piles look a bit bigger because the snow is just piled up by plows on this street, rather than being hauled away.

If you're in the mood for some expert skiing or snowboarding in epic conditions, Silverton Mountain would be the place. Check out http://www.silvertonmountain.com/ for photos and current conditions.

Cricket Party!

We're trying to learn about cricket! The game they say Americans will never understand. Last weekend we went to a cricket party hosted by some new friends of ours. As you can see the house was overrun by BABIES! These two munchkins are FFM's new friends, Ceanne and Stephen. Ceanne is 9 months, Stephen is 4 months.

7 month update

FFM turned 7 months last week, and while this isn't a checkup month we did our own height and weight (so not totally accurate, but pretty close). Height/length 29.5", weight ~25lbs.

His hair is getting blonder and blonder and thicker and thicker. The dark patch in the back is totally gone. When Travis and I take him out together people ask us where he got his coloring from. He does look like us - in the eyes, the skin - but the hair and eye color, which are usually the first things people notice, really throw them off.

He kicks and wiggles SO much (arms and legs flapping all the time) when we go for walks that people who are walking towards us glance, and then look back, for a longer look and smile and sometimes laugh. He's been especially popular with Asian visitors; I'm sure some of them have been sneaking photos. They love the cheeks. He found his voice, and while it's sometimes a bit screechy he also babbles the coolest conversations to me, especially in the mornings after breakfast. Naps have stabilized as long as we are home, still rough when we are out and about as he's too interested in his environment and whatever is going on around him.

(lots of background noise on video, it's not really that noisy on our balcony. It's the fan on the bubble machine that I'm sitting right next to.)

Baby food is all new here, the third time FFM's learned to adjust to new food in a new country. After about a week of spitting out everything we fed him he finally adjusted. His new foods are mostly homemade yummy veg purees which are getting lumpier and lumpier since he's pretty much chewing now. He's SO interested in real food when we're eating that I started giving him finger foods, even though he's still working on the pincer grip. Grated cheese is a huge hit, and really ripe fruit is a favorite for snacks. Cheerios here are sweetened (a lot) so for cereal finger food we do unsweetened puffed brown rice cereal. It's actually pretty good, but probably a little harder to pick up. Since he's just manhandling fistfuls right now it's OK. Yogurt is his favorite food, and if I can't get him to eat his dinner I'll often cheat and alternate bites of homemade chicken and veg with baby yogurt (milder for baby's tastes! also no bits). mmm....more cheese please...

Bedtime is about 7pm, wake up about 7-8am, and nap for appx 2 hours twice a day. SWEET! I've been waiting for this :) Naps are great! He does wake up every once in a while in the middle of the night, he's got this bad habit of rolling all around his new big boy crib (no more pack and play) and once he rolls onto his stomach he gets upset when he wakes up. It's an easy fix, just roll him over and go back to bed. If I'm the one that hears him I don't think I even wake up all the way.

Where in the world is February a nice month?

It turns out February isn't the nicest month in Brisbane. It's the rainy season, which we knew, and it's really pretty rainy. We aren't having the floods that a lot of Queensland is having, but it's really pretty damp around here. Just so all of you northern hemisphere people know, it's not all sunshine and butterflies around here :) True, it's still warm and there are still palm trees, but it's durn DAMP. Locals tell me this is the crummiest month, it's the hottest and the wettest month of the year.

Moving to Dublin I grooved around the city sights for hours on end and met a lot of people really pretty quickly. Still slow to do that here, between naps and snacks and rain it's a different scene - it's starting to come along. Plus Brisbane isn't the tourist trap that Dublin is, one of the biggest draws is the park that's across the street (way cool park) so sightseeing is definitely different. We started a Kindermusik class, it's really small and so far the only people in it are another B&V wife I got to drive me and the music school owner's granddaughter. I went to playgroup at the library and there were a million kids there, most were considerably older than FFM. I was meeting another B&V wife there and while I was waiting for her I thought I'd just go up and randomly introduce myself to someone. So I picked one of the few people with a younger aged baby. Turned out not only were they American they were a fellow B&V wife, too (not the one I was meeting, a new one!). Small world.

One truly great thing is that the 15% rule does not apply here. Those of you that came to visit us in Dublin learned Travis' 15% theory, that everything in Ireland is 15% smaller than in the US. Houses, beds, rooms, restaurants, etc. Thus those of us who are normal (or slightly taller than normal) sized Americans felt about 15% too big for our space most of the time. Not so here! Here everything feels NICE AND SPACIOUS. We can stretch out and stand tall and drive without snagging a side mirror on a wall or oncoming traffic. Oh, and lanes are actually wide enough for big cars, which there are a lot of here, SUVs and everything. I enjoy Brisbane's blend of big enough for us to fit comfortably but still being a pedestrian city so I can walk places easily and get around with public transportation.

Shopping is almost like home here. Instead of thinking of that item you 'need' and then discovering it's 1)not available or 2)so amazingly expensive you'd never ever actually consider buying it, it's just slightly more expensive than home here. Baby items are LOTS more expensive, but we're pretty well equipped (thanks Uncle Q for the jumperoo, you wouldn't believe what that costs here!). IKEA is a wonderful place. Cheap things for your temporary home! And nice things that we look at and think, wouldn't that be nice to have if we didn't have to move it...

So, that's the current quick and dirty low down on our daily life around here at the start of week four of life down under.