Moores Go to Sydney

Last weekend was a 4 day weekend for the Moores. So what did we do? Go on a trip of course! FFM is a great traveler, he treks along so well, we couldn't be happier. Travis chalks it up to all the prenatal (ante-natal for you Irish) travel he did.

Here we are on the double decker tour bus. It's a great way to see and get around cities when you're only there for a few days. They stop at all the places YOU want to go, no messing around with trains or buses that go other places (like where commuters might want to go!). Do we look like we're having fun or what?

A family shot across from the Sydney Opera House. Later that day we walked all around the Opera House and toured the Botanic Gardens right next door (FFM handily napped during the gardens).

(is this sounding like a travelogue yet? just wait...it will...)

At the park at Darling Harbor. We enjoyed this park so much we went back the next day.
Sunday we took the tourist bus to Bondi Beach (pronounced Bond-eye, no tourist speak please!). Bondi is a super-popular-famous Australian beach. It's a nice beach, what makes it really special is that it's right in the city so it's easy access. I LOVE THE BEACH! (kick kick flap flap)After a morning at the beach we headed back to our new favorite hangout, the park at Darling Harbor. There's a traditional Chinese garden in the park that you can tour, complete with a tea house. Of course we stopped in for some tea.I'm still on the quest to teach FFM about textures other than carpet and tile. Here he is learning about some new textures! Hey mom, grass. This attempt went much better than previous attempts. Third time's a charm. We also played on the brick pathways (grout is apparently FASCINATING) and in several of the many kid friendly water features scattered throughout the park.Look at my TOOTH! I've got three more on the way! It's just peeking out, if you're not a parent you may have to use your imagination (it's his bottom left tooth).Another water feature/fountain we had fun playing in. Our last stop for the day was the Sydney Aquarium. Much enjoyed, but FFM wasn't so sure about sitting on the walkway that overlooked the fishes - that's a sting ray under him. I don't think he was upset about the water or the fish, just that we'd stopped carrying him :)
Oh...but this part was GOOD fun! This was a two story tall view into the big reef tank. FFM sat quietly for so long we finally pulled him away (it was waaaaaay past dinner time and WE were hungry!).

We really enjoyed Sydney, and can't wait to get back, even if it's just for a day or so. Oh, and the food was SO good! We've got a cruise coming up at the end of the year that departs from Sydney so we know we'll be back!

Earth Hour 2008

(from the Earth Hour page)
'On 31 March 2007, 2.2 million people and 2100 Sydney businesses turned off their lights for one hour - Earth Hour. If the greenhouse reduction achieved in the Sydney CBD during Earth Hour was sustained for a year, it would be equivalent to taking 48,616 cars off the road for a year.
With Sydney icons like the Harbour Bridge and Opera House turning their lights off, and unique events such as weddings by candlelight, the world took notice. Inspired by the collective effort of millions of Sydneysiders, many major global cities joined Earth Hour in 2008, turning a symbolic event into a global movement.'

I'm back. (FYI, CBD=Central Business District or what what Yanks might think of as 'downtown).
Brisbane was one of the cities to participate in Earth Hour 2008 and we looked off our balcony last night and saw all the darkened office buildings. I'll admit, it was a lovely sight. Not only were the floor lights turned off but the giant neon company names on top of the buildings were off, too. It's always seemed wasteful to me to see giant high rise office buildings that are totally empty with all their lights blazing. I'm all for having lights on when you're working, or the cleaners are in there, but really, all night? Couldn't they at least manage turning off half the lights like when you go to the grocery store in the middle of the night (don't ask why I know this, but I do).

Anyway, check out the website for Earth Hour, and watch for next March. Sorry I didn't get this up sooner, I really should have and you all could have participated this year.
Earth Hour website

Here's a link to an article on CNN, too:
CNN Earth Hour story

Bags of glee

Some days things just go right. And since it's always easy to write about the days when they don't, today it's all about things that DO.


Today I went grocery shopping. I found everything I needed. FFM was pretty well behaved, grocery shopping is hard for him, it's a long time to have to sit still, even with his nifty cart cover which has toys all over it. There was no line at the check out. My bill was slightly less than I expected. AND, the best part of all, the manager himself was checking me out and he bagged my groceries. I have NEVER EVER had my groceries bagged so well. This guy is my grocery bagging twin. It's like he took a look at my cabinets at home and KNEW exactly how I like my groceries sacked. Bags not too full, not too empty, like items together, it was brilliant. I've been home a while now and I'm still happy about it. It's the little things in life, really it is.

While at the store I discovered yet another way our darling son is just like his father. Travis' mom, Penny, tells the story of the day she took Travis to the store and he somehow got into the carton of eggs in the basket and quite deliberately dropped them one by one from his perch in the cart onto the store floor. FFM hasn't quite mastered that yet, perhaps because I haven't bought any eggs the last two trips, but every item I put into the cart within his reach gets pulled out and put into his seat. Nothing dropped out yet, but it's only a matter of time. He's dexterous enough that we have to go down the middle of the aisle now, he reaches for items on the shelves, too. EVERYTHING is SO COLORFUL at the store, and plainly FFM thinks we must need at least one of everything. The produce section is the most difficult!

Camera catch up

I've got a pile of stuff I missed this month and I need to catch up! Official 9 month update coming soon, the teaser is that one tooth has poked up and three are well on their way. FFM is being as brave as he can about it, but the poor guy is finding that even his bottle is hard on his inflamed gums. I don't like to give him ibuprofen on an empty stomach b/c he's been gaggy and throwing up, so it's a game of give and take...I try to get him to eat so I can give him something to help the pain, he has a hard time putting anything in his mouth. The upside is he'll get four teeth all at once and hopefully will get a break for a while.

Here's some of the fun and games we've been up to (now that I've downloaded one of the cameras). Playing with friends...

And our favorite, rolling around. Our shipment arrived! Who knew I'd be so excited about a handful of boxes! Ok, ok, I knew. And Travis did, too. Oh, the wonders these boxes disgorged! Like my favorite pots and pans...and cookbooks...and just plain books! Oh yes, and loads of paper, too. Paper was lots of fun for a while. Especially great because right now we're learning all about new textures. I realized FFM spends a lot of time on carpet or a blanket with occasional spurts in the sand, so now I'm on a mission and I make him sit in the grass, on the sidewalk, bricks, concrete, and paper. It was great, for a while... ...then not so great. What did I do? Snap a photo, of course! This month I also finished my second knitted toy. The yarn wasn't as nice as the stuff I used for Chilly the penguin, but the platypus turned out OK using the yarn I could find here. He was a going away gift for a friend returning to the US. Toys are fun to knit, they won't get outgrown and I like the fiddly bits, but I have this fear that they'll someday show up in some terrible (yet wonderful) book by Stitchy McYarnpants like the one Christiana and friends gave me when leaving Dublin... FFM and I toured the Andy Warhol Exhibit that's at our Gallery of Modern Art through the middle of April. It was pretty fun, although the free kids part was the best bit. Look at us, we've been Warhol -ed!The best part of all was the Silver Clouds room. This picture is from the museum in PA, I haven't been able to get a good shot of the room here. The room here is glass on 2 sides and 2 stories tall. The clouds are filled with helium and the room is filled with fans so the clouds gently float about. Some stay near the ceiling, some sink to the ground. FFM and I walked through the room for a few minutes and then he just laid on the the carpeted floor and watched those clouds moving about for at least half an hour. We're totally going back.
And finally a quick story and preview of Sydney. These are 'Flat Brownies.' My young cousin Skylar's Brownie Troop is studying Australia this spring and they made 'Flat Brownies' (a la Flat Stanley) for us to tour around with us while they learn about Oz. Usually you get a single Flat Stanley mailed to you and you take a photo, write a note, and mail him on. We've got 15 Flat Brownies and we're hanging on to them until May, taking photos and sending email updates back periodially. Taking pictures of 15 flat little kids is harder than you'd think! They're great, they came laminated and everything, and straight away we duct taped them to a long string. Anyway, we've taken so many pictures of them (and they've lived in the stroller for so long) the that I feel the Flat Brownies deserve a mention. I have to say we've gotten a lot of questions about the Brownies and after explaining what we're doing people are always excited.We just got back from our extra long weekend to Sydney. Loved the city and can't wait to get back. More photos coming soon.

Laceration Celebration

It's a tooth! Tooth #1 officially erupted today and nearly sliced my finger off. There's not really anything to take a photo of, but in the coming weeks perhaps you'll start to see toothy smiles replacing those gummy grins. *sigh* already he's growing up too fast.

No, Mom, I swear it's true!

I stayed up late the other night to call my mom early her time to discuss a little project we're working on. While we were chatting I asked her to keep an eye out for the ONLY sippy cups that FFM likes. We can get a million cups here, but does he use any of them? Of course not, he only deigns to use the two Gerber cups I bought on a whim back before he was born and guess what, I can't get them here. Or get anything at all like them. The upside, they're the cheapest and simplest sippy cups I think Gerber makes, so at least it's not expensive to buy them. Just to ship them.

Anyway, during this conversation I'm trying to explain to my mom why FFM won't use the millions of sippy cups here. About 95% of the cups here come with non-removable handles, and the remaining 5% either don't have a valve or have a soft sippy spout (all about the hard plastic thank you very much). I give FFM a cup with handles and he looks at me like, "What? What's this strange cup and how do you expect me to pick it up? There are THINGS in the way!" He's quite capable of picking up and holding a cup/bottle without handles and most definitely prefers it.

So there I am, in the middle of the night, trying to explain to my mom how my 8.5 month old 'palms' his bottles. She's laughing, and really it is quite funny. So yesterday I took some pictures so she could see exactly what he looks like drinking his bottle. He can't quite palm the sippy cup yet, it's too bumpy on the bottom, but he does wrangle it one handed.

And here's the one handedview. Not at all into a two handed hold, except to pick it up. He'll flip back and forth between hands. See, handles would just get in the way.

And that, folks, is more than you ever wanted to know about how to hold a bottle.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

March 17th will mean something different to me forevermore. Before living in Dublin it was just a day I had to scrounge something green out of my closet. Now it's a day reserved for all my favorite Ireland memories. And dressing my little Irish-born kid up in green.

You may remember this rugby shirt from many many moons ago. It was big on FFM then, it just fits him now. Ok Mom. I'm done with pictures now. Can we please go for a walk.

Home Sweet Bundamba

Post by TTM.
Back in May 2006 when I arrived to work on the Dublin project it was to a site that had officially demobilized. Our offices were a well-worn double-decker construction trailer and a year later we moved out of the trailer and into a 225-year old stone hotel. Both accommodations were workable but fairly spartan, but they did the job with our small staff.

Arriving in Brisbane to get started at the Bundamba project, I found a much different scene. This site has had 500+ people at once working on it at many points, so the facilities were scaled to match.

Here is a view of some of the trailers from the carpark. This was taken in the evening after most of the trades had left. Tradesmen generally start work at 6AM on this site, so the commissioning staff (including me) usually ends up with the way-out-there parking spots when we arrive shortly before 7AM. These trailers extend in several rows away from the camera and to the left. This is a view down the corridor between the "cribs", or break rooms. There are a lot of them, because when 300+ hungry construction guys emerge from the site for their morning "smoko", it takes a lot of space to hold them all. Most of the corridors between the trailers are covered to keep the sun out. Notice the potted palms. The joint venture went to a good amount of effort to make the site offices and break room a comfortable place, and that includes palm trees, legitimate sidewalks, running-water toilets, air conditioning, a site canteen, etc. This is a photo of the inside of the trailer where I have my "office". My desk is on the left hand wall to the right of the person in the orange shirt. B&V staff have two computers: the B&V laptop and a joint-venture computer. Everyone has two screens on their desk, and two mice, and two keyboards.... And two email accounts - ugh.Here I am at my desk! (This really is work, I haven't been incarcerated for something) The spiffy orange shirt is part of the site uniform. In Dublin we wore fluorescent green jackets and vests; here we wear blaze orange shirts with stripes.
Here I am in more of my safety gear. The yellow hat indicates that I am part of the Commissioning team. Construction wears white hats, safety/first aid gets green, and visitors get blue. Pretty handy to know what people do at a glance. The dark glasses are because it can get really bright outside; everyone issued with a dark pair and a regular clear pair. If you look closely at my shirt you will see an interesting feature: my name. Yup, after most of a decade of professional employment, I am now at the point where I get to wear a shirt with my name embroidered on it to work. Jokes aside, this is also a nice idea; it helps you keep track of who is who and recall their name. Imagine facing several hundred men in orange stripey shirts, hardhats and dark glasses, and trying to be sure not to call yell "Don" when the guy's name is really "Mike".

The project is really going well. Our project (the Bundamba Advanced Water Treatment Plant) is part of the Western Corridor Recycled Water Project; a massive project in southeast Queensland to provide additional treatment to already-treated wastewater so that it can be used as part of Brisbane's water supply. Bundamba is the first part of the project that will be completed, and one of the largest parts. I am the SCADA (computer control system) commissioning leader for the second half of the project, and as such I am responsible to make sure that all of the computer controls are developed and work correctly to provide mostly-automatic control of the water plant.

If you want to take a look at the overall WCRWP, try this link: http://www.westerncorridor.com.au/ Click around and anything you see related to Bundamba or Bundamba Alliance is part of our project.

eyew yuck

The most digusting baby thing ever happened to me today. And I know digusting baby things- trust me you see a lot when you work daycare (not that daycare does bad things for kids, you just see a lot of different kids so get the chance to be exposed to more than just your own). And my experience today was more digusting than any baby snot drool or poop, even though there was a baby excrement discussion among moms here today...

No, this was worse, way worse. It was a silent throw up. Of about 12 quarts. In my lap, FFM's lap, all over the 'First Book of Colors' board book that we were reading. AND that's not the best part, the real kicker is that it was after a dinner of fish with cheese sauce, cauliflower, finally followed up by yogurt for dessert. The situation is made worse by the fact that I absolutely detest both yogurt and fish. And seriously, could I have created a smellier dinner? In my attempts at being not-the-world's-worst-mom I am exposing Finn to a variety of yummy and tasty things that are good for him (even if I won't eat them). I have NEVER had anything so slimy and smelly and gross all over my lap. And FFM's thrown up on me A LOT. Today it was the amazing stench that did me in.

He's had both of these delectable dishes before so the dinner wasn't the cause of the upset, (insert drumroll here), it's more likely the TEETH that we're pretty sure we are starting to see come up!

After FFM crabbing about all day I did a gum check after our playdate friends all left and it sure looks to me like at least one little white line trying to work it's way up from that bottom gum. He SCREAMED when I got near his lower jaw, which is a new trick, so we may be losing our gummy little man soon for a toothy little grin. I'm not holding my breath for teeth, though, we've been thinking he's been teething for the past five months so this is probably going to take a while.

And one last note, in case you think I'm exaggerating about the world's most disgusting mess, even Travis was sure he saw vapors rising from me, FFM, and the pile of gross, soggy clothes that awaited him when he came home from work today. And remember, he sometimes works at sewage plants.

ahem

I can't believe this is on TV. As I watched this commercial during CSI tonight I knew, in my gut, where it was headed but couldn't actually believe that someone actually thought this would sell product.
Although I do have to admit I REMEMBER the product now so I guess it really did work (although I still wouldn't buy it). I'm positive nothing like this will ever make it to US TV.

(Grandma and Grandpa, don't watch this. I'm serious.)

Scary Femine Product Ad

Finally, clean floors!

I've been thinking our floors are a bit mucky...thanks to Nancy F for passing this great idea along.
http://inventorspot.com/articles/get_baby_ready_housework_11326
d'ya suppose they've got one that's two sided for rolling babies?

the funniest thing I heard today

I love quirky colloquialisms, and going to different countries I've heard some really cool ones. But this evening found me laughing out loud, over and over, as I remembered this little gem.

(this one should probably be rated PG, or maybe even PG-13 if you are a sensitive parent)

Can you guess what a

'tarted up chicken bum nut' is?

and in Just 10 Minutes a Day

Now this is my kind weight loss program:
Fast Track Your Fat Loss!
10 minute workouts that slim you down and tone all your trouble spots.
By Chris Freytag Prevention

and for you guys, it takes a little longer:
15-Minute Workouts
No excuses. You have the time.
By the Editors of Men's Health

See what happens when I have a few spare moments to read the junk on MSN? Any day now I'm going to look like a supermodel because even I can do 10 minutes!