1

Hello, I am 1 today.

Oooooohhhh, cupcakes are GOOD!
Hey, Dad, can I have some of your cupcake, too?

We did a small party today, just the three of us. Granny Annie and Eric arrive on Thursday and we'll celebrate again (plus it's my birthday then, too!). We opened a few presents today but are saving most of them for the big event later this coming week. Ripping presents open was a big hit. Note to all other new moms-if you can, partially de-package presents so your kid doesn't have to wait 20 minutes while you undo the million cable ties and plastic packaging. A very smart mommy taught me this years ago and boy was I glad I remembered to do it.

After cupcakes and presents we went to Roma Street Parklands, a really nice park right in the middle of downtown. FFM has been having a great time on little slides at Gymboree and T wanted to see. There were only big slides but I told T that as long as he kept a hand on FFM it would be OK. After doing a couple of short trips down the bottom half of the slide it became apparent that our new 1 year old was ready for the big time. Watch the slide show, the pictures are from a couple different trips so if you're paying attention you'll see different people in the background.

That's right, no hands. He's a big boy now, he's just got to figure out how to get to the top of slide by himself! The dad sitting on the bench next to me was laughing hysterically, it was that funny. He was amazed FFM was just 1. Literally he sits at the top of the slide, lets go, gives a little scoot and slides ALL the way down. It's was a bit thrilling the first time, I will admit, but young FFM grinned from ear to ear every single time.

Didgeridoo duet

Did we do the haircut?

I've got a few pictures from this month to share with friends who have asked. For Katie, and others, who have asked about the haircut. Yes, we did a fringe/bangs trim and probably should hack away at the rest of it soon. We swallowed hard, it's difficult for us brunettes to part with all that silky blond hair, and a couple weeks ago did a pretty awful job of trimming FFM up. He does look much better, though, and it's nearly creepy how much he looks like T as a toddler. Color is all wrong, but for YEARS T had the same hair cut that we just gave FFM. The first day after the cut I got the willies and I've only seen it in pictures! Hopefully Penny can scan an old photo of Travis sometime this summer and I'll post it.

Before:

After:

And for Deborah, who's been posting some great swinging shots of her own, we finally found a toddler swing here. All the local playgrounds only have 'half' buckets, with a chain across the one side, so we don't do much swinging anymore. Sometimes we'll put FFM in backwards, with the chain to his back, so he can swing without sliding out, but it's not really stable enough to really get a good swing in. We went up to Redcliffe this weekend, a northern coastal 'suburb' of Brisbane, and they have a playground every km or so along the beach. Every single one had a proper bucket swing. Yahoo-eeee!

Going for a stroll. He can't get enough of this these days. The wagon gets a heavy workout.And just for Travis (who really likes that sort of thing,AND he's the one who remembered to take a picture, AND this isn't just my blog after all you know). This is what the first day of winter looks like in Brisbane. Winter solstice here was June 21, when most of you were having your summer solstice. It was a gorgeous day. You see me wearing jeans, but it's mostly to give my summer clothes a break since I've been wearing them since we moved here. It's still in the 70s most days, although it does get down to the 50s or sometimes 40s at night. Lovely, lovely weather, I'm enjoying winter :)

Quote

Quote of the week from T:

"You know when people ask us the best advice we can give new parents? We should tell them to get their company to rent them apartments for the first few years so when they get messy you can just move."

This as we are having family dinner and the table, tile floor and all grout, sliding glass door, and all three of us are covered in veggie pasta. We are also remembering the polka dotted milk spit up floors, rugs, sofa, etc in the last apartment....

Fraser Island

And we're off again! To Fraser Island this past weekend. Notable for being the world's largest sand island, this UNESCO World Heritage Site was something I really needed to see for myself. So I dragged FFM and Travis along and off we went. It's about 4 hours north of Brisbane plus a short ferry ride. There are no paved roads on Fraser, so you are required to have a 4x4 for any travel around the island. Boy did we learn why! On Saturday Travis was tickled pink to rent a 4x4 pickup and bump all around the island. And it was bumpy!

'Camping' and hiking last weekend, off roading this weekend, we are truly feeling like we're getting back to our roots. It was good for us to get out of the city and into our element - especially during our long discussions about upcoming job choices for T.

Some of the sights of Fraser...it really is a big island, we only covered a tiny bit of it! The entire thing is sand, now covered by trees and vegetation, but no rock or coral anywhere. Just one giant sandbar.

Lake McKenzie, one of the larger lakes on the island, is a "perched lake". One of the really interesting things about Fraser Island is that there's freshwater on it. How does the water now just slip through the sand you ask? Well, some plant material clogged up the sand and made it less permeable so the water stays in the lake. Being a freshwater lake you get the best of all worlds: no salt + nice beach. Travis showed FFM how best to touch the water, explaining that you can't just look at a body of water, you really need to touch it if at all possible. The water was wet, but not very cold.

Our next lake, Lake Wabby, was pretty cool, too. It's the only lake on the island to have any fish in it and it's a window lake. Window lakes start when a depression in the earth is lower than the water table, causing the water to pool. To top it off it's also a barrage lake, which is a lake formed by a sand blow blocking in a depression. All these funky lakes are another of the reasons Fraser Island is a World Heritage Site. Here's the sad part about Lake Wabby, the sand blow/dune is moving in on the lake at a rate of about a meter a year, so in a few decades the lake will be gone. What's going to happen to all those fish? Bummer this is the ONE lake they ended up in. (Side note, all this fresh water flows to the sea in some nifty sand filled creeks that you can wade or tube down if you go on a hot day. It was nice the day we were there, probably about 65F, but a little chilly for splashing around if you ask me.)

Family self-portrait at Lake Wabby. Dontcha just want to pinch those cheeks?

Wreck of the Maheno on Seventy -five Mile Beach (which I hear is really only 65 miles/100km but either way it's a LOOOONNNGGGG beach). In the early 1900s it was a luxury liner, then a hospital ship in WWI. After the war it was sold to Japan for scrap, but during a cyclone (a clockwise hurricane for you northern hemisphere folks) the tow rope broke and the ship grounded on the beach. After a number of attempts to dislodge it, they gave up and just left it. It was used for air force target practice in WWII. There are perhaps 5 decks below the sand and less than two above.

This is our off-road limo, a Toyota Hilux running on distillate (diesel). Note the snorkel above the hood (looks like a seal looking at Travis), which takes air into the engine above blowing-sand level. We strapped FFM's car seat in the back and took off. He loved it and took several naps on severely bumpy roads. This is on Seventy-five Mile beach again. It is a sort of freeway/runway with 4x4s driving up and down and planes landing and taking off. Speed limit is 80km/h, you must follow all normal road rules (including using your indicator/turn signal), and cars have to yield to planes. Seriously.

Sand formation called The Pinnacles. This is baby sandstone in the making and has over 75 distinct shades of sand in the pile. We did not stop to count them but you'll just have to trust the 4x4 guy who told us we should check it out.

Driving home on the beach.

We did see ONE Dingo, Fraser is famous for them, and as we were watching the sun set after our bumpy day one wandered across the beach down below us.

Official Statement

A very official sounding statement from T regarding current job/moving news:

"I just wanted to let you know that I have declined the job on the B&V Chile project. After due and careful consideration of many factors, Maggie and I found that the needs of the project and client are not the best fit with the needs of our little family.
Not sure what will be next after Bundamba, but I will begin sniffing around Australia for a new job."
Travis

On the trail again

We celebrated the Queen's birthday (and thus a long weekend for us Queenslanders) by beating a path to the great outdoors. Instead of making tracks for the coast we headed inland, to the 'bush.' Our destination was Carnarvon Gorge National Park, about a day drive from Brisbane.

The wildlife was unbelievable. The kangaroos and wallabies were everywhere, we actually started paying attention to the kangaroo crossing signs. Once we arrived at our 'camp' there were kangaroos grazing between all the cabins, too.
Starting out in the hike up the gorge. There were a total of 10 stream crossings before our destination, the Aboriginal Art Gallery, about 5.5km upstream.
Taking a snack break. FFM enjoyed the hike, he isn't bothered at all by being WAY up high on Travis' back. This is a nice thing for me, while I end up carrying all the stuff (and it's way more than when it was just the two of us hiking, we have to pack nappies and entire spare outfits now!) my pack, while much larger and heavier than before, is still lighter than carrying FFM. Having a little nap.
We made it! It was definitely worth it, this is just a small bit of the gallery. On the way back down we did a side hike to the Moss Garden, complete with waterfall and tree ferns which are unchanged since dinosaur times. See, I went on the hike, too.

Hiking takes a little longer now, having a little person along affects distance/time in the great outdoors just like everywhere else. We were pleased to get in a good 12k hike in before meltdown began. We take more breaks and T's hips were a tad sore from carrying heaps of extra weight.

Our lodging/camp. It's a canvas tent with wood floor. The posts you see are holding up a tin roof that keeps rain from rotting the canvas roof. There's also a little wood veranda so you can sit outside and watch for wildlife.I've stayed in a similar style place before, but this was a first for the boys who had a blast exploring.
It was really a great time, we've missed getting out into the woods and hiking, even if the woods are interspersed with palms and ferns. We saw more wildlife than we've seen the entire time we've lived here, it was just like going to to the zoo except the animals really were wild. Kangaroos, wallabies, an echidna (they're really shy and we spotted 2!), kookaburra birds, at least three kinds of parrots- even some that look like giant parakeets. Not to mention the yellow crested and very noisy cockatoos, bush turkeys, and one bright yellow snake that I tried very hard to ignore.

The link for the echidna actually takes you to a page about Monotremes, which is a fancy biology word for mammals that lay eggs. Everyone knows about the platypus and echidnas are actually the same type of mammal. So when trivial pursuit asks you for the mammal that lays eggs you can answer platypus OR echidna and be right.

I feel a little rushed getting these photos up, but we're headed out again this weekend and I didn't want to get too far behind. Off to Fraser Island tomorrow which is the largest sand island in the world. What are we doing there? Renting a 4x4 and driving all over it of course!

I prefer 2-ply, thank you

I just walked into the bathroom and found FFM eating a roll of toilet paper. Usually he just pulls all the paper off the roll and strews it all over the floor. This morning he was eating a nearly new roll just like it was a bread roll. Yummy. (normally the door is closed but he has super 11 month old bathroom door radar and if I leave it open for 1.2 nanoseconds he's in there playing with the tp).

Change is in the air

Some big changes have been happening around here. My head is spinning. Just in the past week, give or take, FFM has started:

• 'cruising' along furniture
• purposefully pushing cars around at play time
• dropping a ball through a ball drop toy
• downward facing dog yoga position (he tries to stand up in the middle of the room without anything to pull up on by basically bending in half)
• walking while holding on to our fingers or pushing his little push wagon
• self feed an entire meal (it can get SUPER messy)
• to help himself get up when we count to three so it's easier on our back
• to come when we call his name - this is an older skill but it's so cool!
• crawling up onto things, like steps. No going down yet
• peeks under doors when they are closed to see what's going on behind them. Especially if you've just gone through the door and he knows you're in there doing something fun without him (like going to the bathroom).
• Loads more babbling
• He swims on his own with floaties. It's a scary scary thing. But good, too. I had a conversation with his swim instructor about what to do about his utter non-fear of water. She suggested to let him rip but stick the floaties on him for my peace of mind and so he can rip on his own a little more. Success.

It's crazy how fast all this happened. Sort of like the crawling bit. Commando crawling came slowly, in bits and pieces, but pulling into a sitting position and true crawling literally appeared overnight (on separate days, very close together). One day he's happy crawling around, the next I look up and he's standing at the coffee table. A few days later and he's moving around the coffee table. I'll tell you he's been in a spectacular mood lately, I think his new found perspective agrees with him. Riding horses during swim schoolSplashing. This is our class, minus two kids. The water is nice and warm, but this day it was really cold and wet so I think one kid stayed home. Another wasn't feeling well but came anyway to watch and his mum is the one that kindly took photos. Thanks Yasmine!Kicking with a kickboard and blowing bubbles. FFM dunks his face in with his mouth closed and LOVES to watch all of us blow bubbles but isn't doing bubbles himself yet.We love swim school.

FFM: "Look, Cooper, see this is how you work the microwave!" (knobs turn, buttons push, the microwave turns on). This is the night we went to see Indiana Jones thanks to Sara who came to babysit. The poor microwave gets more things covered up every week. Whoever put a shiny silver box covered with knobs and buttons at knee height obviously never had a toddler.

Work is winding down for Travis, he came home grumpy a few nights ago. The team he is responsible for is working very slowly, perhaps they have 'senioritis.' This is the point of the project where the last bits left are the ones that no one really wanted to take care of before. Sort of like when you move and you have those last little bits at the very end that you just don't want to deal with packing. The end of the week has gotten better, everyone seems to have pulled it together a bit.

Me, I'm trying, rather unsuccessfully, to hang loose while we wait on our 'contract' negotiations for the next job. The big difference this go round is that there are a couple of points that are sticky enough that if we can't get exactly what we've asked for we won't take the job. Previously we've been happy to go even if we got close, but this time the agreement is different enough and our needs have changed enough that we aren't willing to compromise on these few things. News will be posted as soon as there's anything to report.

More video, with so much movement going on around here it's hard not to share it. Yes, FFM is ticklish. I love being a mom.

Haircut

Ok all you moms out there, I need to know -
How old before you did the first haircut / trim on your kid?

Please leave me a comment using the comment link below, it will take a little while to show up but I'll see them.

Thanks!