Bula!

We're back!
Last Friday we went to a festival in the parklands across the street to celebrate Buddha's Birthday with some friends. I was interested in the food and the show, Travis was interested in the details like how old Buddha is. Buddha is 2,552 years old this year. And when you give Buddha a bath it's three scoops of water on the shoulder. The festival was great fun and enjoyed by all.

Saturday we flew east, nearly to the date line, to Fiji. Fiji's a nation of islands, we stayed on one of the main islands and took a day trip out to some of the other islands. This included spending half a day on one of the cutest little islands you've ever seen. Travis snorkeled, FFM napped, and I just relaxed. Afterwards FFM tested out the beach chair.
View of the island, South Sea Island, on our way to sail to other islands. May is the beginning of the dry season and it stayed dry all but one day of our trip, but the skies were partly cloudy to overcast quite a bit of the time.
On the boat, FFM enjoying playing. He really wanted to crawl around but the sides were open all the way down to the water! Sunscreen is a great distractor.
Ahhhhhh.....relaxing on our balcony wasn't so bad, either.
We also ventured inland to see some of the land and meet some of the people. Fijian's are communal family oriented people who live in self sufficient villages. These kids were totally hamming it up, posing like warriors with their sticks, until we came to talk to them and they suddenly got shy and tongue tied. The stuff in the background is kava which the villagers were drying in preparation to make a drink for an upcoming funeral ceremony.We did manage to spend a little time taking advantage of all the fun stuff at our hotel. These guys beat the drum and RAN around the resort every night with all the kids lighting all the torches. The hour before the kids would make grass skirts and paint their faces, it was really cute.
Fiji was fun and we learned an important lesson. If you go with your chubby blond baby you'll get attention wherever you go. You will also have your baby pinched, poked, hugged, plucked out of your arms, and once even unbuckled from his stroller for a quick cuddle. Fijians are SO friendly and all the places we were we felt SO safe that this was never really an issue, but it did take a little getting used to. FFM mostly loved it, but a couple times he got passed around one too many times and started fussing. At the end of every day he smelled like a dozen different kinds of perfume and half a dozen different kinds of cologne (the men were just as excited as the women).

I missed our ten month update, but even without an update FFM still turned ten months old about a week and a half ago. He's definitely grown but I have no idea how much. On our last full day in Fiji he stunned us and gave up commando crawling and started crawling on all fours without dragging his 'dead leg' along the floor. Yes, full fledged crawling! We were so surprised we squealed, surprising him and he promptly dropped back down onto the floor. No fear, he's decided it's better on all fours and has continued to crawl since then. No more grunting either, crawling seems to come with giggling which is so cool!

PS: Bula = Hello/Welcome in Fijian :-)

Moore Teeth

Tooth #5 popped today. When it rains it pours, it looks like at least one more is just around the corner. No wonder he's been grumpy...

Spoon Feeding in the Long Run Teaches Us Nothing But the Shape of the Spoon

E.M. Forster said it, FFM's buying it. No more spoon feeding in this house. Only occasionally, and only if FFM is holding his own spoon. I finally figured it out this weekend, after a week of tantrum filled meals, which is REALLY unusual for us. Meals have always been smooth sailing (except for the spraying bit, but that passed a while back and really was only messy, he still ate like a champ). All of a sudden meals became a nightmare, with very little actually getting eaten, and FFM obviously still hungry by the time I'd give up. He'd literally clamp his mouth shut and shove the spoon away, food flying across the kitchen.

Then the lightbulb came on...he loves these crackers that I give him to snack on when we're out and about, and often I let him munch on one while I'm getting dinner ready. Parts of meals he could feed himself would always go smoothly, it was only the spoon feeding bits that were rough. Today, pretty much all meals were self-fed and he's much happier. And fuller. Now I just have to figure out what to feed him that his four tiny teeth and sturdy gums can chew up without choking.

And nope-we're not cutting that shaggy hair. Going to let it keep growing. It's just too durn pretty. Plus we're still just astounded at it's blonde-ness that we want to enjoy it.

Other big news, bottles are on their way OUT! I'm ecstatic about this. In come various forms of sippy cups, apparently our little man feels that water and baby milk (formula, we started calling it baby milk after noting that's what it was called on our grocery receipts in Dublin) need to come in different types of cups. Water in a cup with a spout (a type available only in the US of course) and milk out of a sippy with straw-available both here and in US (yay!). We did OK all week, but Thursday FFM turned the corner and drank the equivalent of both daytime bottles out of sippies. For the afternoon one he sat on the kitchen floor, using one leg to turn himself around in circles, it was hilarious.I gave FFM a book to read while I was getting ready one morning, and he got really engrossed in the book/mirror combo. I grabbed the camera to take a cute picture and when he noticed me the suddenly looked up and started hamming it up for the camera! Jabbering away and giggling and smiling. This weekend we took a day trip a couple hours up the coast to check out some towns we haven't been to yet. One is Eumundi which has a famous market, it was definitely worth the trip. Once we arrived and parked in the grassy parking lot Travis determined that FFM needed what our friend Dave would call an 'al fresco' pit stop. It cracked me up, watching all those little limbs waving away in this grassy parking lot, so I took a photo that FFM will surely be embarrassed about one day as we show it to his future girlfriends.

ANZAC Day

Today is ANZAC Day here in Australia, the day veterans are honored and remembered. From Wikipedia: The term ANZAC originated as an acronym for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, an army corps of Australian and New Zealand troops who fought against the Turks in 1915 at the Battle of Gallipoli during World War I. The Australian and New Zealand Army Corps was disbanded in 1916 and other ANZAC formations were then formed and fought during that war in the Middle East and on the Western Front. Within Australasia, ANZAC came to stand not just for the troops in World War I, but for Australian and New Zealand soldiers in time of war more generally. Anzac Day is observed annually in memory of those soldiers who died in war.
There aren't any big weekend shop sales (like there would be at home) instead it's a real day of remembrance. There was a dawn service this morning at the memorial downtown. We talked about going and decided not to, however we ended up just missing it since we were awoken at 6:45 this morning when the fire alarm went off. There's a parade at 10 that starts with an air force fly over.
We went to a BBQ last night and Travis asked around about some ANZAC day traditions...I'll pass the blogging over to him now so he can let you know what he learned.

TTM here:
To really be in the ANZAC spirit, you will get up and go to a dawn (5:15 a.m.) military-style service, with bugles and some speakers and readings. Virtually every town and suburb has a service. Following the service you go and have a soldier's breakfast of sausage, eggs, and rum. Later in the day you will play Two-Up, a betting game involving flipping of two coins. The game has Irish/English roots, and was played extensively by Australia's soldiers during WWI. The game is illegal outside of casinos in Australia except on ANZAC Day, when it is played in the serviceman's clubs and hotels (pubs).

ANZAC day is taken seriously by Australians and Kiwis and most will take part in the remembrance. Many regard ANZAC day as a spiritual day and it has not devolved into a commercial holiday. Since Australia has a relatively small population (~22 million) just about everyone here has a close connection to someone in the military.

ANZAC Day Biscuits

Biscuits = Cookies for you Yanks out there.

The wives and mothers of the men who served were concerned about the nutrional value of the food they were being supplied and created this recipe to make sure they were well fed. The biscuits had to withstand a 2 month trip to get to the servicemen so nothing perishible could be sent. The interesting recipe note is that instead of eggs as a binder the women used treacle or golden syrup instead. This was because many of the poultry farmers had joined the war effort and eggs were scarce. The biscuits were sent in used tins (like tea tins) and now you can buy ANZAC biscuits at the grocery store year round. As it got close to ANZAC day a lot of the manufacturers started selling the cookies in reproduction tins. Thanks to the RSL Queensland site for the facts and recipe.

180g (6oz) butter
1 T golden syrup
1 t baking soda
2 T boiling water
2 C rolled oats
1 C flour
1 C brown sugar
1/2 C coconut
1 t ginger (optional)

Preheat oven to 150C / 275F.
Mix oats, flour, sugar, coconut and ginger. Mix well.
Melt butter and golden syrup. Add baking soda and boiling water. Mix well. Add to dry mix and mix well.
Place teaspoon sized balls of dough on a greased sheet, leaving space between as they will flatten.
Bake about 20min. When golden brown remove from oven and cool on wire rack. Store in airtight container.
Makes about 40 biscuits/cookies.