Our 1st Father's Day

Well, today is Derrick's first father's day. Maeghan "helped" me write on a card and cook a nice breakfast. We also gave Derrick the day off his weekend chores while I cleaned his car for him... but more on that later. Maeghan was chuffed at getting to play in the mini, it's only marginally bigger than her toy cars inside the house.

Then we were all over at Mum & Dad's for dinner to celebrate Father's day. These day's Maeghan is following and copying everything that Isaac and Elissa do. Isaac is not too keen to share his things just yet, but that doesn't stop Maeghan, the two of them are continuously snatching things back off each other. One of Elissa's favourite games is getting us to 'make' her little people talk. It's insanely hardwork for us, but I figure that I'm also helping to develop her negotiation skills by making her work for my co-operation.

As penance for letting the dogs stay in the back of the mini during an Agility trial yesterday, I spent the morning vacuuming the dog fur out of the car. I might have gotten away with it, except that the dogs also made themselves comfortable on the front seats as well, so there was dog hair everywhere. Gemma's not old enough to trial yet, but Podger made up for it with a bit of success in the ring. He managed to win two of his events, but only after we had an incident on the first run of the day. It had been pouring all morning and when he got to the table, where he's supposed to sit & stay, he decided it was a nice dry spot to do a #2! How embarrassing!! He was disqualified of course.

10 Months and still growing...

Do you like my knee pads?

When did all the thousands of toys in this house suddenly become so uninteresting. When did the remote control, mobile phone, stereo... speck of fluff on the floor and anything that's not supposed to go in the mouth become so appealing. I caught Maeghan in the laundry this week eating the dog's food!!!



What are some of the things Maeghan can do these days? Well, she certainly has a much better understanding of what we say to her now. She loves her books and will go and choose one for us to read to her. There are definitely a few books have a preference over others... and if you are trying to read one to her that is not of interest, it is quickly pushed away with a flap of the arms. We're getting lots of kisses and cuddles now, the teddy gets kisses and cuddles and the dogs will happily lick Maeghan's open mouth as she tries to give them kisses as well... YUCK!



We're having a lot more bumps these days. That happens when the confidence outweighs one's physical ability. Maeghan has started to free stand a little bit as well. Mostly when she's distracted by something else. I think the record is about 20-30 seconds, but usually it's much less than that. The crawling has been getting much better and faster. My kitchen drawers are no longer safe, the dishwasher when I'm trying to unpack it, I've caught her in the bathroom getting into the bottom of the shower... the list goes on. I'll try not to be soooo slack with the blogs, but no promises.


Happy Birthday to Patrick.

Sunday sporting endeavours...

We had our own little prequel to the olympics today. This morning Derrick ran in the Sutherland to Surf race, which is 11km, mostly down hill. Easy... I've done it once, don't need to do it again. Maeghan and myself froze while we waited for him. After dropping Derrick at the start to warm up, we drove down to the finish line to cheer him on. We were expecting a finish time around the 44min mark. Somewhere in between saving Maeghan from launching herself off the barrier, saving the kids next to us from being grabbed at, saving the camera from being chewed on... we waiting around for nearly two hours at the finish & then missed him as he crossed the line. Hmmmm... maybe next time.
















From there we were on our way to Michelle & Ryans for a BBQ and the Chiew Family Wii play-offs. No-one told us we should warm up before getting stuck into the Wii, nor that you can throw a shoulder out playing that game. Though not particularly talented, fair to say we were enthusiastic. I won't be surprised if we're all a bit stiff and sore tomorrow. Doubles tennis is a very serious affair. Michelle & Ryan had the advantage of being the home team & beat all of us... just. Maybe next time...

I can get it...

Maeghan has a new nickname... "Wriggley". There's nothing safe anymore, nothing that is off limits and everything is get-able. If I want it, I'll just launch myself at it. Someone will catch me. See.. if I reach over, right on my tippy toes...

Nearly got it... just stretch a little bit more...
Got it!!!

Now you see me... Now you don't.

(don't worry, I did catch her... just)

ps... Happy Anniversary Mammy & Daddy

Maeghan at 9 months

There's not much news to speak of. It's winter, it's a bit cold and generally not our most active time of year. Maeghan has started to crawl a bit. She's not very good at it or particularly fast yet, but at least she's a bit happier these days. She's much less frustrated playing on the floor because at least she can get around a bit more. Given the choice of standing or crawling, she'll take standing anyday. In fact, she's far happier if I help her walk around than leave her on the floor. The only time she will actually actively work on her crawling skills is if I leave the room & let her fend for herself. If I'm in the room, she just wants me to help her stand and walk around. I'm kind-of her launching pad.

The little clip here includes two of Maeghan's favourite past-times at the moment - standing at the coffee table, grabbing at whatever is in reach and blowing raspberries. There's also a little video of her crawling efforts.

Since I've been pretty slack these days I've missed a few birthdays.

Happy 5th Birthday Amber
Happy 2nd Birthday Molly
and Happy Birthday Jenny

Weekend projects.

What's going on these days... well, we've been quite busy with the usual weekend projects. It's 8.30pm on a Monday night and Derrick is currently up in the roof finishing off his weekend task of insulating the roof. We put up with a cold house last winter, but decided we were not going to go through the annoyance again this year. My little weekend project was completed at 4.30pm yesterday afternoon, thanks to the assistance of my Dad. I spent saturday afternoon digging up a corner of the garden to plant a vegie patch. As soon as Dad got a whiff of my efforts he turned up on Sunday with a load of dirt in the ute and thankfully helped me turn my patch of upturned lawn into a garden. So far I've planted various forms of cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, red onion, broccolini, rocket and wombok(Chinese cabbage). The only thing left to plant is some rhubarb. Now the survival of the garden is purely based on my ability to keep the dogs at bay.

Maeghan is doing really well. She is getting quite mobile these days and is getting quite good at moving in every direction except forward. She's getting up on all fours, doing 360's on the floor, pushing backwards and getting incredibly frustrated that she just can't get everything that she wants to. The above photo is Maeghan's effort at crawling. The arms and legs are working hard, but she's just not going anywhere.

We had a real mother/daughter moment last friday with both of us at the hairdressers together. Maeghan had her first professional haircut. It was starting to look really scraggley as there were all the really long original bits sticking up all over the place. This was just a tidy up and now it can start to grow a little bit neater. This photo in the bath is pre-haircut.

A weekend in Canberra

Although the Queen's official birthday is actually in April, here in Australia, we
have just celebrated it with a long weekend in June. April is an inconvenient time to have another public holiday. We already have Anzac Day and the Easter holiday's in April. It's an awefully long winter if we don't have at least 1 public holiday. Truth is, no-one really cares the reason behind the holiday, we'll just take what we can get. Regardless of the reason, we decided to pack our bags and spend the weekend down in the Nation's capital, Canberra.

There were a few mandatory places of interest that we needed to visit. Parlament House and the War Memorial were among them. Surprisingly they were both pretty interesting.

There were theories behind how we planned our weekend. We left very early on Saturday morning so that Maeghan would sleep most of the way down there. Naturally she only slept 1/2 an hour of the 3 hour drive. Then we thought we would tuck her up in the pram to have a sleep while we took a tour around. Well, of course she cried and cried until we lifted her out of the pram. She didn't sleep at all on the drive back to Sydney either. Cheeky girl! Luckily she still slept well at night so at least we got a good night's sleep too.

And when Maeghan got bored with sitting in the pram, she hitched a ride up on Derrick's shoulders. The view was much better up there.


















There were a lot of really cool things down at Canberra that I didn't expect to find. The Old Depot Markets were a little bit like Sydney's upmarket Paddington markets, but a lot less crowded and a lot less pretentious. We tried to go to Questacon, which is a really interactive Science musuem, but it was mobbed with kids so we gave it a miss. Instead, we hired some bikes & went on a ride around Lake Burley Griffin. We had so much fun. Maeghan was really good. The bike helmet was too big & kept going down over her eyes & it was late in the day with not much sleep, but we managed to ride for the hour without too much drama.

As you can see from the photos, we're all reasonably rugged up. Canberra is in the depths of winter now & is generally a fair bit cooler than Sydney. Well, when I say that it's in the depths of Winter... obviously not an Irish Winter. The daytime temperature was probably around 13-15 degrees.



Of course, we had to do a drive by of the Embassy of Ireland. It wasn't the most exciting looking Embassy of the lot, but it certainly wasn't the worst. Though when we were driving around & saw some temporary fencing around a building, we expected the worst & thought that would be typical. Luckily it was the construction site next door.

The surprise highlight of the trip was a visit to a place called 'Cockington Green'. It's basically a display of minature villages. It was really well done. There were little scene's set up in each display, each with their own subtle humourous storylines. Football fields with streakers, working class villages in England, with dogs lifting their legs on unsuspecting farmers, sunken boats for sale. It was quite cute. I think when Maeghan is a bit older, Canberra will be a really great place to visit

Anyway, till our next exciting adventure...

PS. Happy Birthday Stephen for the 3rd & Happy Birthday Annette for the 15th June.