Outdoor movies

I went to the outdoor movies with Terena last night, and saw the 2004 Swedish film about a small town choir - “As it is in Heaven”.  It was a beautiful night, and outdoor movies are one of the wonderful things about summer in Perth.   

Christmas party

I hosted my team's Christmas party at home last night. Most of them are in the photo to the left. It was a lovely night - I decided to just have cold platters (shamelessly ripped off from Jane Brook Winery), so that no one had to be in the kitchen, and there were no issues with timing etc. We had three types of platter, one with smoked salmon, one with scotch eggs, and one with cold meats. Each was accompanied with various cheeses, dips, chutneys, antipasto or salads, fresh and dried fruits, and a couple of different breads. For dessert we had simply delicious Amono gelato and sorbet in waffle cones. Again, very easy, and everyone helped themselves.

It was undoubtedly the easiest party to cater for, and very relaxed. I'm really enjoying entertaining in this City Beach house. I had a great time - they are such a lovely bunch. Everyone pitched in to help put food out and to stack the dishwasher and clear away. Today we've all had leftovers for lunch in the library. I suspect there may still be leftovers on Monday for our Christmas eve morning tea.

Decorations and Santa's schedule

We put our Christmas tree and nativity scene up on December 1^st.  Harrison was a great help ;-)  This year he is very aware of the approaching date (he tells us every day that December 24 is Christmas Eve, and checks which date it is today).  He has a wooden Advent calendar with a drawer for each day of December, containing a tiny wooden decoration that he hangs on a peg above the drawers.  I think this is making him very attuned to what day it is.  He’s already visited Santa and asked for a “big James” for Christmas.  It’s funny how for the past 2 years

• he’s had one main Christmas wish all year (last year it was Wags the dog),
• he really wants Santa to bring that for him (no one else), and
• he only has an expectation of one present from Santa (probably because he only ever gets one present from Santa)!  

He’s also trying to figure out the logistics of how Santa fits the toys in the back of the sleigh, and noticing that some images of Santa have lots of sacks, and some have only one.  He’s questioning, too, why so many pictures of Santa include snow, and asking whether we’ll get snow at Christmas.  Who knows, he may well experience a true white Christmas in Quebec city in the next couple of years.

Into the wild

Simon and I had a rare night out last Friday (thank you Marg!) and saw Into the Wild. The main character (Christopher McCandless played by Emile Hirsch) reminded me so much of Simon at 20 (in fact, in real life he was only 2 years older than us)... Quite by coincidence I had just started re-reading Walden, so I was a bit in the zone. Walden is, for those who don't know, where Thoreau went "into the wild" in the 1840s, what Simon and I discussed on the night we met, where he proposed to me, and one of the inspirations for Chris, the main character in the movie, to abandon society and take off.

All through the movie I was wondering if Simon would suddenly declare a burning desire to cut up his credit card, don a backpack and hit the road. Of course, the whole starving to death in Alaska thing did bring us somewhat back to reality.

Directed by Sean Penn, this is beautifully shot, and though it does make Chris into some sort of Jesus creature at times, it's quite haunting.

The machine is us/ing us

Really like this video by Mike Wesch explaining Web 2.0. It was mentioned at the ALLA conference in September and I hadn't gotten around to looking at it until today.

Why don't cowboys have cows?

Harrison and I had very long conversation yesterday about why cowboys don’t ride cows.  I tried my best to explain that cowboys did have lots of cows - they just rode horses in order to herd their cows - but he was quite insistent that cows were perfectly good animals for riding, and that cowboys really should saddle them up…

BDW to UWA

The October 2007 Library News at UWA has profiles of two ex-Blake Dawson Waldron librarians who arrived almost simultaneously at UWA. Funny how things happen. Alissa and I worked together at BDW, and several years later we both end up at UWA together (though now in different subject disciplines).

Election wrap up

The sky is looking a bit bluer the past couple of days... There's serious talk of an apology to indigenous people, and a general sense of hope and purpose.

We hosted an election party on Saturday, banking on a good result for our lefty crowd. We started with election cocktails - the "tree hugger" (with lime and mint), and the "swinging voter" (a strawberry daiquiri). We played election bingo - marking off phrases such as "bogus pamphlets" or "the Latham handshake" as we heard them on the telecast. It was a lovely evening, with lots of food, and lots of conviviality as the result became clear. Even Kevin's ultra long victory speech couldn't dampen our spirits. Our house is great for a party, with fabulous views, a huge lounge room, and plenty of room for kids to run around. It's only a stroll to the beach, so a few of the adults took the kids down to the beach at sunset. All in all a great night.

Kevin was looking impressive on the 7:30 Report tonight, too - you can read the transcript and watch the video online.

Liam

Simon’s nephew Liam arrived yesterday and is staying for almost 2 weeks.  He’s just finished his year 12 exams, so this is schoolies week for him, I guess.  He seems quite keen on taking himself off to see the sights of Perth and surrounds.  Simon and I are both working (I have barely any leave accrued yet, and Simon is doing the final proofs of his native title book before his exam marking comes in next week), so we only have the weekends to spend with him.  We are in a good location for a solo holiday though – a stroll to the beach, and a short walk in the other direction to the bus to the city, or to a little block of shops.  

 

Liam is very tall and very, very thin, and dyes his lovely blonde hair black, plus refuses to wash it, so when he turned up with Simon yesterday at day care, Harrison was quite frightened and wouldn’t go near him.  It only took a few minutes for him to get over the initial shock, and they are getting on very well now.  Liam is very good with him.  Harrison took a little bit of persuading this morning that, unlike grandma, Liam was not likely to want a 3 year old crawling into bed with him at 7am, and that he wasn’t likely to be up before we’d all left the house.

Imagination

Harrison loves to take things to day care for show and tell, but he's only allowed to do it once a month, so instead he’s started taking imaginary toys (or as he says “pretending toys”).  He "holds" them in the car all the way to day care, carefully cradles them in his hands as he walks in, tells his carers what his imaginary toy is today and pretends to put it in the show and tell box. At the end of the day he's still acting as though there's a toy he has to put in his bag, or get me to hold while he washes his hands etc.  At home this morning he had so many imaginary toys in his hands that he couldn’t get up into his chair for breakfast.  He puts an imaginary train on the tracks along with a real one, and talks through a whole scenario around the race between the two trains and what they say to each other etc.

 

The other day when I picked him up from day care he claimed to have left Spencer (imaginary train de jour) behind.  I tried to persuade him that I could see Spencer in his bag, but he'd have none of it.  So I tried another tack and said I'd see if there was a spare Spencer in the glove box of

the car.  Sure enough, he fell for that one, and held the "new" imaginary Spencer for a while.  But after 5 minutes or so he announced

that he didn't like the new Spencer and wished he could go back to day care to get his old one. Aggghhh...  

 

It's actually not a bad phase because he can be totally distracted by something that isn't there – I don't have to worry about bringing toys for him to play with when we go out, as we can invent something at any time.  This morning our whole trip to day care was taken up with him describing what colour lollies he had (along with appropriate grunts and groans while he “made” them) then him asking me which one I’d like, passing imaginary lollies back and forth, offering me a drink of milk in case my lollies were too spicy… It’s quite fun.

Christmas plans

Our travel plans changed slightly and we’re now flying direct to and from Brisbane, rather than driving.  I was a bit tentative about attempting to visit Brisbane for just 5 days at Christmas time and coming away sane…  So we’ll now be there for about 12 days, and staying in one place the whole time, which hopefully will make it easier to see everyone, and to also take some time out for ourselves as a family.  It will be nice to plan some excursions that just the three of us can enjoy, like ferry trips and picnics, or a visit to Australia Zoo.  I’m quite looking forward to it. 

 

 

Holiday plans

We’re once again planning a trip east, and juggling the logistics of how to get there.  The current plan is to drive to Adelaide straight after Christmas, leave the car at the airport and fly to Brisbane.  Then Harrison and I would fly back to Perth, and Simon would fly to Adelaide and drive the car back to Perth.  I have almost no leave, whereas Simon has heaps, so it makes sense for me to get back for the re-opening of Uni on January 7^th, whereas he can take another week. Because of my limited leave, we only get about 6 days in Brisbane, which is not ideal, but can’t be helped.   The advantages of this are that

¨      we put some kilometres on the car for FBT purposes (but not too many for greenhouse purposes),

¨      we have some semblance of a family holiday (driving 2700 km in the middle of summer and camping on the Nullarbor – some would disagree about the holiday tag!),

¨      we get to visit family and friends in Brisbane, and   

¨      Simon also loves the long drive and the time to himself.

Spoke too soon

Well, I may have spoken too soon about the buffet at Observation City.  After we had dinner there on Sunday night, Harrison complained of a sore tummy all morning at day care, and didn’t eat any lunch, then he vomited everywhere just before nap time.  He seemed OK after that, and he did eat all his dinner last night.  I strongly suspect that something he ate on Sunday night had gluten in it.

Syd-en-ey

Had a trip to Sydney last week… my last law librarian jaunt.  I went to the law librarian’s conference (and gave a paper).  It was nice not feeling I had to go to all the law stuff – there were interesting papers on things like climate change which had a scientific bent.  One lesson learnt was not to rely on the venue having the same version of powerpoint as you.  I am usually an anti-powerpoint person and make the plainest presentations I can, but lately I’ve become a fan of timed transitions, and done things like have large black and white photos timed to fade in and out in the background as I talk.   This time I’d just used one or two “features”, and a groovy handwriting font on one slide, but when it came to present, they had an old version of powerpoint, so none of it worked!

 

I stayed on for the weekend with Michele F.  She lives in Newtown, almost on King St in a small terrace.  She and Mul are immersed in the inner city lifestyle.  It was a bit of a Ford family weekend, as Lisa has moved to Sydney, and Mary and Allen were also down visiting.

 

Simon took Harrison to the Perth Show on Sunday (he insists on calling it the Ekka, which I’m sure does not go down well with the locals).  A good bonding experience for the boys.   We decided at the last minute to go to dinner at Observation City (Scarborough) last night.  This is the secod time we’ve taken Harrison there and been brave enough not to pack any food for him.  They always have multiple gluten free dishes, including 3 or 4 desserts.  I think we’ll become regulars, just because it’s so convenient.  And they only charge $3 for him, which is a bonus.

New, new job

 

After saying in July that I was moving jobs to Curtin Uni, quite a lot has changed.  I never did make it to Curtin (and they were extremely accommodating of me, which was great), and am now the Science Librarian at UWA.  This is, of course, also where Simon works (but safely across campus), and where Harrison goes to daycare.  I'm loving the 10 minute commute!  One of the exciting things about this new role is that we're building a new science library and merging 4 different science collections together.  Something I'm not unfamiliar with from my days at ECU!  So I'm thinking about service models, 24 hour accessibility, multimedia rooms, training rooms, call numbers, spreadsheets, desk design, shelving, seating etc etc etc

Before and After

I put those two "chocolate" pictures of Harrison together - on the left is him just pre-diagnosis in October last year, weighing about 11.3kg. On the right is him in August this year, after 9 months on a gluten free diet, and weighing about 15.3 kg. He is still quite underweight for his age, but he is catching up on the height he lost.

Denis and Tracey

I just spent 4 days in Qld for Denis and Tracey's wedding. The weekend included a cooking class for VJ, Trish and me at the Spirit House, Yandina. It was a fabulous day, and the food (of course) was sumptuous. So Kate and Karen had better prepare themselves for some "from scratch" Thai food when they come to dinner at our new City Beach house! Paul and Anna were having lunch at the Spirit House that day, too - though luckily for them they didn't have to eat our cooking.

The wedding was beautiful. Weather was warm, many guests stayed at the Kenilworth pub or camped at the showgrounds (where the reception was), so it was a very social extended event. I think they bought 25 dozen eggs, and about $900 worth of meat, and that was just for the before and after barbeques. Tracey's sense of style was very evident, as was her attention to detail. The bridesmaids and flower girls (4 of each!) had a different dresses designed by Tracey. There were buses organised from Nambour (where a lot of guests were staying), and past various B&Bs where other guests were staying. It's a good thing Tracey is studying event management I think!

For the record

Doesn't seem like much is changing, though the stress levels are markedly reduced.
Sat 11th - Simon worked all day.
Sun 12th - Simon worked a few hours from home (but was in communication with us, which is an improvement)

Moving again...

Yep, it's only a year since we last moved, but we're on the move again. This time to a house with a backyard for Harrison to run around in. That was really our only criteria for a house, and it was surprising how difficult it is to find rental accomodation that includes grass. Actually, this one includes weeds, but with some TLC we're hoping they turn into lawn!

It's a fabulous location at City Beach - walking distance to the lovely Boulevard shops, and with a bitumen walking/cycling track from literally across the street through bush to Floreat Beach with its cafe, playground and barbeques. I can see us strolling down to the beach for a coffee and a walk on Sunday mornings. The house itself is an older style house, with very old kitchen and bathrooms, but there are 4 big bedrooms, 2 1/2 bathrooms, a big rumpus and store room under the house, and most importantly, the kitchen and living areas over look a sizeable backyard. The bonus is that two bedrooms and the living areas all have magnificent ocean views.

We move around the 25th of August.

For the record

Not great process... 4th August, Simon worked all day. 5th August, he worked for the afternoon.

Emergency

We had our first trip to the emergency department last night. Harrison woke up unable to breathe. With all the terrible flus around, and 4 toddler deaths in Perth this winter we decided to rush him to hospital. Luckily we're not far from the children's hospital (Princess Margaret Hospital in Subiaco) and their emergency department is fabulous. That's the same hospital that drew blood from him in 5 uneventful seconds last year, after I'd spent 4 days going back and forth to pathology labs having nurses repeatedly try to get needles in his emaciated veins for hours and hours.

Turns out Harrison has croup and should be better in a few days.

Chocolate scones

Simon took Harrison to watch the splashes and crashes at the Avon Descent on Sunday (I had the flu so stayed in bed). Mel provided rocky road (aka chocolate scones). Harrison looks much healthier in the August 07 photo than he does in the October 06 one. He's also about 4 kilos heavier.

Thanks for appreciating my service

Love this You Tube video showing why libraries and librarians are so universally loved ....

For the record

Simon has almost finished his record 4 or 5 years of extreme workload. So after being a de facto single mother for 3 years, the tide is starting to turn. I'm going to keep a record now, of the time he spends at home on the weekends, until it becomes completely normal for him to leave work on a Friday and not think about it again until Monday.

7/8 July - in Brisbane, a couple of hours of work
14/15 July - in Brisbane, no work
21/22 July - home on Saturday, working from home on Sunday
28/29 July - home, but working Saturday afternoon, and a couple of hours Sunday
4/5 August - stay tuned....

A change is as good as a holiday

Mixed feelings today as I resigned from ECU to take up a position (starting August 20) at Curtin Uni.  I will really miss the folks at the School of Law and Justice.  But I am very much looking forward to a week off between jobs, and to starting a new challenge.

Rudd v Howard on myspace

Interesting mention in the Australian on the weekend that Kevin Rudd has over 8000 friends on his Myspace site, and Howard has only 8 on his.

and I was, like, what's that?

The word "like" has appeared in Harrison's vocabulary, much to our consternation. He reports on conversations with friends and intersperses 'I was, like, "what's that?" ', and 'he was, like, really funny' in the descriptions. Don't know where he got it from.

Happy birthday Marg

Marg Y's birthday was on Saturday (Bastille Day), so Harrison, Marg and I went to Whiteman Park, where we had a ride on a steam train and a birthday picnic, and then to Caversham Wildlife Park, where we hand fed kangaroos and patted a koala. It was a glorious weekend in Perth - clear and sunny and pleasant. Quite unlike the very chilly weather they're getting on the east coast at the moment.

I made a gluten free cake for her birthday... an interesting combination since it started out being a butter cake with a hint of lemon, but then we added squares of chocolate at the insistence of my assistant chef. He couldn't conceive of a birthday cake that didn't involve chocolate! We decorated it with gluten free hundreds and thousands, and gluten free marshmallow flowers. Now if only I had a daughter I could roll out the old "hippy flower" cake for about 15 years in a row, I reckon. With Harrison I think it's going to be variations on the train theme for a few years to come.


On Sunday Harrison went to his first "theme" birthday party. It was a superman theme, so he had an excuse to wear his superman costume. The boys had no trouble dressing as super heroes, but for girls, it seems fairy and princess costumes are all they can come up with. We coped very well with the food issue - he had his own iced mini-mudcakes instead of birthday cake, and we brought along a big bag of coloured pop corn to share, plus he had a few of his own snacks as well. There was another girl who also wasn't able to eat the party food, so he didn't feel too "special".

In a couple of weeks he has a pirate party to attend, which should be fun.

Simon is in Brisbane for 11 days - teaching an intensive native title law unit at QUT. Life continues pretty much as normal for Harrison and I, except I do the day care drop off three days a week. Simon seems pretty relaxed over there, actually, so hopefully he continues that way when he gets back.

Harrison refused to wake up this morning - asked me to turn off the light and kept trying to pull up the covers and roll over and go back to sleep. Even when he was up and dressed he kept telling me he was tired. Not sure why. He was fine by the time he got to day care, so perhaps he just didn't want to face Monday.

Downlands 1987

There's a website for my 20 year high school reunion, where people are posting photos and bios in the lead up to the reunion. I thought our class was particularly disfunctional, and the 10 year reunion was ridiculous. It was preceded by the most offensive sexist "questionaire" imaginable, and the event itself was in a half empty hall with a crush of people around the bar, no music, little food, no speeches, nothing. So I didn't have high hopes for round 2, and had absolutely no enthusiasm for making any effort to get there. But it seems we're a more interesting bunch 1o years later. A bit less of the blokey/boozey crap, and people seem a bit more circumspect about life and their place in the world. It seems a lot of people spent 10-15 years figuring out where they fitted, and are more settled now. Of course, I'm still not going, but I'm reading the website with interest.

Stop singing, Donkey!

Simon was singing along to Bernard Fanning while he was driving Harrison to daycare the other morning, and he kept singing after they'd arrived and he was leaning into the back seat of the car, putting Harrison's shoes on. He was just thinking what a lovely father-son moment they were sharing, when Harrison burst out at the top of his voice with "Stop singing, Donkey!" (a la Shrek 1).

Pre-School

We finally relented and let Harrison move into the pre-school room at day care. It's not classic pre-school, just what they call their third room. He is loving it, even though he's just visiting for half a day at a time right now. We were a bit worried about over-educating him too early in life - neither of us believe in "hot-housing", or pushing him to excel and achieve when he could be playing and enjoying being a kid. But I think the different environment and slightly older kids is good for him. While we absolutely love the carers in the toddlers room, it's probably getting a bit too same-ish for him. There are younger kids starting there, and the dexterity and language etc between the youngest and oldest is quite significant at that age. The pre-school room also has a lot of "incursions" during school holidays - visiting firemen, farmyard etc, and interesting activities aimed at older kids. Mum had some good advice about not trying to push H to a higher level of achievement in reading, writing etc, but to look for other things that are still at a 3 year old's level to interest him. Cue for Simon to spend some time on music and sport, I think!

Shrek

Harrison's latest obsession (along with everyone else under the age of 10) is Shrek. We have the first movie on DVD, and he loves it. Especially the music. He goes around at daycare saying (in his best Scottish accent) "tha'll do Donkey, tha'll do", and "can't we just settle this over a pint?". He loves to pretend to be the Donkey, and points out that while Shrek calls him dong-keh, he calls himself don-kee. The karaoke bit on the DVD is played over and over and over.

Tomorrow I'm taking him to see Shrek the Third. Unfortunately Simon is working, so he'll miss out on sharing Harrison's first movie experience.

Health houses and handbags

Mum and Dad have both been keeping the Toowoomba medical fraternity busy lately. Dad with his diabetes (he's now on insulin), and Mum getting tested for a hereditary thyroid condition that it seems most of her family has. Dad also has to go back to the sleep specialist as his sleep study showed up some issues.

Paul and Anna have moved into their house, but their blog doesn't yet show the updated photos (see the link on the side bar). Madonna and Peter are also in their new house, which apparently is beautiful (they raised an art deco home and built under it).

Simon's marking exam papers at the moment, as well as looking at final proofs of his admin lawbook, and doing the update on his native title book. Plus he's going to Brisbane in mid July to teach an intensive Masters class at QUT. The good news is that he has a fairly light teaching load next semester, and those books should be finished once and for all in the next month. So we look forward to seeing him at dinner and on the weekends. Harrison is starting to think Daddy is just someone who visits occasionally!

I bought two dresses for Denis and Tracey's wedding (a girl needs choice, after all!), and I'm going to try my hand at making a handbag for them. Might have to ring Rosie for advice.

Winter begins

It's the first day of winter, and very chilly in Perth. It is a beautiful sunny day (as it was on the weekend, too), but there's a definite winter chill.

Simon's mum left yesterday after her 3 week visit. It was sad to see her go, and her visit seemed to be over very fast. VJ was talking about visiting sometime soon (health permitting), and Mum and Dad are considering a visit in September, so I'm sure it won't be long before that spare bed is in use again.

Reunions

It's Simon and my 20 year high school reunions this year. Neither of us are going, as they're on the other side of the country. Hard to get my head around having been out of school for 2 decades. We've been going out for 17 years in October, and married for 9 years tomorrow.... I certainly don't feel that grown up!

Mothers Day

Had a nice Mothers Day - Simon has been working very long hours including all day on Mother's day, but he did manage to buy some exquisite orchids for me on Saturday evening. Marg also bought over some tulips when she came for dinner on Sunday. Harrison made a card at daycare. He drew pictures of each of his grandparents in the respective mothers day cards for Grand-mum and Grandma. He's getting quite good at drawing people - he does eyes with pupils, hair, smiles, and very long arms and legs. He takes it all very seriously.

Simon's mum arrived on Sunday afternoon, and I cooked roast pork, as it's her favourite dish. My first time at cooking roast pork (being vegetarian and all), but it seemed to work out well. Marg brought dessert over via Herdsman - the most delicious summer berry crumble and Connesieur icecream.

Funny thing happened on Sunday morning. Simon spoke to his mother before she got on the plane in Brisbane, and afterwards said to me that she seemed a bit disappointed that he was going to be working long hours during her visit. I asked if he remembered to say happy mothers day to her, and he hadn't - so he called her back. He had a 5 minute conversation, during which she said she didn't think he'd forgotten to wish her a happy mothers day. At the end of the conversation she said "bye Dan". Simon pointed out that he was her OTHER son - so she said "well in that case you did forget mothers day!". Simon calls me back to report this conversation, and gets off the phone. 5 minutes later he calls back sheepishly and says... "I might have kind of forgotten to say happy mothers day to you as well..."

And to continue the saga of Youngs working far too hard. Marg has also been working until 1am and all weekend in her new job (which is supposed to be less onerous than her old one!). I had arranged that I'd pick her mum up from the airport and drop into Marg's house for afternoon tea on the way home. We arrived at 3:30ish, and Marg comes to the door still in her pyjamas. She'd been working all weekend, and hadn't showered or eaten at all that day... After a while at her house, Mum whispers to me - "do you think we're getting a cup of tea?", so I make one. We take one mouthful of tea, and realise the milk is off! It's a week past it's used by date. But she did bring a fabulous dessert and wine that night, which more than makes up for the tea... And she gave me wonderful flowers and said beautiful things about my mothering.

New photos

I've attached photos to the entries about camping at Lake Leschenaultia and Simon's birthday.

"Surprise!"

Harrison is still not good at keeping secrets.  He told me last night that they were making something at day care for Mothers Day.  I said he'd better keep it a secret, and he agreed - but in the same breath told me it was a Mothers Day card!

 

Plus he always confesses if he's been naughty.  I picked him up the other week and the first thing he said was "Hi Mum, I wasn't listening today!".  And when I asked him what he meant, he said he was tickling Joseph when they were supposed to be listening to a story, and he kept tickling him and making him giggle even after Amber asked him to listen...

3 today

Harrision is 3 today. He had a little party yesterday (more of an afternoon tea really) with his "significant adults". Much easier to handle than a party with kids. He got thoroughly spoiled, of course. I bought gluten free lamingtons from Alternative Bites, and made a lamington train cake for his birthday. We had to replace some of the sweets that the recipe called for as couplings and cargo etc with gluten free alternatives, but it turned out pretty well. Today he has taken a GF cake in the shape of the number 3 to day care.

He's also taken all his Lego Thomas trains to daycare. Simon said that he started off well, giving trains to the other kids to play with, and being very excited to be able to share them, but then there was a bit of snatching when Harrison was distracted, and he ended up with no trains at all. Worst of all, some other kid took Toby (his birthday present), which has hardly been out of his hands since he unwrapped him. I'm sure it's all a lesson in negotiation, disappointment and compromise...

New baby for Pip

Pip and Kane had their third child on the 27th of April - a little boy called Ben. Laura and Tom seem delighted by their new brother. It took a while for blogger to decide it was going to show the text of this post, and in the meantime I had a chat to Pip. She is doing fabulously (such a calm, capable mother!), and baby Ben is an exceptionally good baby.

I'm really looking forward to seeing their expanded family when I visit Brisbane in August for Denis and Tracey's wedding.

Qantas does it again

Unbelievably, Marg had the same dramas with Qantas on Sunday as I did in January (see Day from Hell). She was a minute late at the check-in-kiosk and they wouldn't let her on the flight - she had to wait 8 hours for the next flight. Flying business class made no difference either. They are vicious!

Back moustache

No, I'm not talking about a particularly hirsute person, just Harrison-speak for back massage. If you say you have a sore back, he will offer to give you a "back moustache". Yesterday I asked what he did at daycare, and he said that he and Joseph (his partner in crime) played back moustaches. I asked who gave the massage, and he said - "I gave Joseph a back moustache, and then he gave me one, then we sang "lights, camera, action, Wiggles" in front of the TV". He has worked out that a turned off TV makes a fine mirror, so is constantly playing his guitar and singing and dancing in front of the TV. They have a TV at daycare which obviously serves the same purpose.

He's a very tactile person, loving to squeeze your arm, or your face, giving kisses, wanting you to sit close to him on the couch, or lean right over his bed when you're reading a bedtime story. He loves nothing more than a tummy tickle, and will instruct the tickler as to the appropriate method and protest if the tickle ends too soon for his liking.

Another term Harrison invented (when Leah was staying with us) is a "dark hug" - this is when you give a hug, but he buries his head in your chest and arms, and can't see out.

Simon's book

Simon's native title book is now being advertised on the Federation Press website. He's in the "proof" stage for both books, and consequently pretty busy at the moment. But hopefully it will all be over soon.

Clean bill of health

Dad's angiogram last week went well - he didn't need any stents, nor a bypass. He doesn't yet have his sleep study results, and it sounds like his diabetes is worsening, but at least the heart is pretty good.

Lake Leschenaultia

We went camping with the Zerring/Mashers to a little place only an hour out of Perth last weekend. It was pretty luxurious - hot showers, flush toilets, a lovely lake with sandy beaches and canoe hire, and a little kiosk. The three kids had a lovely time together. Harrison is a bit too little to do all of the things Matty and Sam can do, but he tries to keep up, and they're very considerate of him. Saturday was a glorious day and the kids all paddled in the water and played in the sand. Sunday was overcast and drizzly, so while we did do the walk around the lake it wasn't as pleasant as it could have been.

Shut the door!

Yesterday afternoon Harrison heard a car arrive in the garage and got all excited at the prospect of Leah arriving.  I told him I thought it was Dad home, and he was insistent that it had to be Dad AND Leah.  Harrison opened the front door to see his Dad getting out of the car, and said "Hi Dad, is Leah there?".  When he got a negative reply, he simply shut the door on his poor old Dad and went back to whatever he was doing.

Dad's angiogram

Dad is booked in for a sleep study and then a day later an angiogram (in late April).  Mum sounds a bit worried about it all, especially since both Dad's parents died fairly early with heart problems...  Hopefully the fact that he hasn't yet had a heart attack bodes well and means they will be able to take corrective action such as putting in a stent.  Dad would have a pretty good diet already since he's diabetic, and he has exercised frequently for the past decade or so since moving off the farm.

 

I had a sleep study last year (my dear husband complained that I kept him awake at night).  It was really interesting, and quite a holiday for me - I was given dinner, read a magazine, and the nurses fussed around wiring me up for monitoring before I settled down for the night.  The room was really dark and silent.  Best of all, I knew there would be no little person calling out "good morning mum" at 6am, and no stressed out person tossing and turning beside me.  The nurses said I slept like a princess and I had to be woken at 7am so I could go to work.  When the results came back, they showed that while I did snore, it was well within normal range.  The specialist facetiously said that sometimes it's the sensitivity or sleeping habits of the partner that's the problem....

Birthday

It was Simon's birthday yesterday, and there were lots of celebrations. Harrison proudly got Simon's presents out of their hiding spot first thing in the morning and helped him unwrap them. Then we had a nice fruit platter for breakfast (better than Simon's usual Up'n'Go in the car on the way to work). We had a "special" dinner of pan fried snapper with a caramelised potato and tomato salsa side dish. I had made a gluten free mud cake for his birthday cake, but the ganache hadn't had enough time to cool and solidify, so it was more of a sauce. Leah took some photos of a chocolate covered Harrison looking decidedly drunk, and one where he looked like a vampire with dark chocolate sauce dripping off his mouth. I'll add one to this post when I get a chance. After H had come down from his sugar high and gone to bed, Simon and I went out for coffee while Leah stayed home with Harrison. All in all a nice day.

Newsletter blog

For my sins I am the editor of the law librarians' newsletter in Western Australia this year (I did the same job in Qld a couple of years ago). I've been thinking about whether I could do the newsletter better as a blog... Looking at labelling the various elements of the newsletter so that people could sign onto an RSS feed just for the posts about union list updates, for instance. Blogger's new Layout feature might allow me to be a bit more flexible with what sort of content I have where. I might have a play around for the next issue and send out both versions - one pdf and a blog version for selected members to review. You can create a post by email (which I'm doing right now), so the president's report could be filed by email if necessary. There could also be permanent links to sites of interest - journals, blogs, research sites etc. The sticky issue is whether people could get an RSS feed just when a new issue is complete, rather than each time one element was updated.

Visitors galore

Leah is staying with us for a couple of weeks while she finds a house. It's lovely having her to stay, and Harrison is having a ball with her. She's fabulous with kids and seems to have endless capacity for playing games and doing silly voices or actions. That's what comes of having a "theatre person" in the house. Marg and Neil leave on Sunday for their drive across Australia. They should arrive in Perth on Easter Monday and they'll stay with us until their house is ready for habitation. They already have the lease, but they'll need to furnish it before they can move in. And finally, Simon's mum arrives in mid May for about 3 weeks.

Amidst all this excitement we have Simon's birthday tomorrow and Harrison's on May 7th. Harrison and I have done our shopping for Simon's birthday, but he's struggling a bit with the concept of keeping a secret. He told Simon this morning - completely unprompted - that he has a surprise for him AND that it's a DVD. I'd better remember to make the birthday cake tonight.

Coeliac Awareness Week

I went to my first Coeliac Society event this afternoon - a forum for Coeliac Awareness Week. It was fascinating. I learnt -

• if you don't have one of the 2 HLA genes (HLA_DQ2 and HLA_DQ8) you will never get coeliac disease (30% of the population have the gene, and only 1% have the disease). Simon and I don't yet know which of us has the gene, but we have had the blood test and neither of us has CD now.
• Gluten intolerance is a different thing, which may or may not be related. It doesn't do any bowel damage.
• There's a tribe in the Sahara desert in which 1 person out of every 18 has coeliac disease (the highest known incidence)
• It is very rare in SE Asian populations and in Australian Aborigines. And reasonably wide spread in Ireland, Iran and India.
• Instances of coeliac disease in young and old people (under 20 and over 50) are equally spread between male and female, but in the 20-50 age group there are 4 times as many women as men diagnosed.
• The average time for a diagnosis is 5 and a half years in Australia, and 11 in the US (our doctors are more aware of it, but still not great).
• The cause of coeliac disease came to light during the Dutch famine in 1944 when there was very little flour. Many patients with coeliac symptoms had miraculous recoveries during the famine, and then relapsed when flour became available again. Before then they knew of the disease, and that it was carbohydrate related, but not that wheat specifically caused the mal-absorption.
• It's a breach of the Food Standards code to label a food "99% gluten free" or "No added gluten" - these are labels I've seen in coffee shops.
• There was a study by Catassi (in 2006 I think) which showed that for 50 healthy coeliacs, given between 10mg and 50 mg of gluten per day, no coeliacs who ingested 10mg in the study showed any symptoms. At 50mg a day there were adverse reactions, and 4 people had to withdraw because of the severity of the reaction. To eat 10mg of gluten you would have to have 500g of a food containing 20 parts per million of gluten (which is a very low level of gluten). That would be 80 slices of a "gluten free" bread that actually had 20ppm of gluten in it, or 8 slices of what some overseas countries class as "low gluten" bread with 200ppm in it. Basically it shows that tiny traces of gluten ingested inadvertently won't adversely effect coeliacs, so they don't have to be really paranoid about it to the extent of never going out.
• "Gluten" doesn't really exist - it's the collective name for the several different proteins in wheat, rye, barley and oats.
• And on a lighter note, while the rule is "if in doubt, leave it out", the lesser known rule for coeliacs is "if there's no doubt, pig out." This quote just before afternoon tea!

We were all given 2 big sample bags of GF food (most of which I'd tried for Harrison or knew about). One was a chocolate mud cake mix - I might make it for Simon's birthday.

The Alternative Bites people also put on a spread. I had heard about Alternative Bites but haven't been there yet. They are a totally GF cafe that also sells takeaway and frozen foods - pies, sausage rolls, cakes etc. I had heard many times that the food is indistinguishable from the gluten equivalent, but didn't really believe it. I was stunned at the variety and quality of the spread. It was about 5pm when the talks finished, so I took a few things home for H to try. He had a piece of pie for dinner and a couple of little treats (a bit of lamington and a wafer biscuit). He loved it all - particularly the pie. He used to love pastry and of course hasn't had any since he was diagnosed. The lamington was really really good quality and I was amazed that they could even make a wafer biscuit.

This is one place we'll definitely be visiting. Now that Terena lives south of the river we'll be going in that direction more often, so I'll make a point of dropping into Garden City.

1-0 to Carmel

I'm sure everyone knows that there is a friendly rivalry between Simon and I over what Harrison is called. I agreed to the name Harrison on the understanding that it wouldn't be shortened, and Simon is determined to call him Harry.

When Leah arrived on Monday she asked Harrison whether he liked to be called Harry or Harrison, and (with Simon whispering Harry, Harry, Harry in the background), my little darling thought for a moment, and then said quite assuredly - Harrison. What a trooper...

Leah's come to town

Leah arrived in Perth yesterday for a job at Curtin. All very unexpected and quick, but lovely to see her again. Simon picked her up from the airport and she came for dinner last night. Harrison was a bit shy at first, but soon he was chatting and flirting. He was quite excited because he's heard Leah sing on Simon's CD and he was looking forward to a bit of a jam session with her. He got out his plastic (silent) electric guitar and his ukelele and they did a bit of air guitar together. He was very sweet - suggesting she try his accordian and his maraccas. There was a bit of singing - I ended up with the maraccas, which is indicative of what my son thinks of my muscial ability ;-) It is great to watch Harrison go into total enjoyment mode over music. He really can't stop his body moving and the joy on his face is wonderful to see.

Leah is hoping to live either in Leederville or Fremantle, and is looking around for places to rent over the next few days. It will be interesting to see whether having Leah in town will mean Simon does a bit more music.

Belfast Mill

Harrison seems to have the same taste in music as his Dad. Simon sang Belfast Mill (the Furey's song) to him the other night, and the next night he asked me for the "town" song as he was going to sleep. I didn't know what he was talking about and asked him to sing it for me. He sang two verses word for word - At the east end of town at the foot of the hill there's a chimney so tall, called Belfast Mill. But there's no smoke at all coming out of the stack for the mill has shut down and it's never coming back. That song and Simon's original song If I were a fish are his favourites at the moment.

Harrison would be delighted to learn that Simon wrote If I were a fish as a nonsense song for kids after we visited Michael and Jenni for Christmas in 1994 when Nathan was about 3. He had a T-shirt with if I were a fish printed on it. In January this year, Harrison met Nathan for the first time and the two were instant best friends. Harrison adored him and Nathan was the most caring and sensitive 14 year old farm boy you could imagine.

I dug out a Furey's CD and Harrison loves listening to the folk music. I tried to sing Marie's Wedding to him yesterday but couldn't remember the words, so he corrected me and sang the whole thing. Of course, the Wiggles do play Marie's wedding on one of their albums, so Irish music has had the stamp of approval. The good thing about the Wiggles is that they do a lot of traditional music. It seems to strike a real chord with kids. Harrison is always on his feet for a Greek or Irish song.

Photo of Adam

We visited Adam today (and Terena of course!). I think he looks a bit like Rhys, but darker reddish-brown hair. He was pretty sleepy when we were there (as most newborns are). Harrison loved him - gave him the most tender kisses on the forehead and feet. After making quite a fuss on the way to the hospital about Adam's gift (he decided he was baby Adam and he needed the teddy bear), he gave it to Terena very graciously. Terena looked very happy, if a bit tired. She'd just been moved to a room with a double bed and a nice view, so hopefully the remainder of her stay will be pleasant. Second time around she's taking advantage of the rest times and trying to get some much needed sleep. We took a couple of photos. Here's a cropped one of Adam... I told Terena I'd e-mail a photo to the playgroup mums, so I'll probably just send a link to this page.

Terena's new baby

Terena had a little boy, Adam, on Friday. Rhys is now a big brother and apparently is besotted by little Adam. Harrison was very excited to go shopping for a gift for Adam, and we're all going up to St John of God to see the baby this afternoon. Terena looked extremely good on Thursday - it was hard to believe she would be giving birth the next morning.

Stella's new baby

Stel became a mum yesterday at 10am. She had a little girl - Madeline Elizabeth Margaret (Mem) weighing 6lb 3oz. Lovely for her family to celebrate a new life following her dear Dad's passing last month.

New library - virtual tour

There's a virtual tour now for the new library... so you can see all the bright colours, the courtyard, and the seating.

Thomas again

Harrison is so into Thomas the Tank Engine now... the Wiggles are taking a bit of a back seat (although Dorothy and Henry were being squeezed into the back of a Troublesome Truck yesterday). We are using a big Lego Thomas set as "incentive" (did someone say bribery) for getting him to sleep in longer. Each morning if he waits quietly for us to get him up he gets another part of the set. He's only got two bits left now, but it has been bliss hearing him stir early, and then lie quietly waiting for us to come and get him. He has read the "newspaper" that came with the Thomas and identified that there is a James and a Toby set that he doesn't yet have. So I guess birthday and Christmas are taken care of now.

Thomas

This is a shot of Rhys and Harrison with Harrison's new Thomas the Tank Engine one night when Rhys was staying at our house while his parents went out. Harrison got a huge Thomas set from grandma for Christmas (it was Andrew, Tristan and Jeremy's old set gathered over about 10 years). It's all battery operated and the tracks are quite complex. I'm not sure that they even make that type of set anymore. After a few incidents of trains being dropped on tiles, and many requests for the carriages to be re-coupled, we decided to put it away for another year or so. Harrison is playing with a Lego Duplo version now. It's not as fancy, but more robust and probably better for his level of fine motor skills at the moment. He can easily put the carriages together and has fun swapping Percy and Thomas's faces around and making them the wrong colours. Hopefully this means that when Harrison is old enough to deal with the overpasses, smaller engines, batteries etc, the big set will still be in working order.

Book launch

Last night the UWA law school had a book launch for books published in the last 12 months. There were 5 already published, and although Simon's two (the Admin Law one and the Native Title one) aren't yet published, he got a mention as well. We went to dinner to Soda Cafe afterwards (Rachel was babysitting). Still can't quite get used to the price of eating out over here. Everywhere seems to charge like a fine dining establishment. You seem to jump from Subway or suburban Chinese to paying $30 for a main.

Marg's move

Marg and Neil are visiting this weekend - looking for places to live. Marg has given up on the law firm lifestyle (or lack there of), and taken a job as general counsel for a company over here. (Good on her!) She and Neil will be long distance lovers for a while until Neil is able to sort our his business and move over. She's looking at living in Leederville if she can find somewhere nice. As a consequence we're going to dinner perhaps to Anna's Vietnamese tonight... it's to be negotiated as we have to bring Harrison and we're not sure how well he'll go to sleep in his stroller. Simon's voting for Hillarys because there's lots of space, but I'm a bit over the food there. Nothing very interesting and the couple of "real" restaurants are really noisy and expensive. Plus it's very overcast and drizzly today, so walking around the beach and boardwalk isn't very appealing. And of course, it's not in Leederville!

Me 'n' Bandit

Last night I put Harrison to bed (with his fluffy dog, Bandit) and went off for a shower. When I got out of the shower H was sitting up in bed calling out "Me 'n' Bandit need some more milk! Me 'n' Bandit need some more milk!". When I brought the milk in, he had the first drink, and then confessed "Bandit doesn't want any" as he lay back down to go to sleep.

Bread incident

We're back in the swing of things. Work is pretty busy, and I can't decide whether to sit in the library or in the law school (my instincts tell me the law school). Harrison is happy at daycare, but we did have an incident last week where he was given a piece of bread, which triggered some diarohea and vomiting. Not too bad, and it was a genuine accident - the staff have altered some procedures so that it doesn't happen again. It was our first experience of Harrison eating something with gluten in it. We are trying to teach him to ask "is this gluten free" instead of "is this alright for me", but with a toddler it's risky relying on him to be alert enough to avoid the wrong foods just yet.

We recommenced our Pilates/swimming routine on Sat morning. It was actually cool and windy (as opposed to 40 degrees), so Harrison didn't get his paddle. He and Simon played bear caves instead while I exercised. Harrison was the bear - he had a kitchen in his cave and made Simon muffins and cake. Simon's having a bit of a snooze in front of the cricket as I type. He did the vacuuming and cleaning while I pushed H around Lake Monger this morning. Speaking of H, he's just woken up from his nap, and we're off to the zoo shortly.

New library

Back at work this week... The new library and IT building is open, and looking great. Very bright, lots of groovy and comfy seating, the bookshop and an Aroma cafe half in and half out of the library, a big e-lab and heaps of other computers. Still a bit of unpacking and settling in to be done, and my office doesn't yet have a phone, but it's all so much better than the old library. I'm staying in my office in the school in the long term, but I'll sit in the library office for the next couple of months so that students finding their way around the new library can find me easily. It's actually really quiet, so I'll probably get a lot of work done.

H settled in well at daycare. He's a "big" boy in the toddlers room now, and seems to be loving it. The girls can't believe how much his tummy has shrunk since last year. It's so funny watching him go through his little routines there - putting his hat back on the peg, and stopping to take his sandals off before bouncing on the mini tramp without being asked. UWA is great with hygiene and tidiness and getting the kids to take responsibility, but they're also incredibly warm and loving. They were genuinely glad to see Harrison again and take real pleasure in seeing him happy and healthy. There was a birthday at daycare yesterday and he couldn't share the cake, so I made and iced a gluten free one last night and sent wrapped slices to daycare today for them to keep in the freezer and take out when there's a birthday. Hopefully it will taste OK!

We also swapped the breadmaker the family gave me for Christmas for the Panasonic one that has a gluten free setting. Made bread for H on Sunday and it was amazing! I liked the GF bread that came out the breadmaker we'd borrowed from Mel, but the stuff I made on Sunday was a much better texture, even though it's the same mix. Who knows, I may even start making ordinary bread for Simon and me.

Day from hell

Yesterday was quite a day... Up early to get to the airport and drop the hire car off. Got confused getting petrol for the hire car, and somehow ended up in the taxi queue at the international airport. So that made me later than I planned. When I arrived at the automatic check-in, the screen said to see a staff member - who duly informed me that I was one minute late checking in. She could see I was travelling alone with a toddler, and I told her I was going to Perth. But she refused to allow us on the flight. In fact, she triumphantly told me at the end of our conversation that I was now 3 minutes late. It was 5 hours until the next flight to Perth, I had no stroller for Harrison to sleep in, no car, and no baby seat, so no one could pick us up. The food outlets didn't cater for coeliacs at all, and the snooty manager of the big one refused to even let me read a label to determine if Harrison could eat anything. With a 5 hour flight on top of the 5 hour wait at the airport, it was shaping up as a very trying day. If I had been travelling alone and going to Sydney or somewhere the waiting time and flight time would both have been much less significant, and I wouldn't have cared. But travelling alone to Perth with a toddler - it just seemed cruel to put us through that for a one minute delay. Luckily I found a fruit salad for Harrison and had some milk with me. He slept on a bench for an hour and a half while we waited. He was full of beans on the flight, but very well behaved. He walked up and down the aisle in his flashing sandshoes about 20 times and flirted terribly with the stunning woman sitting beside us and all the flight attendants. The only concession Qantas was prepared to make was to get a coeliac meal for Harrison on the later flight, so at least he was fed. The flight was very long - 5 and a half hours, and then we waited for another hire car. Simon wasn't home until late the next day and he had both keys to the Forester, and I would otherwise have been stranded without groceries at home. By the time I got home it was 7pm, and I still had to get milk etc, and feed and bath Harrison. It was after 10 by the time he was asleep. All in all physically and emotionally exhausting, and not a day I want to repeat.

Back from holidays

We're both back from our eastern odessey... not without it's dramas. The drive over went reasonably well. Harrison was fabulous in the car for the 4500km trek. We camped all but 2 nights, and he loves the tent. It was a challenge keeping a toddler safe in dusty campsites in the middle of nowhere. There wasn't a blade of grass in sight between Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill. At Broken Hill we had grass, and there was a pool at the van park, plus an excellent airconditioned campers kitchen, so we stayed 2 nights and made that our rest day. We arrived a day or two early in Toowoomba. As usual there was lots of running around trying to catch up with people. Harrison met all of his cousins and loved every one of them. Simon had only a week in Brisbane and then drove back, while I stayed on and flew back on Thursday. A day or so after we crossed the Nullarbor the cyclone aftermath brought several inches of rain to the area, and destruction to Esperance (where we had holidayed in December). And then as Simon was driving back, floods hit South Australia and western NSW. He was a day or so after the roads were cut, so the highways were all open again when he went through. Some of the roads around the national parks he wanted to visit were still closed, though.

Veronica's party was great. She fed the whole family (all 11 kids and all their children made it), and we got some family photos before the party. Her friends arrived a bit later. It was a "wake" - she thought she'd be dead by 40 so decided on the funeral theme. She had a coffin with ice in it for the beer, RIP signs and a wreath, and people gave her condolence cards. Dad did the eulogy. He got a bit preachy so Harrison was on hand to do a loud rendition of "Toot toot chugga chugga big red car" at his feet. Bridget and Jacqui (two nieces 8 and 10 years old) partied almost all night. I think Bridget went to bed just before me at 2:30 in the morning. They were being the fashion police and rating people's outfits (they weren't very harsh judges, because I got top marks)... They told one guy his belt was substandard and he needed to get a new one from Stockwhips for Stock Men (Dad's leather work business), and then they added that he could get a wallet as well. Dad would have been proud.

Harrison and I saw Paul and Anna's house - almost complete . Apparently in about 6 weeks the interior will be finished. It looks really impressive. It has fabulous entertaining areas, a 3 level proper home theatre, and wonderful curved upper deck with water views.