A year in the life...

Yay for swimming!!!

Her little eyes light up as soon as we enter the pool. She has an absolute ball, even though she'll cop the old lungful.

It's great that we only need to go to our local pool, just 3 minutes walk away, now that she has turned one. The down-side is their curriculum isn't a patch on the other place we used to go to. Almost every activity at that place had its roots in survival skills - here they just play.

It's still fun, but Genevieve and I sometimes do things a little different to instructed - instead like where we used to go, so she's being trained in things that may help her out some day.

Mercury Rising

It has been stinking hot. I don't cope with the heat at the best of times, so it's been taking its toll.

We were supposed to do a Tri this morning, but none of us (Ben included) got a great sleep last night due to the heat so when the alarm went off, and Genevieve remained asleep, neither of us had the heart to wake her so we caught up on some well-earned shuteye. We didn't think it was worth putting Genevieve through the heat while we did our races.

Before the heat really hit, we ducked out to the stupormarket. While unpacking, Vievey cooled down in the freezer bag. Later in the day, she was in our bath paddling around pool-style.

YouTube gets glued!

Many of you would have seen the video/montage I made last March, showing our journey through the pregnancy to the birth and beyond.

In December, I decided to post it on YouTube. Last Saturday (I think) it hit 10,000 views. And in the last week alone, there's been over an extra 2,500! I am, it must be said, quite astounded and humbled that so many people are enjoying something that took me an afternoon in a pub with two pints of Guinness.

Plenty of friends have seen it, and some of the other ones I've done. Quite a few have asked me to create some things for them. Very recently, this included Frank, a mate from work, who wanted one for his wife's 50th birthday. The response at the party, combined with everyone's encouragement and Genevieve's birth racing up the YouTube charts, means I've decided to set up as a sorta hobby business.

So kaBoinK lives! Email me on the address as shown below if you'd like some details or click here for a brochure (requires Adobe Acrobat). And of course I'll keep making ones of Genevieve - the year in review will be coming soon!

Happy Birthday - Take Two

We had Nanna last Friday, Nana and Pop on Sunday, so today was the day Vievey was to catch up with her mates. As there's been quite a few of these parties scheduled over the past few weeks (most of her friends, after all, are from our Mothers' Group and they are set up arond birth date), so Michele and I decided that we'd throw a combined party for Genevieve and Harry. We scheduled it for a 3:30pm start, so the workers could then jump on board after work.

Plans were going well, until we learned that the forecast was for 38 degree heat, turning to thunderstorms.
Then, Michele called to say poor little Harry had gastro (which she got the day after). So it was just Vievey and me, with Daddy to rock up later.

The house was full of kids, noise and frazzled parents by both the birthday girl and I had a great time.

Happy Valentine's Day - NOT!!!

Continuing in Genevieve's big week, today was her second day in a row where she went to childcare for the whole day. And why... well, my year is up - and I am back at work.

As you can imagine, I haven't been looking forward to this day. But getting into the childcare only 2 minutes walk away has made it easier. Even so, the past weeks, and days leading up to today have been pretty rough.

To make my transition easier, Cory left a lovely big bunch of flowers in the car for me. However, the flowers didn't stop me calling up childcare every hour to see how she's going.

Towards the end of the day, they were saying "She's FINE.... If anything happpens, we'll call YOU" - in a loving way of course.

And of course when I did pick her up, she was fine. I know she had a better day than I did. But hey, having things like a desk, computer, net access, email and even a phone at work are overrated - I'm sure I'll get them over the next few days!?

C'mon dad!

It's been a big weekend. It's a big week for the little girl too - leading up to a combined party with Harry in the park near our house (a good excuse for drinks for us).

Going by this photo, it looks like she's gonna go the distance better than I!

You can come too, too, too...

It was wonderful that half of Melbourne wanted to celebrate Vievey's birthday at the zoo as well. I think we got one of the last few car parks.

Little miss short-attention-span did actually enjoy it, especially the animals which she could actually see, which tended to be the larger ones. The first she did see, was the largest of them all. Although she's looking at the camera here, she barely took her eyes off the new imported pachyderms.



She didn't really notice the real wombats (and I can't blame her, as they were quite justifiably curled up in the corner sleeping) but she did like this one!





But, just like her Nana, it was the giraffes that she like the most!

365 days ago...

It's hard to believe.

One year ago right now, our little girl was still on her way. Definitely ON her way, but still not quite there yet.

Yes, today is little Genevieve's first birthday. We cannot believe it's been a whole year already. On the other hand, we can't imagine our lives without her.

And it's a bit of a Genevievapalooza* week as she's got a lot on - leading up to this Friday with drinks in the park near us late arvo/evening (all welcome). Nanna caught up with her Friday (when she came to babysit while we went to the cricket) so the presents started then.

Yesterday we visited Brendo and Kelly in their new house, there was was another gift there.

After a good sleep last night, she woke for the day itself. Nana and John, as well as Pop and Gael were dropping by for a coffee, before the whole tribe were going to the zoo.

And of course, there were plenty more presents to be opened.


So after the candle being blown out (not exactly by her), and plenty more presents, we packed up the vehicles and headed off.

* with thanks to Kelly!

Angel wings

Genevieve had her 1 year check up today even though she is not quite 1. The Maternal Health nurse thought it was better to get it done before she went into childcare fulltime just in case she had a reaction to the injections.

She was weighed and measured and everything is on track although she had lost a bit of weight due to her having gastro last week. We will weigh her again in 3 months to make sure she has regained it. Her development is great and she is doing some things that they would expect an 18 month old to be doing, although she isn't walking yet.

Genevieve then had 3 big needles - 1 in her leg and 1 in each arm. She screamed!!! It was quite distressing but she stopped as soon as the needles were out and she got a cuddle. She is such a good girl and looks so cute with her little cotton wool balls on her arms where she had the needles.

She was a bit unhappy and restless last night but apart from that doesn't seem to have had any adverse reactions.

Dads go Mad!

I've seen how good Nai's mothers group has been as a social outlet and to share experiences and learn from others. So for a month or so I've been trying to get a group of dads together. I say trying to get, because I haven't had a lot of success.

Now before you start saying "Blokes wouldn't be interested in that - of course you you haven't had a lot of success!", well, almost all of them have been really keen - it's just a been a matter of timing. So after a few aborted attempts, I just set a date and time and saw who would be available to front up. I ended up catching up with an old mate Dave, with is 12 week old son Samuel.

We had a great time, and from this point we're gonna try one weeknight a month (or thereabouts) instead of trying to find a weekend time that suits us all.

Mummy, I want to play with YOUR toys!

Whenever I am on the computer Genevieve desperately wants to play with it too. If I leave it open she grabs it and taps on the keyboard like she is actually doing something. And sometimes she really does do things such as she discovered a keyboard shortcut to instantly zoom the screen in for visually impaired people. Cory had to trawl through the settings section for a full 5 mins to find where to switch it back off again.

She also seemed to have a particular love of the 'shift' key. So much so, that she souvenired it. It took me quite a while to clip it back on.