marc.vic.max.elliot

I should really do this chronologically…

Elliot’s third tooth came through last Tuesday (and it’s been a week before I told everyone!) It came and went a few times but popped through after a week or so of pain.

My day with Elliot sans Vic went really well but was almost pointless at the same time. Vic was gone for about 9 hours and Elliot drank a grand total of 30ml (about an ounce) during the whole day! The only time he got grumpy was when I tried to feed him – otherwise he was an absolute joy, the little bugger. Not surprisingly he’s fed really well since….

I played an hour and a half of tennis with a colleague this afternoon and am so sore. I won 6-4, 6-1 but, damn, I’m paying for it! The fact that I could even hit the ball pleased me greatly since I was pretty shite the last time I hit a ball – 8 years ago!

So Saturday is going to be the “Elliot-needs-to-learn-to-take-a-bottle-with-formula-so-he’ll-damn-well-learn-during-a-whole-day-without-mum-or-starve” day

Max wasn’t too bad so we’ll see how Elliot goes.  We had a few hours a while back and I must be an uncaring bastard because my Mum, who was visiting, was heartbroken by Elliot’s screams of hunger.  I on the other hand knew that he wouldn’t starve in a morning and that if he cried for an hour he’d get tired and sleep for a while!

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It’s been a while so here are some pics. 

Not much news really except to say that I’m about 80% well now. The chest infection cleared up with a course of antibiotics but the asthma is kind of hanging around. The head cold decided to come back too so that’s been fun….. especially as I flew yesterday and pressure equalisation was not one of my body’s strong points. Usually I’m a fairly healthy person – so much so that I visited the doctor that the rest of the family use and they had no record of me. As we’ve been back in NZ for 2 and a half years it means it’s been at least that long since I visited the doctor.

In other, site related, news we’ve just passed 250,000 hits on this page so a big thanks to all you visitors

You know that cold I had a couple of weeks ago? Well now it’s a full blown chest infection with a touch of asthma thrown in so I can’t clear my lungs 🙁 It’s not so bad during the day but after a day coughing and wheezing I have a pounding headache and my neck, shoulders and kidneys are really sore.  I don’t feel sick per se, just tired due to the fact that as soon as I lie down it feels like I’m gargling the contents of my watery lungs and I’m only getting about four hours sleep a night……… Hopefully the antibiotics and inhaler the doc gave me today will help.

I had fun yesterday (not!) by taking a trip to Christchurch for work.  The trip was neither here or there but my stomach did a flip when, halfway through my return flight, I realised that I had left my left arm (PDA in normalspeak) on a chair in the departure lounge hundreds of miles away!  My faith in the human race was raised a notch though by calling lost and found at the airport and being told that someone had handed it in! It should get back to me today.

Have a good weekend y’all Me? I have the New Zealand Defence Force ball tomorrow night (with work) where I’ll get all tarted up in black tie and get to hobnob with our equivalent of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – should be fun

Especially for Bekah and Gina

Thanks to my mate Rico for the pic….

This is such a cute story (for us anyway)

Max has been having loads of toilet related accidents lately so we decided last night to create a star chart for him in relation to staying dry during the day. We split the day into 6 x 2 hour blocks and said that if he stayed dry and got all six stars in a day then I would read him two stories at bedtime instead of one. This seemed to work and he went the whole day today with only one little accident just as he was getting ready for his bath (this didn’t count as it was after the last time block )

Anyway, on to the story.  Max had been getting himself to the toilet all day and at about 2pm he trundles off to the loo. Vic goes in a minute later to find that he has just finished having a pee standing up!  He’s tall enough that he didn’t even have to lift the seat up I guess he’s seen me do it for quite some time but he’s only peed twice standing up and for him to just toodle off and do it himself is pretty cool!

Well the week has gone OK so far.  We had Aunt Bet’s funeral on Monday and that went as well as can be expected.  There were very few people there, about a dozen I guess, but I suppose that’s one thing that happens when you move across the world in your 70’s and then pass away 20 years later – you just run out of people to mourn you.  After my Dad read the eulogy I got up and said a few words.  I had been thinking about what I remembered most about her and just shared those thoughts with the people there. It was unexpected from my point of view but I’m glad I did it.  I was then a pall bearer (my second time) and was again suprised at how heavy people in coffins are – she was only little so there must be a lot of wood in one of those things!  She was then taken away for cremation and my Dad will take her back to the UK to be with her sister (Dad’s Mum) soon. 

It was also quite interesting explaining things to Max.  He’d only met her a couple of times but understood enough that he knew when the coffin was being driven away that Aunt Bet was in there.  To be fair he was more worried about what was going to happen to the flowers on top of the coffin I think bless him

Another thing that happened on Monday was Max strung the best sentence that I’ve heard him put together.  At dinner I had a can of diet coke and he said “Daddy, please may I have some of your drink” and pointed to the can.  Not hugely long but it was really well constructed and well enunciated IMO for a two year old.  Max and Elliot also did us proud at lunch after the funeral.  We went to a cafe with my Dad and his partner and after our meal had finished a lady came up to us out of the blue and told us how lovely and well behaved our children were!  Admittedly she just just struck it lucky ‘cos they’ve been little shits lately but even so it was nice to be told