Townsville Trek

Pool Princess

Fun with 3rd Cousin Sarah in her home playground

Lydia & Sarah - best buddies

Kicking back on Nana Small's couch

Hugs with Nana Small

Townsville was good, but tiring.

As you can tell from the photos, Miss Lyddy

had a fantastic adventure, and is still settling

back into her normal weekly routine after all

the excitement.

21st School Reunion was an enjoyable night

(where were you Mr Parigi, Dr Clam & Lexifab?).

We got 45 out of 350 - not a bad strike rate for

21 years.

Drinks & nibbles by the Jupiters Pool, 8-11.

Those with leave passes from spouse & children

continued to kick up their heels until 4am.

Stories already abound of regressive behaviour

with people stuck back in 1987.

Mum, Lydia & I all stayed in a twinned toom at

Jupiters. Mum's deterioriated quite a bit.

She gets worn out after not many steps at all, needs

the walker to go everywhere, and really needs to

have the hip & knees done sooner rather than later.

She's shying away from flying to visit relatives

because they have steps, even when it's big family

celebrations (60th's, weddings)...

...and don't get me started on the house it badly

needs renovations, and is really showing it's age.

Hopefully 3 days with Lydia will provide enough

leverage to her drive to get surgery so she can

start to get some kind of bigger picture for life.

Took a lot of talking, but I got permission for

me, Sylvia and cousin Ellen to get working on

a plan for her to have the surgery & lots of

rehab in Sydney, with whatever additional care

she needs when back in Townsville.

Early 2009 is the plan - fingers crossed...

Life with Lydia

Reading with Blossom Possum
















Drawing in bed















Horziontal Swings!














Sitting on the Sandpit...















Having Scrambled Eggs for Breakfast












Domestic Princess












Red Red Rosey














Birthday at Taronga Zoo

Swimming at friend's 4th birthday

Ah, life at 3 is one big whirlwind....it's been nearly 12 months since I posted, and 18 since some photos have gone up, so thought it was time I got my act together.

Happy viewing....

Why am I in Boston, you ask?

Our global parent company has an annual sales conference, and I convinced enough people at the Dept of Defence to do our training that I hit the required revenue target to qualify.

So a free trip to the US of A for 6 jam packed days is happening now.

First 2 days have been sightseeing, conference starts tomorrow afternoon.

Does that answer your question?

Boston Is History...

...at least the East Coast version, that is.

The Freedom Trail & Harvard we great eye-openers to many of the core values that drive the US of A today.

Nice to visit the place that created the publishing house whose books I used to review regularly for various Australian business publications.

Must dash - it's 4pm here Tuesday 11th, and need to fit more stuff in before calling home (it's 6am Wed 12th there).

If I can figure out how to create a work-around to temporarily load my photos onto this hotel terminal, I may even throw in some photos...(yes, my work has not yet sprung for a laptop).

A Series of (Slightly) Dated Shots...

...as Lydia (or Miss Lyddy, as we call her) barrels towards two.

The TT's have well and truly begun!




Cases in point:

1. Becoming fixated on liberating plastic dining untensils from playgroups and howling uncontrollably for up to 30 minutes in spite of numerous attempts to re-direct focus & attention;

2. Separation anxiety peaking with comfort needs firmly focussed on Daddy (i.e. 20 mins to calm down this morning after I left for work);




3. Vocabulary exploding at an exponential rate (multi-syllabic and multi-word sentences), with recognition of different types of the same object (e.g. cars, dogs, trees) in different media (e.g. books, TV & real life);

4. Strong drive to independence around an increasing number of activities (e.g. eating, stairs, car seats);

5. Persistence that beggars belief once her eye is set on something (think "will you take us to Mt Splashmore" on steroids).

I think of my friends who have recently grown their broods to 3 under 3 and 5 under 10 respectively, and my admiration grows exponentially for their capacity for unconditional love.

Yes, gentle reader, do not let the above pictures of calm and cuteness fool you - just beneath the surface lurks a dark side that has to be experienced first hand to be believed.

Yet even in the midst of poo-filled nappies and the 1,000th screening of Uncle Bernie's pirate multi episode Wiggles DVD are many moments of pure joy.

With only 4 working days to 2 weeks break and an uncertain full-time job future (hopefully clarity this week), I'm reduced to blogging in work time to fill the void between inevitable Ashes Victories (not my preferred use of my indentured hours, but baggygreen.com.au is a mine of quality and up to date information).

Back to the grindstone...

RPG Flashback....

Take the quiz at dicepool.com

evil drclams influence continues to spread.... :-)

More Lyddy news v.soon (promise!)

It might as well rain...

...and we've just had a week of it.

Some of it actually fell in the catchment area, so Sydney's water situation is mildly less dire.

So much for spring :-). Apparently it will be fine again from tomorrow.

Two months since we've moved, and the new routines are just about established.

Exercise is building, and weight is dropping steadily.

Haven't really explored that much of Sydney yet, other than what work and socialising requires.

We're going to see the Boy from Oz this Sunday for our 4th wedding anniversary.
Should be fun to see Hugh Jackman, Australia's man of the moment (not withstanding Steve Irwin or Peter Brock).

Victoria & Lydia are doing well. At 17.5 months, the words are now flowing very freely. Latest vocabulary:

1. A-mo (Elmo)
2. A-me (Amen)
3. Shuuus (Shoes)
4. Dad-dyia (Daddy + Lydia)
5. Nononononono..... (speaks for itself)
6. Up/Down
7. Gown (as in the dressing variety)
8. Awdun (All done - with food/drink/anything)
9. Mummy's heeer
10. oosh
11. ook (look)

The brain development side of things is just remarkable. When in Fremantle, I heard a presentation from a 70 year old Associate Professor & Practicing Paediatrician on early childhood brain development.

It was fascinating to see how all the longitudinal studies on health brain development showed how neurone interconnectivity and brain architecture for everything from motor skills and language development is largely in place by the age of one.

The human body's an amazing thing...

There is a season for everything...

....even posting.

Sincere apologies for not doing anything the last almost 4 months.

My only explanation is that I have changed jobs and cities.

Yes, we now live in the big smoke of Sydney.

Too long a story to go into here, but it's much better pay, better conditions, better career direction and only 25-45 minutes max from home.

That means a LOT more energy during the week & on weekends, along with spending time with Lydia in both the morning and evening.

The job is located in Burwood, and I realised how WASP Newcastle still is (university notwithstanding) when I went to get my driver's licence renewed and caucasians were less than 10% the customers.

We're living in Oatlands, just north of Parramatta (the geographic centre of Sydney).

V's folks are now just over an hour away, so it's good to have babysitting a little more on tap (and they absolutely love it).

I'm still in training, but now e-learning - everything from custom content development to software infrastructure to professional services (consultancy, hosting, training etc).

Huge learning curve, but it's a sales role, so they want you up to speed ASAP, and I'm enjoying getting out on the cutting edge :-).

I've already done a small amount of travel (to Wagga & back in 1 day), and am off to Fremantle next week to speak at a conference.

We're about 90% unpacked - only have the spare bedroom and study / craft area to fully unpack and decide on where things go.

Lydia was a bit out of sorts for a few days either side, but is now back to her sunny self.

16 months today, the words are starting to flow thick & fast and motor skills advance seemingly every 2 hours.

The experience of having your child run to your arms when arrive home is a special, indescribable feeling.

Our digital camera is proving a frustrating experience. Batteries appear to last about 90 seconds, so we're not sure what's wrong.

We downloaded one lot of photos to the home PC, so will post them once the desk emerges out from under its piles of papers (this weekend is the deadline).

We're slowly re-connecting with our existing network of friends here, while we look for new ones. With a fully dedicated spare room, we are now much more able to be hospitable to the many visitors who will no doubt crowd our doors.

Anyhoo, my lunch hour is just about up - need to get a shot of caffeine to push me thru the rest of the day.

It's nice to begin to feel I've got a life back...there's lots of exercise to be done (not to mention more frequent posting - I'll try to get it back to once/month!).