New Bandwagon Header

Look up. Look down. Look up again. What you're seeing is that finally I've updated the Bandwagon header :)

I hope you're all happy with your illustrated avatars. As always if you want your own let me know and I'll pull it out of the fla and send you a copy. If you've got change requests please let me know, and I'll try to get to it at some point in the next 3 years ;)

I'll try to get a version sorted for tees and stickers and calendars and the like soon.

Cockatoo visit

Lovely to meet little Jules and have plenty of Nanny cuddles. I'll try to upload a few photos.

This week is the week

A recent ultrasound suggested Dee has "polyhydramnias" - that is, too much amniotic fluid - and the follow-up had the specialist ready to do a Caesarian on the spot (practically), but Dee obviously wanted a second (and third!) opinion from her doctor and midwife.

On Friday we got that opinion, and now the game-plan is set: if little Jules hasn't arrived by Thursday we're into the hospital overnight for inducing Friday morning. And if he can't be induced, ol' sawbones McGee is standing by for a c-section. Either way the lad is coming out!

It is still more likely that he'll come on his own this week, statistically speaking, but just in case we've asked Dee's ma to come over and look after the place for a few days.

It will be great to finally meet the little guy!

No power tools

Today I sawed the pieces of panelling we can use for Jared's walls. Hope Lisa and Jared can move anything that won't like to be hammered from their respective bookcases. I've also pulled out the shoe tidies so we can put one up for Jared and one for the little girls. The fluro desklight was repaired with a new globe so is good to go too. I'm ready for another session on Saturday. Lisa I'll be home tomorrow until lunch time but I think you are going out to Latrobe with Carolynn.

Great school reports for Carolynn, Jared and Trinity. Carolynn has had a driving lesson in wet weather so tick that off.

Glenn and Danielle I have more 0000 clothes , this time from Damien and Cheryl(blue). I'll hold them until we see how big your little man is.

I want more power tools

We've got a bit of a break between visitors so I thought I should write a quick update.

We were expecting Darryl at some point before the baby was born, but he surprised us by calling us a few days before the weekend to say he'd be here along with his family. Luckily I had just spend a large chunk of the previous weekend cleaning the spare room (for the guys to come and fix our shutters) so we were okay. It was great to see Darryl, Alicia, Charlotte, William and Spencer, and although Oscar got a little upset about having to share his toys early in the week (especially after his nap when he was still tired) by the end of it he was happily (for the most part) playing with everyone. He seemed to like following Charlotte around, copying her, and later he and Spencer both copied each other.. which was good, because they were playing together, but not so good if they both wanted to play with one little toy :) I think it's a small taste of what's to come for him though. Daz was brilliant.. he made us the wardrobe (which we're still in the process of filling), fixed up the front security door, reattached the linen press door.. just generally did those tasks you really need power tools to do. We repaid him as best we could with beer and chocolates, but I think we still owe him big time.

This weekend Rach arrives, which will be great too. She's staying for a week, and I know Os is going to love having family here who don't want to ride on his bikes or read his books ;) Sadly Rach wont be bringing power tools to fix up whatever is left, but that's okay.. I think Chez has got a day off work so I'm sure they'll get up to no end of hijinks.

Speaking of Chez, she's doing really well. Only 10 weeks to go, and the little girl is very active. Os calls her "baby sister" and occasionally points out toys for her :) The time seems to be flying by now. We put up some photos of Cheryl so you can see her belly too.. I don't think it's as big as it was for Ossie. Either way I'm sure you'll agree she looks beautiful.

And me.. I'm on a weird low-carb diet. I'll write more about that when it's over if you're interested.. Then I'll have final numbers and the like. Either way, it seems to be netting a result for me, which is good.. because I do miss delicious carbs.

Obstinate li'l tyke

We had our third ultrasound today, and it was great to see the little tyke (and even better to see the li'l heart beating!) but try as she might, our sonographer could not get the scanner into position to tell us the sex.

It was a 10am appointment, and it's my theory that the little person to be was not used to being up so early -  the scanner showed him/her all curled up, feet crossed, arms over face and hands in fists. We prodded, moved, waited; nothing would make the bub move to a more 'helpful' position. "Gets that from you," Dee couldn't help but remark. "Just being cheeky."

We've got another scan next week, so fingers crossed.

Update from us

As usual, it's been a while since we posted anything on the bandwagon, so I thought I'd give a bit of an update. This week has could have best been described as Hellishly busy. After a few weeks of not much going on at work, suddenly a client came to us with a massive job and a really tight deadline.. today being said deadline, and I'm writing this over my lunchbreak while awaiting any more feedback from them. Unfortunately, this was also the week in which I've got two Iaido demos.. one on Sunday, and the other yesterday afternoon. This basically meant that the last few days I've been starting around 6 or 7am so I can get the work done and also so I could leave early Wednesday for the demo. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but the sum result is I'm pretty tired :)

So the demos. Yesterday afternoon Takeo and I were at a big park in Adelaide for a half hour or so. We did some kata together, then faced off against each other with Takeo attacking and me defending.. then we did five each alone (we were clapped at the end!) and finished with some bamboo cutting. The crowd actually built up to be pretty large. Cheryl has posted photos, and I'll chuck a couple in here.. you can see it's fairly sparse in the first one, but by the end there's people behind us watching as well. The demo Sunday should be a bit less stress.. it's just for my Dojo in Reynella, so myself and a couple of students will do about 3 kata each and that will be all.

If you want to see all the photos you can see them here.

We hung around at the Moon Lantern Festival after the demo to eat some delicious Korean food and watch a few of the shows on the main stage. Oscar also tasted his first ice-cream.. which was Cheryl's ice-cream, but he didn't want to share ;) We got it off him when we offered him a banana instead.. he loves his fruit!

Oscar is growing up so quickly and learning a lot. He's gradually adding more words, some from us (like "nan" and "up") and some from childcare (like "ta" and "more") and some he just seems to pick up himself. He started saying "nose", "mouth" and his favourite "eye" suddenly one day. He really likes to mimic us too.. sometimes you wont realise you're doing something (like scratching the top of your head) until you see Os doing it too.

He's becoming much better at feeding himself.. some foods are easier than others of course, but he loves using a spoon, fork and knife when he can. He also loves reading books.. I think that's his favourite quiet time activity. Sometimes he'll even sit down and look through the books himself. We play a lot, he loves chasing and hiding games, and really likes exploring outside. He can get a bit quiet and shy with new people, but I reckon it takes about 20 minutes for him to get used to them (and it took about 2 minutes with Sam :))

We're looking forward to seeing Mum and Nana next week, even if there is a fair bit of cleaning the house still to be done. I'm getting Wednesday and Thursday off work (which I appreciate even more after this week) and then Friday Cheryl and I will go out for a few drinks with friends to celebrate my birthday. Gotta make the most of the experienced babysitters :) Monday is a public holiday too! It's going to be a good week :)

Hmm.. I think that's it from me. Hopefully Cheryl can pop on and say how her work is going, and anything I might have forgotten. I'd better get back to work!

Update from Adelaide in the form of an epic novel

Hey all,

I thought it's about time we did an update from us. Let me start with childcare..

Friday a week ago was to be Oscar's first day of childcare, and Cheryl's first day of work. We were totally psyched for it, I was going to take lunch off and we would both drop Os in and ease him into it. Unfortunately, best laid plans and all that, Os got a fever Thursday night which continued throughout the day. We decided it was better for Chez to have her first day, so (with big thanks to my boss) I took a half day, dropped Cheryl at work and took Os home. Unfortunately his temp continued to rise, and once it got to 39.6 I took him to emergency. 3 hours, much poking and prodding and a very unhappy Os later we were able to take him home, Cheryl having left work early to catch the bus. The doctor's final report was along the lines of "probably a virus, we can never be sure with kids, no other problems so he'll be okay in a day or two".

It wasn't an ideal first day.

Over the weekend his temp sorted itself back out and he was looking fine for his Wednesday childcare when on Tuesday arvo he picked up a fever again. Thankfully while generally these things are 48 hours or so he was fine on Wednesday and was able to have his first day.

Once we got him there, he was fine. I suspect if you surround him with toys and girls who smile at him he'd be happy anywhere (and who wouldn't?). Apparently it took a little while to get him to sleep, but once they found out the tricks (rubbing his blue bear against his face, patting his leg) they got there and he was asleep when I arrived to pick him up.

Oh, that's the other thing. On his childcare days I leave the house before 6am, walk 4.5kms to the train station then train into the city and bus to work, to be there by 8am. Then I leave at 4pm, bus to the childcare and pick him up.. although the plan is for me to stay there with him for a while, to help him get comfortable until around 5:30 when Cheryl finishes. There's probably a bus I could catch later in the morning, but I need a couple of big walks in the week. Plus when Os is older I can say "back in my day I had to HIKE for 45 minutes through the SNOW etc etc".

On Friday he stayed home with Nanna and Granddad who by all accounts doted on him and carried him everywhere like a little prince :) So he's only had the one day.

Sunday (today!) we had his birthday party. We had something like 25 adults and 10 kids, but somehow we didn't run out of food or seats.. Certainly not something we could have done at any of the units we lived in ;) It was a really great day.. Os had a sleep from around 10:30 until 12:30, so he was in a really good mood for his party. He even got to eat some cake, although I'm sure he didn't realise it was a treat. Babies played with Os' toys, kids played the Wii and ran around outside, and adults ate, drank and generally made merry. Just as a first birthday should be. I'll post photos up to flickr later, and I'm sure Cheryl will post some to facebook too.

I might get Cheryl to jump on now and tell you how her first few days of work are going..

Cheryl here :) Work is going well. My first shift back my supervisor got me to do most of the sales to help me get back into the swing of things. Nothing like being thrown into the deep end to refresh your memory! Apart from wondering how Os was doing, it all went well. I'm enjoying being back at work, and Os & I are slowly working out our new routine. And I'm enjoying not having to worry about all the supervisor stuff I used to do! It's also great just being around my work friends and students :)

Okay, that's it from us.

new baby

Tamara and Ray have a new son, Charles Albert Rowland 7lb 7ozs, born 4/9/09. (caesarian again as planned.) Mother and baby both well.

Oscar's first trip to the pool

We have just gotten back from Oscar's first ever trip to the pool! It's been a bit cold and rainy this weekend, but the pools were indoor and heated, so it was quite warm when we got there.

Initially we took him into the baby pool. I'm sure mum and dad can guess his first reaction - he kicked around like he was in the bath :) However after a bit of that I think he realised he was somewhere different, and spent the remainder of the time studying everything he could with a detached expression of mild curiosity.

The pool we went to has these weird mushroom things which rain water down, and he rather enjoyed that. It also has a sea creature which sprays water from it's head and he really tried to grab that water, even though it just made it spray into his face :D

After a bit of a play in both the baby and the kids pool (he was a bit weirded out by floating I think) we changed him, wrapped him up and he instantly fell asleep. He's still asleep now that we're home :)

We didn't take any photos at the actual pool, but there are a few shots of his cute little outfit on flickr and facebook, so check them out :) He looks very tall in that first one..

Photos photos everywhere, and all the boards did shrink

For those of you who have been waiting patiently for the photographic evidence of our trip to sunny (actually quite freezing cold) Bendigo, here they are in all their glory. We took a lot more, but trust me, these are the best ;)

Oscar's day on the farm

Hi everyone!

Yesterday we took Oscar to the miniature farm barn for a friend's 2-years-old birthday party. We dressed Os in some cold weather gear and he met a lot of animals for the very first time. The first part of the party was a bit of a tour and feed then it was pony ride time. All of the kids were too scared! Apart from Oscar, who sat on one for a little while. They were really cute ponies (I know what I want for my birthday!) and if they could have held my weight I would have been up there in no time as well! ;) Some of the little girls ended up putting hair clips into the pony's mane and leading it around the yard. Next was farm equipment time. I think Os enjoyed the tractor ride the most :) Then all of the kids went inside for some morning tea and cake. Oscar had his milk and then sat next to his little friend while he played with a serviette. It was a very cute party and it tired the little guy out. He fell asleep on the way home, so instead of trying to get him into the house without waking him we drove to the local shopping centre and Damien and I took turns going in to get lunch and eating in the car while Oscar slept (sneaky! :) We took heaps of photos, of course :)

Today we've had a quieter day. We went to the shopping centre for lunch and spent the rest of the day at home. Not sure what we'll do tomorrow. Probably enjoy the public holiday indoors with the heater on :)

Blue-eyed future Sword Saint ;)

Just a quick update from us.

Oscar has calmed down a lot - he's on Losec for his reflux - the Mylanta we had him on previously wasn't doing the trick. It does help, although sometimes it can still be difficult getting him to sleep.. but he's not awake every 45 minutes all day and night now, so it's a big plus. We're hoping once he reaches that 6 month point we wont need to give him the medication.. often that's when it settles down anyway.

Cheryl had her shopping day in Melbourne on Saturday (for our anniversary I got her a return ticket).. she spent most of her time (and money) at the DFO at Southern Cross Station, definitely worth a look if you're ever visiting the rainy city. I looked after Oscar for the day.. from 5am when Cheryl left until 9pm when she returned. Thankfully now he's got his medication he was much more relaxed and actually managed a few hours of sleep in there.

The other thing that helped keep me sane over the day was my new iPhone - Cheryl's anniversary present to me.. well, a combination of Cheryl and Kevin Rudd really. I was able to hold Oscar and still surf the net or play games I had downloaded. It was much better than my previous method of passing the time - staring into space :)

This morning we all headed to Goodwood for Iaido, because we had the Grading Certificate Presentations. I am now officially Ni-Dan, which makes me a sensei and also meant I got an art name - a name specific to the style to represent me. My name is "Go Seki".. the "Go" part is from Shihan's art name (Go Ho) and indicates that we have come from the Australian school.. and the "Seki" part means "stone" or "rock".. which was Shihan's (and the Grandmaster's) opinion of me I guess. I hope it's solid as a rock, and not rock-headed ;)

Oh, and finally there's a few more photos of Oscar up - http://www.flickr.com/photos/damienmason/3495448177/in/set-72157613379231082/ Cheryl took some fantastic shots, and I think it's pretty safe to say Oscar's eyes will be staying blue now :)

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everybody. I hope you all have had an enjoyable long weekend.

(more new photos over at flickr)

Oh, and big thanks to Auntie Dayna for the present, you can see him enjoying it here

Update from us

Hey all.. Everyone seems to be using email to send out their updates, but I'm at work right now and don't have all the addresses here.. so it's a bandwagon post from me :)
Oscar's been a bit difficult these last few weeks, and we finally have a reason why - Cheryl took him to the Dr, who thinks he might be having silent reflux. Basically that explains everything - his tendency to feed only a little, and be hungry half an hour later, waking up after about an hour of being asleep unless you're holding on to him (and keeping him upright), general grumpiness and crying.
The solutions involve a drop of mylanta in his bottle, sitting him up to feed, keeping him sat up for half an hour afterwards, and using towels to angle his bed so his head is a bit higher.. of course in the meantime he's pretty high maintenance, which means when I'm at work Cheryl barely has time to eat, let alone time to rest or anything else.. and it also means of an evening neither of us get much sleep.
Hopefully the tricks can help lessen the effects, and hopefully it's something he grows out of.. although even then it could be months, at which point I suspect we'll both be needing a holiday! Ah, the joy of babies.

Smile!

Update from Adelaide

Hey guys.. well, some pretty big updates on the bandwagon. Jared, I hope you had a great birthday, we're still organising your present, maybe we'll give it to you when you visit. Ma n Pa, sorry to hear about the scary ER visit, but I'm glad Dad's on the mend again. A trip to Emergency is never a particularly pleasant experience.

As far as we are going, things are all pretty good. We've had Edith and Landon here for the last three weeks, and Rach arrived on Tuesday, but they headed home this morning. I know Oscar enjoyed seeing his grandparents and auntie, and we certainly appreciated an extra few pairs of hands to cook, clean up and occasionally take the baby so we could sleep :)

We took Oz to the beach on Saturday, which was great.. he slept pretty much the entire time. Then when we got home he was awake for some photos and a quick webcam chat with his other grandparents (and great-grandparent). I've put still more photos in the Oscar set on flickr.

I think the photos are generally 1200x1600, so if you want them at a bigger size to print just let me know.. the originals are more like 2500 x 1900. Mum and Dad, you do have that book to fill up after all ;)

That's about it from us. The time just seems to be flying by, it's hard to believe Oscar's a month old already. In no time he'll be eating all the food in the fridge and sleeping until noon :)

BellyWatch: Week 39

Hey all.. well, we're down to the last two weeks before the due date, which means it could be any day from a few weeks ago to about a month from now. This means we don't tend to make plans, and I jump whenever my phone rings at work :)

Cheryl is still feeling good, although occasionally the baby finds a spot to poke that makes her uncomfortable... and of course at that point he decides it's a great game to just keep on poking that spot. Still, she's managing a walk every day of around a kilometre, as well as keeping up the various stretches and other exercises that are recommended.

In an effort to improve my fitness I've also managed the occasional walk to the train station in the morning.. it's around 4 - 4.5 kilometres, which means to catch the train at 7:30 I have a fairly early morning. It's a good walk though, mostly uphill :)

Apart from that we're pretty uninteresting I'm afraid. Just generally kicking around at home, staying cool in this stupid weather and not making plans for any long trips.

What has everybody else been up to since Christmas?

Guess the time and date (and eye colour) competition

As discussed, I'm going to run a competition to guess the time (to the nearest hour) and date of the baby's birth, and the eye colour. That means if someone has the same time that you want, you have to go a different eye colour :) The winner will be the closest time first, and if there's two times that are close then whoever gets the eyes right.
I'll put it up here for a day or so for you all to guess, and then I'm going to post it on my website and keep a running tally of guesses up there :)
The expected due date is Feb 1. Both Cheryl and I have brown eyes, but both our Dads have blue eyes. Oh, and there is a prize (it'll probably be one of my tees from redbubble.. it wont be naming the baby, sorry Jared)
Good luck! ;)

Nursery update

Hey everybody.. today we bought a change table, finally. Cheryl is going to get a capsule for the car in January, after she finishes work, and then I think we have all the essentials. Somewhere for the baby to sleep, be changed, and a way to get him around :)

We also bought a really cool cot set, with monkeys and turtles and all that good stuff. We put it in the cot just to take some photos to put online.

You can see all the nursery photos here.

Oh, we also had a very kind woman in Toys R Us give us a voucher which saved us about $40 (after the change table had already been reduced by $100 i might add). She was just another shopper there, and being nice.. some people are awesome :)

Saturday we also had the first of our three classes at Flinders Hospital. The second is with a Physio, and covers relaxation techniques and pain relief, and the third is about taking the baby home and looking after it.. Which unfortunately meant that this one was about labour and delivery.

I wont go into specifics.. but rest assured, they did ;)

Still, it was really good, and it's left both Cheryl and I feeling better about the whole thing. There were a few things that I had heard, or read in older books, which were completely wrong. Which is good.

And that's about it from us for this week.