Snippets

Wow wee - time flies when you are having fun - or busy. Either and both statements are true, I reckon, and sums up my last couple of weeks. Here are the highlights.

Fishing

Last Saturday we tried our hand at fishing again, this time off Queens Wharf.





It was a windy and cold day, but that did not deter us.



We were patient; we dropped our lines and waited.



Kien was too impatient to wait for any sashimi we intended to serve up as a result of our catch, so he stuffed his face with grapes instead.





Alas, no fish were caught. It was a fun way to spend a few hours anyway.

Fathers Day

Belguim Beer Cafe for lunch.

Brief jaunt to Wellington

I hopped on a plane after work on Thursday and one hour later I was in lovely Wellington. Spent the evening with my friend Justine, who was over from Brisbane for a conference. We went to Lone Star for dinner seeing as it was only two doors down from our hotel. Considering I hadn't hardly eaten anything substantial for 3 days due to being sick with flu-like symptoms I felt famished. Luckily for me the restaurant meals served here were generous.

It was so lovely to wake up in the morning and read in bed for 3 hours. Talk about indulgence.

I like Wellington a lot. It kind of reminds me of San Francisco in some ways.



I then did a little bit of wandering around and shopping since it was nice and quiet.



This graffitied building is on the Cuba Street shopping strip, and I found the contrast to be really beautiful (grand and industrial and old and ugly sort of beautiful if that makes any sense at all).



I think Kien would love watching this structure - water filling buckets that would tip over and cascade to other buckets that would tip over.


At midday I headed back to the airport, and I was waving goodbye to Wellington from the sky.



No sooner had I finished my cup of tea I was saying hello to Auckland again.



I took Kien to a kids dinner that afternoon/evening hosted by one of the girls from my coffee group. Unlike me I did not take a single photo of the evening. It was fun though, I can vouch for that.

Pirates party

On Saturday I took Kien to one of his Playgroup pal's fourth birthday party. My creativity level at the moment is next to none, so Kien was a pirate on the inside (if he knew what a pirate was).

Scooter

He's been asking for a scooter for quite some time, and we've been promising him one ever since we came back from the Cook Islands. Today was the first time he's been outside with his scooter. We were heading to the park so Jef could fly his RC plane that he's just finished putting together.



Unfortunately it was too windy to fly. But Kien got a chance to wear his helmet for real.

Quick hello to family

A brief visit this afternoon to see my folks.





And that's a wrap.

It took 35 weeks

Yes, 35 weeks until he finally managed to sleep through the night! It's a miracle. Jef fed Kien at 23:40 and he went straight back to sleep - not a peep until 4:54 this morning.

What has changed? Justine sent us a dustmite mattress cover which we put on last night. Also it was the third night that we have not fed him after the dream-feed until morning, and using pick up/put down instead of shh/pat. Perhaps it was a combination of these factors, but more than likely it was the cover :-)


We've been so very tired and in survival mode for so long now. Last week was bad because I was still sick and also did not manage a lot of sleep. On Friday night I took Kien to Linda's place and she looked after him overnight while I slept. Jef had the house all to himself which he greatly appreciated, although I did get a text from him to say he missed us terribly...awwww.

On Sunday was Jef's first Father's day. We had such a lovely day. We went to the Belgium Beer Cafe at the end of Ponsonby Rd. Jef had 3x 500ml of the white beer and I had the cherry one (can't even remember what they were called but they were so yummy). I ordered their soup of the day (a spicy pepper and tomato soup) and gave a little bit to Kien mixed with some rice cereal. He had a few spoonfuls before he realised how spicy it was.

Kien loves to kneel, and when we are eating at the table he comes over to join us. Raw carrot is his favourite thing to chew on right now (besides the keyboard USB cable).