Overseas Trips

It has been 10 years since I did my big OE - three months backpacking around Europe by myself. It's so hard to believe that it's been 10 years. I've been reading my travel diary and I can just picture everything so clearly. It was one of the best things I've ever done. Unfortunately I did the trip in the not-quite-digital-yet age, so have no digital photos or electronic blog. One of these days I'll get around to scanning everything. One cool thing though is that I've recently managed to make contact again with someone I met while I was travelling. The internet is great for finding people you've lost contact with.

It's also the anniversary of another big overseas trip I took. Three years ago I took the month of August off work and went around the world visiting friends in the USA, England and Russia. For the past month I've slowly been uploading the photos to Flickr, for no other reason than they hadn't been uploaded yet.

At the same time I've also transferred my travel blog from Geocities to Blogger. My travel blog from Peter and my trip to Europe in 2004 has also been transferred across.

It's nice to look back and remember when I was young and free. We won't be doing that sort of thing again for a long, long time...

-Megz

Mexican Restaurant

As promised, Peter and I took Kathleen out to a restaurant on Thursday this week. We went to the Mexican Cafe in downtown Auckland. We arrived about 7 o'clock and it was already quite crowded. I think we got the last table on the balcony.

When Kathleen and I were in Wellington last time (about six weeks ago) we went out with the family to Mungavin Blues restaurant in Porirua. On that occasion Kathleen was very unhappy, did not want to sit in the highchair by herself, wanted Mummy to hold her the whole time, etc. So naturally it was with a bit of trepidation that I took her out again.

The first thing we did was to sit her down in the highchair by herself. I was expecting her to start screaming immediately but she was content to just sit there and look around at everyone and everything. There were lots of lights and lots of people and lots of noise. She looked a bit stunned but was definitely taking everything in.

Now, bringing your own food along to a restaurant is utterly rude, but a baby can get away with anything. So we brought along her bowl and spoon, and a banana. Banana's have got to be the easiest of all baby foods - simply peel, mash and eat. No warming up required, no refrigeration required. And they're so yummy. It was also a good distraction to stop Kat getting too bored while we waited for our meals.

I ordered the chicken burrito and Peter had the beef platter grande. Our meals arrived while Kat was still eating hers, so we took turns feeding her. Kat's spoon in one hand, my fork in the other hand, one bite for you, one bite for me. Just don't get the hands mixed up ... I don't think she'd like the jalapenos too much. Neither did I.

All in all it was a great night out. Of course it was a lot different from going out before Kat was born - we didn't stay out too long and keep her up late (no dessert for us), conversation was pretty limited as our attention was on her most of the time, but it was incredibly fun to share the experience with her, and see her looking round open-mouthed in wonder.

We will definitely be doing it again.




-Megz

CRAWLING !

It's official, baby Kat has started crawling. She made her first tentative steps on Saturday night, and now she is (slowly) scooting all around the room getting into everything. At first I don't think she realised the significance of what she was doing. She was just moving from toy to toy without any other purpose. I think to her it was as if the toy got closer to her, rather than she had gotten closer to the toy. But now she understands what she is doing, and will follow me if I leave the room. Of course first she'll cry but then she'll start to follow. Then she'll stop crawling and cry some more.

This new found skill has necessitated some changes on our part. Most importantly the removal of anything that looks like a toy but isn't - i.e. cords and wires, the heater (but only when she's awake, once she goes to bed the heater comes back out and I huddle in front of it again, brrrrr). It has also sparked a major spring clean from about knee level downwards, concentrating on all those little nooks and crannies that aren't noticable to big people but are just the right size for little fingers. Such as underneath the refrigerator. Ugh. Next thing will be to fit kiddy-locks to the cupboard doors, or at least to make sure there's nothing dangerous in the cupboards. Don't want to stifle all her fun by locking everything away.

I'm really proud of Kathleen picking up crawling so quickly. She has been sitting up on her own for ages, and for about a month has been launching herself forward from her sitting position, to be on her hands and knees. However she didn't know what to do then and would get stuck and drop down onto her tummy and cry. She has never really liked "tummy time". The first breakthrough came about two weeks ago when she learnt to roll over from her back to her tummy. I think all this extra tummy time might have been motivation for the second breakthrough about a week later, when she learned to push herself back up to a sitting position from her tummy.

Our little girl is growing up so quickly.

The cats need to watch out now ...


-Megz

Jenga!

Recently I bought Kathleen one of those toys where you put the pieces through the different shaped holes (not sure what you call it - a shape sorter or posting toy?). It's one of those typical ones that everyone has - round plastic ball, two colours, and has 12 different coloured, different shaped pieces that fit through one hole and one hole only.

Obviously she's too young to put the pieces through the holes, but it is a great toy for lots of reasons: the pieces are easy for her to hold, she can put the pieces in her mouth, the pieces can be banged together to make noise, the ball can roll along the floor, and in time she will be able to learn about the different colours and shapes.

That got Peter and I talking about toys. I much prefer wooden toys over plastic toys. Wooden toys are timeless and traditional, whereas to me plastic toys are mass produced and gaudy. It seems to me producers of plastic toys are always coming out with new toys that your child "has to have" or they will miss out on some crucial development step. Peter and I both agree that it didn't do us any harm to grow up without these toys. And we both agree that Kathleen doesn't need a lot of toys.

What's the best toy of all time? Lego. (Yeah, ok, Lego is plastic. I don't like the new range of Lego where the toy is practically made and you only assemble one or two pieces. I like having lots of Lego pieces and using your imagination to make whatever you want out of them).

Kathleen is too young for Lego now, but when she is older we will have lots of fun playing with it with her. So what's the next best thing to Lego for a baby? Wooden blocks!

We don't have any wooden blocks, but we do have Jenga. So, rather than run out and buy some purpose made baby's wooden blocks, we pulled out the game instead on Friday night. We have had great fun with it over the weekend. Peter and I played several games of Jenga (currently a draw). Kathleen has had fun chewing on the blocks. Peter and I have had a competition to build the best tower - it has to be as tall as possible, aesthetically pleasing, and stable. But the most fun of all has been us trying to build something, anything, while Kathleen sits on our laps and tries to destroy it.

Going ...	Going ...	Gone !
	The Amazing Towers of Jenga

-Megz

Sit ... Roll Over ... Good Girl

Kathleen has finally learnt to roll over all by herself. She can now roll from her back to her tummy. As can be seen in this video. She normally only does it when she's reaching for a toy that is behind her. Thankfully she hasn't figured out how to roll back to her back again, and hasn't made that further leap of logic that once she can do that she can get places. As soon as she realises that then I'm in trouble.

She is also getting closer to learning to crawl as well. At the moment all she can really do is push herself backwards, and gets very frustrated when the toy she was reaching for just gets further away.

It won't be long now until she's mobile ...

-Megz

Swann

Swann. That's my maiden name. Margaret Swann.

I always hated my surname when I was growing up. I hated it because it was an unusual name. When I said it, people never knew how to spell it. When I hand-wrote it, people never knew how to say it. I got called "Swain" so often. The worse was the time I got called "Swam". I always hated it and looked forward to the day when I could get married and change it.

But then when it came time to get married and change my name, it was really hard to give it up. After all, I'd been known by that name for 25 years and it was part of me. It felt like giving up my identity in a way.

Now I've been Margaret Hamilton for eight years and I can't remember who Margaret Swann was any more.

But all of a sudden the name Swann has become popular. The female lead in Pirates of the Carribean is Elizabeth Swann, and a new character has just joined the cast of EastEnders (yes I still watch it after all these years) and her name is Dawn Swann (she has just joined the cast on NZ screens, she has been in the show for 9-10 months in the UK).

And the other day I was nosing around on the Old Friends website and found another ex-Margaret Swann!

So suddenly I'm not the only one any more.

-Megz