I believe I can crawl

But she can't yet. It's oh so very frustrating.

Foot in Mouth

Might get back to the blog in a bit, in the meantime, look! Lyra can put her foot in her mouth. Now that's what I call progress.

Bumbolina

The Lilac Bumbo allows Lyra to sit pensively eating grass while Nicole and I tend to the weeds, rampant from the chronic alternation of rain and heat we have had in recent months.

Blades

Rollerblading on the boardwalk on Noosa Main Beach, surrounded by Pandanus palms on the verge of the littoral rainforest. Can't complain really.

Noosa Main Beach

Mum, Eloise and I took a stroll along the boulevard along the beach behind Hastings Street. Mum and I strolled, Eloise rolled along on her rollerblades. Very stylish, dodging the silver surfers, the French scufflers and the knackered packers.

Some parts of the boardwalk were in good nick, some less so, which presented some problems for the wheeled cohort. However these were stolidly worked through and only small blisters developed.

Sunshine Beach

Dogs can be restrictive, and walking a dog around Noosa for us involved visiting the beach. A different one each day, to be sure, but in the end isn't a beach a beach, with the nuances just that; the height of the tide, the size of the surf, the feel of the sand under your feet?

This day was the one where Mum fell over in the surf, Eloise fell over in the surf, and Eloise was stung by a jellyfish, a dramatic event which involved trips to the chemist and therapeutic television viewing in the grandparently palace. It was a painful sting to be sure, but not such an emergency that anybody felt a need to wee on her.

Lyra's First Encounter With Illness

Little Lyra continues to do all the things that she is supposed to do, beaming merrily while she does many of them. "Mim," she opines, some mysterious request for what is most probably milk. And, if that is not understood, of course there is the Four Fold Way of Outrageous Demand that ends in desperation and strained eardrums on the behalf of her subservient parents.

All has not however been plain sailing. For the last couple of weeks, she has been beset by a vicious, racking cough, productive from time to time with a thick mucus. As often as not, it will trigger a bout of vomiting the projectile range of which would from time to time challenge even the most committed of teenage hedonists.

She was sitting in her Electronic Rocking Chair of Immediate Quiessence the other day after a bit of a feed when she had a bit of a turn, coughing then producing a fountain of chunder that left her with a pool in her mouth to deal with, which could have ended badly.

As so, parents on alert, in the still watches of the night we fret that an unfortunate accident will occur and we wake at the slightest sound, anxiously turning her onto her side or front for fear of a choking catastrophe. Lyra sleeps through it all, remarkably. We do not.

We took her to the doctor the other day, more as a derriere-covering exercise than anything, and she agreed with us that it's just a cold, but a sticky one and it's unfortunate that mini-immune systems can't shift sickness more quickly.

So, c'est la vie, but we're looking forward to this being over and getting back to a decent night's sleep.

Eloise's Holidays

Eloise has been on school holidays, and there have been rendezvouses with various of her little friends.

We have had days out to the beach, trips to the Railway Museum, Boxing Day meals, sleep-overs, both home and away.

The new tablet is a source of amusement and angst as extended sessions of Angry Birds, Where's My Water and Subway Surfers have caused her priorities sometimes to be called into question.

But all that notwithstanding, in general she's had a pretty good time in the hot weather with lots of swimming and a general reprieve from dog walking which for the last week or so has been occurring early in the morning to avoid the heat.

Heatwave

So, no doubt you'll have been reading all over the news about bushfires and record temperatures in sunny Australia.

And indeed, over the New Year period and into January, it's been pretty damn hot.

We were invited by one of Nicole's chums down to a farm down near Beaudesert for a day of camping/relaxation and had a lovely time messing about on the Albert River in some inflatables.

We rode a couple of cascades, modest little waterfalls between swimming holes, which was immensely enjoyable until of course we went that one step too far and tried to go over that last waterfall that had a dog-leg in it, and that all ended in fear and tears, but no harm done!

Matilda came down with us and made friends with the other dogs that were there - Nicole's friend Lis was camping with her extended family, and in true Aussie style this meant a canvas city, twenty people and several dogs. Matilda had a pretty good time nosing around, sniffing dogs' bottoms, and paddling around with us,

In fact, for reasons which remain murky, she point-blank refused to get into the car at the end of the day for the journey home.

Jolly Christmas

Christmas was warm this year and on the day in question, after various present-openings and Skypings we drove off into the mountains to Jolly's Lookout, overlooking Samford Valley, for a barbecue.

Santa had in fact delivered the Roller Blades, much to Eloise's delight, and additionally she had been given a multitude of presents the likes of which I can't remember ever seeing before but which I'm sure pale into insignificance compared to the hauls captured by some children at this, the time of Goodwill to All Men. Aside from the blades, and not wishing to embark on a crass listing of every last bauble and trinket, there were painting sets, Attenborough DVDs, books, Lego, CDs, other stuff, and more stuff.

The painting set came up the mountain with us but was trumped by the Roller Blades. Lisa Mitchell was the soundtrack heading up the mountain, the Mumfords on the way down.

We had a plan to watch Attenboroughs in the evening and eat junk food, but there was more Skyping to be done and by the time, etc. etc.

We actually ate less than we eat normally. For shame.