Most people write themselves some very sensible goals for the New Year, such as, “Put 10% of my income into savings”, or “Read more non-fiction books”, or, “Eat less meatloaf”. Well, I’m certainly no different from most people, and this year, my list of goals has (so far) topped out at the grand total of seven. Goal number one on that list is: “Learn to juggle”.

I know that by this point, you’re probably thinking one of two things; either, “Hey, awesome idea! You’re awesome!”, or, “Why? You’re a dork!”. Likely it’s the first one, but for the haters in camp two, let me answer your question with another question: “Why not?”. Kristy also agreed that at least one of us should know how to juggle, just in case such a skill should one day be needed to save our lives, and to this effect, she bought me a set of juggling balls for Christmas.

You may think that a handsome young father of a toddler (such as myself) would be somewhat short on time for juggling practice, but as it turns out, it’s completely the opposite! You see, said toddler has never been motivated by food – something we really should have seen coming – and as such, we’d do pretty much anything to get him to eat. And now, with juggling practice on the books, we have one extra distraction to use while the other person quietly encourages food into his mouth in the background.

Actually, his comprehension is getting amazingly good, to the point where eating has now become a negotiation. “Oscar, if you eat that quarter of ravioli, Daddy will juggle for you”. Yes, we realise that negotiating a child to eat probably isn’t something you’ll see on Supernanny, but since Oscar would be pretty happy to skip solid foods entirely, we don’t feel like we have much of a choice. Worse, I fear that we could be setting him up for long term disaster in his adult life, whereby every time he sees someone juggling, he feels a sudden urge to eat pasta.

Worse still, it’s not even the juggling that entertains him; it’s the failure at juggling that really makes him laugh. The whole time I’m delicately managing three balls in the air, he’s staring at me, just willing one of them to go astray. Thankfully though, he’s such a lovely, helpful little boy, that when he’s not strapped into his high-chair, he’s only too happy to go and fetch the fallen ball on my behalf.

Ahh, service with a smile!

Oscar’s “big” present from us this year was a tricycle (full credit to Kristy for this one). We didn’t take it away to the coast with us as we figured there wouldn’t be much use for it while we were there; instead, we assembled it upon our return to Brisbane while Oscar was sleeping off his drive home nap. Of course, he immediately wanted to take it for a spin once he woke up and saw it, so we headed down to the Kedron Brook bikeway for a cruise through the park.

Yep, the tricycle is a huge winner!

Back when Oscar was only a few weeks old, Todd and Shannon sent him a lovely trainee barista apron. So cute! And yet, so practical! After all, Oscar has been in training since the day he was born! Perhaps even since before he was born, if that’s technically possible!

Admittedly, the first few months of lessons were centered around self control during periods of loud noise, and I can now happily report that Oscar no longer bursts into tears when the coffee grinder is turned on. Success!

Since then however, we’ve moved on to more hands-on exercises:

You don’t have to say it. I know he’s awesome.

(Ok, you can say it.)

One of Oscar’s birthday presents this year was an inflatable yellow pool, sporting a huge giraffe at the back and a bunch of decorative blow up hanging things for him to rip off and inevitable lose. Kristy managed to pick it for an absolute steal, and up until now it’s functioned brilliantly as a safe-haven from fleas in the downstairs playroom. But, with temperatures cracking whatever number it was that they cracked today, it was officially “hot enough” for the little yellow pool to fulfill its water-based destiny!

As you can see, Oscar was rather chuffed with the whole event, and quite enjoyed his little splash about!

It’s been a big month for Oscar, in baby terms at least. He’s developed new interests, new skills and experienced new things. We’ve had a really fun time watching his antics too! These stories are chiefly to help us remember this stage of his life, so apologies if it’s too detailed and baby-ish to interest anyone else.

G: Spoiler alert: There’s videos.

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Ah, it’s funny to see what kids find funny. It’s even funnier to laugh at what kids find funny. Especially when their laugh is as cute as this one.

Admit it – you’d laugh too if someone kept putting a little purple hat on your head. Actually you probably wouldn’t. I’m glad Oscar does.

Not much going on this week, after our second long weekend of just chillin’. I have to say, I could easily get used to working less than five days a week, and I dare say it will be a rude shock to have to go to work on a Monday! Hopefully I’ll find it novel, though I’m guessing I probably won’t.

Anyway – after a lovely breakfast with the Dahl’s on Monday morning just gone, we rounded out our long weekend with some boules with the Threebie’s in the afternoon. Ted was eager for a push on the swings, so we decided to jump on the bandwagon and give Oscar his first ever swing.

I can’t say that he loved it, though he didn’t really hate it, either. His weight didn’t seem to distribute properly – he seemed a bit top-heavy, which caused him to tip backwards quite a lot. This is more than likely from his enormously advanced and therefore heavy brain, which will no doubt be beneficial to him later in life; but isn’t really ideal for a Monday afternoon on the swings.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to edit some of the video footage that we recorded last year, and haven’t done anything with. It’s slow going – finding spare time isn’t an easy thing to do, and for some instances there is a lot of footage – but it’s very satisfying once it’s complete.

In this light, here’s a video of our trip to Cinque Terre in May last year. We did a lot of walking! And don’t forget – Kristy was five months pregnant at this point!

Music:
The Getaway Plan – Where the City Meets the Sea
Rise Against – The Dirt Whispered
Jimmy Eat World – A Praise Chorus

It’s fair to say that I’ve been to a number of concerts over the years, and though it’s hard to choose a single favourite, I’d definitely put the first Muse concert I saw very close to the top. So, when Al – henceforth known as “Legendary Al” – offered me an early Christmas present in the form of a ticket to see Muse play again on Sunday night at Brisbane Entertainment Centre, I was champing at the bit to attend! Truth be told, I didn’t even know they were touring!

So first things first – there was one major disappointment to the evening. Al and I thought that the support act was Biffy Clyro, but as it turns out, they’re supporting all of the Australian shows except for Brisbane. This was a total bummer, as I’m a huge fan of their work! Instead of Biffy Clyro, our opening act was Dead Letter Circus, and to be fair to them they were quite good – but they weren’t the band we were expecting.

Anyway, Muse exploded on to the stage around 9 PM, with each of the lads standing on a platform about 20 metres above the stage, each in the middle of their own cage-like tower. The towers were all projecting various images throughout the concert – lots of the time, these were live feeds of the lads playing on stage, overlaid with huge amounts of video processing. Plus, the platforms were raised and lowered throughout the show, so that the band members could wonder around on stage, or so that the instruments could be changed (Matt had a full size piano on his platform for one track!).

Did I mention the greatest laser show that I’ve ever seen?

Yes, it’s overall a bit hard to describe, but here’s a video that may explain it better than I can! Unfortunately, it was taken on my phone, so the quality isn’t amazing, and the sound was far too loud to record successfully, but don’t let that put you off!

It was so much more than I’d have imagined it would be, and I’ve never seen anything like it. I suspect we have a new contender for “best concert ever”!

Yesterday, we joined Aubain in Ingrid in a lovely boat trip along the Thames. We picked up our boat from the boat hire company in Datchet around 11 AM, then set out “uphill” towards Windsor and Maidenhead. It was perfect boating weather, and the temperature by the water was just lovely!

We stopped and enjoyed a delicious champagne picnic for lunch on the grounds of Oakley court. We chose the spot based not only on the lovely scenery, but also on the sign which clearly stated that non-guests were welcome. It was only when we pulled away after lunch we read the other sign which said, “mooring for hotel guests only”. Whoops!

We also had to master the art of “locking”. OK, admittedly it wasn’t exactly difficult to master, but it was still a big part of the experience! We went through three separate locks on our day trip – I wonder how many you’d have to go through until you made it to Manchester?

Here’s a short video of our day on the water. Note that the maximum speed of our boat was a hair-raising 8km/h (or perhaps 9km/h when we were going “downhill”); consequently, parts of the video have been sped up for your viewing pleasure (including the 6 minutes of footage of one of the locks draining!).

View the Boating along the Thames album on Picasa or Facebook.