Milestones

I remember the weeks following the birth of our daughter moving at a languid pace. Perhaps it was because it seemed like she was changing with each breath, or maybe we were just a lot more attentive to shifts in her routine back then. As the months went by it felt like the passage of time accelerated, and it wasn't long before the series of firsts in a category of locomotive, gastronomic and verbal milestones faded into distant memory (although hopefully chronicled for posterity in some form). I imagine this is how fathers end up sneaking out of chapels on their daughter's wedding day to shed a tear as they struggle to understand where time, and their little girl, have gone.

We had a pretty big milestone this weekend. One that Alison and I have both been waiting for and dreading at the same time. By all accounts from experienced parents this is going to mark the start of an extremely challenging time for mummies and daddies.

Before we get to Eleanor I'd like to back track to a little miletsone of my own. This is supposed to be my blog after all.

Couple of weeks ago marked the 31st year of my life, and I was treated on the day to a fun day packed with food oriented activiites. Alison had found out about a new documentary called "Jiro dreams of sushi" that was playing in a limited release at the James Street Palace Cinemas. The name of the movie alone is awesome and reviews promised much entertainment for the epicurean, littered with "food porn" and interesting notes about the pursuit of becoming the best sushi chef in the world. The film follows Jiro Ono and his small ten seat sushi restaurant in the Tokyo subway below Ginza, the only sushi restaurant to ever win 3 stars in the Michelin guide. The story itself is fascinating and the stream of imagery featuring fresh, perfect nigiri sitting voluptuously on a plate was mouth watering. Highly worth watching for foodies.

After coming out of the cinema we headed to the Fresh Sushi Co. on James Street to pick up a smorgasbord of sushi for dinner. We arrived home later than expected with food in tow but thankfully Annie, who had kindly offered to babysit so we could see the movie, was happy to spend a little more time with a grizzly Nelly. Once we put our little girl to bed we sat down to enjoy dinner with some sake. The blue fin tuna and uni were great.

In place of a traditional birthday cake, Alison baked me a monster sized creme caramel. Far better in my opinion and you can still stick a candle in it! I won't reveal how long it took us to finish this...

For a cheese course we picked up a soft blue and a ferociously stinky washed rind to consume with a spiced pear paste and lavosh bread. A little indulgent perhaps but I think pushing your arteries to the limit is a great way to celebrate a birthday.

Anyway, enough about me. Eleanor has been doing a fair bit of growing up since she turned one a little over a month ago. We made it to Olivia Rose's birthday party last weekend and it was great to see her interact with all the other kids there. She didn't seem to mind the bouncy castle but wouldn't stay still for long to let the face painter draw a butterfly. I'm sure she'll calm down a little more as she matures.

That's not to say that she hasn't learned any new tricks, as yesterday we witnessed the beginning of her ambulatory independence. She has been rushing around the house with assistance of her walker for a while, but up till now has been too cautious to take more than a couple of steps without support. I think we captured enough on video to suggest that she's ready to start making a habit of being bipedal.

It's a little premature but we also think that she's got a few definite words under her belt and is starting to understand what we're saying. Of course we now know that comprehension and compliance are not necessarily related. Hopefully she'll pay attention to us when we warn her about the new precarious positions that her new found freedom will put her in. Either way, we are so very proud of our daughter right now.

Well done Nelly!

Nelly Turns One

Hard to believe how quickly the last twelve months have flown by. In the last week we celebrated (twice!) our little girl surviving under our care for a whole year, which is a pretty credible milestone I would say.

Mum flew out on the Friday before Nelly's birthday for a short stay with her favourite grand daughter. As mentioned in a previous post, we have been Skyping with AhMah and AhKong pretty much every weekend so Eleanor recognized mum immediately as that energetic lady from the TV. Mum has made a great recovery from her back surgery and was game enough to pick our little girl up for short periods for cuddles and relocating babies from dangerous areas when necessary.

I took the Monday off work for Elenaor's actual birthday on the 16th as we planned to have a small family party. John and Sheena drove down with the great grandparents who were delighted to see how gorgeous Eleanor looked in tartan (a birthday dress from her AhKong in Malaysia). It was the first of several costume changes that day as it's very difficult to crawl and play with toys when one is not accustom to dresses.

A little Chinese tradition is to give the baby a few gifts on her first birthday to help her along in life. New clothes so that she will always have something to wear, new shoes to take her to interesting places in life and best yet a whole chicken drumstick to guarantee wealth and food to eat. It seems like she's going to need it as our little girl absolutely demolished that chicken leg (with a little help from the parents to cut the meat off the bone) along with everything else that was served up for lunch.

Mummy and Daddy woke up early to decorated the cake, which turned out pretty well I think. The Vienna cream was probably a little rich but that didn't stop us from eating most of it. I've also started to develop a hatred for lighting birthday candles on windy days.

The following Saturday we invited a bunch of Eleanor's friends over for another party. They insisted on bringing their parents along too and we obliged, which made it one of the larger parties that we have had at our home. In preparation of the large event we composed a lengthy list of food to feed everyone, including a medium sized boneless ham. I've been keen on baking a glazed ham ever since we watched a special episode on Good Eats years ago so it's an understatement to say that I was a little excited. We ended up selecting an orange and mustard glaze which produced rather scrumptious results I would say.

In the end I think we over catered by a fair amount, which goes to show that our estimates shouldn't be based on how much food I would eat. At least we would have left overs for a week and the kids could feel free to drop half their plates on the grass.

The birthday cake for the Saturday party was decorated by our friend Christina, who is ever so clever, and was adorned with a cute chicken for our little girl. Everyone was thoroughly impressed with her efforts and the cake tasted great.

I tried to take as many photos as I could on the day and have put together a little collage in iPhoto on the iPad to try that feature out. Quite impressed with how easy it was to compose and share something. You can find the link here.

So that's one year down. I mentioned to Alison a while ago that I had never really imagined what it would be like to have a toddler. All my preconceptions about children began with an infant and immediately skipped to a walking, talking child asking about the origin of rainbows. The last six months have been surprising and absolutely delightful so I cannot begin to imagine how I will feel when Eleanor reaches her next verbal and locomotive milestones.