Half a Year Later

Yes, we're those parents. Any milestone no matter how small should be celebrated, if only to provide an excuse for tea and cake in the park. No, Nelly did not partake in her half-birthday cake. We thought we'd give the poor girl a few more months (hopefully years) before subjecting her to the same high fat, high volume diet that her parents seem so fond of.

First stop in the morning was to get a quartet of icing encrusted morsels from the Cupcake Parlour. Then we drove down the road to Orleigh Park to find a lovely spot under a tree for some morning tea. Nelly was so well behaved and happily gave us lots of smiles for the camera.

As an aside, I've recently upgraded all our iOS devices to the latest version of iOS5 which, amongst many great new features, includes iCloud. Can I just say that having Photo Stream is an absolute life changer now that I don't need to synchronise four devices manually after taking few (ok, perhaps more than a few) photos. You can see my personal picks on the album here.

Eating the cupcakes fresh this time made a world of difference. These were super moist and had great flavour. I ordered the Turkish Delight along with the Marbelous (which is the one with a Guylian chocolate on the top). Alison had the Fairy Floss and Very Cherry (with the Cherry Ripe). Eleanor seemed interested in sampling the sweets but we convinced her that a bottle of milk and blended beans, carrots and sweet potato would be just as good. Kids are so gullible.

It's amazing how much she's changed over the last six months (as I said, we're those parents). Just over the last few weeks since Canberra have allowed Eleanor to improve her upper body strength when pushing herself up on her tummy. She's also interacting a lot more with us vocally, which is unbelievably rewarding. I had actually thought that she was going to be a laconic lass with very little sign of joviality, but I've been pleased to see her develop a musical laugh and happy squeal that melts my heart every time I hear it.

Happy six months Eleanor Chua. Your mummy and daddy love you very much.

Airplanes, Flowers and Canberrra Weddings

The last time we were down in Canberra was to renew my passport and see the wonders of our capitol city with hosts Meg and Rich. They did such a wonderful job of looking after us for our last visit that we couldn't pass up the chance to come down again. Especially to attend their wedding.

The flight down from Brisbane would be Eleanor's first experience with the joys of air travel. It's not a long flight, about an hour and a half in the air, so we were going to take this as a test run for what it will be like traveling back to Malaysia in January next year. If this experience was any indication, then we are very lucky parents as Eleanor was very well behaved. In fact, she slept most of the way and kept calm through take off and landing.

John and Sheena were at the airport to greet and drive us to the serviced apartments in Kingston. Being Floriade it was a good chance to see the flowers on display, though it was a shock to the system walking around in the cold after the Brisbane climate. Nelly and everyone rugged up and we had a lovely time walking through the different arrangements.

Speaking of dressing for the cold, Eleanor's Aunty Dora found this charming bear hat in Singapore a long while ago. We were hoping to use it but it turned out to be too big for Nelly and would likely be too warm in Brisbane by the time she grew into it. Good thing we actually got to use it in Canberra as we think she looks adorable in it.

I'd forgotten about this until we arrived, but we missed our chance to try a Canberran culinary institution during our last visit. It seems like queueing up for Brodburgers in the freezing cold at night is the local experience that all visitors should try. This is about as far from fine dining as you can get; three guys serving huge burgers of repute out of a stationary crimson trailer that is lit up like a gypsy's caravan at night. Catching up with Nat this trip to show us round town, I knew I didn't want to miss out again. So we stopped by for succulent beef burgers, slathered with Brie and tomato relish, even after a pretty big dinner and dessert before hand. It was 10:30 at night in pretty chilly conditions but that didn't stop people from gathering in front of the iconic red caravan.

There are some pretty nice restaurants in Canberra but as it stands, the people's vote on Urbanspoon is for Brodburger at the number one spot for popular places to eat. I would have to agree with that assessment. Incidentally the Asian Noodle House in Dickson on the second spot was pretty darn awesome too (which was where we had dinner before the obligatory supper excursion). One of the best laksa I've had in Australia.

The main attraction of course was Meg and Rich's wedding. The ceremony was to be held on the grass in the sculpture gardens by the National Gallery, but inclement weather meant that it was touch and go if the service would be moved under cover. In the end things were set up on the slate tiles overlooking the gardens and the Knot, where so many proverbial ties have been made. Megan and Rich looked great and happy, if perhaps a little cold with the weather.

The reception was held a short walk away at the Lobby. Great food, heart warming speeches, lovely company. It was a great chance to meet more of Alison's friends from school and hear about old times. The grandparents had driven all the way from Toowoomba to meet us in Canberra and look after Nelly so we could enjoy the wedding without having to worry about a baby. Seems rather silly that we spent most of the night talking about our little girl and cooing over photos that we had taken of her that day. Parenthood is a funny thing.

The rest of our time in Canberra was spent revisiting the tourist spots; the war memorial, the national portrait gallery and parliament house. We also received a fascinating tour of the Royal Military Academy, courtesy of Nat. I doubt that Eleanor will remember much of the trip but I think it's nice that she's already been on top of the centre of our nation's government.

Anniversaries and Solids

We haven't been up to Toowoomba together in a while to see the family, so Mary and Peter's 60th wedding anniversary was a great chance to catch up with everyone. All the Snow cousins have just grown up so much since the last time we saw them at Christmas. I'm starting to develop a bit of a height complex from having to look up at all the kids, who haven't even finished growing.

I haven't used my camera to take photos of anyone aside from close ups of Eleanor for such a long time, it was refreshing to have the opportunity to take candids and group photos on the day. I love taking photos of Alison's grandparents not just because they tolerate me clicking away constantly, but also because they are really great to photograph. Mary and Peter are such beautiful people and I don't feel like I have to work especially hard to get an interesting photo out of them.

With so many other shutterbugs there it was also a great chance to get a family photo of the three of us. Uncle David was happy to oblige. Shame that Eleanor felt a little too tired to accommodate by this point.

Even though I tried to focus on the Snows on the day, I still found my view finding gravitating towards our beautiful daughter. She was looking pretty cute on the day so I just couldn't resist taking the occasional shot.

It was a really fun day for everyone. The rest of the photos in the album can be seen here.

Nelly's been busy with more than just modeling patiently for her dad. Mobility isn't quite there but she's advanced to rolling onto her back occasionally, a milestone that was very exciting for her parents.

Then there's the topic of nutrition. Books and doctors seem to differ in opinion on when parents should be introducing solid food to their babies, varying from three to six months of age for the first spoonful. Of course solid is a relative term as the consistency of the rice cereal doesn't appear to be that different from the milk that Eleanor devours daily. Common advice suggests that once your baby is old enough to have proper head control and begins to show interest in the food that you are eating then it's a good time to start them on the mushy stuff. Consistent and reliable head control has been a recent development in the last month, but I'd comfortably say that our little one has been fixated on our meals since her first few weeks in the world. Certainly one clear indication that she's my daughter.

Now that Eleanor is a little over four months old, her doctor has given us the green light to start broadening her diet. Today we successfully shoveled two meals of cereal into the little one and got most of it to stay down. The first few mouthfuls were strange but by the end of the first bowl she got the hang of things.

We'll have to see how she goes over the next few days before adding more interesting food groups to the mix, but early signs suggest that she's going to be a tolerant if messy eater. By the time she's six months we expect to have her trying everything that she'd eat as an adult (aside from honey as that apparently can cause botulism in the first year), including the usual scary items like peanuts, seafood, wheat and other potential allergy inducing food stuffs. Looking forward to adding dad's favourite sea urchin roe to her porridge.