Sleeping on a W

Could you sleep on a W? Eden can. I found one in his bed - it must have been quite uncomfortable as his back is quite small in relation. We often give him a tin of plastic magnetic letters to play with in his cot whilst getting nappy or bath organised and a W must have found it's way under the sheet... oops.

So much has been going on and I once again have built it all up until bursting point! Eden is now crawling - forwards that is - the last week or so he was managing backwards but there were a lot of tears as he got himself trapped underneath things like the rebounder.

It was a heater that inspired him in the end. He is obsessed with heaters. The thing in the room that you least want him to be attracted to and he makes a 'b' line for it whenever possible. He has been told "no" and stopped from touching it on many occasions but perhaps this just makes it even more attractive - I see on the horizon some tension in his teenage years...

The inaugural heater actually happened to be in the sleepout at our dear mateys Adrienne and Geoff's place in Balmy Palmy - the time: This last Sunday morning. I later tried to get Eden to demonstrate his new forward motion at the auspicious family occasion in Wanganui but Eden wasn't quite up to an instantaneous performance.

I actually bawled my eyes out when we got in the car to leave. Grandma's birthday lunch was so nice but all over so quick (it may have only been me that felt rushed). I had my 1 - 5 minute conversations with half a dozen family members, ate my food, listened to the speeches, changed and fed Eden and it was time to get back into the car again. Oh Well - next time we'll plan to stay longer. Happy Birthday Grandma Halse - your mana drew us together and we love you. Hope to see you all again soon.

PS - Stephanie - please get over all my spelling mistakes
- at least I am blogging! :)

OTHER

Teeth: Eden now has four and a half teeth. He got his top fangs a couple of weeks ago and this last week he has been cutting one of his actual front ones. He has been quite grumpy which is hard to take when he is usually such a smiley boy!

Travel: Apart from last weekend's birthday trip to Wanganui via Palmerston North, (where Eden cried all the way from foxton to home except for a stop at McDonalds) we have done a couple of other road trips.

It's about a month ago now but we did a mad crazy thing and drove Duncan's cousin Katie all the way to the Desert Road and back just to see the mountains and take photographs - well it was also to see NZ and spend time! Eden is going through a faze of not being very settled in the car so only had half an hour sleep all day until it was dark!!

We also did a road trip on Duncan's birthday for our anniversary (it'll be ten years next year!). Duncan didn't do any strange shaving things that I was supposed to notice - at least I haven't noticed anything - yet.

We were going to go to South Wairarapa but there had been such trouble with roads and flooding that we cancelled and instead headed north. We decided to just mosy on up and stop at places that we always just drive past. We started by walking around the wetlands sanctuary at Pauatahanui inlet and having lunch which was very nice - and actually sunny (hard to remember what sunshine is like around here at the moment - there was a icy mix of hail/snow around here this evening!)

Other highlights were Nga Manu bird sanctuary in Waikanae, icecreams at Lindale, chocolate at Raumati, and the beach views at Paekakakriki and Te Horo. We stayed in Foxton just because that was where we ended up. Great wee cheap motel with baby gear and a box for D to watch the cup final very early on his birthday morning. He fell asleep in the second half that was how exciting it was - but we did see the headbutting incident later!

Our motel proprieter made me smile. She said to me matter of factly, "Now there are lots of things to do here in Foxton." I prepared myself for an extended list. She explained about the unique wind mill in the main street that actually produces and sells flour. "And what else is there," she said, and there was a bit of quiet before she carried on. "There was a doll museum but I think it's closed for maintenance at the moment..." and then more quiet. I helped her out and said that we would be going to the estuary and spying on the wildlife there and she looked at me as if that was an extremely unusual thing to do, then said "Oh there's a place called Owlcatraz in Shannon - have you heard of it?" !

Shannon. We like our 'hick' towns but this one was enough at present without going miles away in the wrong direction!