clothes

Yesterday was all set to be a pretty busy day. Church in the morning, a baby shower in the afternoon (now i know there's no water and lots of presents, i was prepared to go this time) and a christmas mulled wine and mince pie do in the evening.

After all the flattery i got at the reunion about my blue sleeper and how it brought out the colour in my eyes, it was so obviously the outfit for yesterday. Somehow mom and dad missed that. First thing in the morning they produced my yellow and white stripes - personally i think this makes me look a bit jaundiced. i gave them long enough to rethink this decision by spending 30 minutes on the change table pooing, but no, into the yellow sleeper i went and off to church - late. Having successfully soaked through this outfit, i drew dad's attention to the fact before the baby shower and succeeded in getting changed - into a white sleeper. not only was this not the blue one i wanted, but it was too small. there's no point me making all this effort to grow if mom and dad are going to cram me into clothes that don't fit. After a lot of fuss i got myself changed into a bigger white outfit.

the baby shower started well. i was doing my alert, attentive thing and attracting some attention even though there were two other babies there who were really being fussed over. when it appeared they were getting all the presents too there didn't seem a lot of point staying awake any longer, so i dozed off.

back at home after tea, i knew we were going out because i was dressed up in real clothes - a shirt and dungarees. not really my idea of party clothes. where's my blue sleeper? we had to go to a meeting at church on the way but i don't think mom really wanted to be there as she spent the first part of the meeting cleaning milk i'd thrown up off me, my clothes and the car seat. we went back home and i was changed again. mom fed me with no clothes on at all which was pretty outrageous, and then when i was certain i was going to get the blue sleeper this time (i don't have many more clothes do i?) they put me into my PJs ready for bed. i blew it. we didn't get to go to the party at all. i guess mom just wanted to stay home and do laundry instead.

party tricks

so I've learnt some new tricks. we had a party on thursday night. 8 car seats full of new "friends of Joel" descended on Chad and Sarah's apartment in Burnaby, and we shared secrets of how to keep 8 sets of inexperienced parents busy. this was a prenatal group reunion. the word prenatal means little more to me than whale sounds, gentle rocking and a lot of liquid. also, you know, it's bizarre: my hiccups didn't make any noise back then.

anyhow, I digress. the important thing is that Finn (28 days older than me), told me all about projectile poo'ing.

sweet. dad was the lucky witness of my inauguration the following morning, but I'll get mum soon, don't you worry. bit liquid, but great distance! a further tip picked up from several babies in the room was that I really don't have to wait 3 hours to feed. 2 hours is perfectly acceptable, especially when mom and dad are in the middle of trying to regain a normal life. hey if i'm hungry, it's all about me right? mom picked up lots of stories about feeding me. i'm doing really well at that, but could do with causing a little less pain for poor mommy. what is this word chomping?

fabulous evening - excellent fun watching all the adults laughing at us while we tried a group photo.


thanks so much to thea, oliver, sol, finn, james, alexander and hailey for a fabulous evening. In case you're having trouble working out where I am, I'm the one in the dark blue, pretending to sleep in between sol (the really amazing one who actually looked at the camera), and Finn, who is actually quite heavy. I promise not to tell you who cried first, but the evidence is before you all.

happy christmas : card

Click the title of this post for a little Christmas card.

to all my fans .. I think you're great.

pooters

daddy needs to show me how to get a links section on my blog, cos it's just not there. he keeps whinging about trying to get our pooter at home on the internet and put some new pictures and things up there, and some yoof group stuff. luckily I've been helping him develop supernatural patience with my special training programme, so he hasn't kicked the pooter, nor set fire to the desk, nor even uttered a mild swearword ;o)


anyhow, it's just not working. darned pooters. pah.

PS I'm a bit worried about mom. she always has a frozen yoghurt when we go to IKEA. apparently the calcium is good for her and helps me grow. I don't know whether my poo put her off, or if she doesn't want me to grow any more, but no yoghurt was forthcoming today. we didn't even have the little mini chocolate skor chunks she adds as a topping.

what's so great about swedish furniture?

well after a good morning's working and feeding and stuff, I persuaded mom and dad to accompany me to IKEA and Costco ... what better way to spend a monday afternoon? We timed it well so that I could spend a delightful 45 mins in the IKEA nursing room - a place that mom and dad never expected to be. dad says it's not very rock and roll, but I beg to differ. nice seats to kip in while me and mummy do the feed thing. dim lighting, and a good quality floor, plenty of kit to make my life more comfortable. it's like being back stage at a rolling stones gig - except I was the only one drinking.

dad looked a bit too comfortable, so I woke him up by squeezing a high velocity poo and peeing all over my front, his hands, and I think I even managed to get mom at the same time. it was a fantastically messy experience .. you see it really is a rolling stones gig! I wanted to test out just how prepared these parents can be when out on the road. it would have been a laugh if they'd had to take me around costco dressed simply in a soiled diaper on a cold november afternoon.

but, of course, mom had packed me some spare clothes and a mountain of cleaning cloths, so crisis was averted. not sure that she packed any spare clothes for them though. IKEA wood floors - coped very well with mildly acidic warm liquid. mom and dad laughed quite a lot, which was nice. I wonder if I can repeat the performance in the chinese restaurant on friday .. watch this space. weeeeeeeeeeeeee

uncle timbo's got a blog

hoowah, timbo's blogging. I'm guessing he's going to be incredibly intelligent and ramblingly random, which is going to please me greatly. I'm hoping he'll lend me his bootiful fender one day, and teach me how to rock.

please allow me to educate any canadians/brits or others that still believe shrimps get "thrown on the barbie". shrimps are purely a figment of the imagination in the american subculture. the rest of the english speaking world eat prawns.

uncle tim, antie lissa, uncle james, auntie nicole, uncle wayne, auntie megan ... and the many other aussies, I hereby pledge to commit for the rest of my life to upholding the true definition that seafood lovers will only ever barbq prawns, that not EVERY australian sounds like the crocodile hunter, (or paul hogan, edna everidge, richie benaud ...) and that Fosters is actually way more popular in europe than down under ... although they do like to quaff the odd stubby ... of different brands.

It's 5:48 am, and I've just had a great feeding session with mom, hence the obsession with food. I should give us all some more sleep now ... but it is fun watching mom and dad's face when I wake them twice every night. "you can eat too", I say. dad just mumbles, downs his own glass of milk and cookies, and lurches back to bed at the first given moment.

baby shower

when we were on our way home from church this morning mom told me we were having a baby shower this afternoon. I like getting in the bath with dad, but I've watched him in the shower and the water goes everywhere - on his head, in his eyes, all over him. I didn't like that idea at all :( I expressed my displeasure at the thought of a baby shower by screaming with all my might for an hour, in order to prevent mom having lunch, and otherwise getting ready to go.

mom called in reinforcements (dad), and despite my best efforts (like needing my diaper changed again at the last moment) mom took me out anyway, even though I was still screaming.

as it happens there wasn't any sign of water at all, just more admiring females (I'm beginning to notice a certain pattern in my life ?:), lots of yummy things for mom to eat and an absolute mountain of presents. mom enjoyed opening all the parcels, but apparently I have to write the thank you letters again, and I haven't finished the last ones yet. good job I didn't take on dad's old job. how does anyone find time to go out to work?

[ed: does anyone else have the frightening thought that Joel may have prematurely transmogrified into Calvin (and Hobbes) - or is that just us? signed: joel's mom and dad]

now i really, really exist

I've discovered the mail isn't all good. a second birth certificate arrived this morning which confused me a bit. does that mean there's two of me? I haven't seen another one of me about the place. maybe I could get the other me to write my thank you letters. i've got lots to do and my writing isn't all that great yet.

mom says when I can write 'radio controlled car' on my christmas present list she might let dad buy one for me, but until then i'm too little. dad's got lots of good ideas for christmas presents...... mom seems to think I want galaxy chocolate.

today I finally decided to try out the breastfeeding thing. mom's eaten so much chocolate that I figured the milk might taste good by now. I think I need a bit more practice but we didn't do too bad. the doctor seemed to think I did OK when she weighed me after.