| Update |
[Nov. 28th, 2009|08:38 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  calm | ] |
Georgina is now over four months. She is rolling, front-to-back and back-to-front. But best of all is the big grins she gives us first thing in the morning.
I start 6 months paternity leave in a couple of weeks, and I'm really looking forward to it. Of course it will be not a holiday, but I will be doing something I care about.
Zelda's dad is in a high-care nursing home. He still recognises us, and has a chat, and is currently enjoying the cricket, though his condition is slowly deteriorating and he can no longer walk unassisted. He takes great joy in Georgina, his only granddaughter. We don't know how long this has left to play out - it is terminal, and according to the doctor in the RBH, nine months is the average life-expectancy. That will be April. What ever happens, I hope he is comfortable until the end. |
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| 3 months |
[Oct. 12th, 2009|09:52 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  creative | ] |
Georgina is 3 months tomorrow. She can now grab smaller solid objects and try gumming them, but mostly likes playing with her wraps and other fabric, moving them coyly up to cover her mouth. She also happily takes the one bottle we give her a day, no matter who is giving it - so soon we'll be able to leave her with her grandmother and have an afternoon date.
I'll have to throw some more pictures up on Facebook soon - I never thought I'd see Dave holding a baby ;) |
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| On books |
[Sep. 13th, 2009|07:58 am] |
Georgina is now two months old. She is getting quite a vocabulary of vocalese, and she can give huge smile, and even silent giggles when we tickle her legs. She also had her first round of jabs this week, which were only accompanied by a single loud cry each.
She's also getting quite a library. She now has four Doctor Seuss books courtesy of an aunt and a special at the Post Office (is there nothing you can't buy at a post office these days). Zelda and I spent an evening trying to read out Fox in Sox without dislocating our vocal chords. I picked up Where's Wally at a Lifeline Book sale for a dollar - much cheaper than the shops, while Zelda's friend bought a lovely edition of the Tales of Beatrix Potter.
Of course the books are for the future. I look at my current bookshelf and hope it will inspire her to read in the further future. That's not to say she has to read my Doctor Who books, or the Pratchetts, James (Clive), De Bottons or Hughes (Robert), nor indeed my complete works of Shakespeare, Canterbury Tales; nor even Jane Eyre, Joseph Conrad and various Booker Prize winners Zelda owns. But maybe Georgina can be intrigued by all the books she may inspire to read later in life.
My mother's own bookcase held such books - the Annotated Alice in Wonderland was intriguing but dense; Primo Levi's short stories I did actually try and read but could only understand a couple, while a Brief History of Time was way above me. None of these books I would later read as an adult, but they intrigued me enough to keep reading my Doctor Who's and Pratchetts and now the Jameses, Hugheses and Collingses of this world. I hope by having a varied library of books of my own, even is she never reads them, Georgina will learn books can be every bit as exciting as annything the internet throws up. |
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| Baby Update |
[Aug. 16th, 2009|08:38 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  okay | ] |
Tonight, I fed Georgina for the first time. My inability to do so in the five weeks since her birth was due to the lack of two integral sets of equipment: one biological, the other mechanical. Zelda finally attached the latter, bought, to the former, proprietry of herself. My job was the first bottle feed, for which she gave the most intensely confused look, soon replaced by the satisfaction of breastmilk, while Zelda has the look of surprise at how much Georgina can drink how (relatively) quickly when deciding the breast is a nice place to sleep.
At five weeks, Georgina can smile though, with the exception of a few early beams last week end, I have not been a recepient. I can only image this is due to, until tonight, lacking the aforementioned equipment. Her range of noises are both amusing and, when coming from the nether regions, often the cause of a smelly few minutes changing nappies.
She also has a friend named Emily, a doll with a dress so packed of colour, texture and sounds I'm surprised the Paris catwalks have yet to catch on. Georgina waves her little hands and connects with the dress, sometimes grabbing at it, others rubbing it. However, this is a love/hate relationship, because eventually Georgina get's grumpy, gives small cries and wacks Emily about. Maybe it is fashion jealousy, or either Georgina is against the vacuousness of high fashion. Considering her own Op-Shop and Target threads, I hope it is the latter.
Georgina also slept for five to six hours last night, rather then a three hor sleep to begin with, followed by 'feed me' grumbles every two hours thence. She also loves travelling in the car, which is good considering some of the distances we have travelled in a city where going the most direct route is the absolute worst thing to do.
Otherwise, she flails, cries sleeps, feeds, stares, shits, pees and vomits, nothing we can't handle, though attempting to handle anything else is something best to be philosophical about. |
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| Randon thought |
[Jul. 3rd, 2009|10:49 am] |
The plasma TV has come to represent not luxury, but waste. The ongoing decrying of Rudd's stimulus packages, along with the baby bonus and other government payments, has been that it would be wasted on plasma TVs up and down the country rather than essentials.
Another plank of the conservative economic message has be to support small businesses, though bastions of hard-work and achievement. It's a pity by attacking plasma TVs, these same commentators are also unwittingly attacking small business.
Australia is a consumer economy, and as such a large percentage of the working population is employed in selling goods to consumers. The counter argument to people buying plamsa TVs, is that while the product originates in Asia, the purchase employs Australian sales staff. In fact, a lot of what is available for purchase is inessential in a purely survivalist sense, or in other words, a large percentage of Australia's economy is based on the purchase of "inessential" items.
Small business sells a lot of "inessential" items; from household nick-nacks to scrap-booking to fairy costume hire, small business survives by finding niches, and many niches are hardly inessential. Even more main stream stores like books shops or clothing stores can be though of as inessential when considering the availability of libraries and clothing above a certain practicality (ie fashion) can be argued as inessential according to the plasma TV model.
Of course conservative proponents of small businesses, while praising hard work would also agree with those shops no longer competing to wither on the vine - it is free market thinking after all - but overall an attack on a plasma TV is an attack on their own constituents. If government handouts were not allowed to go on what is not inessential, a lot of small businesses would simply miss out. |
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| The wait continues |
[Jun. 29th, 2009|12:34 pm] |
The bub is due on Thursday week, in reality this means she can appear at any time, or indeed go over and have to be tempted out. At least the nursery is now clear of our miscellany - in fact I believe we no longer have any boxes marked miscellany. The only outstanding item is a car seat, but I've been holding off due to a promise of borrowing a capsule from an in-lawed relative who's own bub is almost out of it. At the very least I can buy one when Zelda is in hospital.
Oh, and I've been shoveling shit. Seems like the plumbers who cleared the drains didn't do it properly, and it burst up through a vent outside which they had weakened. Another plumber has now cleared all blockages and will soon replace all the remaining clay pipe, as it will all happen again soon if we don't. I have buried the shit near the gum tree, which should happily chow down on it in no time.
In other news, I'm still going through the videos I've been carted round for 20 years. Watched Doctor Who - Leisure Hive with Zelda - she even enjoyed it. Now watching Destiny of the Daleks, in which the Movellens' hair-style Zelda reckons is the prototype for Milli Vanilli. They rank up with the worst fashion disasters Doctor Who has ever produced. |
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| Reviews |
[Jun. 12th, 2009|12:42 pm] |
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The next few entries can be safely ignored if you wish. They are Doctor Who book reviews I wrote a few years ago for Outpost Gallifrey. That site is closing its doors on at the end of July, so I thought I would save my reviews and post them here. The reviews will be hidden behind cuts, so don't worry about these taking over your friends pages. |
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| Lyrics |
[May. 30th, 2009|10:18 pm] |
This evening I heard a great interview on Radio National's Music Show with Brian Eno. Once the interview turned to his pop production, thankfully focusing more on producing style than on the personalities and cerlebrities, Andrew Ford asked Eno about his preference for quickly written lyrics. Eno said most musicians write vocal melodies with gibberish words, and add some chords. In this way the musician has written something which had musically intersted them. But then they need to write lyrics, and try to be serious and cumbersome, often clumsy. Eno, on the otherhand, prefers less thought out lyrics, for many listeners would be more likely to listen to the sound of the lyrics than the words. Eno contends lyrics, though not an insignificant part of the work, are normally worried over by music critics who have a problem writing about music.
This last comment struck me significantly, for as a music critic I write the other way around. I have a problem writing about lyrics, and indeed listening to lyrics. Having come from an background appreciating instrumental music, I find myself more interested in the texture, rhythm, hooks and momentum of a track. If the lyrics are good too, well that's a bonus, but considering most lyrics are generic and overdone, I often just focus more on the melodic sound of the vocals rather than what they are saying. If the lyrics are cumbersome and clumsy, then these then impact negatively on that melodic sound. Of course, really good lyricists like Tom Waits and Andy Partridge can find really great words to match the musicianship of their voices, but for a lot of bands out there, the voice as instrument holds more interest for me than the lyrics.
Off the top of my head look at PJ Harvey. I'm not knocking her as a lyricist, but her voice is the driver of her songs, ranging from deep to high pitched, rich and light, she gives her songs the body - the punch - over the driving rhythms. Not that the voice has to be a great voices. Two of my favourite singers are Robert Wyatt and Mark Knopfler who sign with their natural, arguably limited voices, but always pick words which allows their voices to be musical.
(On a side note, I hate all these modern pop "singers" chosen for looks but with no or limited vocal talent, where the use of intrusive vocal correction technology wrecks the song's emotion and rhythm. In the old day they might have also gotten pretty people to sing pop - but they could damn well sing...) |
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| Rain and Baby Showers |
[May. 20th, 2009|03:18 pm] |
We held our baby shower on Saturday. It sounds like a crass, materialist thing, all commercial, but when everyone continually asked us when it was to be, we couldn't disappoint them. Try stopping the attendees buying us stuff! Or hand-me downs, which are great. And what a hoard - the bub will have plenty of jumpsuits and an activity mat, while baby wipes and creams were gratefully accepted, as were the Bunnikins and Froggy bowls. My mum gave me back my Bunnykins bowl the other day - a ceramic one, so bub won't get to touch it - but now she has here own plastic one.
We were also given a home grown pumpkin - we love pumpkins, despite this year's crop being a fizzer - we we cook a lot of pumpkin curries and risottos.
Other presents have been slowly arriving. One of Zelda's workmates gave her a book of Beatrix Potter stories, in a really nicely bound edition. Clive James once wrote great praise for Potter, saying she did the best thing you can do with children's literature - not to insult their intelligence. She uses big words on occasions, but they are poetic big words. James reckons the kid's mightn''t know what they mean, but will appreciate hearing them, their sound and the way the words flow. I feel lucky to now have these stories to pass on - after I will selfishly read them first.
Plus, the lovely alfykins sent us a lovely knitted jumper/jacket, with flower buttons. It will be cold in Ipswich in the winter (relatively speaking of course, my fellow ex-Armidaleans), so bub will be snug.
We've also bought a change table for the sake of our backs, so we are merely a stroller away from the end. We are being lent a new car capsule, so that can be put off for a while.
Oh, and after a glorious Saturday, it has been raining solidly for the last couple of days. Havy and continual. Maybe our pumpkins will revive... |
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| From a Forest Forum |
[May. 18th, 2009|12:58 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  amused | ] |
Caly In Our Alley: Ok. What was our rivalry with Derby like in the late 19th century?
alabamared: Awesome. Sword fights, pistol duels everthing.
hehehe |
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| Further adventures of preparations |
[May. 12th, 2009|11:03 am] |
Have nappy bag. The backpack nappy bag market is very small, and most are too expensive, but we found one which was the right size and sat on the shoulders properly. We could have bought a cheaper non-nappy backpack, but the ones for sale in my area were all cheaper and nastier and I've broken too many of those in my time.
Am about to order the pram, which is large and cumbersome, but then they all are. The whole convertible pram market is a minefield, and the one we are ordering seems to be the best compromise. We aren't getting a trike though, four wheels for us.
And the baby shower is on Saturday, an all gender, no silly baby food testing games or anything. Just family and friend and food.
Yikes... |
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| And continues |
[May. 8th, 2009|09:04 am] |
Now have bought the cot mattress. And we saw that video at the ante-natal class last night. Except next week we see a ceser video.
Week 31 now, not too long to go... |
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