The Dower Family

A few years ago, Nick and I attended the Anzac day dawn service in the city with a few friends. It was an amazing experience, standing there in complete silence with thousands of other people, paying our respects to those who have fought in war (you don't necessarily have to agree with the war itself to be thankful to those who have fought). Since then we vowed to make it an annual tradition in the Dower household. When we moved to the suburbs last year we went to the local dawn service, which in many respects is actually nicer. My favourite part is the march around the block with all the diggers, but anyone is welcome to march at the end, and many of the local children do. So it was important to Nick and I to take Ollie to his first dawn service. But it was a bit of a daunting prospect, given how cool it has been lately and not making Ollie too cranky by waking him up. I worked out that I would need to wake him up at 3.30am. The obliging little fellow that he is decided to wake up...

Well in the last post I mentioned that Ollie had a silent laugh going on. I predicted that it would only be a matter of days before we heard laughter and I was correct. On Saturday it finally happened. It wasn't a traditional laugh but there was a distinctive chuckle element to it. Unfortunately Nick was not witness to this but two of our friends who were present confirmed that I wasn't just imagining it. Luckily, the next afternoon it happened again and Nick was there. Since then we have heard a few more but I suspect that like the smiles, we will be trying hard to elicit laughs for a little while, but before we know it they will be coming thick and fast. In other developments, Ollie is taking in everything that goes on around him now and is fascinated by the tiniest little thing. It can be quite a hassle, especially when feeding him as he gets distracted every minute or so and stops feeding to look around the room. This coupled with his absent minded punching or scratching of...

Ollie had his first Easter last weekend and although he didn't get any easter eggs, I think he got chocolate milk due to the amount of chocolate that I've been eating. The long weekend was very busy - on Good Friday we went to our old apartment at Teneriffe to join Roly & Pru and Bruce & Louise for lunch. Then on Saturday, Nick got to play Mr Mom for the day while I went to a Hen's (v. civilised - a life drawing class followed by lunch). I was apart from them for about 6 hours which is the longest time I have spent away from Ollie ever. It was also the first time I had been able to drink more than two glasses of wine in almost 12 months. Nick and Ollie had a great time hanging out together and Nick did a great job of giving him a number of feeds using a bottle. On Sunday we had a BBQ with Rachel, Christian and Cyndee and then on Monday Chris and Kaye, who had just returned from New York, came to stay with us for the night (see piccie). I think they were very i...

Ollie and I went to visit the physio yesterday to check how the progress of his wonky head and neck was going. We had spent the past two weeks doing lots of tummy time and making him look in the correct direction so that the physio didn't think I was a neglectful mother and fortunately it paid off. Even I was impressed with Ollie's performance - he totally pulled out all the stops, looking around the room while laying on his tummy as if it were his favourite thing to do (it isn't!). Thankfully this impressed the physio as well and now we don't need to go back anymore. I took some pics of his slightly more rounded head so you can all check it out. The funny thing is that in getting more rounded, the back of his head has actually gotten a bit lumpier looking. But it will just keep on getting better. And if it still looks a bit flat when he is older, he can just wear a hat. As Ollie is now three months old I thought we should go and get his measurements taken by the...

Last Tuesday was Ollie's nanna Freddie's birthday so as a surprise to her, Poppy Mick flew both Ollie and I out to Cloncurry. This was Ollie's first flight, at just over two hours from Brisbane to Mt Isa. I was pretty apprehensive about it, especially as I would be on my own. Luckily for us the flight wasn't too full and we ended up with a row of three seats all to ourselves. I had Ollie strapped to me in the fabulous sling that we have borrowed from our friends Sam and Alan. On the advice of everyone I'd spoken to about flying with babies, it was my intention to feed Ollie at take-off and landing to help his ears with change in pressure. But I suspect that Ollie was picking up on how anxious I was and for the first time in his so far short life, was not willing to feed. I was getting more stressed as the plane was getting closer to take-off. I tried left, then right then left again - all to no avail. I swear, there hasn't been that much bare boob action...