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A very early morning



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 for his overnight feed at 3.26am. Total fluke but amazing timing. We rugged him up and I strapped him to me in the sling (see the piccy) where he slept throughout the entire service - not that surprising really given he would be asleep at that time if he were home. I had to really rug him up toward the end of the service when you could feel the temperature dropping. We finished off the rest of the day eating way too many of the Anzac bikkies I baked. I know the service itself was lost on him but we are glad we took him along to his first of many dawn services. Hopefully when he is a bit older he can proudly join the march around the block too.

In other news, HE SLEPT THROUGH THE NIGHT!!!!! We had a big day yesterday trekking down to Ikea to get some rugs to warm our freezing little house and having Aunty Em over for dinner. So Ollie must have been really tired. He went down to sleep around 6pm but grizzled for a good hour or so. I went to bed around 10pm just waiting for my call from Ollie for a feed. But it didn't happen. I woke for the first time around 3.30am (meaning I had a good 5 hours of unbroken sleep - bliss). I went and checked on the little man and he was fine. I presumed he would be calling out soon so I just lightly dozed until about 6.30 when I kicked Nick out of bed to go and wake him up. I suspect he would have slept through till at least 7 otherwise, but after not feeding him for 12 hours, I really needed him to wake up.

I'm not holding my breath that it will happen again tonight. But it certainly gives me something to talk about in mother's group today.

As I'm writing this, Ollie is sitting next to me in his rocker and he is making the most beautiful noises. He has been doing a bit of talking for a while now but the sounds he is making are a lot more sing song and louder than I've heard before. Extremely cute stuff.

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