Way out west

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 on a Qantas flight since the last time Ralph Fiennes was onboard! Fortunately it all came together just before takeoff and Ollie didn't experience any obvious discomfort.

The rest of the flight was relatively uneventful, with him napping alot of the time. On landing he proved that he really was my son by sleeping through the descent and landing while sucking on his dummy (I have been known to sleep through take-off before!).

After the one hour drive from Mount Isa to Cloncurry, Nanna Freddie got the pleasant surprise of her life to see us both in her neck of the woods.

For the four nights that we were there we had a lovely time. We were also able to catch up with Jesse, little Nick and Ben, some young friends of ours who are like family to us. You can see in the photo above how proud the little boys were when they got the chance to nurse Ollie.

Highlights of our trip included taking Ollie to his first school fete (where we bought a 2nd hand book to take home for Nick as a pressie, but avoided the temptation to take him back an unusual gingerbread crucifix) and attending the little boy's football training (which Nick was horrified to find out was not AFL but NRL). But by far Ollie's favourite part of the trip was just kicking back with Nanna Freddie and Poppy Mick and dishing out heaps of those million dollar smiles of his.

He even developed a new skill while he was away - he can stick his tongue out. He doesn't do this to be cheeky (yet) but is quite delighted by his new found control over this appendage. Given he only recently mastered his hands and feet, it is amazing to be able to watch him developing so quickly.

The return flight was pretty uneventful (including sleeping through another landing) and we were thrilled to see Nick at the airport to pick us up with Ollie showing off his new tongue poking out a number of times before we made it to the baggage carousel.

We both had a fantastic time on our trip but as Dorothy said, "there's no place like home".

Ollie passed a fairly big milestone last Friday, finally hitting the magical 3 month mark. A lot of people have told us that everything clicks into place around this time so we have been looking forward to it. I can't say with any certainty if this has or will happen but on Friday night Ollie rewarded me with a six hour stretch at night and backed this up last night with two six hour stretches overnight. I am absolutely thrilled and hope for a similar night tonight.