At the Park

We are staying with Erwin's sister in Australia.  They live across from a park so today after school Nathanh's cousins took him to see the ducks at the park.  I didn't realize just how friendly these ducks were going to be but Nathanh didn't seem to mind.

When Nathanh raised his hand the ducks thought he was going to feed them so they all rushed over!

Walking with his cousin Laura.

After we saw the ducks we all headed over to the playground for a bit more fun.  Nathanh's cousins enjoyed pushing him on the swings and helping him go down the slide.

Another Plane Ride

So we are getting ready for another plane ride. Nathanh did very well on the last leg of our journey (14 hours) but I have to say, I am more worried about this flight. We leave Auckland at 2:30 in the afternoon and arrive in Perth at 5:30. With the time change that is actually about 7 hours of flying and I am really not sure how much of that Nathanh will sleep. I am also hoping that we luck out with seating again and get an extra seat in between us.


We are heading to Perth so that Nathanh can meet Erwin’s parents, sister and family for the first time. And Erwin just plain misses his family. It has been about 3 years since we visited.

As you can see from the photos of the past few days, Nathanh’s eye is slowly getting better. He actually hit his forehead above his eye when he fell. But as the goose egg went down it drained to his eye and he has been sporting quite the black eye during our trip! Always a conversation starter! Anyways, all of the swelling has gone now and the black, purple, red and yellow colours that have come and gone over the last few days are slowly going for good!

So next stop Perth...stay tuned!

Waiheke Island - Day 5

Today we boarded the ferry again and headed to Waiheke Island about 40 minutes from downtown Auckland.

View of Oneroa Beach.  We walked here from the ferry and had a nice picnic lunch.

Playground at Oneroa Beach...look at the beach in the background...nice!

Nathanh walking on the sand in bare feet!

Banging rocks and shells together make a great noise!

Beautiful!

Auckland Museum and Devonport - Day 4

Today we went to the Auckland Museum to see a Maori performance and cultural experience.  We had wanted to travel outside of Auckland to learn more about the Maori people but all of the tours said "not recommended for infants" and when we asked at the tourist bureau they could not tell us of a place we could drive to and just buy tickets when we got there.  So we thought the Museum was our safest bet.

Nathanh running on the hill outside of the Museum...we both thought this reminded us of the opening of Little House on the Prairie, especially when he fell in the grass!

One of the performers.  Nathanh loved the performance.  It really could not have been any better singing, dancing and big sticks!  He was mesmerized!

View from the museum.

 In the afternoon we took the ferry across the harbour to Devonport.

Waiting to take the ferry to Devonport.

The pier in Devonport.

Auckland as seen  from Devonport.

Looking up the main street in Devonport.

Auckland Adventures Day 3

We had a nice sleep in today – if you call 8:00 AM a sleep in?? Nathanh seems to have adjusted to the time zone and is back to his regular schedule – as much as he can be with his mommy and daddy dragging him around everywhere taking him to see the sights of Auckland.

Nathanh loves looking out the window of our hotel room.

After breakfast we headed down to the waterfront and booked a harbour cruise for the afternoon.

Walking around Rangitoto Island.

Beautiful downtown Auckland!

Auckland is hosting the 2011 Rugby World Cup so preparations are well underway.

Countdown to the World Cup.

Auckland Adventures Day 2

Nathanh and Erwin are napping and I am trying to update blog posts...you may want to scroll down a few posts to read about our adventures of the past week!

After looking at the weather forecast for the next few days we decided to wait until tomorrow before heading out to some of the islands, as Sunday through Tuesday are supposed to be quite nice. So today we went to Kelly Tarlton’s Antarctic Encounter Underwater World. It was so cute when Nathanh saw the penguins he kept saying “goggy” which is how he pronounces “doggy” so we had to keep telling him that they were penguins. At the end of the day we bought him a little stuffed penguin. I had debated about whether to bring Tiger along for the trip but ended up leaving Tiger at home. So now Nathanh has a new friend and will soon have a new word!

He got to see penguins, stingrays, fish, sharks and a sea turtle! Here are some pics of our visit.

Nathanh with Auckland City in the background.

Looking at the fish.

Stingrays!

Nathanh and penguin, new best friends!

After Kelly Tarlton’s we decided to find somewhere for lunch. We drove a little bit further east and got to a town called Mission Bay. It was absolutely beautiful! After lunch we walked around the beach, seawall and park. Here are some more photos...

Exploring the beach...this one is for Auntie Joyce!

Rangitoto Island in the background.

I have to say, I am loving New Zealand. I have travelled a fair amount and although I have seen some beautiful sights and great cities, I have always said “great to visit, but I am glad I live in British Columbia – there’s no place like home.” But New Zealand is different...I could actually see myself living here. I love the climate, the lifestyle, the people. It is very multicultural, like Vancouver but more small town like. Yup, I am liking it here!

New Zealand

We’ve arrived!

The bump on Nathanh's head from his fall has disapeared but as you can see he now has a black eye.

Well, I had been dreading the 14 hour flight to Auckland but apparently I had nothing to worry about. Nathanh is a great little traveller! I think the most difficult part of the flight was the first half an hour. We were supposed to take off at 8:30 but the truck that pushes the plane away from the gate had problems and so it took quite some time to call a replacement vehicle. We had already been told to sit down and fasten seat belts so I had Nathanh on my lap...wide awake...waiting for his take off bottle...for 30 minutes. He was pretty good though and we sang lots of songs and looked at all the different things that we could see from our seats. Once we took off he got his bottle and all was good. He got up after that for the meal service. We were fortunate to have an extra seat in between us so we set up Nathanh’s new little travel booster seat and buckled him in, set up his tray and served up the infant meal the airline provided for us. I have to highly recommend Air New Zealand, they really do the a lot to ensure that babies are taken care of.

Anyways, Nathanh fell asleep at about 10:30 Vancouver time and slept for about 9.5 hours and really only woke up because the breakfast meal was being served. He did stir a couple of times but I put him in the carrier for awhile and held him while I slept, so really we all got a good night’s sleep. Even Erwin who NEVER sleeps well on a plane!

When we arrived in Auckland we picked up our car and drove to our hotel. It was still very early morning so we went shopping to get a few things for Nathanh that we decided to just buy here rather than bring with us and then we went for breakfast. After breakfast we went up the Sky Tower. Here are some pics of Nathanh high above Auckland.

Nathanh does not seem to be afraid of heights!

Sky Tower at night

When we finished seeing all we could see up the Sky Tower, we still had about an hour to kill before we could check into our hotel at 2:00 so we punched “park” into our navigation system and it took us to some lovely gardens at Carlaw Park. It reminded me a lot of Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver. So we wandered through the gardens and fish ponds until it started to lightly rain and then we thought it was time to go and check in finally.

Once we checked in Nathanh got a bottle and nap before we headed out for dinner. When we got back from dinner it was 8:00 and I wanted to keep Nathanh up until 9:00 (his usual bed time) so that his routine would be somewhat undisturbed. The problem was that since he had napped he was more awake than Erwin or me! Erwin went to bed...yeah, thanks for that...and I was “playing” with Nathanh. I say playing because I was basically asleep on the living room floor while he played beside me. Every now and then he’d walk over to me and give me a hug and then go back to playing...so sweet! At 9:00 he had his bottle and went to sleep without any problem and he slept until about 6:30 am, stayed quiet in bed with us until 7:00 and then we were all up. So not too bad, usually he wakes at 8:00am.

So all of that just to say that we arrived safely in Auckland and are not too worn down by all the travel. Stay tuned for more adventures!

Emergency!

Today I had my first really big scare with Nathanh and he had his first trip to Emergency!


We were just coming home from a walk and heading in to get some lunch. I put Nathanh down on our front veranda while I unlocked the door. He went to a little table we have where he has his bubble wand and then I saw him look at the stairs and step towards them. I immediately went to grab him so that he wouldn’t fall down the stairs. However, Nathanh and I have been playing a lot of fun chase games lately so I guess when he saw me come towards him he thought we were playing and he started running right towards the stairs. I was not expecting this and just couldn’t get to him fast enough. It was absolutely terrifying he literally ran off of the top step, there are three steps, and landed head first on the cement below. Even if he had fallen down the stairs it would have been better. He would probably have been more bruised up but the impact would not have been as severe.

It was horrible, did I say that already? I ran to him and scooped him up off the cement his head was scraped and bleeding a bit and he was SCREAMING. I would have been too...it was horrible. I tried to put ice or a cold cloth on the bump that was forming but Nathanh would not have any of it and just kept screaming. After 20 minutes and a quick phone call to Erwin we headed to Emergency.

In the car on the way he stopped screaming and fell asleep, which scared me too because I didn’t want him to sleep with a possible concussion. Anyways I just got there as quickly as I could. He woke up when we arrived at the hospital. We registered and I was so scared and worried. But by about an hour after the fall Nathanh seemed to be back to his regular self again... except for the large bump that had formed on his head over his left eye. Actually, he was the entertainment of the waiting room! He kind of liked going from person to person and trying out the head game with them and then of course there were the automatic doors that he kept trying to run out of... all of the little old ladies assured me that I had my work cut out with me with this one!

Four hours later we finally got to see a doctor. Nathanh checked out okay and was cleared to fly tomorrow - thank goodness!

Formula and "The Force"

So many people have been asking me how the formula change over is going...so I thought an update was in order.

It was going good for quite awhile.  Nathanh was having three, 6oz, bottles per day and we were making each with two scoops milk formula and one scoop soy.  We stopped there for a long time while I introduced some new foods, as I hadn't been introducing anything new while we were increasing the milk formula.  It seemed to be going well and I even introduced yogurt and cheese without any problems.  In fact cheese is Nathanh's new favourite food (or one of his favourites, he seems to have a few!)

Then I decided to make one of his bottles completely milk formula and things changed...not for the better.  He was back to having lots of gas and stomach pain, waking up in the night completely uncomfortable, wanting to go back to sleep but just not able to find a comfortable position for more than a few seconds.  So after a few days and a talk with my family doctor.  We have let up on the increase.  He seems to be able to tolerate milk products to a limited extent.  Really, what we were concerned about was him getting enough calcium once he turns one and we ween him off bottles.  And also, how closely we would need to watch food ingredients with lactose (many infant crackers and everyday food items have lactose).  So knowing that he can tolerate a limited amount is good and we won't need to say no to every little cookie or cracker that he wants or worry about restaurant food etc.

Now Nathanh is having 2 bottles (2 scoops milk, 1 scoop soy) and his night time bottle we have decided to keep all soy.  When he is one we will start eliminating the two day time bottles and supplement his dairy with cheese and yogurt.  And then depending how that goes we might just keep the night time bottle soy so that we are sure he is getting proper nutrition with no stomach upset.

So I know I have to insert some sort of photo here...but looking at my camera the only recent photos I have are of Daddy sharing his precious toys collector's items with Nathanh...so here are my two boys.

Mesmerized!

Daddy letting Nathanh touch his precious lightsaber!

At the Y

Well May is starting off as busy as April ended!  There seems to be so much to do and everything seems to take so much longer with Nathanh's help:)  Here is a great shot of Nathanh helping me unload the dishwasher.

We have been spending lots of time at the YMCA near our home.  That is where Nathanh has his swimming lessons.  We just finished this session - Nathanh and mommy on Wednesday mornings and Nathanh and daddy on Saturdays.  I am proud to report that both instructors passed Nathanh on to the next level!  And unlike last time when I kind of chuckled at some of the things that the instructors had and had not checked off on his report card, this time he got everything checked off and I have to say he fully deserved to pass.  Here are some photos of his last day in the pool with daddy.

Splashing - Nathanh is so not afraid to get water in his eyes!

Climbing out of the pool...see how he can get his knee up on the ledge?

Kicking and reaching to swim towards the toy.

Choosing a toy to swim with.

Nathanh is always happy in the water.  He is fine with being dunked and will even let the instructor do the skills with him as long as mommy or daddy is in sight.  The other skill that was pretty impressive to see a 10 month old do was, wearing a PFD, Nathanh would jump in the water on the count of three and jump to / reach for a toy - unassisted.  And he is a pro at blowing bubbles (he should be he practices in his water container at every meal).  Okay, mommy bragging time is over!  So now he gets to move on to 'Bubblers' which is the next level of parent participation swim lessons.  We have not signed up for another class though.  We are going to take a break this session because we would miss too many classes while we are away.

The other activity we like to do at the Y is open gym.  It is great!  They set up balls, hoops, foam equipment, slides, ride on toys, etc.  It is always set up a bit differently so that is cool too.  Nathanh loves going in and exploring.  The hoops seem to be his current favourite but he is getting more familiar with the slide and the foam equipment too.

climbing up the slide

I still need to remind him / help him to turn around at the top so that he goes down feet first.

He loves sliding down!

Practicing his soccer skills for Robyn!

Hoops are a hit!  He only has one here but he will often have one in each hand and drag them around behind him.  It is quite cute!