Australia Day

It was Australia Day last Thursday (the 26th of January). Australia Day is a Public Holiday for everyone in Australia. It is traditional to have a get-together with family and friends and have a barbeque at home or at the park, and watch the fireworks in the evening. It's a very relaxed holiday right in the middle of Summer. In Canberra the Prime Minister and Governor-General make important speeches about how great it is to be Australian, the Australian Of the Year is announced (this year the actor Geoffrey Rush), there are lots of music festivals on, sporting events and the Triple J Hot 100 is revealed - an annual round up of the best music of the last year.
Australia Day commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet, Captained by Arthur Phillip, at Sydney Cove in 1787. Though it is a celebration of all things Australian there is some controversy surrounding it - some aboriginal groups have renamed it Invasion Day, and some redneck groups see it as a celebration of a White-Only Australia.

As you can imagine, Julia and Isla and I did very little on Australia Day this year - it was too hot to be out and about with a little baby, but we did have a bbq in the evening and watched the tennis and fireworks on TV. I went for a walk round the block and came back through our local park - it was nice to see so many big groups of people out having picnics and playing cricket.

Our new life has now settled in to a nice little pattern. Because Julia is up throughout the night I try to let her get an extra nap mid-morning while I take care of Isla if she wont settle. We try to get out the house or get some jobs done in the afternoon, and in the evenings we have some nice playtime or bath-time with Isla and then try and put her to bed. Putting a baby to bed is hard! Just when you think you've got it sussed her little routine and habits all change again. Have you ever seen 'The Hurt Locker'? Putting a baby to sleep is like trying to defuse a very dangerous bomb. You must be methodical, gentle, careful and oh so oh so patient. The slightest wrong move leads to disaster. Her eyes flick open and she starts to struggle and you must begin all over again, all the time trying not to let your immense frustration show. We are starting to get more confident with our baby settling techniques and trying not to pick up any bad habits in the process. Any suggestions would be most helpful though!

Isla thinks she is the Great Houdini (is this true of all babies?) We wrap her up extremely tight, put her in the cot and tuck in a sheet and blanket extra tight. She is completely immobilized, with only her little head capable of bobbing about. We creep out the room and then half an hour later hear her grunting an groaning. On going back in we discover she has thrown off both sheets, managed to completely undo the wrap and is now wriggling and flailing around with complete freedom. I don't know how she does it. It only seems to happen when we are not looking.

There are good days and nights and there are bad ones. Julia has done well so far coping with the lack of sleep. I now seem capable of sleeping through even the loudest of cries. We are enjoying watching her change and develop from day to day. Already she is more active. Also she already seems bored by my long stories and prefers to watch the lights and shadows flickering on the wall.

In other news this week, I have started job hunting. I've been to look at one practice so far and applied for a few other jobs. The job market is quiet at the moment what with it being the end of the Summer holidays, but things should pick up in the next month. There are lots of jobs for dentists about but it's just a matter of finding the right practice in the right location - ideally somewhere I can travel to on public transport to begin with. The rest of the week was mainly baby stuff. Our friends, Martha, Penny and Nat were kind enough to come round one evening and bring dinner with them. We were very grateful for that. I've been being quite domesticated myself and cooking lots in the last week - especially Indonesian Food. I've been back to the physio and she is happy with how my shoulder is going, and I've been at the swimming pool again. This week we might try and get up to Ballarat for a few days for a change of scenery.

Last night we were at Mark and Nicole's house for dinner. Mark made us lovely Thai food (calamare, prawns and then Thai beef salad). Their three little girls are now Isla's biggest fans and they can't wait to see her. They were disappointed when they realized Isla was just going to sleep for hours and hours and not be able to play with them. We had a nice moment though when Isla was lying out on a rug on the floor, she had been having a nice kick about but was starting to get tired and grumpy. The girls launched into a very cute rendition of "Three Little Ducks" and straight away Isla settled back down. Every time they stopped singing Isla would start to cry and every time they began again she would settle down. They managed to make it through such classics as "Mary Had a Little Lamb" "Old Macdonald" "The Watermelon Song" and "Twinkle Twinkle" before Isla conked out. We've booked them in for baby sitting duties as soon as they're old enough.