Sunday 15 October 2006

Roly Poly Bella Eats Solids

Life for the Aussies lost in Singapore continues along quite hectically. Bella is growing quickly, Jason is also growing too quickly and Marika is bucking the trend and shrinking. Little Bella is about seven and half kilograms, Jason is about, lets not go there, and even though Marika is losing weight I know better than to mention statistics. It’s been a month since my last post, thankfully Marika kicked in with one a few weeks back. So what’s new I hear you asking, mmmm or is that the little voices in the back of my head messin’ with my mind.

It was another big day for the Bella Nubben; she had her first solid food, well maybe semi-solid, well gooey runny rice cereal. She took to eating like a fish to water, we figured she might, she has been keenly watching us eat for the past month or so, I offered her a hot chip the other day and she opened her mouth ready for it, alas her mother intervened like a goalie and the chip didn’t reach the nets, maybe another day, well another year or two. A few weeks ago she decided she likes to sleep on her side, though she usually ends up in her usual starfish position (feet and arms spread out). In the past few days she has learnt a new trick, that is rolling over, she is getting rather quick at it, the only problem is she doesn’t like being on her tummy, but she is getting use to it! The other downside of her new trick is that she now likes to roll over in bed then gets upset and it usually wakes her up, sometimes she will fall back to sleep, fortunately she knows to turn her head to the side so she can breath safely. We took her for another swim this morning; she seems to enjoy the water, even kicking her feet a little bit. This time we had proper swimming nappy so she didn’t have the extra large floating nappy making her bum float and her head dip.

We’ve had a few visitors this past week, my buddy Darrell and his other half Carla stayed for a few days before heading off to Thailand for a week, they’ll be stopping by for a few more days on their way back to the back of Bourke. I’ve arranged a few day leave from work so I can play tour guide on their return visit. Yesterday we caught up the Marika’s uni friend Maggie and Colm and their two kids; they were on a quick two night stopover on their way back to Oz from Europe. We gave them a visit to the local Kopitiam for a drink and then a stroll down Orchard Road and a little shopping before heading back to our place for dinner and the city skyline view; however the damn smoke from the fires in Indonesia all but blocked out the skyline. I have some video I’ll upload at some stage when I have more time. This smoke haze is an annual event for Singapore and its neighbours, it lasts for about a month and has been connected to shipping accidents and even one serious airline crash in Indonesia. The fires are usually started by farmers during the dry season to clear land for agricultural purposes like planting crops. I guess the hole in the ozone layer is getting bigger. When will we as members of this limited world get our act together and work on saving the planet before it’s too late, excuse me while I go and turn up the air-con and see what other high electricity using appliances I can find to turn on. Burn more coal, burn more oil we all love our luxuries. I’m guilty I like my air-con and my computer. I think Singapore would grind to a halt if all the air-con was disabled, specially the shopping centres that like to run them on maximum so you freeze when you mosey in from the lovely 34 degrees outside temperature to about 16 degrees indoors. In my defence I do walk or catch public transport most of the time, I don’t own a V8 petrol guzzling vehicle, although the country boy in me would like a bush bashing 4 wheel drive, sorry to all the little electric car owners, kudos to you!