Well, here's some news, my baby sister had another little baby of her own today, a bouncing 3.4 kg little girl named Kiah Morgan. I don't have a photo yet I'm sorry, because I went straight from work and didn't have my camera. I'll get Karen to grab a snap when she goes back tommorrow.

I have to fess up, this whole weight loss idea I had is not going well at all. I so want to take that gutometer over there down, but then I'll just look like a BFQ (don't click this at work kids). So there it stays, maxed out. It's not that I don't have any will power, its just, well.... see if this makes any sense. I have a baby son. I have also nursed serious hangovers the last 3 weekends in a row. So therefore, having a baby gives you hangovers. Great, and I thought it was all the drinking I have been doing.

Seriously though, I am going to be checking into Betty Ford soon. Cop this for some serious liver punishment...

Last Friday - Industry dinner with the Gringo and the Neagles Rock crew.
Last Sunday - APIA convention dinner
Tuesday - Melbourne cup lunch and another APIA conference dinner
Wednesday - Business Lunch
This weekend - Boys weekend to the Gold Coast.
Next week - my birthday and a wedding.

Here's a project I have been wanting to do for a while, it is a gallery of all of my favourite photos from our overseas trip last year, with some blatant Photoshopping. Think of it as an online coffee table book.

Enjoy, but be warned, its a bit bandwith busting for those on dial up.

World Trip Gallery

Funny story. William, being the strapping young lad he is, has already outgrown his bassinet, so this week we have put him in his cot. That in itself is not funny.

Awoken by William's constant babbling and giggling this morning, I went in to get him out of bed only to find that he had not only wiggled out of his sheets and found his way to the other end of the cot from where I had put him, but had also managed to rotate himself 90 degrees.

What the? He is 11 weeks old, he's not supposed to be mobile yet, is he? You mean I can't just put him on his play mat and trust he will be where I left him 5 minutes later? I foresee some adventures coming our way.....

One of the things I have noticed about being a parent, is the constant self questioning about the job you are doing. Is this right for my child? Am I being a good parent by doing this?, and so on.

I was reading about those guys who went down for the whole bodies in barrels thing in the paper the other day, and it occurred to me that as evil and twisted as those boys are, they were all once cute little cooing babies just like William. How did it all go so wrong? What influence possibly turned them into the cold blooded sickos they turned out to be? Was it influence at all? Were they born sickos? I guess that's why criminoligists exist...

These heavy questions cause me to have thought exchanges with myself like this one I had the other day.

I came home from work, picked up my son, and we sat down for a cuddle. Good Parent. But we sat in front of the TV. Bad Parent. I flipped on a movie, with puppets in it. Good Parent. It was Team America World Police. Baaaad Parent.

Now before I get into this little essay, I want to pre-empt all of the parents out there who want to say "you wait". This is a pre-emptive shoosh, I know what has happened so far has nothing to do with what is going to happen in the future.

That out of the way, I have got to say, that parenting to date has been somewhat smoother sailing than I was psyching myself up for. William is a remarkably good baby, sleeping his way through most nights, and waking in the morning by giggling to himself.

Strangely, I don't feel like my lifestyle has been imposed on in the slightest by becoming a parent, because William is so portable. Take him in the car - he doesn't care. Take him somewhere noisy - still doesn't care. Take him somewhere bright, couldn't give a toss. Two traits I'm proud to say he inherited from me, sleeps like a log and doesn't get too worried about life. He does get cranky when he's hungry, and he eats a lot.

It sometimes feels like we are always feeding him. The formula can says he should be having 5 x 150ml feeds per day - Wil downs 4 x 150ml feeds and 2 x 200ml feeds. And since he sleeps about 10 hours a night, he has those 6 feeds over 14 hours rather than 24, so he is having a drink about every 2 and a bit hours.

Why does he eat so much I hear you ask? Well he is my son (still can't move that bloody gut-o-meter, fat bastard I am) but an average baby of his age is supposed to weigh around 5kg. William is now over 6.5. He is a big boy, having already outgrown 2 nappy sizes and his baby bath and the bassinet is starting to look decidedly squeezy.

We are feeding him on baby formula, not by choice, but due to the fact Karen really didn't produce much milk at all. For the first 6 weeks of his life he was getting a tiny bit of breast milk at each feed, but even that dried up quickly. I have to say bottle feeding has pros and cons - on the plus side, we both get to share feeding. On the minus side, it makes you do the bloody dishes every day, since you have to wash and sterilize bottles anyway. Fortunately we have yet to be confronted by a over zealous breast feeding advocate in the street while bottle feeding (as happend to my sister on a number of occasions).

William is starting to smile alot, and Karen managed to get a full fledged giggle out of him the other day whilst singing him a song. Its these moments that make it really good fun, like today when I had him imitating me poking my tongue out.

I will keep posting photos to william.jamesandkaren.id.au so stay tuned.

Finally got out on the long weekend and went bush with the new Pajero. Starting at the Rancho, we headed north of Hallett and did the Dare's Hill Circuit, stopping half way for a bit of a gourmet picnic. I took some nice photos of the scenery, which you can see here

Dare's Hill Photo Album.