Happenings both home and abroad

Looking back at this week I think there has been some big developments going on. The most obvious is that you are reaching out to grab things now. You look like you have cerebal palsy still, arms don’t go exactly where you want them to, but its getting there. This means that you are now aware that you have arms. You are also tending to smile only to the people you really know instead of anyone. This means that you recognise individuals by sight and you are understanding those who you see most often.

Another big thing has been your attempts to roll on to your front. You are getting so close to success; your arms go over and then your leg; your head is facing the floor and its just that last little roll that isnt quite happening.

We got some great nursery rhymes from the library as well as a great DVD with music and different shapes to stimulate your brain. You love both of them. Mum was saying that your memory is getting better at this stage so when she puts the CD back on you get excited as you recognise the songs. I went and bought a Ukulele yesterday so I didn’t have to lug a big guitar to you, it just wasn’t happening. This is much much better. I played you a little song I made up on the walk home from the station (I must have looked like a wandering minstral) and you really enjoyed it. I cant wait to learn lots of songs for you. The aim is to create consistency for you at nights. Massage, Bach, quiet and a bedtime song (which I want to be See You In My Dreams).

Yesterday morning because it was so hot, Mum left you in the living room. Problem with that is I get up in the morning for work and have nowhere to get ready without waking you up. So we tried to creep in and pick up the bassinet and take it into your room. You were already stirring so by the time we were carrying you to the room you opened your eyes, saw me and started smiling away - "Hello Daddy, I see you". It is impossible to ignore your smiles, they are so cute. Mum and I just grinned at each other. But I kept quiet and we closed the door so Mum could express some milk and I could keep getting ready for work.

I was listening to a Podcast on an event I completely forgot about. I cant even remember where I heard it but as soon as I heard the first few bars I remembered. It was Marvin Gaye singing Stars and Stripes at the 1983 NBA All Star Game (it was also his last televised performance before his death). It really connected with people and became one of those happenings. Happenings are in my mind events that can have a profound impact on people and become part of cultural identity or even the global identity. Its an event that people talk about and remember for the rest of their life. Here are some I thought of quite quickly -

Marvin Gaye performance - nothing like this had ever been done before at a more conservative event. An interpretation of the national anthem. Its shook the country. Apparently the rehearsal went really badly.

This wasn’t a happening for me but I cant leave it out because it was even bigger than Gayes version. It spoke to a generation of Americans, most of them were hippies!


Australia 2 wins Americas Cup. This one I remember very well. I was screaming along with everyone else. I was watching it live at about 6am in the morning in the living room and it was a historic win (America had won it since 1851). It was a collective celebration. Its sort of the moment that Australia grew up and was recognised. It was the single biggest sporting moment in our history. It didn’t matter that most people knew nothing about it before this. I went crazy. To me it is these kind of happenings that prove there is a collective unconscious. The special winged keel which was kept a secret added to the mystique. Also read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_II



Muhammad Ali lights Olympic torch 1996. This has never left me. I was in tears watching this great man light the cauldron. There is so many levels going on here. He was the greatest most recognised sportsman ever and a great man to boot. Then there is his parkinsons which showed the world that nobody is infallible. It was such a shock to see him there for both these reasons. Nobody could have guessed he would be there as he really never appeared in the media. I suggest you watch Rumble in the jungle to understand what the fuss is about. It was a worldwide event, a great moment in history.



Kathy Freemans at the Sydney Olympics was also up there. The most shocking was the 92Barcelone Cauldron lighting. This guy had to practice and practise to ensure he got it right.


MASH - goodbye, farewell and amen. Ok so it’s a TV show, but it was the longest running show at that time and when it finally ended it was a really big deal. It helped that the final episode was amazing. The end of something like this is almost heart breaking. Its like a death. Something like 85 million people watched this final show. That is incredible. Think about it. The most personally emotional final show for me was The Wonder Years. I watched it with Martin and then on the drive home I had to stop the car because I was sobbing. It represented the end of my innocence as well. Time to become an adult, it was the death of my youth. A watershed moment. A great final episode can be almost unbearable to watch because it hurts so much.


Michael Jackson Moonwalks - Motown 25 years- 1983. This was worldwide news which is a little weird in some ways. But I think the combination of an amazing dance step never seen before with such and incredible song was enough to cause ripples and herald a new mega stars arrival. People saw this few seconds and just went WHAT WAS THAT! Thriller came along soon after this. He was totally unique and the world had not seen anything like this since the days of the musical in the 20s and 30's. I only saw it on the news, not the whole performance. In fact it was years before I finally saw it all. This was before the likes of youtube!


Princess Diana dies - well this was a big shock as well. Again im not a royalty fan or anything but I felt this collective shock at her death and I guess the media coverage which was exhausting makes it hard for you not to be involved. She was a good woman who got screwed over. The world was a lesser place without her.


Kurt Cobain dies - John Lennons death was bigger but I just have no memories of it. Not sure why really. But this one really rocked me. I was so upset by his feeling like he had to take his own life. It was sad but also the worst possible thing for our generation. He spoke to a lot of disillusioned people and whether he liked it or not he was someone we looked to for inspiration. I grew up in a generation of no heros and very few people you could look up to. I don’t really think there were any great people for the youth to gravitate towards. The 80's were all about making money and personal gain. Our movies and music really show this. I just had a hard time with what Kurt did and still think that a few years and he would have been relatively left alone. There are also the obligatory conspiracy theories that he was murdered.


9/11 - not much I can say about this one that isnt really obvious. It’s the biggest thing to happen in my life because America is so similar in many ways to us. It is certainly not the worst thing that has happened in my time; bombs go off killing hundreds far too often in the Middle East. But again this was about the footage, images that burnt into your brain. It was always going to be a spectacle, a macabre blockbuster. Compare this to the killing fields in Cambodia which happened when I was a child and you see that it pales in comparison .(The executed were buried in mass graves. In order to save ammunition, the executions were often carried out using hammers, axe handles, spades or sharpened bamboo sticks. Some victims were required to dig their own graves; their weakness often meant that they were unable to dig very deep. The soldiers who carried out the executions were mostly young men or women from peasant families. Estimates of the number of dead range from 1.7 to 2.3 million out of a population of around 7 million.) But because we actually got to witness the gigantic buildings crashing down it was always going to be given more impact than it deserved. I don’t pretend not to be a media voyeur so I was glued to the TV for days.


Watching Breakfast Club for the first time - this was the film of my generation. It spoke to me so completely. Martin and I would watch this all the time, must have seen it well over 100 times. We knew pretty much all the lines and would turn the volume down and do the lines ourself. Im not sure if it will mean anything to you or not. I wanted to be Judd Nelson and I did start dressing like him and growing my hair. I think we were the pissed off generation. We had issue with authority, sub cultures were popping up everywhere from goth to sporto's to geeks. All of a sudden it became really important for you to fit into a category and define yourself by that. Music, film and fashion started to break into sub categories and it was really the end of the super groups that everyone listened to. There was no Beatles or the like. U2 were the closest thing. Nobody wanted to be ordinary any more and the influence of media really started to have an impact on peoples perceptions. At the time I thought it all very dull. But then as a group we all made a point of looking pissed off. It was our shtick.


The Young Ones Episode 1. This was my cult TV show. It was rude, silly, crazy and spoke to our generation of dissefected youth. I mentioned before how things started to get broken down into sub groups. Genres of music became much more obvious and having these four very different characters living together was the perfect expression of this. It is hard to explain how entrenched this show got in our lives. We could literally go for hours just saying quotes from the show. It became part of our language, much like the Simpsons did later. It was a huge part of my youth and that first time I sat down and watched what all the fuss was about, I was in teenage heavan.


Ash Wednesday. This was a really scary time. Major fires were occuring all around the Yarra Valley. I remember walking out on the patio, it was pitch dark and in the distance I could see a red glow and all around me white ash was falling like snow. It was apocalyptic and may have fueled my obsession with that genre.


Protest march against the war in Iraq - 2006. I had never been involved in a march before. I am not community minded enough which is a failing. But this war was so obviously wrong and motivated by greed that I was compelled to join along with the many many thousands in voicing my outrage. I went with Charles and we really felt like we were part of something very special. A collective voice and mind marching down Swanston Street to the City Square. It was very emotional and very spiritual in a way. When a collective of people all have their attention on one thing it can be very powerful. It didn’t help much really because these people just do what they want anyway, however it did end up contributing to the downfall of both John Howard and UK PM Blair who agreed to send troops to aid America in this illegal invasion. It is a fascinating psychological phenomena to realise that it is the US that has committed acts of evil on a scale never seen before using chemical weapons of mass destruction (Hiroshima) and yet we ignore that and fear the middle eastern guy who in the end didn’t even have any built! There is no videos from Melbourne but watch this one.

Breaking out of the comfort zone.

Can you see how this diary has changed? I guess it will be this way for a little while as I still find a routine and some energy to keep this going. I find that any down time I get I just want to veg out and watch Deep Space 9 episodes. My biggest surprise so far has been the way your Mum has stepped up and really become the patient one of the both of us. Still for me I tend to get a little impatient if I know that I will be up until late and have to get up to work the next day. But your Mum shows such fortitude and unwavering enthusiasm. She has all this energy and going from someone who cherished sleep it has been amazing to me that she gets up after a couple of hours sleep with no complaints. Not that she necessarily wakes up straight away.

On Saturday morning around 2am I heard you begin your sequence of waking up which leads to crying if you are not on your toes. I heard you first and as it was Mum who was getting up I said her name to gently wake her up.

"Sweets"
"Mmmm"
"Little ones rousing"
"nnnnnwha?"
"Little ones waking up"
"nnnn its ok"
"What?"
"Its ok I have her"
"What do you mean?"
"(getting agitated) I have her, im holding her"
"What are you talking about?"
"Im holding her now its ok"
"Honey what are you on about, she’s waking up"
"What? Oh, ok".

I have had these kinds of conversations with her before. She gets confused with dream and the waking world. She finally wakes up and goes to prepare the milk for you. Apparently she was dreaming at that very moment about holding you. I actually got up myself a few minutes later to just check that she hadn’t remained confused and fed the bottle to Pippy and put you on the girls bed next to Carnie.

You will be very proud to know that you still drink more, poo more and fart louder than all the other babies at Mothers Group. When we burp you it’s the cutest thing to watch. You stretch out your arms and your legs and make a big groaning sound. We call it the 'Superman'. On Sunday night you were very thirsty indeed and downed about 150mls or more of milk. I had you over my shoulder (you can see what’s coming cant you, I wish I could have) and with no warning at all you threw up the whole lot right down my front. I was soaked. You had this satisfied look on your face after that, then proceeded to demand more milk! Argggghhhhhhhhh.

Mum joined in with me singing Frère Jacques while we were changing you. Your little face went into this state of concentration as you were listening to us. You really seemed to enjoy it. I think it must emit some good vibrations. Perhaps your relative calmness can be attributed to our approach to parenting. We are both very calm people and they do say babies just mirror back what they are surrounded by. I love giving both of you a hug. I’m not sure I have properly explained to you yet but I sing to you almost all the time. A lot more than I just speak. Speaking is singing in some way and so I think making it more pronounced can only help you understand language quicker later.

Your Mum loves our bath time together. She was telling me that one of the other new Dads from her Mums group loves to have shower time with his little one. That would be so funny seeing your face as the water hit you. Apparently they just moved the nozzle down so it didn’t get in their eyes. Have I told you that you have discovered my chest hair and grab it with those strong little fingers and refuse to let go? Now that smarts.

I’m very proud of the way we your Mum and I work together. I think our relationship is deepening in some really special ways. We both have made some changes regarding how we handle times of frustration and how to handle each other when this happens. At Mums Group some of the women were saying they have never argued so much with their husbands. For us it is quite different. We keep an eye out for each other and also talk about our approach to looking after you so we can make sure everything is consistent. This means small stuff as well like burping and wrapping and how to wipe your bum. We are a well oiled machine at the moment. I think I am doing a good job of keeping your Mum mentally on track as she tackles what to do with breastfeeding. Sometimes you have to just say “this is how it’s going to happen”, rather than make it a discussion. It is tiring stuff for her and it important to keep her looking at the big picture and counting your wins as well as your losses.

Listening to the John Safran Podcast last night and there was a man who spent time in jail and has since turned his life around. He read a lot of books and worked out what successful people had in common and tried to apply it to his life. Three things stood out to me. Firstly they all were brutally honest with themselves, secondly they denied themselves certain things to learn how to break out of their comfort zones and lastly that they all jealously guard their reputation and integrity. This third point is what is affecting my life at the moment. The way your Mums father and cousin have accused me of being the cause of their issues really annoys me as it goes against the very essence of what I am about. I must learn to ignore these sorts of people who really know nothing about me and not let it get to me. I guess I do think that everyone should like me and get shocked when someone doesn’t. Watch that ego boy.

The title 'Waking World' is a great title for a story. I should try it out.

Breastfeeding in all weather, a conversation starter

Its raining today, and because my moods are entirely based around weather patterns I am now feeling great. It seems my increasing good mood is directly disproportionate to the decreasing temperature. I have spent the past few days filling in gaps in the brickwork downstairs and applying paint. It is something I quite enjoy, listening to Podcasts and doing repetitive tasks. It frees the brain up to think and learn new things. I feel like im on a race for time here, your Mum expressed a tiny bit of colostrum which is another visual sign of your arrival. One thing I have been remiss in is reading my book about the babies first year, I need to get a crack on there and stop reading books about Zombies.

Dylan Thomas once stopped in his tracks while walking and talking with a friend and said "Somebody's boring me - I think it's me." I totally associate with this statement. In fact I said virtually the same thing to your Mum a week ago. I sometimes hear myself talking and I come over with the most intense feeling of boredom and just wish that I would shut up. I excerpt far too much emphasis in how I believe people perceive me. I so desperately wish people to think I am the most fascinating chap they have had the pleasure of associating with that I forget to associate with them. Your Mum has offered a few examples in which I have also made it plainly obvious that I find other persons conversations tiresome by getting up from the couch and wandering off. Sometimes I wish I could do that to myself. The art of conversation is disappearing as far as im concerned. Read sections of David Copperfield or Pride and Prejudice and you will notice the art and skills required to truly converse with flair. My friend Ryan's family were always great conversationalists. We would sit around discussing topics ranging from astral projection to the art of the fart. His father Thom was a brilliant orator, his quick Irish wit and piercing intellect made for some fascinating and passionate arguments. It inspires me now to do the same with you. I can imagine sitting around the table eating tea and discussing various topics. Each night we could bring to the table a topic for conversation and really spend some time on it. What a great way to improve your debating skills and it can only aid you in the future when dealing with difficult and dominant characters. Ryan and I still converse with depth every time we get together. I can’t recall if I had posted about our recent dinner in which we discussed spanking. It went on for about half an hour and everyone got involved. It makes you think, makes you have an opinion and makes you back it up. My conversational skills have been lost to some degree because I really don’t have anyone whom I talk to on a regular occasion that wants to go in-depth on any subject except for Matt with our Podcast. I like to have my opinions challenged because that’s how I can see just how robust my opinions really are. Over the last few years I have had to reassess my opinions on all manner of things and thankfully my ego is resilient enough to cope with it. I think I also have to be more attentive to people and actually ask them how they are, what they have been up to etc because I really never do this. I would much rather discuss their feelings on mulesing or their top five books.

This is later on. I don’t think I should doubt my ability to get my point across. I have lots of interesting things to say, im just not sure the people I am talking to either care or understand. This is not ego, it’s just that not many people care about the art of discussing various subjects with aplomb. I have always enjoyed my conversations with Ryan and Jan the most of all my friends. We would make great Gatsby’s.

Bought The Rough Guide to Cult Fiction.
Learnt about author Kobo Abe.
Listening to a great Podcast called The Music Show from 17/11/07 on musical therapy for the disabled. Also listening to Robert Wyatt’s Comicoopera. My favourite music to listen to right now is Verdi’s Requim.

Blood sugar no sex magic

Your Mum called me up at work and said that she had her water colour pencils and had a small book as a mini desk on her stomach when she got a kick. She then removed the book and used hands to push in same spot and got another kick. I guess you didn’t appreciated having your head used as a table. Your great grandmother said she had the same thing when she had a bowl of peas to split. Her youngest kept kicking the bowl over.

Tomorrow you will be 31 weeks along. Nothing much going on really. Mum is doing really well, still going for walks with Jan who cant believe how fit she is at this stage. She gets up lots during the night which as you might have worked out is not in her nature. This blood sugar issue is not too bad, she is being careful about the foods she eats and it’s not really a big deal. She has started a painting for your room. She asked what I thought she should paint and I went to my little stash of kids books and found the little fairy book which has some beautiful drawings in it. We flipped through and found one we think will look like you. She is also painting your giraffe (well Carns thinks its hers).

I have been throwing mulch all over the garden and done some planting. I said to Mum after work yesterday that on the trip home in the train I was thinking to myself "gee there’s nothing to do tonight, its going to be really boring". Then I thought wow this is going to be a welcome feeling in a few months. But frankly I have had years of bored nights and I really wont miss it. Having kids later in life means that you have had the time to be selfish and independent. For some the change will freak them out but I look forward to this next phase with gusto.

I hope that you will know your calling. I seem to have fit into the category of people who like lots of things but not one thing enough to imagine making a career out of it. When I ask myself today what would I like to be doing in place of this strange tedious job, well I cant honestly say for sure. After doing this Podcast for a few years now I guess that would be a lot of fun. I can’t see how you can make a career out of it though. I would love to do Podcast’s on music, getting people turned on to new music is a great reward for me. Other than that I imagine myself just having the time to do what I want. Paint a bit, write a bit, have a band, find good music and read some great books. I think your Mum would be even simpler than that, in a good way. Just time together with the family in a house she loves, exploring her painting skills. I love that we both have this attitude toward life.

Silly Mummy does work herself into a tizz as im sure you have had plenty of opportunities to see. She has a bad habit of building situations up in her head and making them far more than they are. For example we talked this morning about the quote we got for downstairs. Grandpa Keith knows someone who may be able supply the window frame cheaper so we need to see what the builder thinks about that option. So its just one phone call. But in Mums mind it has become a whole day event in which she will be co-ordinating an Olympic size event on her own. Have I mentioned as yet that for most women when they are pregnant, their emotions go on a rollercoaster ride? For you Mum, that was her before she was pregnant! She has been so docile and had not raised her voice at all. Its been very funny. I told her that im going to have to keep her pregnant now. She has been known to lose it on occasion and the last few years I have been no help I don’t think. My approach had been to raise my voice right back at her, which I had not really done before that. It seemed to happen more to me when I got into this job where I felt more confident and assertive. So there has been incidences where I push her to that explosion and explode myself. Well we have discussed this and we both agree that this type of behaviour is a luxury that we cannot afford when you come along. It is what I think of as an indulgence for our egos. I refuse to have you grow up in an atmosphere in which you are scared. I really hope that this has been the case. We always sort our issues out which is why we have lasted this long and still love each others company.

I have told people about this diary for you and have been met with blank stares. I find myself having to keep explaining why I am doing it. I find this unsettling that people would think writing about my life is so strange. I usually end up by saying that this is exactly the sort of thing I wish my mother had done for me, to have so much to read and re-read for the rest of my life. It would be the greatest treasure I could ever own.