I don’t think I’ve written a newsletter since Sebastian’s birth, sixteen months ago. But as you know, life with a baby doesn’t allow all that much time for pondering over the keyboard. These things used to take ages, sometimes days to write (and almost as long to read, I hear you scream) and that’s just out of the question these days. So here is a brief précis of the recent weeks and months, by way of staying in touch …

Sebastian started day care at the beginning of the year, which allowed me to start up a little PR and marketing consultancy called AMPR. So far so good, even though I only really have two steady clients the prospects are good, and no doubt things will continue to grow. I’m loving the flexibility of working from home and part-time, and being back at work definitely makes me a better mum. I look forward to the days I can go to the office or work at my home desk, I crave the ability to drink a whole cup of tea before it gets cold or sit down at a computer and actually finish something I started. But the flipside is that when it comes time to fetch Sebastian, I’m almost breathless with the thrill of seeing him again, watching his face light up when he sees me and scooping him up into my arms. I love my days in the office so much more, because I can look forward to my “days off” with my beautiful son. And I love my time at home with him because I can look forward to my days in the office. It really is the best of both worlds.

Speaking of my beautiful son, he is sixteen months old today. He’s been walking since a few days after his first birthday and he has a marvellous physical intelligence that is joyful to watch. He can climb and wriggle and dance and march and loves to do so, earning, as I think I’ve said before, the apt nickname of Squiggle. He has a few words that he uses sparely, “car” being a notable favourite, and the rest of the time babbles lyrical nonsense that occasionally makes peculiar sense. Like “aluminium giftbag cowboy” and “go but good boy google.” He loves to play ball and peekaboo, he does an enthusiastic jig that looks like a cross between a quickstep and a toi toi. He does this at any time, like to show his pleasure when Wayne comes home from work or when his favourite songs come on the radio. Today he gave an impromptu performance for the retail staff at Country Road in Chatswood. Oh well, at least he got an enthusiastic ovation from his mum.

He loves his two days a week at Killara Beehive Childcare, and usually comes home covered in sandpit, blue paint and vegemite. They do a lot of craft, have attempted baking and dress-up, and I’m told he absolutely excels at eating lunch. (Usually his own followed by someone else’s.) He brings home priceless works of art that take pride of place on our refrigerator, other people’s socks and good chunks of the sandpit embedded in his scalp.

The down-side of day care is that he has been prone to illness a lot this year, bringing home any bug that is doing the rounds. We’ve had our fair share of sleepless nights and midnight dashes to the hospital as a result of colds, flu and ear infections. On one notable occasion his fever remained above forty degrees for four days solid, and would not respond to panadol or neurofen or any of the three (!) antibiotics we tried. We are currently seeing an ENT and are facing the prospect of grommets if we don’t get the rampant infections under control. But I suppose if he’s going to get sick its better to get it out of the way sooner rather than later. And I’m told its good for his immune system, so I guess we’ll persevere with day care for a little while longer. But I swear if he gets sick one more time we’re pulling him out and hiring a nanny.

We’ve had quite a few visitors of late (you might recall me mentioning Wayne’s mum and step-dad Rob visited us in September last year followed by Wayne’s sister, brother-in-law and nieces in December.) Then in March an old university friend of mine Rikkie, his wife Louise and their two boys spent a week with us having just landed in the country on the first step to the scary road of immigration. The family is currently living on the Gold Coast where Rikkie is directing and producing the current Aussie series of Big Brother.

Rikkie’s visit coincided with Easter, which was a lot of fun for all of us. The three boys (Mauritzio, 10, Gabriel 2½ and Sebastian) capered about the garden excitedly gathering their chocolate loot. Us parents scrambled after them, video cameras in hand, and sharing the unfettered joy of their discoveries. It was all rather precious.

Then, about a month ago my mum and dad arrived from South Africa to spend a precious three weeks with us. My mum last saw Sebastian when he was five weeks old and this was the first time the Squiggle and my dad had ever met, so it was a very special event. Sebastian was cautious at first, taking a day or two to warm up to them, but soon got over his apprehension. His attempts to call for Grandpa (Gang-ga!) were the cutest thing to behold, along with the endless games of peekaboo, hide-and-seek and raspberries-on-the-tummy.

The family reunion was completed when my dad’s brother (my uncle) Richard, my aunt Jacquie and my cousin Philip joined us for dinner at our place in Sydney. There is such a marvellous ease in spending an evening with people who have known you all your life. There’s no introductions, lengthy explanations, nervous staking of territory. Just funny conversations and tales of remember-when.

One of the highlights of my parents’ trip was a five day holiday to Hamilton Island in the Whitsundays. My parents, my aunt and uncle and Wayne, Sebastian and I flew up there in late April and hired a three-bedroom apartment with jaw-dropping views of the ocean and neighbouring islands from our balcony (see right). I just couldn’t get over how beautiful the place was, or how it completely lived up to the pictures in the brochure. We spent five lazy days touring the island, swimming, walking and roaring with laughter.

This will probably sound silly, but the absolute highlight of the trip for me was a fifteen minute session of scuba diving in the hotel pool. Well, yes. I don’t get out much any more, you see :) But seriously, scuba diving is something I’ve wanted to try since forever and the resort offered free lessons, so Wayne and I went along on our second or third day on the island. At first I struggled, even got a bit panicky when I thought I couldn’t breathe properly, but I always had the option of standing up and just popping my head out into the fully breathable air two feet above my head (unlike my sister, who got a serious case of the bends when diving on the barrier reef a few years ago.) It took a while to get my confidence up, and I was somewhat in awe of Wayne who took to it with all the familiarity and grace of a dolphin. But by the end of that short session, I was swimming through the water in a tiny, private paradise; transfixed by the rhythm of my breathing and my fins, and the bubbles tickling my ears. Walking back to our apartment afterwards and babbling excitedly to Wayne, I felt absolutely euphoric. I felt like I had I’ve achieved something new, broken some new boundary or defeated an old demon, or all three. I probably sound a little evangelical but there is such a pure thrill in broaching new territory. I remembered reading that the Dalai Lama is quoted as saying that once a year you should try something new, or go somewhere you’ve never been before. Wayne and I had just killed two karmic birds with one stone (to mix metaphors in a rather bewildering way), and it felt awesome.

Heh, then there was the sea-kayaking expedition. It was a great idea, in principle. Wayne and I would share a double kayak and, along with my dad, my aunt and uncle and a few other people we would take our kayaks a few hundred metres off shore and sip champagne as the sun set over the magnificent seascape. What we couldn’t have anticipated was that our tour guide was an idiot, the champagne was cheap and the water was cold. Although I do recall overcoming my irritation with Dave (aforementioned idiot) by attempting a “sprint” on the way back home, Wayne and I burning our way through the water and me laughing out loud at the sheer exhilaration of the muscular effort and the water splashing my face.

Sebastian had a ball at Hamilton too, given the constant attention and new experiences. He got to ‘drive’ the golf buggy every day (there are no cars on Hamilton Island) and chase the cockatoos that constantly bombarded the balcony. He splashed in puddles and built sandcastles with his grandfather and toi-toied to my aunt’s gospel singing, and was the subject of more photographs than can possibly be believed.

The down-side, if I can call it that, was that I failed to modify my expectations before climbing on that plane. I had been seduced by the commercials and was longing for the brochure-perfect break of endless white beaches and turquoise seas and whispering palms. Sure, the island delivered on all of those things and then some, but what I had failed to take into account was that Sebastian would still wake at 5am, still throw tantrums on an hourly basis and refuse to take naps at the scheduled time. It was impossible to dash out the door on a whim or spend all day lying prostrate by the pool. Wayne and I got on the plane to come home just as tired as we were when we boarded and only a very little bit more sunburned. Nevertheless, it really is a magical place and you should really take a trip there if you can.

Soon after we returned to Sydney Wayne celebrated his fortieth birthday (on 6 May). He had insisted that he didn’t want a big fuss and repeatedly brushed aside my tentative requests to throw a party or organise a special gift etc. So I decided to take matters into my own hands. Wayne thought we were going out for a quiet family dinner but little did he know that I had arranged for about five other couples to meet us at his favourite Thai place in Gordon. What’s more, since he had been bemoaning the fact that he has nothing at all to wear these days, everyone gave him a gift voucher for David Jones (one of the major retailers in Sydney) so he was able to use the combined spending power to treat himself to a whole bunch of wonderful new things. And of course, he was absolutely delighted that he got a bit of a fuss in the end, after all.

Wayne’s parents, brother and sister sent him the most amazing telescope as a birthday present. I’m afraid I can’t tell you all the technical bits (I’ll have to leave that up to Wayne) but suffice to say his eyes lit up with the prospect of whirring and whizzing his way around the galaxy. It has all kinds of automatic features, like just programming in the name of the star you want to look at and it finds it for you etc. So thanks so much Colleen, Rob, Glynis, Richard and Sheldon because I haven’t seen a smile that big in a long time.

It was only an agonizingly few days between Wayne’s birthday and my parent’s departure and I can’t tell you how much I loathe and detest and dread those airport farewells. It was just so precious for Wayne and I to see Sebastian playing and laughing with his grandparents, and it literally breaks my heart to think it might be a year or more before we get to do it again.

As if to take our minds off the agony of separation, we got a bit of a rude shock just a few days later. It was raining and miserable, and I was folding laundry in the bedroom and Wayne was working in our home office. Suddenly I heard an enormous squeal and a bang and, just as I glanced up, saw a car come crashing through our boundary fence and right into our front yard! Turns out the driver (who claims he wasn’t going all that fast) lost control of his car on the slippery road and spun out of control, turning three-sixty degrees before crashing through our fence. The fence itself is a mangled wreck and is lying warped and useless on the ground as I write, and we are waiting for the owners to come and fix it. My father had expressed a lot of concern about our fences (both front and side) when he was here, and maybe this is a bit of a blessing in disguise because the owners can simply not ignore this issue any longer. We are having all the boundaries mended and sealed and at the same time, seriously considering moving to a quieter road. I thank the universe daily that Sebastian was not playing in the front yard at the time of the accident, for obvious reasons. Can you imagine?!

Well, that’s just about all I can think of to tell you right now, so I will sign off while you’re all still awake. If I haven’t already notified you, you can view an online family photo album at http://rabbitphoto.com.au/molloney and we do our best to update this regularly.

From all of us, till next time, much love.

Andie, Wayne & Sebastian.

xx