|
Synopsis of the Year that was ... 2002 |
| Bookmarks: | January | February | March | April | May | June |
| July | August | September | October | November | December |
|
The year started with Joshua
being a tiny tacker (smallest 5% for weight in his age group, <15%
for length). He was happily crawling along and pulling himself up on
the furniture. As time went on he managed to ‘furniture-surf’,
i.e. walk along things and even take some steps away from them as long
as one hand was firmly secured (see our Christmas
card of 2001).
We bought him a walker, not one in which you sit (although we had one of those too, he just didn't like that -interestingly enough, now that he can walk, he seems to enjoy this walker again, climbing in-and-out of it on our patio) but one which you can push in front of you. Once he got the hang of these, he used to be a tear-away through the house. |
| Also not walking very well was Roebel, who managed to damage her rear-knee. Apparently this is common in small dogs and cats, their ligaments weaken and the knee just ‘pops’ out. It doesn’t hurt and mostly they manage to pop it back in (by stretching), but can cause early arthritis. There is an operation that may fix it (not guaranteed) and costs AUS$1.500 (per knee). We decided to wait and after about a month or two she manages to readjust herself. Now (in summer) we let her out from time-to-time and she races around the backyard and jumps fences like never before. Sometimes she limps or misses a jump, but otherwise you hardly notice. |
|
This month marked the start of the first
of a range of reorganisations in Simons work. Conan
Group is a small organisation working in the niche market of ITIL Service
Management (niche in Perth that is). Because of the finish of one project
(without an expected extension) and the loss of another one, we had to let go of
all the freelance contractors, reducing staff from 9 to just 5. I spend my time
developing our own training material, expanding my use to the company.
Simon was left holding the baby when Lisa had to travel to Geraldton and Three Springs for work. Joshua didn’t want to know mama when she got home, he kept going to papa when he wanted something (at least for the first day or so).
|
In March Joshua turned 1. We had
filled his playpen (hardly used since he crawled) with balloons, which
was great fun. He still managed to play more with the boxes than the
actual gifts and was a bit baffled by all the attention. We could now also turn the car
seat, so he could look forward. Regularly (approximately once every 6 weeks) Joshua would go and stay overnight with his Nanna & Pop. This gave us the opportunity to go see a movie or even spend a luxury weekend in a hotel. In return we had Fabian and Xaviera (two of Lisa's brother's 4 kids: 6 & 7 years old) stay with us once and of course we took Josh to various barbecues and visits. |
|
In May both Lisa and Simon travelled for
work, leaving the other to mind the baby. Lisa went for a week to Canberra and
Simon for a week to Sydney to follow a Microsoft course (and he is now one of
only 5 commercial Microsoft Operations Framework trainers). Within 3 hours
of Simon leaving Joshua was violently ill so mama was a little bit stressed and
didn't enjoy her time alone with Joshua too much.
Joshua finally (14 months old) let go and
took his first tentative steps. Within a few days though he was racing through
the house.
In May & June we went with Joshua
(and a 3-month younger son of an ex-colleague of mine) to babyswim. While
singing songs, the children learn to get used to the water, floating on their
back, jumping up-and-down, etc. Joshua loved it, but then again he always had
had a ball in the bath.
We also got some visitors over the floor,
related to Simon’s work. Huub was a prospective employee from the Netherlands,
but unfortunately did it not work out as Conan reorganised again. It had
steadily created work and some opportunities, but when this came crushing down
in the next months (see August) there was no room for new staff.
Deze pagina is ook in het Nederlands te zien
