August

On our way back we stayed in Singapore for a few days. Even more challenging as not only did Joshua sleep in our room (he had done so in the loft in the Netherlands), but this was the only room so we had to be very quiet after his bedtime.

Singapore was nice though and Josh really appreciated the pool. He even overcame his fear for the shower, under the miniature waterfall. We mostly relaxed, but did some walking around the area (the quays).

The Conan Group went through another reorganisation: a complete management overhaul and only Simon left as a permanent employee (with some freelance consultants in the wings and sales staff on commission).

September

Joshua was growing up fast, understanding almost everything you say (English or Dutch) and having a few words of his own to say (mostly ‘more’ or ‘no/nee’). By now he was of the formula and down to two bottles of milk a day (to fatten him up as he is still small for his age): one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Other than that he eats whatever is around with a penchant for fruit and spaghetti.

With the weather warming up here we installed a seat on Lisa’s bike, got Joshua a helmet (bright yellow), and went for some rides. He loves it, especially when we go to the playground. He liked the swings, until he once crashed off (he still gets on them, but is not as enthused about them anymore), loves the slides and is getting more-and-more into climbing (as he gets more agile and stronger).

It was a busy month for Lisa with the international Weeds Conference, of which she had been in the organisation committee, held in Perth. Everything went fine and the conference was deemed a success.

October

We also started a second series of babyswim with Joshua. Being older he now learned to kick his legs, blow bubbles and jump in from the side (into mummy’s or daddy’s arms). Henry couldn’t come this time as he was expecting a little sibling (a brother in December). It seemed that a lot of people were pregnant this time of the year and we were (are) frequently asked whether Joshua will have a baby-brother or sister (to which our reply is that we haven’t quite got over the shock of this one !!).

We had a colleague from Lisa, Gary, visiting on his roundtrip of Australia (by car) and also had Lisa’s brothers twins over for a weekend. They are 11 months older than Joshua (so two-and-a-half at the time) and having three-under-three for a weekend was quite a challenge (thus our previous comment on a possible brother/sister for Joshua).

November

In November we spent our tax return. Last year we renovated the kitchen and this year the carpets were replaced. We had hoped to wait until after Josh was a bit more careful (with his food and playing), but there was a hole in our bedroom, it came unstuck in the living room and was just plain awful in the other bedrooms. We bought new carpet, but in our eagerness decided we would pull up the old ourselves. So over the period of a weekend, 2 nights and 1 day we had to move all furniture etc onto the non-carpeted areas (we have tiles in the kitchen, dining room, bathrooms and the bar and fortunately the nice weather meant we could use our patio too), then pull up the old carpet and finally clear the underlay. In some rooms this was easy as they had used rubber underlay or had glued it only on the side. However most rooms had a glued underlay that had to be scraped off. Anyway, the result is a luxurious new carpet in all rooms (ice-blue). In fact it is so much thicker that we had to shave some of the doors as they were scraping over the new carpet. Fortunately the new carpet is stainmaster/repellant although Lisa is watching Joshua (and visitors) like a hawk for any potential spills.

In November we also did another dash to the hospital emergency. Joshua hasn’t had a healthy life so far, with the entro-virus last year, an ear-infection (and still fluids behind his ears) this one and just about any cold or cough that went around childcare. This time he seemed to have a cold, but was breathing shallow. Lisa thought it better to have it checked and although Joshua was his usual energetic self in the doctor’s surgery, did the X-rays show an early pneumonia. Some antibiotics cured him within a few weeks (after which he got another cold .. or tooth .. or …).

December

And that bring us to the last month of the year. Joshua is in the whole a little man, no longer a baby. He walks and starts to talk, mostly single words and mostly English although there are various Dutch words in there too. Lisa was in the supermarket and Joshua pointed as something and said ‘beer’. A passer-by commented on that his daddy must like to drink beer and Lisa couldn’t figure it out, until it clicked that bear in Dutch is ‘beer’ (pronounced as the English ‘beer’) and that that was what Joshua had been pointing at.

For Christmas we went for a few days to Lisa’s sister who lives in a house virtually on the beach. Joshua loved the pool and also went into the sea. Then afterwards on the 29^th, we celebrated Lisa’s parents 40^th anniversary with a party in our garden. We had almost 50 people coming and despite rain in the morning (rare in Perth were we have water-restrictions because of the draught) and a power failure for most of the day (making it challenging to warm up food and make coffee), it was a great day.

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