Coming home to Melbourne

Wow, I've fallen a month behind on blogging. Old news.

Anyway, we came home with heaps of stuff. Mum and Dad threw two parties for Naina, which meant a luggage weight of 62 kg. We ended up sending three boxes back to Melbourne by Australia Post, plus leaving some mammoth toys and stuff in Perth and still were just overweight at the airport.

I have a new respect for Qantas. They have bassinets on long haul domestic flights. This meant that on the way back, Deepti did not have to pouch N for three hours and had about only 30 minutes of carrying. N spent the rest of the time on our laps or asleep in the bassinet. We're going to Perth in Jan for Green and Catherine's wedding, we'll be flying Qantas again.

Deepti had shocking luck with any take away food during the trip back. The morning of the flight, the sandwich from the airport was foul, possibly rotten (don't eat food from the Qantas terminal cafe in the middle of the departure lounge, a huge cockroach was also loose in the shop), then from Spicey Dragon, a samosa that was also out of date.

Anyway, getting back to the car in Melbourne after nearly two weeks in Perth and three weeks alone in Melbourne was rewarding in itself. The luggage getting into the car proved a trickier exercise.

Sulo bin and witches hat not included in luggage allowance.
Baby considered carry on.

Correction

Barber was Prani S not Deepti.

Anaprashna and cutting of hair (Mundan)

First food ceremony. Naina turned six months old when we were in Perth and despite the absence of dental appliances, she got to munch her way through some proper food. It was also time for first proper hair cut.

She had been eating things like oranges, rice cereal and of course milk, but nothing of a more... err substantive nature.

So on the 26th October morning, we gave N her first proper meal and her first haircut.

It started with applying a teekka by her aunties:

Then came arati (very important in all Hindu ceremonies)

A bit of a snip (barber = Deepti S)

First bit of real food (kheer, rice custard) accompanied
by usual facial expression of what the hell is that~

Hey this Indian food aint bad

And finally, ceremony over, let's party!

The baby mundan that we did for N was only a little one. Most hindu babies get it all shaved off and the hair thrown in the Ganges; as an offering to god. Accordingly, it is usually done by a pandit or priest who can whip off the whole head of hair in a minute or two. By chopping a few bits off, Mum had something to take to India and give to the priest. The "ceremony" had been done. However, Deepti and I have talked about doing the proper job, so to speak, early next year, after Green and Catherine's wedding but before India trip.

Now, not that I have anything against babies with funny shaped heads, but hair makes babies look good. There are lots of babies out there with funny shaped heads, and it makes them cute and adorable and reminds us of how traumatic the birthing process must have been. But hair gives babies an edge. Just expression and wackiness and all those things that N's crazy hair remind me of. The idea of N getting all her hair shaved off fills me with dread.

I can't actually watch it happen. Accordingly, we'll be going to the Hari Krishna temple (I think) and making a donation and one of the devotees will do the job. But I'm not sure I'll be able to watch.

Big 4-oh

One of the main reasons for Deepti and N's ludicrously long trip to Perth was my sister's 40th birthday. It was sensibly fancy. Fancibly sensy. Anyway it meant hiring a black tie suit, which I hadn't done since James' wedding (thanks for catching the bill on that one Jim).

The party was held at Aqua Viva in Nedlands, opposite the old Steve's Hotel. Acqua viva is a floating restaurant and a nice venue - water on three sides and a jetty connecting it to the mainland. The party was a lot of Anveeta's friends from junior school to her most recent Deloitte colleagues. So there was probably about 20 people I knew from years in Perth, Deepti had met a few in the relative short time she'd been in Australia, so all up a good evening was had.

Mum wanted me to take Deepti dancing. This was a little too progressive for my liking. Sure, Deepti and I are married, we have had a child and argued over the quantity of luggage we're carrying, but dancing in public with my wife sounded a little extreme. I resisted succesfully. Especially with the music being the 80's classics rather than BHANGRA!!!!!! that went down at our wedding (no Let's go party tonite....etc, Catherine, I've been informed that was your favourite).

See if you can spot the member of the family who wasn't invited.

N was at home with a baby sitter. It was the first baby sit we'd ever done. Realistically, I was more afraid about what the baby would do to the baby sitter rather than baby do to herself. We left N and baby sitter at around 730 and then spent most of Anveeta's party checking the phone, fretting, checking the phone again, phoning the baby sitter, the baby sitter telling us everything is fine, fretting, checking the phone again, phoning the baby sitter, being told off by the baby sitter for waking the baby and then finally trying to relax when we were told N was sleeping peacefully. This was all by 830.

When we got home N was asleep - i've never seen her sleep without feeding to sleep or pouching to sleep so were suitably amazed and embarrassed and inadequatelized. Damn experienced parenters.

Perth

I haven't really said it in the below logs, but it was a really good trip, for all of us. We were both getting so worn down by life here.

Don't get me wrong. I think Melbourne is a great city and we love where we live and what we do. I love tram rides and busy cities. Deepti loves being near lots of shops (Spotlight, Woolworths and Anaconda have just opened 50 metres from our front door). And I'm sure Naina will love story and play time at the Carnegie library from tomorrow.

But there is time when we just want family and close friends. We caught up with Dale and Ray, Robyn, Alex, James Bron and Hamish (who seems to have found a soul mate in N), Green and Catherine, Shelley and on the earlier trip, Benita and Dan and Anna. And of course, Mum and Dad and Prani and Anveeta as well. It was just great to see everyone and helped us normalise a lot!

Still not sure when that time will come, when we will move back.

Random cute pics

Bath time photos again. Hold on for dear life.

Sitting and feeding. On changing mat. Crazy. That's like three life milestones.

Playing with the windchimes

Dadi (grandmother) doesn't like babies watching too much TV. Naina's obviously a fan of Supernatural. Or Fox.

Insert joke about "What did she eat?!!" or
"I'll give you the two cushions and I'll throw in a set of steak knives for free!"

Jula

Jula means swing in Hindi. Mum and Dad were in India for about four years from 1999 and bought back a lot of furniture, including a colossal swing. Most of us find it a bit difficult to eat our dinner on a swing without feeling sympathy for those on the Titanic.

Naina seems to find it hilarious. She slept on it, ate on it, and had a good time on it. I can't put all these photos up to contextualise the size of it, but here's an example of it.

The leg room here's as good as the plane...

Dad actually penned (? performs?) a song of his own writing for Naina about a swing. Whenever she hears it - even over the phone apparently, she starts jumping up and down.

More photos

Naina's at ease sitting up now. She eats in a high chair, plays sitting up and enjoys standing (aided) whenever someone is kind enough to pick her up.





I haven't countered the number of facial expressions she has. But it is at least five (these four plus the very deep long distance stare). I'd call the deep long stare her brooding phase. Actually, N and I went for a morning constitutional on Saturday and when we turned around to come home, N was in a brood. I could not get her to break her brood. I worry. Will she need black nail polish soon?

Unexpected dip

So after sun-bed and bath, we all went back to Mum and Dad's house for a swim, being a warm sunny Perth October day.

It ended up quite disturbing. The pool surface was painted over winter and no one had thought to check the surface quality after the painting.

At first Dad was quite in control. However, as soon as he stepped down on to the main surface of the pool he lost his balance and he and Naina went under. The cameras kept recording and the photos kept being taken as we all sort of had a stunned nervous laugh on our faces. Dad tried to hold Naina up but he only slipped further and took Naina down with him again. It all happened so quickly that we all stood there gob smacked. The third time he went down with Naina again, Deepti urged me to jump in, which I did, fully clothed.

Grabbing Naina, I pulled her up out of the water and into Deepti's arm.

Dad was fine although scared and Naina, I expected her to be coughing and splutterring and crying and screaming. Perhaps it had all happened so quickly, that she didn't even realise it was somehow different to a normal bath. It might be an urban myth that babies know how to protect themselves under water, for a few seconds at least, but it meant that N was ok.

She started crying a few seconds after she was out of the pool. But I think that was in reaction to all of us nervously coming close and seeing if she was okay. Which she was.

I don't think I've been more scared in my life when I thought about what happened. Seriously. I definitely appreciate how tenuous our hold on life can be.

First bath

Naina's a contented baby. That I think is a credit to Deepti. Certainly not my abjectlly (Bob, word check) woeful parenting (still can't put baby to sleep properly, grrr...).

Anyway, whilst in Perth, Naina spent some time in the sun. This is an exceptionally unusual occurrence, being a Melbourne winter baby. She spent the best part of an hour on the sun-bed (I'm sure that's what they're called Bron) without much parental interference, amusement etc required.

Apparently Ricketts have reappeared in Western countries in Nth Europe where Muslim women who wear the hijab and burka aren't getting as much sun as the traditional Muslim countries. I actually think this is probably bollocks created by a right wing columnist in the Herald Sun to promote intolerance and incredulity. But I stand to be corrected. Anyway, if it is true, I reckon Melbourne would be the most likely place for a baby to develop it in Australia.

So Naina likes the sun. This is good. Apart from occasionally coming close to banging head on wood (again, neglectful parent, initials, A.S.), she had a great time.

Still requires training on theory of gravity - but also, check out that morning hair!

Naina also had a bath with me. She found it particularly amusing. We seem to take a lot of photos at bath time and I seem to spend a lot of time trying to play with her hair.

Perth part two

I've sort of let the blogging thing go a bit. Not sure why. Perhaps I was using it as an anxiety release before we all went to Perth and I'm all easy and toasty at the moment with Naina, so less inclined to blog. Web-blog. We-blog. See, chilled.

I won't hagiographicalise (Bob, is that a word yet?) but here's some cool photos of the Perth trip.

Morning stroll to Melvista Gardens was a bit too much

Evening pouch ride was a bit too tiring

Dad tried to find the button on the universal remote that switched N off

Big shout out to all the ladies out there (with Dale)

Unreasonable contortion abilities (baby yoga)

Harriet Zara Scott

It seems a long time ago now, but before I went back to Perth, about the 10th of October, I caught up with the newest addition to the Scott family of Melbourne.

Harriet Zara (being held by her dad)