A new milestone for William!

William has just drawn his first face tonight. Andrew and I gave such an enthusiastic response that he has now drawn 8 faces! We love them. It is so exciting. I want to wallpaper the house with William’s faces. We think they are amazing. William says “This is brilliant”. He was given some fluorescent pens and special paper by friends we visited last weekend, which are such fun he has been inspired to take a new step and do something he hasn't done before. The first one had just eyes, nose and mouth, the second also had a head and now they have eyebrows! Then one had just one hair on his head.

Williams first ever face (with a very big smile):

Second and third:
(There are two faces here. The bit to the right of the open mouth is, apparaently, a place to park your car. $%^!?!!?!)


I’m loving overhearing the conversation as Andrew and William draw faces together. William: Dot, dot, dot, dot (as he draws eyes).
Andrew: Does this face have hairs in his beard?
Andrew: Where are his eyebrows?
William: He doesn’t have eyebrows. He only has one hair on his head.

According to William, this is Rumplestiltskin:

This one is a whole family of heads (the Daddy head has a beard!):

This one is a head inside a head:

Sunny Days

Today we’re enjoying more of a lazy day by ourselves, not meeting up with anyone, just going to the swimming pool, doing some chores, visiting the library, and taking Toby for a walk. Tomorrow we are off to Inverloch for Easter, with Alice, Ian, Patrick and other friends of theirs who have kids a similar ages to our two. We’re hoping to see Wilson’s Prom while we’re down there. The only bridge to the Prom was washed away in recent floods, but we hope will be rebuilt in time for us! Dinosaur bones were also found on a nearby beach, so we might be able to do some fossil fossicking.



On Monday my Uncle Ian (mum’s brother) and his wife Kathy came over to see us. It was great to catch up on their news – they spend half the year living in San Antonio, Texas, where Kathy is from.



We visit the local park to play (and climb trees) regularly. I think we could all get used to living on permanent holiday quite easily. Going back to work in May will be tough. Being on holiday allows us lots more time to take pics of the kids, which is great. We are also loving having so much time to play together. William has been having a ball with some of the lego that Alice and I used to play with. He keeps requesting to 'play with train tracks'. He also reminds us regularly, that 'me, Grandpa and Toby are best friends'.

Relaxing and socialising

We’re all continuing to have a lovely time catching up with family and friends. In addition to general lazing about and the occasional standing on one foot….




…… we’ve also been up to country Victoria to see friends Duncan, Kellie, Maggie (in Ballarat), Misty, Dave, Tilly (in Buninyong), Justine, Mark, Angus, Abby and Miranda (in Elphinstone). It is great to get to chat with so many friends – I’m really enjoying it. The kids quite like having a whole new set of toys to play with every day, although when William is tired, he does request to 'go home to Grannie and Grandpa’s'. The holiday is an understandably big change in their normal routine. Sophie is a huge fan of all the pet animals we've met, getting very excited by any cats, dogs and horses our hosts had. She shows no fear, cuddling spaniels, Alsatians, and ridgebacks. She’d point and jig up and down for a cat, try kissing all dogs and was inspired to say her first word: cat. Or, more accurately, caaaaaaaat, as she says it. See below:


Her other recent milestone was tooth number eight.


There has also been some tricky climbing done by William, feeding apples to Henry the horse, strawberry hunting by many kids, and the odd drink out of a boot (by William) on a picnic in the park last week.

Doing lots of normal things in Melbourne

It is WONDERFUL to be home visiting my family. We're doing all the normal things, like taking Toby the dog for a walk each day, playing in the park (three local playgrounds have been checked out so far), having a croissant and coffee at the local cafes and visiting my sister, brother in law and nephew, to see their new house for the first time. Sophie has been practicing walking more than ever before and now regularly walks 3 metres without plopping onto her bottom.





Sophie celebrated her first birthday the day we landed. William helped her blow out the candle. How lovely to celebrate it with Grannie, Grandpa, Aunty Alice and Toby the dog. She really loves Toby, and keeps pointing at him, saying "Duh, duh, duh" then just as you think she might be trying to say 'dog' she'll say "Bah, bah, bah". She keeps her beady eyes on him, wherever he is in the room, and likes chewing his toys. Bound to be good for her immune system!




We've also been for a swim in the local pool which was enjoyed by all. Today we met up with Melbourne friends (most of whom have 1-3 kids by now) at a restaurant by Albert Park Lake for lunch. We saw some black swans which are pretty with red eyes and beaks. Andrew quite enjoyed driving through the chicanes of the Formula 1 race track, which still remains as it was raced here last week. You can imagine how we really hoooned through them, in a family car with two kids in the back seat. :)

Sophie met a large, young Alsatian (called Walker) showing now fear, and whom she tried to kiss. William has a healthy level of caution, but did give Walker a couple of pats.

Hot children

They both melted a bit in the 34 oC, 75 % humidity weather in Ho Chi Minh City.

We are tourists!

William often requests to wear the same clothes as either mummy or daddy. So, we gave in and bought a matching outfit at the market. We also had a fun ride on a "cyclo" during which Sophie clapped her hands alot in happiness. We visited the Jade Temple which had lots of turtles and incense.




William has been wonderful at helping look after Sophie, as Andrew and I take turns to meet scientists and medics at the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit here. I had a great meeting with them today - they were most helpful and full of info on the work they do as well as what it is like to bring up kids in HCMC. I'm so glad that we made this stop over here - I feel that we are no longer just a naive and idealistic couple dreaming of taking their young family to live in a tropical location. We have a much better idea of what the reality of life here would be like, and I still think we are pretty keen!



PS William also has a fever now - 39oC this evening. I had better go to bed now, as though we all slept very well the first night, I've been awake since 2.30am this morning, so feeling very jet lagged.

Update from Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam

We all survived the flights without too much stress, even though Sophie had a fever. At least being second time parents we were all prepared for such an event and had everything with us that we needed to help her. We found a nice place for dinner last night - kid friendly, both local and more Western food (I had goat, but they also had deer and boar on the menu) which they barbequed on a hot plate in the middle of the table. You can imagine which young man liked that! We also found a great park nearby with sand and lots of good things to play on. Here, the kids generated more attention - both adults and kids came up to them to stroke their cheeks, say hello, stare, and pick up William (eg. to help us negotiate some steps). When I took S to the nearby market, at least 50 people pinched her checks as she slept in the pram, "how cute, how many month?". It must be pretty foreign to W and S, who are coping fine with it so far - they seem to take it in their stride, while looking pretty stunned by the heat anyway. I should add that Andrew's beard is also generating a lot of attention, which he seems to be coping with well!