A scenic tour of our new house

Hi, it's me, Gary.......

Due to the fact that no one else has gotten off their behinds to show you around our new pad, I've taken it upon myself to do the honors......

Dear Mister X

Dear Cousin Michael,
You have to cut and paste the html code from the MyBlogLog website and put it into the setting section of the blog. I was actually thinking of taking it down, because apart from you and Aunty Boezo, it just seems to attract spam.
Love Cousin Walter.

Yes, I am still alive!

Okay, I know this is becoming a bit of a theme, but I am terribly sorry about my laziness on the communications front! This five day a week business really takes it out of a boy......

Daycare have refused to install high-speed broadband in the nursery, so I just don't get the time or the computer access that I used to get (What is the point of having a Mummy in management if she can't pull some strings for me, I ask you that?)

We're all getting ready to move here. Mummy has been manically wrapping things in newspaper and throwing them in crates (defeats the purpose a bit there Mum). Daddy is, naturally taking things a little easier - he does after all have the next two weeks off work to catalogue his Star Trek videos. Speaking of which, the Foxtel people claim they can't connect pay TV to the new house until August and both Mummy and Daddy are wandering around, anticipating the withdrawal symptoms, muttering 'No lifestyle channel, oh my' and 'No sci-fi channel, oh my'........ah, the pleasure of watching my TV addicted parents suffer..... maybe now you can do more important things, like spend time with your only begotten son.

We went to meet the new neighbours last weekend..... there was lots of kids, including a four month old baby next door, so I'll always have homes to go to when the neglect gets too much.

Other than that, Madame Neglecto and I have made it to Mum's group quite a bit lately, but I have to admit, I'm a bit shy with everyone to begin with after such a long absence.

I'm not sure what else I know..... It's way past my bedtime and I'm getting kind of incoherent......

Love Wal

XOXO

Dear Aunty Becca,

Are you sure that this was the first time your tatas have appeared on the internet?
P.S. Mummy and Daddy are quite convinced that I look like Uncle Denis in that cardigan, that hat and pulling that face.....

My new favourite person.

As you may know, Mum and Dad's friends Pat and Cass are back in the country. Aunty Cass is fast becoming my new-best-grown-up....and the following correspondence demonstrates why:

Dear Aunty Cass,
How are you this week? I was just wondering if you still wanted to come and play with me this weekend? Mummy and Daddy have been quite beastly to me this week. They cut my nails, made me get out of the bath, made me eat vegetables......Oh the list goes on. I really think I need to spend some time with someone who will take care of me properly.
Love your favourite child at risk,
Walter.

Dear Walter,
Of course I am coming to play this weekend.
I am shocked and appalled by the abusive behaviour that your parents have subjected you to, and so I must make the effort to reinforce to you that not all grown-ups are mean and nasty. I was thinking that on Sunday we might play with loud toys in the bath, whilst farting out all the toxins caused by those nasty vegetables.
I will try to visit on Saturday too, but may need to have a little sleep-in on Saturday morning to prepare myself for the big day on Sunday with you.
I will ring your Mother and make sure that she isn’t doing any scary or horrible things to you this weekend, like getting your haircut or giving you injections. And don’t worry; your disclosure of her and your Daddy’s behaviour is safe with me. I will secretly undermine all their rules by feeding you chocolate cake while you swing around on the clothesline so that you can learn that life with me is heaps of fun, and your parents are boring old farts.
Lotsa big squelchy kisses and love from your Aunty Cass X

Edited by Mummy to say: You are so getting a haircut, boy.....

Update

I apologise for my silence of late, as most of you know I just don't get the time at the computer any more. So what have I been up to?

• I am now officially walking. I really can't get away with taking a few steps, then falling to my knees and crawling the rest of the way....damn it!


• I've had another bout of Bronchiolitis, but thankfully my neglectful parents haven't packed me off to the hospital this time.


• Mummy keeps muttering 'Gotta pack up the house....gotta pack up the house' and Daddy is sitting in a corner rocking back and forth chanting 'Can't throw it away.....can't throw it away'.


• Mum and I actually made it to Mum's group this week after a six week work enforced absence. I had forgotten who everyone was, until Eleanor started bashing me up for eating her banana.....then it all came flooding back...in glorious technicolor!


• We also got to see baby Abby yesterday, who was this little creature? Why does she look so much like Unkie Pat's brother John? And why was my Mummy cuddling her and getting all gushy?

Stay tuned for all these answers and more......

Suburbia....here I come!

Not content with just sitting back and watching in awe how amazing their only begotten son is, Mummy and Daddy have been busy.... very busy.

They are now the proud owners of a mortgage,

a big fat hungry mortgage!

I can't wait to fall over on the polished floorboards, tangle myself up in the chi chi window treatments, and put inappropriate items in the dishwasher. There's a reserve at the back for me to run away in, a quiet cul de sac to learn to fall off my bike in and several very busy roads to play on when Mummy and Daddy are angry with me.

One of my friends from daycare actually lives there at the moment, so she's been filling me in on all the best places to hide your Vegemite toast and the most dangerous things to climb on. We don't move in until July, so my parents have oodles of time to jettison the clutter they've collected over the last 8 years (yeah right.... says Mummy!)

Baby Boom

Introducing the next in a long line of babies recently coming into my world...

Violet Margery Motion.

Daughter of Laurinda and Derek.

Baby sister of Caleb and Issac.





Also welcome to Abby Jane Shea, of whom I do not have a photo.

Daughter of Janet and John

Happy Mother's Day

Dear Mummy,

Wishing you a happy mother's day......Well done old gel'.

(Just don't think you're getting any special treatment today though...)

Love Walter.

They're up to something....

Dear Luke, Tamika, Logan, Lachlan, Eleanor and Ella,

Did you guys realise that our Mummies went out last night.... without us?

How dare they abandon us like this!

Poor Lachlan was awake the whole night, wracked with worry about what his mother was up to.

Not impressed, Mummies, not impressed.

Imogen Frances

This is the newest member of The International League of Infant Anarchists and my new cousin,

Imogen Frances.

Welcome to the family, and my condolences to Clancy, who must now share her parent's love forever more.

A leave of absence.

"Walter, what's going on? You haven't been posting lately...."
Oh if I had a dollar for every person who has asked me that lately, I'd have a pile of brand new, glow in the dark dummies that nearly reached the ceiling!
I'm sorry everyone, Mummy, Daddy and I have been horrifically busy. Daddy's work has been a nightmare, Mummy's work has been a nightmare and given that they now abandon me at day care as much as Family Services will let them, I haven't had a chance to talk to you all. Do you think that day care would get high speed broadband installed in the nursery for me?
Apart from my ridiculously long days of incarceration, I've been going to people's houses for dinner and lunches (Thank you Maree and Peter [there you go, I mentioned you Peter!] and Ian and Kim), I've been taking a few steps here and there and I got my first comment on the blog from a stranger (well, someone whose blog Mummy reads).

1000

My apologies to my adoring public for the tardiness of this post.

We passed a major milestone this week, our 1000th visitor to The Wonderful World of Walter (give or take a few hundred...)

Thank you all so much for feeding my ego.

XOXOXOXOX

They have returned!

Guess who turned up on our doorstep last night?
None other than the famous Pat and Cass!!!!!!!
Appartently they had a few visa 'issues' and needed to come home ASAP.
YAY!!!!!!!
They are now tucked up in bed in our spare room, but Mummy said that 5.55am is not an okay time to go and hop into bed with two jet lagged people.....Awwwww......

See, I'm not the only one!

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/60623?utm_source=slate_rss_1

Virus Update

Chest: Still wheezy

Cough: Lessening

Bowels: A1 Condition

Temperament: Cheeky

Position: Back at Day Care yesterday.....Bugger!

Lost!

My knee fat and two of my chins.

Somewhere between the hospital and 'Gastroville'.

Reward offered.

Happy Easter

Just wishing you all a happy easter.

This is also my 100th post....I rock!

Adventures in Public Health.

Oh, have I got an adventure for you!

You may have noticed that I've been remarkably quiet here on the blogging front..... Well, I have an excuse. It's not that Mummy and I have been busy at work and childcare, but I've been in hospital.

Mid-way through last week, what the mum's from my 'posse' call my smoker's cough was getting a lot worse. On Wednesday, Mummy picked me up from childcare and the beautiful Natasha said she was a little concerned about my cough and that I had a high temperature. Mummy took me home, dosed me up on panadol and cough syrup, and sent me to bed (naturally after some gruel and a sound whipping...joking, joking....we were all out of gruel, so I had the crumbs from the bottom of the toaster.) After a shocking night's sleep, which Auntie Kathryn can attest to (she rang to bitch, sorry I mean talk with Mummy and heard me coughing and declared I wasn't sounding well) Mummy made me a doctor's appointment.The lovely Seema, our doctor took one look at me and started to go into cardiac arrest, sending me off for x-rays and ultimately to hospital.

After transversing the length and breadth of Canberra, several hours in Emergency and twelve hours since our initial appointment, I was safely tucked into a bed in the paediatrics ward, with god awful oxygen prongs up my nose, and even more offensive heart monitors attached to my toes. My blood oxygen saturation levels and my heart rate were having a hard time stabilising and frankly, I felt damn miserable.

Because Mummy and Daddy are cheap-skates and because Canberra Hospital is a teaching facility, we saw marauding hordes of interns, residents and registrars, all of whom had different opinions on what was wrong with me:

Oh, it's pneumonia..

Oh, it's an acute viral infection..

Oh, it's early onset asthma..

ad nauseum.

Eventually, the hoards in white coats settled on bronchiolitis. Then just when I was starting to feel better, I tested positive to some virus called RSV and had to go into isolation.After my second night in hospital, Mummy was a big, fat teary mess, Daddy was sick of driving back and forth and Nellie just wanted me and Mummy to come home, they let me out. YAY! Man the sun and wind on my face as we walked to the car felt good...and scruffing my Nellie and pulling my books off the shelf and distributing them around the room feels good too.

So, I'm home, and while I will miss the perks of hospital like frequent bottles of milk (something they phased out weeks ago here), foods like flavoured yohgurt and custard and unlimited access to my dummy, I'm happy to be home. I'll let you know in a few days how the smoker's cough is going, but now I've got to hassle that dog, she's had it far too easy the last few days!

Dear concerned stakeholders,

To Nanna, all the aunties, Unkie Al and anyone else who cares,

I have a new tooth.

Damn, once again I have to think up yet another way to drive Mummy and Daddy mad....

First week is over

Well, Mummy and I have just done our first week at our new day cares. And oi vey, we are tired. Now we know how Daddy feels. I don't know where we will find the time for blogging now. Any suggestions, apart from my patented 4 am wake up?

Conclusion

It makes me sad to say, but yes, dear loved ones The Festival of Wal is over. Yesterday we had our Mum's Group birthday party which signified that my birthday had drawn to an end. No more cake, no more happy birthday song, no more presents.
But anyway, me and my posse gathered with our parents at a local park and got rained on. We had lots of yummy food, everyone played with my 'outdoorsy' toys, we had cake, we all tried to run/crawl away from the group and did I mention it rained?

Sorry Eleanor, I don't know why you're all the way over there,

probably because you're trying to run away.

So happy birthday everyone!

P.S Do you guys feel like this is rapidly becoming your blog too?

One day I'll be describing this to my therapist.

Thank you Eleanor for the wardrobe assistance.

Happy birthday to me!

A BIG thank you to everyone who made this the best birthday I've ever had!

To my son on his first birthday

Hi, this is Walter's Mummy here (what? don't get you nappy in a knot...of course I know your Blogger password...if you ever end up having a sister I will know the password to her on-line diary when she's a teenager too!) I'm not here to defend myself from all your World's Worst Mother allegations, or to explain why I won't let you have junk food or run with the good scissors, I'm here to wish you a happy birthday.
To my darling boy,It has been one year since you came into our lives,52 weeks since we saddled you with a name like Walter (a pox on all those people who said "You cant call the poor child that!", I bet they cant imagine you as anything else now and I still think you have the hippest name in the playground), 365 days that I have been your mother. The last year has been the quickest, hardest, most wonderful year of my life. From the blissful 'Gee this is easy' first three months to the agonising 'eating and sleeping is for pussies' next three months, to the last six months of playing, work, childcare and normal life.
I love the way that your face lights up when you see me and you drop what you're doing and crawl over to me demanding to be hugged. I love the way you rest your head on my shoulder and then try to slip in a sneaky 'nibble' on my collarbone. I love the way that you use my legs as a balancing rail when I'm trying to make coffee or do the dishes.
I love the way that you probably love Daddy just that little bit more than you do me (it suits my inner maschocist, having to work for your affection) and the way you follow him around the house when he gets home until he relents and plays with you. I love the way that you never let poor Nellie have a moments rest, that she is just a little dog shaped entertainment package in your eyes.
I get a kick out of seeing you reach those alternative milestones like tearing the first cover off a book (Australian Impressionist painters in the 1890s, I believe...excellent taste, my boy...that'll learn that Arthur Streeton!) or watching you hide your blocks and cars in the tea towel drawer. You seem to have gotten your love of musical instruments (nay, anything that makes noise!) from Daddy and your love of books from me. I love hearing you laugh, from the deep belly laugh of when we tickle that spot between your second and third chins, to your expectant giggles when you're hiding in the lounge room curtains, waiting for someone to find you.
So, my beautiful bear, I wish you a very happy first birthday. I thank you for what you have brought into our lives, and I thank you for being our son.

More bloody changes

I don't know why Mummy keeps doing this to me, but we as a family are undergoing yet more changes.

Mummy has a new job as a Director of a childcare centre (she keeps singing to herself 'Got an office, got a desk, got a computer, don't have to touch children no more, no more!') and I have a new childcare centre. Apparently Mummy said she'd only take the job if they offered her a place for me.

My new centre seems really nice and I had an absolute ball on my first day there yesterday (but don't tell Mum or Dad). I am going to miss my Manda, and my Renee and my Ayse, but I guess shit happens. The down side is that I have to go there five days a week....FIVE DAYS?! The outrage! The neglect! The lack of time for blogging!

An apology

Dear Eleanor,

In light of the unprecedented events this morning, I feel I need to apologise. You know how you and I 'accidentally' ran into each other outside your childcare centre this morning? I don't think the whole thing was so accidental after all, because after your evil Mummy took you inside and abandoned you, she took me home! To your house! In your car! In your car seat! And let me play with your toys! I knew something had to be going on, because my evil Mummy was all dressed up and was wearing high heels and perfume. And when she picked me up from your house she was all anxious and nervous, but now she's all excited and manic. I do not know what this is all about..... and I'm not sure if I like it!

So my friend, I'm sorry to be the one to break this to you, but your Mummy has been untrue.

I'll see you and your treacherous mother tomorrow and we can figure out what the hell is going on.

I'm back!

We apologise for this break in transmission, I've been away at Nanna's house, where we went to a whole heap of weddings.

This is Mummy's cousin Herbie's new wife Kim at the first wedding we went to where I got kissed and squeezed by a whole heap of great aunties with facial hair (now I know where Mummy gets it from!)

Then we went to the wedding of my Uncle and Auntie Monkey, whose names are apparently Tim and Sally. I made friends with a mysterious older cowboy at the reception, who stole my heart, my kisses and my toys.

Have horse and pyjamas, will travel

Just a quick pictorial update, seeing as the cyber world hasn't seen much of me lately.

Tamika lent me her rocking horse, which is kinda fun.

And Aunty Ten bought me some big boy jamies (amongst other things - thanks Ten)....They have buttons....I love buttons.

Her Cheating Heart

For quite some time now, I've had a sneaking suspicion that Mummy may be cheating on me. You know little looks at other babies in the supermarket, lingering cuddles with my friends from Mum's group. Now I have proof!

The other day, Mummy bundled me in the car as if we were going to daycare, but instead of going to see the one remaining Manda, Renee, Louise and all my posse at my daycare, we went to hers! We walked into the room that Mummy works in and suddenly she was swamped by babies just a little bit older than me and the kids my age just sort of sat there giving her filthy looks.

This I feel is tantamount to betrayal. I mean how would the dowdy wife in a Jackie Collins 'novel' react when confronted with the jiggly buxom 20 year old competitor? (Actually, I know the answer to this - she would have heaps of plastic surgery then shag the pants off the plastic surgeon.)Never fear, I've been paying Mummy back for her infidelity by waking up every hour three nights in a row .....

Payback is a bitch!

Things got kinda ugly from this point on

This is my friend Callum, who came over yesterday just to beat me up.....Cheers Callum!

Alternative Milestones

As a baby, and a functional member of infant-kind, people seem to be always interested in how I'm going re. reaching my developmental milestones. You know, all the friends who ask "So, is he crawling yet?...No? Well my son was standing at 5 1/2 months!" "So, I guess Walter must be walking around, keeping you on your toes...No?...Well my niece was walking at 7 months" (You get the picture.) I am happy to say that I rolled at 11 weeks, I sat unassisted at 6 1/2 months, crawled at 10 months and can now pull up to a standing position, provided there's a piece of furniture there, or Nellie stands still.

Mummy, however tends to place far more importance on some more obscure milestones. Such as: first time I vomited on Daddy, first flushable poo,first temper tantrum, first time I tried to put on her shoes and the first time I used the remote control as a telephone. I dread to think what milestones lay ahead in the future- first time I bite one of my friends, first time I scream "You're not the boss of me!" or the first time I come home drunk and try to pretend I'm sober and that me and Lachlan were just watching videos?

I'm sure that Mummy, with her years of early childhood training knows what she's talking about, but are these really the things that the clinic sisters will be looking for at my next check up?

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to go flush Daddy's keys down the toilet.