Mixed bag of events

It's been a little hard getting back into the comfortable rhythm of everyday(ness) after our holiday. But we've been back for two weeks, and only this weekend did Jef put all the bags at the front door ready to go back into storage. Kien has been waking constantly every night - prior to going away we had him sleeping through the night for an entire week! I've hardly taken the camera out from the case, and the Steve Jobs biography has had me curled up in bed with my iPhone not soon after I've put Kien to bed...and now the duty free gin bottle is half empty. I'm not feeling down or anything like that - I'm just, well, hibernating, I guess. It's a bit of a shock to the system coming back to the winter, even though I must admit that the days are noticeably a little longer and it really hasn't been that cold.

Jef and I left the kid in daycare last Thursday and drove up to Dargaville for Jef's great uncle Mostyn's funeral. As far as funeral services go it was a good one; lovely stories of a man who lived a long and fulfilling life, touching and making other peoples' experiences around him richer and fun.



I first met him a few years ago at his birthday, held in the same place as the service on Thursday. Even at ninety something uncle Mostyn was witty and spritely.





Jef's family is vast on his father's side - lots aunts, uncles and cousins.







Lots of fond tales of family summer adventures at Glinks Gully. Plans are in the pipeline for a re-union and the creation of new family traditions. Here's a neat video Jef's cousin Jacki shared on Facebook.


Here's the link to the youtube clip if you are having issues seeing it here.

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On Saturday I took Kien to Baby Loves Disco for the very first time. It was an event run in conjunction with Ponsonby Plunket.



I think if Kien was a little older this would have totally been his thing, but instead he mostly wanted to experience the event on my hip, which made it a little tricky for either of us to enjoy it. Plus, OMG the place was packed! I honestly did not think these events were that popular - boy was I wrong!





I don't think Kien is 100% well either - although there is nothing obviously wrong per se except for a slight runny nose. But Oh Brother, has he been whiny and cranky, and the constant nightly waking up makes me suspect teething (is that possible with already 18 of them through?).

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Sunday - my birthday. I spent the morning in bed while Jef attempted to tidy up and look after a clingy toddler, and he made me a lovely coffee. We then decided we should go out for dinner, so we needed to sleep the toddler so he could last a little longer in the evening. You know that when you try engineering a toddler to sleep when you want him to - it doesn't quiet go the way it is supposed to. 1 hour of driving on the motorway south and then turning around and driving north until you get to Albany before the boy finally closes his eyes! We park up at Jef's work, he fetches me a coffee, I'm editing a movie, and the toddler wakes up 30 minutes later. So we drive back home, Kien drifts back to sleep, and we spend the next hour in the car reading. Then Kien wakes up and has a tantrum because his mother took him out of the carseat instead of his dad. Hey, at least I can see the funny side of this story.

I went off for a run to the Harbour Bridge via Westhaven Marina and back, and then we hopped on a bus to Queen St for dinner.

Tanuki Sake Bar - always a great place to dine.





We caught a Link bus back to Ponsonby, stopped into One2One for drink and enjoyed the gig for a bit.



Made me feel a little inspired to pick up my guitar again!