Easter Adventures

Every year at Easter our church all go off to Mapleton for the annual church camp. Last year we all went and managed to have a good time even though Max chose that weekend to push out 3 teeth and was more than a little grumpy because of it.

Unfortunately this year was not any better. We arrived at camp on the Thursday evening and had a good car trip since Max slept for most of it. When we arrived, however, he decided that he had enough sleep and didn't need any more. I stayed in our room with him and every 10 minutes, had to go over to his portacot, lie him down and tell him to go to sleep, while attempting to do the same myself. After at least an hour of this, Cam came back to the room to find me attempting to put Max to sleep in the bed beside me, and rescued both of us by taking Max for a midnight walk in the pram to try and soothe him to sleep. This attempt also failed, since Max was still wide awake and would every now and again say 'moon!' or 'stars!' or 'trees!' or something. Cam gave up on the pram and tried to tire Max out by hanging out with some of the other men who were still awake and chatting, but once again Max foiled these plans by enjoying every minute of it and high-fiving everyone around. At about 1.30am Cam decided that was enough and came back to the room to try and put Max down again, which he eventually managed by 2am by lots of patting on the back.

Friday was a fun day at camp, despite our lack of sleep. In the afternoon we had lots of fun sports activities out on the very wet field, where Max decided to show off his forward-rolling skills and got so very muddy in the process. While Cam was showering him he noticed a bad rash that Max had been developing for the last few days. I originally thought it was just nappy rash, so put some cream on it and waited for it to go away. It had gradually been growing worse and spreading to other areas, so we thought we should go and get it checked out. So Friday afternoon we all drove down to Nambour hospital, only to find that Max actually had 'school sores', which is a type of staff infection that often goes around in schools or daycare centres, and which is highly infectious to children. We didn't want to risk him infecting the other small children on camp, and so decided to pull the plug on camp and head to Bli Bli to Nanny and Poppy's place instead.

It was probably just as well that we didn't stay, since Cam caught a tummy bug that apparently a few other people on camp also came down with, and was stuck in bed for much of Easter.

But it turned out ok, since Max loves visiting Nanny and Poppy and had a great time. He loved the chance to eat lots of 'chockit' as well! Bronwyn and Lance even came down from Hervey Bay to visit, and Max loved playing with his uncle Lance.

Max's First Sleepover

Last Saturday was the wedding of Shona and Aaron, two good friends of Cam and I (congratulations guys!). And although we took Max along with us to the ceremony at the church, we knew he wouldn't handle being kept up so late and expected to stay still and quiet at the reception while his Daddy was busy being the MC, so we had to try and think of who we could ask to babysit for us.

All of our relatives who live in Brisbane are over on the north/west/east sides of town and it's a major effort for them to come over to our house to stay here and put Max to bed, so we thought a better plan would be to drop him off at the twins' house to sleep over with them. It was on the way over that Max surprised us by saying 'cousins!' when we told him that we were going to visit Gabbie and Elke.

By all accounts the three of them enjoyed the visit a lot, especially Max. He wasn't at all upset about Mummy and Daddy leaving him at their house since he was having too much fun riding their bikes and playing with their toys. Shortly after we left they piled all three kids into the car and went to the park, which was another huge hit. Sounds like even the car ride was fun since they were all giggling away in the backseat.

When they got home it was time for dinner and a bath, which was yet another fun experience since usually Max has to bathe alone, and he definitely had more fun being able to share it.

After bathtime the three of them had fun building some block towers, and had even more fun sending them crashing down. Max and Elke thought this was a great idea so they also decided to crash on the floor!

Another great way to have fun with your cousins is to race them around the room. Apparently the three of them just kept running laps from the living area into the kitchen and back again. This was fine except when they decided to do it with a bucket over their heads so they couldn't see where they were going!

After so much fun it was finally time for bed, but not before Max gave Elke a goodnight kiss.

(That's right mate, hold them down so they can't get away!)

After a nice drink of milo, all three were happy to go to sleep and didn't make a peep until morning. Cam and I also slept over at the Mutzelburg house, so we were there to get Max out of bed in the morning (much too early!) and head back over to our side of town in time for church.

Many thanks to the Mutzelburgs for giving Max such a good time so that Cam and I could enjoy the wedding, and congratulations to Aaron and Shona!

How Cool Are You?

Max is generally going through a very cool phase at the moment. He is at that precious age where he just does stuff that makes you laugh or go wow I didn't know he could do that.


Here are some cool things he does from time to time:
Max likes to race Jo up and down the drive way and then he gets to hit the metal garage door to prove he has finished. The whole time he is running he giggles and says go go go...

Yesterday in the car on the way to see his cousins we told Max that we were going to see Gabi and Elke he replied with a joyful "Cousins"!. We had no idea he could say cousins let alone know who they are.

He has started to walk around the house backwards and then when he hits something slides to the ground with lots of chuckling.

He has started imaginary play so he feeds his toys or yesterday he told us Leo had done a poo. Unfortunately when you ask Max if he has done a poo which he clearly has from the smell and his strained facial expressions give us a joyful "Noooooo".

He loves to spin around on the spot and then fall down.

At the fruit and veg shop last week he gave the lady his compulsory hi-five and then pointed to his hand repeatedly saying "dicker, dicker, dicker" I then said no mate they only give you stickers at Woolworths. I am glad we get given spares from Woolies which we keep in the car for such occasions.

While enjoying our family pastime of reading junkmail Max has ability to point out every time a wiggles dvd is featured. He can now say all of there names. Murray is his favourite we think because he likes to play air guitar.

Somehow he knows what chocolates are when he saw ferrero rochers in the coles catalogue he said "yum, chocolate". Jo denies sneaking him chocolate when I am not around.

He does lots of other quite cute thing which I shall not bore you all with now. But we really love Max and the adventures he shares with us.

How to Get A Gumnut Out of a Small Child's Nose and Other Adventures!

Yesterday the 25th of March is Jo's mum's birthday. In honor of the occasion we got the clan together for dinner at the Everton Hills Tavern in Brisbane to celebrate as Jo's dad was already down and staying at Jo's sister's place. I got picked up straight from work and the kids were playing when Elke started to point to her nose and said "nut" it took her to say this a couple of times to realise she had a gumnut up her nose. Amy went to grab the tweezers and in this time the gumnut had gone further up!

So after a call to Kurt's sister who is a GP who didn't really know what she was working with because she couldn't see it. They also consulted several other medical types that suggested they go to the big hospital. To be honest we all thought they would miss out on dinner completely. They got to the hospital and when they got to see a doctor they had a look and got Amy to close the unblocked nostril and blow through Elke's mouth real hard and the offending gumnut popped out!!!

They were able to join us for dinner and a good time was had by all. The pub was no ordinary pub it was designed specifically in mind. When you walk in you see heaps of high chairs and a a massive playground for kids from 1- 12 and a computer games room. The computer games room had a camera and if you sat in front of one of the plasma screens you could watch your kids play in the computer game room. To really push it's kid friendly credentials they had their own permanent carousel. Max had 2 rides through out the night and had an absolute blast.

We left at 9 which is very late for Max and he was tired but not a little bit grumpy which is a win win situation for all concerned!

Happy birthday grandma!!

In the Kitchen with Max

Our internet has returned, finally! So here are some photos from a while ago now, but still worth putting up.

On Valentine's Day we decided to make some gingerbread biscuits and take them over to Cam's sister's place for a visit. Cam had recently worked during the Tupperware conference at the BCEC and so had some gift Tupperware such as a mixing bowl, cookie cutters, spatula, food containers and this gorgeous little kids chef's outfit, so we thought this was the perfect opportunity to use them and to get Max helping out in the kitchen.






He loved it, but just made so much mess that I had to end up taking over. He didn't mind too much, and then enjoyed helping us to eat them afterwards.

When Will We Return To Our Normally Scheduled Programming?

Just to keep everyone up to date. We are continuing issues with our internet/phone and have been for the last 2 weeks. We are doing well and once we get back to normal we will update with some new pics etc.

Thanks for your patience.

Cam, Jo and Max

Down On The Farm!

A bit of a Batkin family update for you all. In the upcoming weeks Jo will be going back to work from home two days a week. Jo will work on Monday and Friday. Mr Max will go to a small daycare within walking distance. We have decided to do this for a couple of reasons including keeping Jo's skills up and her brain engaged and allow Max to interact with other kids and will improve his social skills.

To allow this all to happen Jo had to duck into her work at the Valley in Brisbane and update the files on her work laptop and catch up with what she will be working on. Max and I dropped Jo off and then proceeded down Brunswick St to New Farm. Cam Watt with whom I once worked was a former resident and always reffered to it as "The Farm". Jo had packed Max and I some morning tea but we went to the New Farm Village Bakery to grab some extra treats. It is a great little bakery and does not look like it has changed much in about 30yrs. The cabinets and trays look like they have been used for that long. The food looks the same as when I was a kid. They have old school match sticks, cup cakes, hedgehog slice, gingerbread men, lamingtons and vanilla slices etc.

We went with the hedgehog slice (chocolate) they have caramel hedgehog and chocolate and Max scored a gingerbread. These were exactly how a gingerbread man should be freshly baked and not in a pre sealed plastic bag, chewy, tangy and sweet with ginger. They also had only 2 smarties for buttons and the eyes were currants.

Being a Thursday we were able to get a great park right in front of the playground of New Farm park which is a large park with beautiful jacaranda's and rose gardens down by the river. The playground was huge with a massive fort at the back which had several levels and slides and 4 or 5 kinds of bridges. Max and I had great fun climbing all over it and going down the slide. The problem with the slide was that there was no way to the ground near by excpet for the slide itself. So Max would slide with me behind so he could climb up the bridges which suspended and had gaps in it so he could ride the slide again. He really enjoyed me riding on the slide behind him and catching up and hitting him. He thought was so funny and would giggle and say moah (more) over and over again. Here are some pics:


We stopped twice for morning tea to get some fluids in him. He really like the gingerbread man and ate most of it all himself. He also wolfed down the grapes and nectarine as well.

After nearly two hours of playground fun we packed up and went and picked Jo up. Max managed to stay awake with the helps of some of his favourite music so he could sleep at home which he did for ages.