Bittersweet

The annual Riverfestival started this weekend with a spectacular fireworks display along the Brisbane River bridges and F-111 flyover with afterburner, but we missed the whole thing, as Anya informed us that fireworks are scary (too noisy) and we were not keen to brave the crowds anyway. Maybe next year. So we spent the weekend pretty quietly, with small forays to the library and the park. I managed to attend my usual Saturday morning kickboxing class and had fiery thighs the rest of the weekend. I guess that’s good – one day, I might have thighs of steel, if I persist.

We’ve recently had the bittersweet pleasure of our little boy pottering around the house until all hours. (Meanwhile, his sister did not fare much better, playing surreptitiously in her bedroom when she should have been in bed and asleep.) All I can think is that perhaps the thrill of being in charge of his own destiny has gone to his head. He spends his daytime hours insisting on being accompanied at almost all times (“I’m crawling over here, but you’d better be there when I turn around!”) but in the evenings he is quite happy fossicking independently through all the kitchen cupboards, the recycling bin and various storage boxes while we spectate bemusedly from the living room. He doesn’t seem tired at all, and protests mightily when we finally decide that he must go to bed despite being terribly cute. This is quite a change from his easy sleeping ways since birth.

As for Anya… I was planning to report triumphantly that we had managed to banish lice from Anya’s head after three strenuous weeks of foaming, combing and “sit still! Anya! SIT STILL!” but this morning I was dismayed to still find several eggs in her hair. Her hair is so fine that the eggs are really hard to remove, and there is so much of it that it really feels like a Sisyphean task when I sit down to comb out the eggs one by one. I can only be relieved, anyway, that Callum, David and I have managed to avoid getting infested. I still feel itchy whenever I think about it, though…