what a week

Bittersweet as they say. It is amazing how many situations in life are bittersweet. The two most common ones that everyone has some part in are birth and death.

Duncan's Grandma Babbage passed away last Friday, lingering what felt like a mammoth 5 days after a terminal stroke. She was a remarkable lady.

My family always remember the first time we met the Babbage seniors - at that stage they were in their late 70's. They came for a meal to my folk's place in the week before our wedding. "I'm Shirley" Grandma said - typically extroverted "and this is Neville" (typically much more quiet) "Easy to remember," she continued with that special twinkle in her eye, "Neville the Devil." How could you forget that. She was a very warm, funny and generous person who always took a special interest in her Grandchildren's lives. She is fully restored in heaven now, probably cracking jokes with her neighbours!

The grandchildren and their spouses took some special Grandma momentos away with them. I chose some brooches and was astounded when we got back to NZ that Duncan recognised one of them as being the brooch that she had worn to our wedding. How cool is that. It is a little gold flower with pearls on the stem and in the centre of the flower.

We had the best time camping out with and visiting the Sydney relis and Eden was adored by all insundry. Oh the bliss of having Aunty Lyndell and Grandparents take him for early morning walks in our newly aquired (just in time) TradeMe pencil stroller.

We had heard the original sad news 2 Saturdays ago just as we were spending time with bro Tim, Megan and Fin and also about to head off to Himatangi with the Heap Troughton whanau. We continued to travel to the beach and had what we knew would be an unmissable trip with dear friends. Whilst in Himatangi, poor old Duncan had to cope with just a humble pay phone for communication technology to book flights to Sydney and organize a passport for Eden.

I can't remember when I thought of it but having a cruskit for Eden to suck/bite on when he woke up early in the morning was great - kept him quiet for ages (we thought that when it was NZ 6am - even better on Aussy time at 4am!). In fact, the weekend at the bach was excellent preperation for Eden for the week ahead. He learned to settle himself in the portacot pretty well and he aint not got no stranger danger no more.

We just don't seem to be making enough progress with the whole eating real food thing and he was forced to try a few too many new flavours over the ditch which didn't help matters. Extending Eden's dietry repetoire is kinda hard. He still only eats about a maximum of 2 icecube sized knobs of puree/mashed food and often refuses to eat anything at all. Oh well, he's not wasting away of course. We'll get there eventually. If only he could survive on his favourites: pumpkin and carrot!