Kieran's life

Crapped my pants,

took a nap,

sucked on some titties.

How was your day?

Birdsville races

Come the first weekend of September about 6000 Aussies descend on Birdsville for a weekend of hard drinking and gambling on horse races. It is the single most famous Australian piss up and it made the top 20 in my “Best Parties in the World book”. I had pretty much given up on ever being able to visit this cultural event as there are just 10 rooms in the hotel of the town that counts 120 souls which is booked out for the next 2 years. Camping with a baby would have been possible but it does get really cold and really hot in the desert. Besides it is a 24 hour drive on atrocious roads in the middle of the outback.

But lucky Bassie got lucky by participating in an e-bay auction to get 3 nights, all entries to all races, boxing ring, and evening entertainment. I won! I was even on the radio and have been called to confirm. Once there I’ll be interviewed live! Poor Kieran though. He’ll be bouncing for 2x 24 hours in a fourbie in the sweltering heat of the desert (that's like driving to southern Spain from the Netherlands for the weekend).

Aussie things

Two truly Australian things are: Vegemite and Australian football.

Vegemite is THE single most Australian product in the world. It tastes foul and only Australians have developed a taste for it. Jerome's reaction was "Aw damn!" and Stephane said "That's awful". In the Australian national museum you'll find Vegemite jars dating back to the 1920's, and every Aussie knows the song:

We're happy little Vegemites
As bright as bright can be.
We all enjoy our Vegemite
For breakfast, lunch and tea.
Our Mummies say we're growing stronger
Every single week
Because we love our Vegemite.
We all adore our Vegemite.
IT PUTS A ROSE IN EVERY CHEEK!
We're growing stronger every week!

Australian Football is a fun sport. It comes down to:
1. Kick, disfigure, maim and kill anyone who has the ball.
2. If you have the ball, run like the wind in the general direction of the goal.

You'll need to drink a few beers, eat a couple of dogs during the 3 hours the entire session. Footy as the Aussies call it is played in 4 halves of 25 mins each. At the end of the game, the public is invited on the field to kick a few balls themselves.

Gold Coast Surfers

While hunting for a parking spot I see a spot being freed up. Someone is waiting, but I wrangle my car in there. The chauffeur and passenger of the waiting car are unhappy and yell profanities to underline their unhappiness but do not insist as we are 4 and they are 2. I'm such a bastard :). But had they not lost their temper, I would have made a spot for the both of us as there was enough space for 2.

The Gold Coast beach looks fabulous and we can't wait to go surfing. Emma opts for the more relaxed Gold Coast experience and naps for a bit.

We surf, we see whales breach in the distance, we drink a bottle of wine from the Barossa region and walk on the beach.

Fourbie on Moreton

I bought a fourbie for two good reasons, to look cool and to take it on the beach. This weekend Stephane and Jerome were visiting us. So a perfect excuse to drive on the beautiful beaches. We're in the middle of winter so temperatures are about 28C (a bit warm the time of the year).

Driving along the water, it’s a 25km drive, we see dolphins close to shore. Why not try to swim with them and sure enough, one dolphin came to see us. Stephane and Jerome are ecstatic. We do a little fishing, drink a couple of XXXX beers, through the boomerang around and enjoy the glorious day.

I love my little car. Nothing really stops it except very deep tracks where the bottom of the car touches the sand. It's a great feeling ploughing through the sand. Then again, it takes a bit of XXXX-courage to put a brand new car through bad terrain.

Crap 'o-matic

So what about Kieran?

Well the soft, adorable sleeping little package that blinks, yawns and uses all it’s might to be cute is doing well. Except Kieran is hardly what was advertised when it comes to nappies. Where other parents change nappies of their offspring whispering completely retarded things, like: ‘well done’, ‘so cute’, ‘how adorable’; we are a bit reluctant to perform this unpleasant operation.

Kieran occasionally turns red and blasts yet another nappy full of baby poo. We’re talking quantity here. He looks pretty happy and quite proud when he pinches off yet another trucker sized load. If there is any correlation between the size of the baby and the size of his loafs, we’re in trouble. He has also become an expert at timing this reoccurring task: exactly 57 seconds after we’ve changed him. Yes our little crap’o-matic is doing fine and so are his parents.

The evil sandwich maker and Virgin Blue

Australians don't like long words. Anything longer than 3 syllables gets shortened and appended with a 'ie' or 'o' suffix. 'Wine Drinking Alcoholic' becomes 'wino', 'Premature Babies' becomes 'Premmies'.

And so while listening to the news on Friday we heard: "Virgin Blue chicken sandwiches cause 2 premmies in Queensland". Obviously Emma jumped from her seat saying: That's me! That's me!

Okay, so here is the full story:

On the flight to Perth, about 2 months ago, hungry Emmanuelle ordered a scrumptious chicken sandwich. That sandwich was contaminated with the Listeria bacteria that, 58 days later cause the premature birth of our son.

Virgin Blue was quick to add: It wasn't us! it was the evil sandwich maker we hire to make our in-flight food.

So Virgin Blue underpays the evil sandwich maker, who can't keep up standards because of the low price Virgin Blue is willing to pay, yet Virgin Blue sells this food on planes at sky high prices (and I'm not talking about the cruise altitude). B.T.W. Listeria is extremely rare (about 50 cases per year in Oz).

Our son, is doing fine, or so the doctors tell us. We are pretty sure he's being watched a little closer than your average premmie as the QLD government has stated that 'fortunately both premmies are doing well'.

Mum's Milkshake

Kieran is growing well; he took on 150gr since his birth. That's like me putting on 5.2 kgs... Which, coincidently I've actually done recently, but that's another story... So Kieran is growing which is not a big surprise since my wife produces more milk than your average industrial dairy farm, we're talking hectolitres here. The fridge actually broke down last week and I suspect it couldn't cope with the immense quantities of Mum's milkshake. We're actually storing it in a 20.000 gallons rain water tank.

As with any baby, Kieran is just cute... that's all he does: being cute, fart, eat, sleep and soil himself. Just like me when watching television in my hotel room (I've been to Port Macquarie twice in the past 3 weeks). He takes after his father already.