I worked four days in week 45 of Joseph's life with us...I had some training to attend. Joseph had another great time at Bear Park with lots of water play, painting and playing with Jasper the cat (poor cat!).

We had a busy day on Friday supervising all the tradesmen who are working on our bathrooms. Joseph is fascintated with Steve (the builder/project manager) and always goes out the front door to check out his van. Here is a picture of Joseph helping Omron the electrician change the light fixtures in the kitchen. Joseph was a big fan Omron's tools (especially the level which he had a great time banging on the ground) and the spools of cables.

Joseph continues to be adventurous on the eating front although he doesn't seem to eat as much when he's with us vs when he's at Bear Park. He is getting more interested in feeding himself and on Friday morning I let him loose with the weet-bix at the end of breakfast. I kept finding weet-bix everywhere throughout the rest of the day (and on me as well). You can see all four of his top teeth quite clearly too!

Dan and I had sushi for lunch on Saturday and Joseph really got into it scoffing down two pieces with salmon and avocado. The sticky rice was quite difficult to clean up and I have been finding grains of it all around the house!!

Week 44 of Joseph's life saw him doing four days at Bear Park as I had some meetings on the Monday. He must have been going some kind of growth spurt as he has been eating loads of food and waking for an extra bottle during the night (plus another tooth just cut through as well).

We have been having our bathrooms "refreshed" and here is Joseph having his first shower in the new downstairs bathroon. He isn't quite sure what to make of the hand held shower head!

Uncle Gerry gave Joseph an Australian t-shirt for Christmas and Joseph wore it to Bear Park on Thursday. He may well be wearing it more often given the diabolical performance of the NZ cricket team of late!

Crawling, standing and now cruising take up a bit part of Joseph's day. Here he is crawling around the courtyard. I caught him going up the stairs on Friday so will be getting that stair gate once the builder have left. He will walk along the sofas and will also walk if you hold his hands and help him along. It is fascinating watching his development especially since he only started crawling a few weeks ago.

I am trying to instill a good washing ethic into Joseph (so the Vincent obsession with washing continues!) and he does find pegs quite interesting and the clothes horse a handy walking/standing frame.

We all went back to work this week - week 43 - and Joseph is nearly 10 months old! Dan went back to work on Monday 8th and Joseph and me on Tuesday 9th.

Joseph was very excited to be back at Bear Park and the teachers (especially Christiana and Hiromi) were very happy to see Joseph and see all his new tricks. For his first day back, Joseph wore the t-shirt and board shorts that Nana Joan gave him for Christmas. He is having a great time at Bear Park crawling around all the rooms, exploring all sorts of new nooks and crannies and also eating up big!

Here's a shot of Joseph's new tooth - upper left. It is coming through at a great rate of knots and he is putting it to good use with all different kinds of food - especially apples and crackers. It is also good for tearing toast apart. The tooth on the right side is nearly through as well so I'll try and get a pic of that soon too.

Today the sun was out and we spent the late afternoon in the garden, Joseph had a lovely time checking out all the plants, the tiles and the wastewater drain.

Week 42 of Joseph’s life coincided with the first week of 2007. We had our second week at home as a “family unit” – although I did go back to work for two days on Wednesday 3rd and Thursday 4th January! Dan and Joseph spent quite a bit of time up in Cornwall Park checking out the sheep, cows and chickens. However, they had to do maintenance on the mountain buggy before they could head out to the park.


Joseph has become even more incredibly speedy on the crawling front. Once he gets going there is definitely no stopping he. He has learnt how to get out the door onto the veranda and once he’s outside, he tears around the courtyard and then onto the grass. He likes doing a bit of weeding and generally checking out his “patch”.

Another milestone that Joseph has achieved is pulling himself up to standing. He is doing this with increasing regularity and also with increasing confidence. He will pull himself up on the couch, the mountain buggy, his cot, the dining room chairs and as of this morning, my leg (using my trousers as leverage).


The three of us went to Devonport on Friday for our first family trip for 2007. We drove into the city parked at Dan’s work and then caught the ferry across.

We then walked to Cheltenham Beach and Dan took Joseph out to the water’s edge. Dan said that while the scenery fascinated Joseph, he wasn’t too keen on letting go of Dan to have a paddle in the water! We think he’ll be ready to do more exploring this time next year! We walked back to Devonport and had an ice cream before we got on the ferry. Dan and I each had a double cone and Joseph enjoyed all four flavours – moccasin, cookies and cream, caramel fudge and “gold rush”.


He also enjoyed getting stuck into the cone.