Who would have thought

As a parent, you constantly catch yourself saying: whoever would have thought I'd be doing such and such. The latest to make the list was our holiday in a campervan. Yep, that's right, we rented a sleek, 25-year old Toyota campervan in Cairns and took it on a one-week trip to and through the Atherton Tablelands, the hinterland of Cairns. Needless to say, Zoe loved it. Not only did she get to sleep in the upper bunk but when we were driving she was allowed to sit up front between Mama and Papa. Like a big girl, or even a grown-up. The first night we spent at Palm Cove, a beautiful beach just north of Cairns. Unfortunately, like just about everywhere at this time of the year in the region, we weren't allowed to go into the water because of the stingers. And it was hot and humid, in fact so humid that sleeping in that van was nearly impossible (except for Zoe). The next nights up in the tablelands were much more bearable, as it's a lot cooler up there at night. We headed to Aussie Oma and Opa's place near Ravenshoe, a 45-acre property in the middle of the rainforest at about 1000 metres altitude, and were very impressed by how beautiful and lush it is. Myriads of different plants, and of course plenty of kangaroos, even though this particular one was in a national park on the way. More pics from the trip: http://picasaweb.google.com/Myjens/AthertonTablelands

Laufender Meter

Sometime early January Zoe passed the threshold of one metre, or actually: shot over it - mid-December she stood 98 centimetres tall next to her measuring giraffe, four weeks later she had added 4 cm. Not accidentally she has also been eating up a storm since Christmas, and you can tell when you try carrying her.

Germany Oma

Oma Birgit came for a visit and the two of them got to hang out heaps. It was good fun but we did have one semantic problem - what do we call the grannies? Oma is definitely the flavour de jour, which is fine with everyone involved, the only thing is Zoe has two wonderful Omas, who she both got to see just days apart. So how to tell them apart? Hmm. Vivien suggested the classic Australian Nan and Pop for her parents, but somehow that didn't go down too well with anyone. Zoe just ended up just calling both Oma, without considering it any kind of issue. And these days if she needs to differentiate she just says Aussie Oma or Germany Oma. So easy.