The week that was.

This post doesn't really have a specific theme to it. It's just an update on how we're going down here, because I vowed I'd post at least once a week, and so far I've stuck with that!

Viral gastroenteritis went thorugh the house this week. First Lily, who binge ate last night to make up for her almost week long food strike. She ate: Broccoli, pumpkin, corn, half a small sausage, a few bites of Daddy's lamb korma and rice, naan and yoghurt. Her tummy was HUGE after it, but I didn't mind as between Friday night, when she got sick, and Wednesday she ate maybe a cup of food total and only ate very small meals until last night, when she ate everything she could see.

Next was Archer. This was quite the experience for Bob and I as, while Lily had had colic and had gotten a few colds and things, she had never been sick like this. After a feed, everything would literally flood out of him, in great waves of slightly sour milk. He would soak himself, me, the nursing pillow (rest in peace) and the lounge. He didn't seem especially phased by it, but did become dehydrated. We just kept his fluids up and he's fine now. There was the slight problem that I wanted him to be in his bed, on his Angelcare, in case he stopped breathing after a vomit and he wanted to be in our bed because he was miserable. He won.

And then Bob got sick. Now I don't like to invoke the law of the man cold, especially as he was really very unwell, but let's just say the kids handled it quite a bit better than he did.

And me? Well, I never got sick. This was devastating as I REALLY felt like a bout of gastro would really help me shift a bit of baby weight. Nevermind.

Bob had Friday off this week as we had vaguely planned to do something for our anniversary and chose this weekend so we'd have four days with the Thursday Australia Day holiday. We decided, after signifcant badgering on my part, to go to Taronga Zoo.

It took us hours to prepare. I made huge lunches, packed clothing for 8 different weather occasions, most of them improbable and enough nappies to last until the apocalypse.

The morning started out diasterously. Archer was in NO MOOD and Lily pitched a fit when we left the house because she didn't have her shoes on as we find this is a barrier to her napping in the car and as she had gotten up a whole hour earlier than usual, we wanted her to nap.

When we arrived, I was in a mood so thunderous, I sincerely wanted to stomp my foot and demand to be returned home like a toddler. Archer had screamed for the better part of the 1.5 hour journey and Lily hadn't napped. That, coupled with the fact we'd wisely decided to put a Dora DVD on in the car, I was going to EAT the next person that annoyed me. Usually this is Bob, but this happened to be an unwary toddler and it's neglectful mother.

This kid ran full pelt straight in front of our easily 40kg pram (12kg of pram, plus 12 of toddler, plus 6.5kg of infant, plus easily 10kg of extra stuff), into another child, who was standing in group smack in the middle of the path and HEADBUTTED him. How Bob didn't clean him up, I'll never know. And I said "Watch your kids!", which illicited a round of protests from these idiots and their snowflakes. But I wasn't about to ruin my day even further by engaging.

My day conituned to stay unimproved by the fact that Bob INSISTED we see the Australian animals first. It took easily 15 minutes to find them, including a detour via the giraffes ("Giraffe!" exclaimed Lily, and promptly lost interest). Lily, bored, began to work her way towards an epic tantrum, and so did I, frustrated by how badly our trip was going. It's probably worth noting, Archer had not stopped fussing this entire time.

And then we found the Australian animals and things took a turn for the better. Lily saw the spinifex hopping mice and I don't think she's ever been so excited. "Mouse! Mouse!" And despite seeing animals that I felt were signifcantly more interesting, she continued to go on and on about the mice for the better part of an hour. Bob summed it up by saying, "I'm so glad we came all the way to Taronga Zoo for her to get the most excited about about something she can see at a pet shop anytime."

She did show a spurt of interest in the Tasmanian Devil joeys (dogs), but the mice were still, apparently, more exciting.

Her excitement about the mice waned when she saw the pig in the children's zoo. The "mig" was the stinkiest creature I've ever come across, and apparently took the same shine to Lily as she took to him because he came over and snuffled the fence where she was standing, biting the lock. I assume he though she looked like a delicious snack. Not appropriately worried about losing a finger, I decided it was time to move Lily on.

She was flat out terrified of the gorillas, which made me sad, because they are my second favourites (otters being my favourite) and was in awe of the lions. They were sitting very close to the glass and Lily's jaw actually dropped cartoon style when she saw them. "Whoa," was all she had to say.

And here, I detour to say: How disgusting are people? The lioness, frustrated by the idiots with their flashing cameras (umm, who uses a flash to take photos of things behind glass?) growled. And, rather than seeing this as a sign to leave the poor woman alone, people began banging on the glass to get her to do it again. She headbutted the glass in a clear "Fuck off" gesture. Instead of leaving her well enough alone, people contiuned to bang the glass. I turned and walked away. I seriously hate people like this. And, I might say that it's ALWAYS forgeiners. And no, I'm not singling out a race under a veil here. Americans, Europeans of all sorts, Asians. They always manage to be the people doing the dumbest shit. The ones at the lion enclosure were NESB Europeans.

As a second detour, at the emu enclosure, an emu was eating something off the wall (nothing a person had left, some organic looking stuff) and a tourist (Asian, FTR) decided to help by pushing it closer. I said, "They bite." And he either didn't understand or didn't care, because he continued to do it. Bob wouldn't let me stay to see him get bit, although it would have damn near made my day.

She liked the elephants, cheerily trumpting at them but she also pretty excited by the cable cars. We said she could on at the very end of our day.

Anyway, we decided now was the time to stop for a break. Archer had been fussy all day, and I wanted to try and nurse him to sleep (third detour, everytime I turned a corner, there was an uncovered nursing mum. I don't know if it's the proximity of the nursing mum chimpanzees and gorillas, and people are getting their inner ape on, or what, but I have never seen so many uncovered nursing mums in one place. This was good, as Archer was being a fussy nurser and kept pulling off, exposing my goods to the whole world). We had also been told to not bother with the baby tigers until at least 3 as they were napping and having health checks until then, and it was only 1:45. I decided to nurse him at the chimpanzee enclousure because I thought Lily might want to watch them for a while (mun-kee ba - monkey baby). As we got ready to leave, I commented to Bob that, since the hiccup of the morning, she had been an ANGEL, no nap and all. Bob agreed and we planned to let her choose a little something at the gift shop. She asked to get into the pram at this point and, on the way to see the otters, zonked out. Sweet, sweet baby girl.

The otters were making baby otters, so we didn't stay there for long, as its not quite as fun to watch this as watching them play.

And then we went to see the baby tigers. THey were sleeping, and as disappointed as I thought I should be by this, I was totally just tired and ready to go home. We didn't bother to wake Lily for the cable cars and instead walked to the exit.

Overall, the day was successful and we plan to go again for Lily's second birthday. This time we'll take her on the cable cars and, as a birthday present, buy her an animal encounter (feeding the giraffes, probably). But until then, shoot me if I mention such a big day out.