Lachlan's Birth

Lachlan Paul Waddell was born at 10:01 AM on the 15th February 2010.

The birth itself was very, very different from Liam's. Due to Sophie's back injury he needed to be born by Caesarian Section, so the date was booked in a month in advance. This is opposed to Liam surprising us by being born almost 3 weeks early. It was a very strange experience on Sunday night, packing for the hospital the next day and knowing that we would have a baby in 13 hours' time.

On Monday we got up at 5:45 and got ready. Only I had breakfast as Soph wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything after midnight. Liam was staying with my parents (he had been staying there Sunday nights while Soph was injured so his routine didn't need to change at all) so we could just head straight to the hospital.

I was being optimistic as usual and assumed that it would all happen very quickly but we ended up waiting for almost 3 hours. Soph and I played Scene-It on my phone to pass the time - was quite good for the $1.19 I paid for it!

We went down to the holding ward (or whatever it's called) for pre-operation instructions. As Soph was having a general anaesthetic (due to her back injury she couldn't have an epidural) I was not allowed to be in the operating room. I got sent to the 'Daddy Chair' at about 9:30 to wait.

I read a book on my phone, mainly so I wouldn't just spend the whole time worrying. Just when I decided that it was time to stop reading and start worrying, a nurse came to get me. She said that everything had gone perfectly, and that I had a baby boy!

He was in an enclosed cot for transportation up to our room. The most striking thing about him was his hair - it was very light blonde, almost white in places! A big surprise after Liam came out with dark hair, which has subsequently turned blonde. I was delighted to have another boy, I was really keen for Liam to have a brother to play with.

We went to the weighing and measuring room, where he came in at 3.1kg and 49 cm. Then at 10:30 it was off to the 'Recovery Room' where he and Soph would be spending the night before being moved to the proper room. I was then left alone with my new son, waiting for Soph to wake up from the operation and be brought up.

It turned out to be quite a long wait - over 2 hours. Soph woke up in a lot of pain and it took some time to get it under control. So the baby (he wouldn't get a name until Soph met him!) and I had a lovely time cuddling and walking around the room. He was clearly hungry but he still did very well and hardly cried at all. I sent a message to my Mum to say that the baby had arrived as she had said she would worry if she hadn't heard by 10:30. She still had to wait to find out the sex though which must have been torture!

Soph was brought up at about 12:30. She was rather groggy from the painkillers that had been pumped in to her, but she was still delighted to see her new boy. She immediately attempted to breast-feed, and (unlike his brother, who took a few days to get the hang of it) he latched straight on and had a really good feed.

I was keen for us to decide on a name so we could start calling people - especially Soph's parents who hadn't heard anything yet (I wanted Soph to be the one to tell them). We decided on Lachlan Paul - Paul after Soph's mother, Pauline. We could then start the happy process of calling, messaging and posting the news of the birth of our son!

My Top 10 Songs of 2009

I missed the deadline for voting in Triple J's Hottest 100 this year, but I thought I'd figure out which 10 songs from last year were my favourites anyway.

Here they are, in no particular order:

Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse ft. Julian Casablancas - Little Girl
Phoenix - 1901
Jamie T - Chaka Demus
Lisa Mitchell - So Jealous
Flight of the Conchords - Carol Brown
Bag Raiders - Shooting Stars
Deadmau5 - I Remember
La Roux - In For The Kill
Children Collide - Farewell Rocketship
Passion Pit - The Reeling

Looking forward to the full countdown tomorrow!

Hottest 100 of All Time votes

Here's my votes for Triple J's Hottest 100 of All Time, which will be played over the course of a week starting on July 7. They're in no particular order.

Daft Punk - Digital Love
Phoenix - Too Young
Interpol - Evil
Led Zeppelin - Kashmir
Stone Temple Pilots - Interstate Love Song
Queen - Don't Stop Me Now
Belle and Sebastian - I'm A Cuckoo
Led Zeppelin - Stairway to Heaven
Boston - More Than A Feeling
Radiohead - Paranoid Android

They're not necessarily my favourite 10 songs, they're mostly "songs that I love that have some kind of chance of making the final list".

Walking and Talking

Liam stood up by himself for the first time on Tuesday, so I think he could be considered to have reached the 'walking' stage. He's actually been walking quite well with the aid of his block trolley (the same one I used when I was a baby!) for almost two months now, so it's not exactly an overnight development, but he does now seem to be quite keen to get up on to his feet and walk around. He got steadily better at it over the last week - 4 steps on Saturday, 17 steps on Sunday and the length of our hallway on Tuesday. He looks adorable staggering around the house, and he's always extremely pleased with himself, often giving himself a round of applause after his latest journey.

Liam can also say a few words now. He regularly says 'Daddy', but not with 100% consistency. He tries to say 'kitty' when he sees Koshka, but it generally comes out as 'Ti'. He also says 'ba' when it's bath time (possibly his favourite time of the day). Not exactly the Queen's English, but he's on his way!

Liam's First Birthday

Liam's first birthday was on Thursday. To celebrate Soph and I took him to the National Zoo and Aquarium. He loves watching Koshka and Holly (my parents' dog) so we thought he's probably enjoy watching some big cats and other animals! We toured the entire zoo, stopped and had some lunch, and then toured the aquarium. Liam wasn't quite as excited about the animals as I thought he would be - he had been a bit off-colour all week, as had I - but he still seemed to enjoy himself. His favourite animals to watch were the monkeys (I forget which species) flinging themselves about all over their enclosure. However his favourite part of the day was the aquarium; not because of the marine life but because he got to crawl around on the carpet and climb the stairs! Liam takes great pride in his mobility. My favourite animal was the giraffe. It's always surprising exactly how big they are, even though you know they're the tallest animal in the world!

Yesterday we had a small birthday party for him with our family (plus one guest each for Soph and myself!). Liam had a wonderful time being the centre of attention, and playing with his toys, both old and new. My parents brought over a wooden block trolley that I was given for my first birthday. Being over 30 years old it first needed to be restored - a split in the handle has been fixed, and the blocks repainted -but Liam just loved it, zooming back and forth across the room and taking out the blocks to chew on them. My favourite present that Liam received was the rescue boat and helicopter - boat actually floats! - from Hamish. It's my favourite mainly because Liam had a distinct lack of bath toys and had been getting a little bored in his baths of late, but this should keep him entertained nicely! He hasn't quite got the idea of presents yet, it will probably be his next birthday where he gets excited about them! Liam also had his first ever taste of cake (a wonderful barnyard-themed cake made by Soph) and despite being a bit wary at first, he was noticeably rather enjoying it in short order.

I've certainly had a wonderful first year with my little boy. I love watching him at play, crawling and walking (with support) everywhere and experimenting with everything. I love that we can play games together now, like throwing a ball to each other, and I find it amazing that he's started to play peek-a-boo with me - hiding down behind the armchair and then looking so ecstatic when he pops up again. And with his first word and first steps to come, I imagine his second year could be even better!

Crawling

Liam started crawling a few weeks ago. I had been getting excited about it a few weeks beforehand as he started to greatly improve his rolling and sitting skills, but a lot of people said that I should hope that he takes a long time to start crawling as he will be much harder to look after. And yes, Soph and I have had to rearrange our bookshelves (books we care about have to be level 3 or higher), the coffee table shelf (the tray of Liam's toys had to be removed as he kept hitting himself in the head with it, "stepping on a rake" style), and we have to be careful not to leave anything sharp or valuable on the coffee table or side tables. But it is completely worth it as it has made the three of us so happy!

For the first week or so he loved to follow us whenever we walked out of the room. After that he finally realised that he could go wherever he wanted and he was off! His favourite discoveries so far are banging on our DVD case, and pulling books out of our family room shelves. He's happier in general now, as he can entertain himself much more easily, and he can come searching for Soph or myself if he wants some attention.

Koshka isn't quite so happy with the new arrangement, as Liam as managed to sneak up on her and grab her tail a couple of times. She's not the most alert of cats! She's extremely good with him though, and so far hasn't had any reaction to the torture inflicted on her by Liam besides running away.

Anyway, I'm loving the crawling stage so much, bring on the walking!

My Top 5 Olympic Moments

Here are my five favourite moments from the 2008 Olympic Games - only the events that I saw live (or as "live" as Prime/SBS showed them, anyway) were considered!

5. Rowing finals
The first three rowing finals resulted in a win to Australia, a win to Australia, and second place to Australia. Certainly the best half-hour segment, in terms of results, that I watched!

4. Softball semi-final
Australia was playing Japan for the chance to play against the US for the gold medal; if they lost they would receive the bronze medal. Australia led 1-0 for a few innings but Japan scored then scored 2 runs to take the lead. The match looked to be over in the 7th and final innings with Australia having 2 players out and no players on base. However our last batter proceeded to smash a home run and the match was tied! The match then became an epic with 5 extra innings played. Despite Australia taking the lead in the 11th innings they ended up losing the match, but it was worth watching just to see that home run.

3. Pole vault
I was pretty tired but decided to stay up for the 4x100m relays and any of the pole vault that Prime deigned to show. They were showing non-live replays of bits and pieces of it until they realised that Steve Hooker had a good chance of winning a medal, and then they immediately went live and stuck with it until the end. My favourite moment was when Hooker was on his final attempt at 5.80m, and went a long way to the right on his jump but still managed to clear it. Although obviously the jump with which he won the gold medal was great to watch too!

2. Men's 100m sprint
Like with the pole vault I was rewarded for staying up late with an amazing performance by Usain Bolt. After his showboating 10-20m before the finish, to see the world record time come up on the screen was just unbelievable.

1. Men's cycling road race
The last hour or two of the race was just brilliant, with breakaway riders building up huge leads but then slowly being swallowed up be the peloton once more. Nearing the end of the race a group of five riders, including the Canberran Michael Rogers, finally seemed to have made a decisive break. A little further on three riders broke away from the leading group (unfortunately Rogers was not one of them) and that appeared to be that for the medals. However Rogers and the other rider who had been left behind started working together to catch the leaders, and the leaders themselves were starting to position themselves for a shot at gold, and the gap started to be reduced. Just as it looked as though Rogers was running out of time the Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara appeared from absolutely nowhere to catch them up, and then proceeded to tow the other two up to the leaders. The speed with which Cancellara caught up to the leaders made the other riders seem like they were out for a Sunday cruise. It came down to a sprint finish and Rogers finished 6th while Cancellara could only take bronze. Deifnitely a case of the race itself being much more memorable than the result!