Time to smile

I hope I am not jinxing things. It feels like we are nearing the end of an uphill, downhill, year- long endurance event. And we've survived it.

This year has been such a steep learning curve- but most of all it has been a time of gratitude and constant marvel at how understanding and supportive our friends and family have been.

We try not to talk about Ira too much, but people are genuinely interested and keen to hear 'he's doing great'.

Thank you to everyone around us for sharing in our first leg of this incredible journey that is parenting, working, and enjoying time out with friends and loved ones.

To say that we are looking forward to the Christmas holidays is a huge understatement. Time to reflect and just appreciate being together, relatively unscathed (aside from the second ear to ear scar proudly poking through Ira's messy curls).

Edie refers to Ira as Ira caterpillar, because she thinks that his scar looks like a long caterpillar. That's fine by us, as she refers to herself as Edie Birdie and has done since the age of about 2. She's into her imaginary sisters at the moment too. Her most recent sister was called Moore Wilson (after a Saturday morning session grabbing the weekend's fare). An improvement on the sister before that who was called Terrified.

Ira so far is just sticking with the babababa's. mamma's and dadda's. We're pretty ecstatic just to hear him squeak, babble and to see him flash his infectious grin. He had his first meal at Cobb n Co the other week (photo below) when we had cause to be in the fast- paced Wairarapa. It is so satisfying just to see him get a kick out of normal kid things.