Morgan's 6th Birthday

Morgan turned 6 years old today. With Alex being born on the 26th, we now have two birthdays within a three day period every year!

I joined her at school for her Birthday Ring. I got to spend some time with her classmates, who were very friendly and polite.



When she got home, she was presented with her birthday present - two biscuit-coloured zebra finches! Her Mom selected a beautiful green cage for her - all I had to do was pick it up.



After we had visited her Mom and Alex at the hospital, I took Morgan and Nicholas to Spur for supper. Morgan was surprised by a loud group of staff wishing her a happy birthday. Her attempts at blowing out the sparkler in her dessert failed.

Happy Birthday, Morgan!!!

Alex Coakley is Born!

At 8:32am this morning, Alexander John Coakley (we call him Alex) was born. He weighed in at a pleasing 3.79kg. He is 51cm tall and aced his Apgar test (both of them, actually).



We are delighted at his full head of dark brown hair. He arrived with only a small scratch on his forehead from the forceps, but other than that he was in perfect condition.



Amanda pulled through really well - she never ceases to amaze me with her endurance. I certainly would not have weathered the birth as well in her position! (AT ALL!)



After some initial hesitance, Morgan and Nicholas warmed to their brother. They have been a delight at home helping where they can (except it would be nice if we could get Nicholas to stop jumping on the bed!).





Alex's Grandpa was with us for a few days leading up to the birth and the Big Day itself.



Our friends and extended family have been a delight since Amanda returned home with the baby by supplying us with dinner every night.

Amanda's Mom is staying with us at the moment, and she is a great help to Amanda.

My second Midmar Mile

This year's event was markedly different to the previous year due to one (fairly important) reason - I didn't put in enough training.  By a long shot.  Evidence:

The net result is that I got a rush of blood to the head, moved to the front of the group at the start and proceeded to get flattened by the swimmers behind me!  The fact that the prevailing wind was from the right and this happened to be the side that I breathed on did not help.  A mouthful of wave is fairly counterproductive.

My result for this year was a colossal 35,000 milliseconds faster than last year -  a time of 43m48s.

But do not fear, in the immortal words of Arnold - I'll be back...