I like January

It's always been my favourite month. While December was a real cracker of a month, busy but very enjoyable, January has that slow post-festive feel to it, with strings of days with not much on, some extra luxuriating, and maybe even a trip away somewhere. Also it happens to have my birthday in it, late in the month, which automatically takes it up a notch special-wise. Mat's birthday is four days after mine, and each year we really like to indulge ourselves during the period between Christmas and our birthdays, which is a whole month of indulgence! Hmmm, hang on, if we add that on to the indulgence that happened throughout the whole of last December, and which seems set to repeat itself each year, that makes almost two months of indulgence. No wonder my pants are all tight! But hey, life is short, and two months of indulgence out of twelve seems alright to me. Just might mean I have to go pants shopping more often that's all.

So what am I doing for my birthday this year? Going to Tassie!! I am SO excited, seriously, like bopping in my seat excited. We are going for three nights, and hiring a campervan after flying into Launceston, which I chose simply coz last time we flew into Hobart and I'd like to see somewhere new. So three nights to take it easy and drive as we please and stop where we please, and see the north coast of Tassie, and eat yummy expensive food at fancy wineries and restaurants, woo hoo!! So the trip itself is my birthday present from Mat, and my mum and sisters are putting in to pay for some of the fancy eating I wanna do. People always rave about Tassie's food, and last time I didn't get to sample any of it coz we were doing it on the cheap and we just cooked for ourselves, but this time, I'm not going home without a couple of belly-fulls of awesome Tasmanian fare, washed down with some delicious local wines, thankyouverymuch!

And it will be our first time travelling in a plane with the wee little one. Who knows how it will go?? She has been slowly getting better at travelling in the car, which has been such an ordeal over the past year, to the point where she can now travel up to half an hour with few issues, and more if she falls asleep. Hence why the campervan is so good for us, coz we can travel in fits and spurts and not have to make our way back each night, and we can keep going the next day. Not to mention I love camping and caravans and caravan parks and all that stuff. But flying, well, it could be great, coz she will be on our laps and not strapped into a device which keeps her on her own (half the problem of the car), or it could be terrible, coz she might get restless and squirmy and start bleating her little bleat of complaint which she does when we are at a cafe or restaurant or something for too long and she wants to crawl and explore, as she is designed to do. We have bought her some new funky stuff to play with on the trip, so hopefully it will go well. And it's only an hour, at the end of the day, even if she howls the whole way, it won't be too long, for her, for us, and for the other passengers. But regardless of how the plane trip goes, me is excited....

Indigo has just been developing so much these last few weeks, it is such a joy to watch. Mat and I laugh and beam at her so often, it is such a wonderful shared bliss we have. She has learned more words (nose, frittata, banana, and of course her favourite food of all, cheeeeeeese! All said in her own unique babbly style of course, plus a bunch more but my mind is blank) and has also learned how to kiss, which just melts our hearts into little puddles of love. She kisses us on the lips unbidden, and she kisses her toys, and yesterday when she was listening to my mum speak to her on the phone, she kissed the phone! Those tiny little puckered red jubes of lips, oh my lord, does life get any sweeter than when your adorable daughter purses her lips and leans towards you and lifts her little head for a kiss??? If there is I am yet to find it.

So we pass the days in a lazy way, playing in the sandpit or the wading pool or in the outdoor spa, gardening and picking vegies for dinner, and dangling things in front of kittens and laughing as they jump around. We eat yummy organic fruit (I have just discovered the joys of organic stone fruits - WOW!!) as we lay on the trampoline, and go for walks, and hang out with family and friends. It's a damn good life I gotta say. I'm having a good year so far!