Chronicles of a Dive Ninja in training: The Auss-nuck's first trip down under

And now we turn to the wee Tyrant for an update free from the whinging and distracted ramblings of his parents. As are most things in his life right now, this was a great trip of firsts. And thus far, our little dude keeps on coming out in the green. Let's check the list, shall we?

1. Long flights

Prior to this, Jude had been to Taipei via plane twice and on all four hour-long trips, he slept the entire way. This trip was a double-banger combo of an 1.5 hour flight from Kaohsiung to Hong Kong (easy-peasy says Jude!) and an 8 hour flight from Hong Kong to Sydney (well, let's not count the chickens, eh?). How did he fare, you ask? Well, as afore-mentioned, the way to wasn't the best, but made it with no major trama, so score 2 points for the short one and 4 points for the long one. The long one on the way back was a sweet dream of smiles and camaraderie (with scores of people queuing up for cuddles), score 8 points of happiness; but the last hour and a half was hell on a plane (screaming all the way, ha ha ha), so minus 6 points. Final flight score: 8 points. Not bad at all, and certainly better than a lot of babies I've met on planes, let me tell you!

2. Long Car Rides
This is the very first long car ride (the only other one so far was a measly two hour and back to Kenting for the New Year, so it doesn't even BEGIN to compare with Sydney to Canberra to Melbourne back to Ulladulla back to Sydney.)

That was a total of approximately 30 hours in a car seat facing the rear windscreen with nothing really doin' except maybe some lame-ass conversation with his exhausted mom for a LONG TIME. In all honesty, the judge has no idea how to score this one, so considering that all three of the contestants made it out of the car alive and relatively sane, we'll score the little guy slightly over half a point an hour - Car ride total: 20 points.

3. Sleeping in Strange Beds that are Way Too Small for Him and His Two Parents
The contestant Jude and his parents changed houses 10 times, and while in most of the places there was an entire spare room at their disposal, they were often too small for three people. It doesn't matter that one of the people is a 9kg baby. (Can you believe the little punk is 9kg already?) We are not still in college. There was even an air mattress in a living room. A comfy air mattress, but an air mattress no less. Considering that he actually slept through the whole night AND developed more of a sleeping pattern than was ever arranged for him by his dozy mother, he scores a point and a half for every house - and then rounded up to 16 points.

4. Public Presentation
Now admittedly wee-ish Jude meets a lot of people on a weekly basis, and is much more interested in people than things, so this really wasn't a stretch.

However, he met nearly four score and ten new lovely souls, not to mention strangers in parks, malls, pubs; on buses, boats and planes; in circumstances well out of his control or understanding, with hundreds of new variables to account for in every waking hour of the day AND remained a perfect picture of congeniality and baby charm. Score 1 point for every 5 people - 18 points.

5. General Achievements
a)Sitting up by himself at 4.5 months old - 5 points

b)Swimming in the ocean - 9 points for three good experiences, 5 poi

nts for getting dunked under the water and NOT crying, in fact being pretty darn cool about the whole thing; minus 3 points for tripping out a wee bit in the surf (a diver, not a surfer perhaps?) Wait, then again, who takes their five month old baby into the surf anyway? (I blame the Australians!)

c)Being able to put his feet in his own mouth - yogis say 5 points

d)Blowing raspberries on other people - 2 points for cuteness

e)Theatre appreciation - minus 5 points as he slept through them or bawled. (Give the guy a break, he's only five months old!)

f) Developing a fierce interest in what everyone else is eating - (Mamafrog says 50 points!) 5 points

g)Honing his grabbing skills - 5 points (Mamafrog says she's missing a bunch of hair in the back )- minus 2 points

h)Outstanding interaction with Australian Fauna - 5 points.

(Good thing Zendaddy kept him out of reach for the poor little rosellas, and almost within reach of the roos!)

Grand Total: da da da daaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
88 points! HUZZAH FOR THE WEE DIVE NINJA!!!!!!!

Though, as we didn't set a pass mark, he wins and wins again! This is the result of modern approaches to assessment. A bit mamby-pamby I know, but don't worry, it won't all be praise and fanfare. All in all, the wee dude did very well and we look forward to our next major voyage. Here are some more photos of the wee ninja in action!