Well, it finally happened. After months of speculation and questions Lil finally learned “the date”. She had been trying to trick me into giving away that detail by bluffing that she already knew that he was arriving on the 29th, and apparently my poker face isn’t too bad because she had no idea that it was always scheduled for the 27th.
Unfortunately Lil’s school had organised what would have been an excellent camp for her year level. A camp like this was a welcome change of pace after the last few years of not being able to have school camps due to Covid restrictions. Although most of their camp was in cabins that were accessable from the roat, the complication came from the plan for their Tuesday and Wednesday nights being away in tents. Not only that, but the site for these tents was only accessable by canoe. In terms of camping opportunities for a bunch of city teenagers this would have been fantastic. In terms of a Dad trying to surprise his daughter with a Thursday morning pickup it was a bit of a frustration.
I only learned of this about an hours after Jack was born when I called the school to explain that I intended to take Lil out of the camp. Lil assures me that it had always been the plan and that she had tried to explain the canoe complexity. I had been ignoring those stories because i figured she was exaggerating and tryng to scare a date out of me. Anyway, 20:20 hindsight I guess.
Fortunately I hit the jackpot with my in-laws. I called them with an update on how their daughter was doing and sprung a request on them to pick Lil up on the Wednesday night, which they very graciously agreed to help out with. While Kris and I were spending Wednesday afternoon getting to know Jack (and while Jack worked up an apetite that would keep us both awake all night) Bob and Judy drove for nearly four hours bringing Lil back from Maroon Outdoor Education Center. At the same time Lil’s teachers coordinated the canoe-based extraction excersise so that she would be prepared for that pickup. I’m told that Lil had been pretty worked up about this possibility anyway and had all of the staff on stand-by anyway, so i don’t know how much of a surprise I had prepared after all of that anyway.
Lil and I had been preparing a gift hamper for Kris, so we swung by the house to pick that up…
We wanted to include some foods that Kris has been looking forward to eating in that hamper to we stopped by Woolies to pick up some deli meats and soft cheeses. We picked up some coffees after that where we eyed off this baby jail that we might be needing soon…
Anyway, she finally got to the hospital, but Kris was not quite ready to receive guests, so we enjoyed the view for a while…
Face masks take a lot from photos like these, but i’m confident that there’s a smile under there (and maye even a tear).
After that Lil and I headed back to camp where I finally appreciated what a big favor Bob and Judy had done for me the previous evening. It’s a long drive. I was grossly overestimating myself with the original plan to drive down and back twice by myself on the Thursday, especially after a pretty rubbish night’s sleep on Wednesday night. Anyway, Lil and I stopped for lunch on the way down at a park near the Amberley RAAF Air Base…
That park was a great stop because there were lots of planes coming and going from the air base. It was only when we left that I realised that visiting parks like that and taking photos of stuff like those planes is supposed to be the whole point of this blog… and I just sat there talking to Lil – and left. I’ll have to work on that!
Anyway, after dropping Lil at camp I started the drive home. Presumably motivated by my missed photo opportunity at the park I decided not to miss this photo of a fire…
I dumped my car at home, caught the train into Southbank and walked back to the hospital room. Kris and I teamed up for the feed and change routine, and having learned from the previous night we seized the opportunity to take a nap with Jack. We caught up on sleep big time. Now that we know to ask for some little 5ml syringes of formula Jack is getting the food that he didn’t get on the first night and is a dream baby. With a few very brief and efficient interruptions all three of us caught up on sleep last night.
Love the big sister photos.
So does she 🙂