Has it really been five months?

Okay, okay. I know what you are all thinking. What happened to 7pounds14? Has Kirin stopped having those wonderful little adventures of life that gave us readers a bit of daily joy? Has his dad finally found a real job that doesn't allow him to blog when in the office?

Well, the honest truth is that it's been a hectic few months - yes, it really has been that long since the last post - so, here is the Coles notes view of Kirin's life since June 30th (in the voice of Kirin):

July 6th - Flew to Victoria, BC for Pooaji's wedding. The flight was fine (I impressed everyone by not crying and being pretty cute for over 12 hours). The wedding on July 8th was great. I spent most of it playing with my big cousin Suran, and taking things out of my mum's handbag for the duration of the ceremony.

July 12th - Went to Vancouver, to visit a lot of our closest family friends: Auntie Sara, Uncle Michael and Cole and Oliver; Uncle Neil (no pics - sorry Neil); and Uncle Andrew and Auntie Sally.

July 14th - To Alberta, for a few weeks with the Mattu side of the family. Spent most of our time in Calgary and Lethbridge. Among the highlights: going up the stairs at dada and dadiji's house in Lethbridge; chasing Blue and Jack (Suran's cats); seeing the parade through Bragg Creek; going to the Calgary Stampede and the T'suu Tina Annual Rodeo and Pow-Wow.

July 30th - Fly to Montreal, to meet dad (he had to go back to London for a week of work). Spend a few days there before heading down to Toronto and London for Uncle Verb's wedding.

August 2nd - Fly back to London.

Since being back, there has been little let up in the pace of things (back to the voice of dad). First, Johanna and I settled on a date for our wedding: April 7th 2007, here in London. So, for those of you whom we haven't yet told (sorry) please start planning.

Then, there was an important date to celebrate: Kirin's birthday on September 23rd. Has it really been a year? It's hard to believe but yes, it has. It was a great day, and lots of friends and family joined us for a barbecue in our garden - masala lamb chops, my Auntie Bimla's tandoori chicken, champagne, friends and family and lots of sunshine. Unfortunately, this meant we didn't take too many photos, but we did manage to have a good time and enjoy ourselves.

Life has started to approach some normality. Johanna went back to work the week after Kirin's birthday and, after taking some time to settle, he seems to be enjoying himself. We share a nanny with another family down the road for the three days when Johanna is at work. They have two little boys - aged four years and 20 months - who both seem to be treating Kirin very well. The nanny is a lovely woman called Tracy who does lots of things that we do - talking a lot to the kids, reading them stories, and doing her best to engage them. Kirin seems to love them all.

The latest adventure has been one of the most exciting. About a week after Kirin's birthday, the three of us were hanging out in the lounge. Kirin was about a metre away, standing at the table, when he decided to make his way over to us. The difference is that this time he walked. It was only about three steps but it was the first time we had seen him consciously take a few steps to get somewhere rather than plonking himself on all fours and zooming across like a wolf cub. Now, of course, he is speeding around like no tomorrow. It's fantastically cute but you start to realise that your baby is growing up and, despite how immeasurably happy that makes me feel, there is a tinge of sadness at the end of his babyhood.

Now, we are getting ready for Christmas. We bought a tree last week. Kirin hasn't knocked it down, but he has managed to take off various bits of decoration and hide them under bits of furniture. Rather more significantly, the three of us are heading to Canada on December 18th until January 2nd. It will be nice to smell the cold prairie air, see the mountains again and, above all, to spend some time with the family and meet our new nephew Yash (Sunil and Rehana's new son). It has only been a few months since we were there for Neena's wedding, but when you have the development of a young child as a sort of gauge of progress, you realise how much things can change even in a short space of time. And you realise how hard it must be for a parent to be far away from their own children and grandchildren.

Now that I have got this post out of the way, I will try to post a bit more regularly. I actually had a better written version of this all ready to go, but my computer crashed just before I published and I lost it all. Hope you enjoy the second version.