Children's Animal Books Are Not Reliable

Originally Posted Feb 29, 2016

For the first few months we’ve been here, even with Nate working a ton and us setting up our lives in a new area, it has still very much felt like a long vacation.  It wasn’t until last week that I looked down at the toilet in the bathroom of our house and thought, “Ugh, someone should clean that” and then it dawned on me that this “someone” was me.  Nothing like a dirty toilet to “plunge” you back into reality! So I begrudgingly cleaned the toilet and did a few other chores all in one afternoon so I could go back to my vacation mindset as quickly as possible.  Many elements of our time here still resemble a vacation, so we do need to work on toning down things like how much we buy coffee instead of making it (way easier said than done once you’ve experienced a Melbourne flat white!), drinking slightly less wine (just kidding, I’m not changing this), and slightly less splurging on activities and meals out.

We both have vacation habits in the area of personal hygiene that have continued as well.  For Nate, most nights he goes in the hot tub in lieu of a shower (who needs soap when you have ridiculously hot water?) and for me, I don’t floss much. I’ve never flossed on vacation as my general approach to vacation is to only do things I enjoy and find relaxing. (Frankly, I’d rather get a couple cavities filled across 1 hour annually at the dentist than floss every day!) Don’t worry though – we are still generally clean and tidy human beings and we hope this doesn’t keep you from visiting!
As our multi-year semi-vacation continues, every now and then something new or different pops up out of nowhere and reminds us we are a far way from Pennsylvania.  Not long ago, we were enjoying some dinner out on our back patio when we realized we had a visitor.  The patio is surrounded by trees and shrubs which gives it a very tranquil ambiance…until you see a pair of eyes looking at you from the trees above!  We noticed a mysterious creature staring down at us just after it got dark.  The next 5 minutes of conversation went like this:

Nate:  Aaaahhh, what is that?!
Me: I don’t know but it’s definitely not a snake so I’m not too worried.
I should mention we hung out with some of the world’s deadliest snakes earlier that day at a local sanctuary.
Nate:  I don’t have my contacts in. Does it look bad?!  I really can’t see so you are going to have to get closer and tell me what it is!
Me:  Okay, (stepping a bit closer) it is about the size of a large rabbit, has very round, big ears and actually looks quite cute, but I’ve never seen one of these before!  But, wait…I think I recognize this from one of Isla’s books from the library!  

I ran inside to grab a couple of books from our local library including classics like, “E is For Echidna” and “Once I Heard a Little Wombat.”  As we furiously scanned through the pages of the board books, we read carefully about Bilbys (apparently they like to “scratch, scratch, scratch”) and sugar gliders who we thought looked very similar to our mystery animal!  Nate quickly turned to me and goes, “wait a minute, so this guy can fly?!”  My eyes lit up as I would have loved to see this thing fly out of the tree.  We debated this for a while and then finally concluded, of all animals in the book, this thing most closely resembled a sugar glider.  Way cool, we agreed.  The only remaining question was, how aggressively should we try to frighten it, hoping it takes flight out of the tree?  (It didn’t fly for us.)  A few days later, a friend informed us the creature was actually just a stupid possum and that they are everywhere around here.  They are cuter than American possums, but unfortunately do not fly, and have turned out to be little jerks who just run around our front and back patios and poop everywhere.  Half my day is spent trying to keep Isla from snacking on possum poop (part of her complete diet which also consists of sand from the beach and woodchips from the playground).  I think we liked it better when we thought this was a sugar glider!  We are considering obtaining some actual reference books or maybe even an Aussie animal app for our phones, if such a thing exists, for future wildlife encounters.

We are officially 3 months into our time here!  Housing – check, sea shipment – check, car – sort of a check (this is a long story but we have a rental car and a lot of bikes, so we are okay), bank accounts & credit cards – check.  Next on the list?  We could use some friends.  Nothing will replace our amazing friends in the US, but we’d like to add some fine guys and gals with cool accents to our friend circle to socialize with in our time here.  We’ve got a built-in network of Nate’s colleagues, especially fellow ex-pats who are from the Philly area, and I’ve been very pleasantly surprised by the awesomeness of the “mum and bub” societal structures here:  

In short, when you are a new mom, you go through your town/city council to register for a playgroup so that as soon as you have a baby, you are instantly hanging out with other moms in the exact same place in life.  There is no set agenda or parenting method that brings the group together, just location and timing.  I hopped into a group in our town of all first time moms all with a babies within 2 months of one another.  The group was already incredibly close (as you would suspect since they’ve been hanging out together weekly since the bubs were all 1 week old).  We can all walk from our respective houses to the play facility and do so at least weekly to hang out, let the babies go nuts together, chat, and of course, have coffee or tea.  Nearly all the moms are going back to work, if they have not already, but do so when the babies are between 7 months and 1 year old and they ALL ago back 2-3 days a week.  It is a very cool social norm here, not the exception, so people do feel a very nice sense of balance going back to work.  This also means we can all still get together on Fridays easily.  This group has been great and limits the amount of what I’ll call “mom flirting” I have to do at the park.  Now, I haven’t dated…well…ever, but I think making other new mom friends is pretty similar to being single after college.  Mom flirting, as I refer to it,  goes something like this:

While at the playground with Isla, I see another mom who looks to be my age with a kid who looks to be about my kid’s age.  I debate starting up a casual conversation and eventually do so when I help her kid who just fell over (again).  We compare ages of babies and who’s eaten more wood chips and then I notice she’s in work out clothes – sweet, I think.  Maybe we could be friends and even work out together. Maybe she does triathlons!?  She also has good hair…I’ll need her salon’s number.  I like this chick… How do I become friends without being creepy? Should I ask for her phone number so we can get together?  Then I am elated when she asks for my number -yeessss!  We’re getting together next week.  Maybe she’ll be my new friend!  And then I walk home from the park with butterflies in my stomach.  Like I said, pretty close to dating, I think!   I met a friend at gymbaroo class this way last month.  We are hanging out for the third time next week…it’s getting pretty serious.

Other miscellaneous updates include:

• Last weekend it was my turn to do a triathlon and Nate’s turn to cheer with Isla.  As was the case in Nate’s race, people take their training and racing very seriously, which means my bike might as well be a huffy compared to the other racers and I get punched a fair amount during the swim (quite the change-up as I must admit I’m usually the pushy one in the water at the start of the race!)  It was a beautiful day and a great race.  Every triathlon here also has a mini kids triathlon so they can launch the little ones into fierce competition early.  This is the most adorable / scary thing ever to watch. The kids are intense (the race includes an ocean swim for them too) and so impressive.  Some parents are calmly cheering while others are screaming out split times and telling at the kids to hurry the heck up tying their running shoes in transition.  I think Isla’s been taking careful mental notes so she’ll be ready soon.
• This past weekend, Isla and I hopped onto one of Nate’s now very frequent business trips to Sydney and we enjoyed a long weekend exploring the major sites and beaches.  There is quite the rivalry between Melbourne and Sydney – everyone seems to think their city is, hands down, the best one.  We’re still loving Melbourne, but Sydney is also wonderful!  We look forward to more regular trips there as it is a quick hour and fifteen minute flight.