Lochie's New Bedroom!

We just moved in late last week and I have been working very hard to get us all settled and I started on Lochie's room because it's the most fun! Here is Lachlan setting down for the night in his new big boy bed - got a steal at Ethan Allen on clearance for $50 for a brand new floor model twin mattress & box base!! He;s very happy for his big boy room & bed!

If you could keep Lochie in your prayers, he is having oral surgery tomorrow morning to have a lingual frenectomy - he has muscle attachment that adheres his tongue to the base of his mouth but unlike most frenectomys where they can do a little local anesthetic and snip the ligament attachment, his oral surgeon Dr Kempers will have to go along each underside of the tongue and separate the muscle attachment running from the back to the front. He'll have sutures for 5-10 days and I have to keep him quiet for a few days after the surgery - soft diet etc so please pray for me as well!! We have lots of DVDs, Jello, pudding cups and colouring in books all set up so maybe Mummy will also get a chance to recover from having HER wisdom teeth extracted LAST week in the middle of our crazy week where I worked 3 full days AND we moved house! I kind of pushed myself and got an infection and a lot of pain so it'll be nice to have an excuse to lay around in bed for a few days and maybe both of us can make a nice recovery together!


I'll also post some pictures of our new house when we did the walkthrough before we moved all our boxes in.
Love, Bi.

Favourite Memories of Lochie

This will be an ongoing list I'll contribute to as I remember. I am not the sort of person who keeps a journal or baby book (sorry Lochie!) and these are some special memories I don't want to forget over time as he gets bigger and bigger. Some are recent memories, some older:

* Lying on cuddly blankets and pillows in our very dark bedroom listening to Rosemary Clooney sing "Mambo Italiano" and 4 1/2 yr old Lochie laughing and using glowsticks to put on a light show (which was actually pretty good!) then the mp3 player randomly turned to Alvin & the Chipmunks singing "Christmas Don't Be Late" and Lachlan collapsing in giggles at the chipmunks singing.

* 4 1/2 yr old Lochie interrupting my time in the shower to use the toilet and after taking a long time, asking impatiently why he was taking so long and him responding with "Look Mum I was just drawing love hearts for you in the mirror!" - seeing many wonky love hearts drawn in the steam in the bathroom mirror and a sweet smile on his face.

* Looking into his big brown doe eyes and hearing him say "Mum your face is so pretty, Mum your hair is so pretty" me savouring the sweet moment before he said "Mum your mustache is so pretty" WHAT?!?! Time to get the waxing kit out! LOL.

* The time we were shopping at Shopko and he was only 2 1/2 and wanted to sit on the bikes. I lifted him up on a 12" bike and got a bike helmet and put it on his head - accidentally pinching his skin under his neck when I strapped it on - it pinched so hard it bled a little and took a little chunk of skin. The scream of pain and the look of hurt and betrayal in his eyes as he looked up at me and said "Why did you do that to me, Mama?" and how sick I felt in my stomach that for the first time he knew I was not immune from hurting him.

* Miscalculating the time and getting us stuck in rush hour human traffic on a subway in Tokyo. He was only 4 but I looked in his eyes and told him there would be a lot of people squishing us but that I would never let go of his hand and to step off onto the platform ahead of me. I held his hand above his head and with one hand on his little back, gently guided him through the crush of businessmen and uniformed school children as the crowd of hundreds moved en masse towards the elevators. Hearing his little voice ringing out above the drone of the crowds "Sumimasen! Sumimasen!" (excuse me, excuse me). How courageous and unfazed he was and still managed to remember his newly acquired Japanese language skilled!

* Taking 2 trains and walking back to the hotel in Ginza at midnight with Mum & Dad and Lochie, scared we may have missed the last train for the night - how Lochie crashed out asleep on the train and how Dad carried him so far back - Lochie practically a dead weight! How it didn't faze his Poppa to do that for his only grandson. Looking ahead at my Dad carrying my son through the streets of Tokyo, and my Mum reaching up to wrap her own scarf around his little hands and neck to protect him from the wind chill - just knowing at that moment that this was an image, a memory I would be recounting to my son in many years to come.

* Flying over Boise late at night in a fog, hardly making out the city lights - a sleeping little one year old Lachlan leaning on my arm. Then wondering why the plane was turning around - we had to go back to Seattle because we couldn't land. Letting tears fall unchecked as we flew back knowing David was a thousand feet below me waiting excitedly at the airport to greet us after a week apart and not knowing where I would stay that night, what I would do and feeling very scared and grown up all of a sudden. I had planned the trip months previously and I was full time in dental hygiene school, feeling like I was missing out on my little boy so wanted a special Christmas vacation with him. I had prepaid it many months previous and by the time we traveled we were having a very tight week financially. The fear of not knowing where my baby and I would sleep that night and how we would get there at that late hour. The kindness shown to me by a random Alaska airlines worker who gave me a voucher to stay in a Holiday Inn for free after watching several fellow passengers get turned away and refused free accommodation - and I hadn't even thought of requesting it from them! The amazement I felt at kindness of strangers and answered prayers as Lachlan was showered and curled up in a crib in a warm, comfortable hotel room that night.

* The first time I ever said "You're my best boy, Lachlan" and he responded with "You're my best girl, Mama"... and it's been our "thing" to say to each other ever since. And when he says it he says it with such tenderness it melts my heart every time. Lochie knows how to melt a girls heart that's for sure - other sweet sayings he has said to me include "I want to love you forever, Mum" and "You make me happy in here" (indicating his chest area). Sigh - such a little love-bug!

Buses & Trains - cover by Hayley Legg

I've been enjoying watching this young girl from Gold Coast/Sydney who has been putting up videos on Youtube. We seem to have very similar tastes in music because she has done covers of a lot of songs I like. She actually takes requests from people and attempts songs viewers suggest which makes it really fun for the viewer. I hope she is successful in her goal to get signed as an artist as she seems very genuine. I haven't heard this song by Bachelor Girl in a few years but I loved it years ago when it first came out.

Tokyo January 2008

Finally I have uploaded our January 2008 Tokyo pictures! Lochie and I had a fantastic time meeting up with Nana & Poppa! You can click the pics for a larger image.

Re-posting of older Australia 2007 pics

My image loader I used to use is down now so I am reposting my pics from Lochie's and my trip back home to Australia last May 2007.

A need for setting privacy controls on the blog

Hi everyone.
I wasn't sure who all out there was still checking our family blog since I had slacked off for a few months there and hadn't posted anything new. I had been a little better about posting lately. My friend Keri had a bad experience with her blog where some stranger posted some unsavoury comments so she had to set privacy controls on her blog (by asking people to log in to view) and not having random access to strangers, and after I have had a stranger in Brazil comment on one of my posts I decided it is for the best if I only make the blog available to family and friends, especially since we have pictures and videos of Lochie up.

If you're here because you received the email to come and register and check out the blog, welcome or welcome back! We have had some wonderful adventures the past year with David working at Alaska Airlines which has really opened up our travel opportunities! Several trips down to see David's family in So Cal. last year and this year and we're planning another trip down in June especially to see our nieces as one is graduating high school and the other is graduating from college. Lachlan and I were fortunate enough to meet up with my Mum & Dad in Tokyo this past January, and Lochie got to experience the joys of visiting Disneyland in California in March.

Another advantage of privatizing the blog is my newfound freedom in sharing personal family information that I previously didn't feel fully comfortable sharing before. The way the blog was originally set up, anyone who knew the blog address (http://trekkingmerricks.blogspot.com - previously http://lochies.blogspot.com - archived) could look around the site - but I set it so my posts wouldn't be tagged to show up in google searches etc. With the changes blogspot has made though, I believe it changed so that anyone was able to find my site by googling a phrase I may have typed, or a funny youtube clip I may have posted. So although I apologize for the new inconvenience of logging in to view, its better for Lachlan's safety and also for me not having to censor what I write as much as I previously did (like never mentioning local place names we visited etc). So bookmark us and visit us every now and then to keep updated on what the Merricks are up to!

And for those of you who have been praying for us especially for David with his upcoming surgery, I really want to extend our thanks for your love and support! We were blessed today when we went to the pre-op appointment as the doctor assessed the cancer and thinks the scar will be smaller on his scalp (about 1 1/2 inches now opposed to about 2 1/2 inches) and he thinks David probably won't need the chemotherapy gel at all if all goes well with the surgery. His surgery date is the 15th of May so keep him and us in your prayers still! We're fortunate that there is an on-site pathologist at the Treasure Valley hospital and Dr. Rodgers will biopsy the cancer throughout the surgery to make sure he has removed all of it. We really like the doctor and feel very confident with him - David is just antsy to just have it over and done with.

I'm rounding off with a picture taken at the park on Monday. We've had the wackiest weather - gorgeous warm Spring days 70-80 degrees one day then freezing weather the next day! I don't know whether to pack away my winter wardrobe yet or not! Hope it's warm wherever you are!
~~Bianca.

Mama's Mini-Me

I got my haircut before my job interview yesterday so Lochie and I posed for some "myspace profile" type pics (i.e. taken yourself holding the camera at arms length so you can't see your body in the shot! Haha). Mostly to document my haircut since I really liked the colour Britney did this time and wanted a pic. The time before she made it a bit too dark. Then again it was still Winter then. Now I have Spring foils! I love how much I reckon Lochie is looking like me these days! I only hope his nose doesn't keep growing like mine seems to be since I'm getting older now! I am getting more and more afraid I am developing a Dean family schnoz! The picture of the Doodle-pro is a drawing Lochie was really proud of. He is doing a LOT of spider pictures lately. This one is "Spider smiling, wearing a hat". Up on our fridge right now is also "Spider in his web angry growling", "Spider in his web eating a popsicle". Not sure why spiders are his "thing" right now - we haven't read a particular book or watched any movies with spiders - just a whim I suppose. It's pretty enjoyable to listen to him describing his art projects as there is usually an elaborate story involved. Lochie is a great source of entertainment for us!

Micallef on Youtube

I was so thrilled to find so many clips from a show David & I loved to watch in Australia called Micallef/The Shaun Micallef Program. David and I have enjoyed watching this show and also other Aussie comedies such as Thank God You're Here, Kath & Kim, The Panel, and old The Late Show (D-Gen) clips.
The following clip is a parody of an old Aussie TV show version of a BBC programme called "Hypotheticals" where a panel of celebrities and also other people - doctors, policemen etc were taken through a storyline by the host and hypothetical questions challenging the panel's ethics & morals were posed. I like this clip and thought I'd share it.

Hilarious "Bulgarian Idol" clip

This lady is singing that song Mariah Carey made a hit: "Ken Lee"...
(I saw this on a blog I enjoy called By Ken Levine...)