The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase; if you pursue happiness you'll never find it.

There are more pros than cons to having a wife who is an absolute champion when it comes to breastfeeding. I'm deadly serious here, Jen would be a lock for Olympic gold if they ever introduce it as a competitive sport. The simply massive Henry was exclusively breast-fed for nigh-on six months (at which point he was the size of the average one year old), and didn't fully wean (his own call) until eighteen months old. In all of that time Jen soldiered through, producing bountiful good stuff to keep him ticking along as healthy as a boy giant could be.

That said, he is also a fussy little bugger who demanded his mother's full attention during feeds, had four teeth at sixteen weeks and refused outright any notion of expressed milk in a bottle. So the pressure was very much upon her.

The pros should be obvious: health benefits (for both mother and baby); good bonding time; less sickly kiddies; huge cost savings; no fumbling about with formula, bottles and teats; less vomit; less constipation and so it goes. For a father, the benefits also extend to less of a burden at feed times, and (best of all), you're not up all through the night with a ravenous human gorging on you (with teeth)! A bit of burping when required, but even that seems to be less with a breast fed baby.

That said, the fellow does inevitably miss out on some of the more immediately appealing (from the sidelines) one-on-one stuff with a newborn. Thankfully, Jen is such a champ that she doesn't mind me asking all manner of questions, having a taste, as well as crawling all over her trying to get more of a feel as to exactly what goes on during a feed.

Whereas Henry eventually broached no notion of anyone even daring to watch while he had his dinner, Ezra is still at that point where he grazes throughout the day, and cares little beyond the fact that he is perched in front of a pair of breasts, full of milk and ready for action! Thus, I can survey the whole scene and take notes (and the odd photograph).

Thus today's marvellous picture. Taken from just over Mum's left shoulder, here is the newest member of the family happy as can be, one breast into his lunch today. A mellow eater, Ezra likes to dine the old fashioned way, with a nap between two large courses. I honestly think that you'd struggle to find such a blissful scene anywhere in the world that didn't involve a man and a generous serving of food (or bust?)

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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