For those wondering, now I haven't disappeared of the face of the earth, just into motherhood! I am taking a well-earned break while Emily sleeps to catch up on some emails and I thought I should write a quick blog, just so any remaining readers know I'm still around.

The last few months have gone by very quickly. Em is now 7 1/2 months old, and is almost crawling. She's getting so big, and so full of energy she saps most of mine! Anyone interested can check out Em's very own blog for updates & photos.

Aside from motherhood, I have been working part time for the last 3 or 4 months. I do 2 days in the office, and a few hours from home. I'm finding it a nice balance, helps me use my brain for things other than nursery rhymes, but I'm not away from Em too much. Luckily, my Mum is able to look after her, so I haven't had to find child care yet. And of course, Nan & Pop love having their "Emily days". I still haven't decided which is more of a break - work or baby... although there is something nice about spending Wednesday afternoons in the park or pub with other Mums.

From a work perspective, I'm still doing Notes/Domino development, and still enjoying it, although it's very hard to be smack in the middle of debugging code, and then realise that you have to go to get home for your daughter.

Although you wouldn't know it from the site, things are moving too with Openslice, we have a new version (almost ready to call it 1.0!) in use now at our client site, but haven't yet updated the website. Keep an eye out, as hopefully things will start happening soon.

Anyone who has lived in the Sutherland Shire, and probably a large number of others who live in Sydney, would know "Northies". For the rest of you - Northies is a pub at Cronulla Beach. For as long as I can remember, and probably longer than that, it has been "The" pub at Cronulla. Many a lazy Sunday afternoon (and quite a few manic Friday & Saturday nights) have been spent at Northies over the course of my adult (& teenage!) life.

The reason for this post is that today, Emily - at the grand old age of 5 1/2 months - has had her first Northies experience - and it looks to become a regular outing!

For the last 3 - 4 months, every Wednesday afternoon has been spent at one of the many parks or beaches at Cronulla with the other Mums & bubs I have met through the local Early Childhood Clinic. However, now that winter is finally on us, it has become a bit too cold to have all the little ones outside. As pubs are now all smoke-free, it has been possible for us to move our group to Northies. The pub has a nice area at one end with lounges and lots of floor space to fit in 10 - 12 prams, and blankets for the babies to lie (roll, sit, not-yet-crawl) on. Of course, it also means that it's easy for the mums to have a coffee, or a coke, or even a wine while we "watch" the babies.

Yep - motherhood is pretty tough sometimes!

Today is Anzac Day in Australia, a day of rememberance of those who have served and sacrificed as part of the Australian Defence Forces. It is a special day for all Australians, but for my family it will now be even more special as I have become an Aunty today. My brother & his wife have had their first baby - a little girl, Sascha Frances. As you can imagine, this is quite something for my parents, who became grandparents for the first time in January when our Emily was born.

Congratulations to Bill & Suze - good luck on this grand adventure!

Today Tim and I are celebrating two weeks since the birth of our little girl, Emily. In typical IT consultant style, Emily arrived on her due date (4th January) after pulling an all-nighter! I won't go into all the gory details, but we survived, and are now learning to adjust to parenthood.

The last two weeks have been quite an experience - Emily is certainly the most difficult client either of us has ever worked for! Needless to say that my head has been far away from work for quite a while now, so I don't see all that much blogging in my immediate future, until she settles down a little.

Typically, for two IT geeks, before we picked a name, we had to ensure we could secure her internet future, so for anyone interested in seeing some photos - you can see them via her website - www.emilyrynne.com

There's a reason why Tim & I have been so bad at finishing some of the things we've been talking about for the last few months (dominoblogs.com, openslice etc). For the last 5 months we (well, mostly me!) have been working on the next generation of Notes Developers - yep, we're pregnant!! We have a little girl (well, as far as we know - 80% guarantee given) on her way, due 2nd January 2007.

We are very excited at having our first child and it has been consuming most of our thoughts lately, not to mention causing us to have to pull apart our flat in order to start creating room for a (gasp!) nursery. This has been taking up most of our spare time at home,
which is therefore our excuse for the lack of blogging and other Notes-related promises lately. This also answers the question of whether we'll be attending Lotusphere next year - unfortunately no! It is sad for me to say that I'm disappointed about that, but sometimes we keep forgetting (out of fear, probably).

So, now the news is "out there" - as is my belly - so there's really no hiding it anymore....