Look who's on the move

Yes, at 11.5 months the Young Lady has mastered the art of crawling. She's only really been doing it for 3 days, so she's not terribly adventurous ... yet. Mind you, if escapades such as this one from earlier in the week are going to become more frequent that's probably a good thing.

Saturday night catch-up

Here I am, sitting at my computer on a Saturday night. I should be writing about freezers and fridges, or showerheads, or restaurants serving organic food, because once again I've gone a bit mad and overloaded my plate with freelance work. In which to do in the baby's nap times (hence the writing on a Sat night). Sigh. On the one hand it's lovely to be able to work from home, on the other it does seep the rest of my life...

In other words, it's been a busy couple of weeks. What's been happening? Well, we had some computer *issues*. Let's just say that Shaun, in endeavouring to fix something really stuffed up. We couldn't get the computer to boot up. Problematic. So we were a week or more without a computer, which I have to say was lovely (though I would be less busy had I had an extra week to tackle all this work...). In a extremely fortunate (?) piece of timing, the kids and I all got a BAD cold at the time when the computer was being revived, so I wouldn't have been terribly productive anyway.

Then the computer got fixed ... but we blew our monthly broadband allowance downloading a new operating system. Looking forward to that bill.

The boy turned 5, which was extremely exciting for him. He's been itching to be 'big'. Since his fifth birthday he's been having a few existential crises, asking me "Mum, are you sure I'm five?" Here he is with his birthday present, a Toy Story 3 scooter. And he got a Buzz Lightyear. Oh and look, he chose a Jessie doll with the money his aunt in Queensland sent him. Anyone noticing a theme here?...





To celebrate his birthday we went for a trip to a little zoo/wildlife park outside Sydney. It really is fabulous there. And the big 5yo got to pat a python. Rather him than me.



His birthday cake was not fancy but it was fun, in that he got to decorate it all himself. Can you tell?!



And anyway, she liked it...



Ah yes, she who, at 11 months, will not crawl. I was subject to some tutting from an early childhood nurse a week or two ago for the fact she was not crawling yet. She gave me "homework" to do (needless to say I've not done it). I suspect T will be off soon though. I mean, check the moves...





And then? Look out world, here comes Baby T.

Badge

Last night I was busily trying to cook dinner while feeding Baby Banshee her evening meal. E had the good sense to stay out of the kitchen. He asked me how to spell 'hair' and then came into the kitchen wearing this. A badge he'd made.




The pics are dodgy, but you might just be able to read that it says 'no hair pooling'. Translation: 'no hair pulling'



If only the little hair puller could read...

Classic.

Freedoms

I love how, after you have a baby, the return of freedoms - no matter how tiny - just feels sensational. The first time you duck out to the shops leaving a sleeping newborn at home feels freeing, but odd. Like the sky is sitting too low or something. It is at once weird and amazing.

Then there's the first time you leave your baby to go out together as adults and it's like - wow - yeah ... I remember how good this is.

Today we experienced another regaining of a small liberty. E went over to his little friend's house to play for most of the day and Shaun and I took the Young Lady on the back of my bike. We rode and rode, then stopped to have lunch at a lovely cafe.

Freeing? You betcha.

10 months

Our beautiful little girl ticked over the 10 months mark today. What's she up to? Well, not crawling ... but certainly thinking about it. This little bub likes to streeeetch out and reach and shuffle and faceplant. So the crawling may come quite soon (oh lordy, am not ready for all the 'eyes in back of head' that inevitably comes with crawling/moving).

In the past week or so she has begun to 'dance' - if you can call it that. And, truly, I cannot imagine anything cuter. So naturally E loves to play his CDs for her ALL the time, we have pulled all his old musical toys up from the garage, we sing to her. The funniest thing has to be when she 'dances' (more a head jiggle, arm swing kind of thing really) to me rubbing hand cream into my hands (oh, my poor wintry housewife hands!).



T loves to copy our sounds now and - finally - she's mastering 'Mama'. About time. I have been drilling it into her since she began saying 'Dada', which was, what, months ago.



Another lovely development of late is that E can play with her a little more. The other day I bought a packet of balloons. Wow. The playing together! The peace to make dinner! A revelation indeed...!

Still not a scrap of hair. And still will not deign to take a bottle. At all. Believe me, we keep trying (various brands and styles) and she keeps scrunching up her little face in distaste (any ideas??).

10 months, here we are...

Snap

So we're in the middle of a cold snap in Sydney, but that's OK by me. Crisp, sunny winter days are among my favourite things.

Yesterday I decided we needed to get out of the house, so we headed down to a nearby bay for a picnic of sorts. The sunshine didn't quite warm us up enough so it was a brief picnic, but a lovely reminder all the same of how nice it is to have little 'excursions' out instead of hanging round the house trying (and usually failing) to maintain order around a 4yo tornado.

This picture sums up the moment pretty well.

Toy Story 3 premiere

We went along to the premiere of Toy Story 3 yesterday - E and his little friend G dressed up as Buzz Lightyear and Jessie for the occasion. And, my goodness, didn't they attract some attention! This the pair of them waiting for the Light Rail (the premiere was at the big - and I do mean BIG - Imax cinema in Darling Harbour.





Ginormous Buzz Lightyear poster? Yep, we're in the right place!




And this is E doing his 'best' Buzz face. Hyped up? You betcha! By now he'd come to expect every second stranger on the street to stop and remark on his costume.



When we arrived the TV cameras homed in on E and G and they were 'interviewed' by Disney Channel, which they loved! Then it was in to the foyer to pick up our free popcorn and drinks and be entertained by a three-piece band while we waited to enter the cinema.

Look! A big Buzz! Despite the fact this was the red carpet area for celebs, E and G were extremely eager to duck under the rope for us to take a quick snap.





I really can't stand kids' movies - OK, there are one or two decent ones, but most are so infernally awful that I always feel like I am wasting my life sitting through them (Shrek, anyone?) So I was pleased to find that I actually enjoyed Toy Story 3. It was quite a watchable film.

I'd never seen anything 3D before - neither had E. The Imax screen is SO BIG and it was SO DARK while we waited for the movie to start that he of course freaked out. But once the characters started to appear, like long-lost buddies, he got into the movie and afterwards declared it to be: "Good."