Papa and the Baby

So here is the elusive smile finally captured on film (well, on pixels anyway). Our digital camera is so crap in low light that the quality is dodgy, but you can at least see them and they aren't *too* blurry.









This one could do with some cropping and zooming but I was so anxious to get the smile that I just snapped away! She's been through what seems to be a major developmental change in the last few days. Harriet actually saw and registered the cats whereas previously she just hasn't been aware of their existence even when they're trying to walk all over her or are lying on the table in front of her.

In this photo she's not too happy with Squeezmo lying in her sling. The weird thing about it is that Harriet hates being in her sling. We've tried it on a few different occasions and although I got her to sleep peacefully in it once, every subsequent time has ended in squeals and screams. Who can work out babies? I'd love her to be comfortable in the sling because it's a hell of a lot nicer on my back than the baby bjorn carrier I can tell you.



Although in this photo she looks more like a baby who's screaming 'HELP' with her eyes, in actual fact this is her placid, contented face. She's having a grand old time in the shower with Papa and loves it when she's on her back under the water and has it splashing all over her belly. She's even starting to enjoy it dribbling over her head which bodes well for her foray into the swimming pool that's due when summer decdes to come along.


And finally her very cute, lopsided, 'thinking' face.

On Mondays we now go to the local Mother's Group. There are about 15 other babies in the group so it's pretty big. Last week it was a getting-to-know-you type thing. I hate those kind of situations where you know people are making snap judgements, but I thought things would be a little easier if I took along some bribery, so out came the mini muffins from Brumby's and they appeared to placate everyone into a mild hyperglycaemic state. This week we're discussing 'development'. One of the women I was sitting next to last week was amazed at Harriet's grinning, laughing and generally playful state. She was telling me that at 7wks her son still hadn't smiled for her. :o( I thought that was pretty sad, I love Harriet's big gummy smiles.

The weather over here in Perth has been totally ridiculous this week - grey skies, rainy days and every now and then a pretty sunny day pokes its head through. Let's hope this week is a good 'un so I can go out for walks and try to shift this fatty boombah state.

On Thursday we met up with Andy and Molly whose blog is linked to on the right bar. We heard all about their life in Japan and their plans for the wedding and a new life over in Texas. Poor Andy has to stay away from Molly for SIX MONTHS whilst they process his green card application. That really, really sucks poor guys.

I also received the new computer and now have an awesome screen. You can compare the difference in size yourself from the photo. Needless to say I have been enjoying my new visual experiences!

Well tomorrow is the day Vivien is booked in for her caesarean to deliver her the twins she is carrying. A boy and a girl - pretty efficient way to go about a family there, Viv! Good luck for tomorrow.

I think that's about it for this week.

Some Photos

Well after saying that we can't capture a smile on camera, I managed to snap at least the beginning of a smile here. She's sitting outside watching the trees sway in the wind and apparently it is just hilarious stuff, so up started the cooing and smiling. It's blurry but you kinda get the idea of how she is when she starts to go for it. When she's really smiling she looks like an impish monkey rather than your usual cherubic baby smile.




Now you can see I'm not lying because when I tried to get a photo that was actually in focus and well-lit she stopped smiling. But goddamn if those trees weren't still the most fascinating thing around. There I was, standing with a gadget that is a technological marvel the size of a mobile phone and all she can do is stare in wonder at the majesty of an old tree standing proud against advancing suburbia. Honestly, where do these children learn their priorities?


Here's a commonly seen sight around these parts - Harry with a squished up face against someone's chest as she snores away. It's such a hard life being a baby and requires frequent pitstops.

This is another of such pitstops. I have quite a serious looking mouth in this photo - obviously world problem #37889 was being mulled over at the time. Harry remains oblivious.















This is Harry grinning her face off with her Great- Grandma. I thought YAY, a chance to get some smiling photos because she was rather enamoured with Grandma's face.




Yet again the monkey- child eludes my attempts to capture the smile. I thought that since it was Grandma's birthday and everything I could have persuaded her, but no, she doesn't want a part of it.


Jan and Mike went away to Kalbarri this weekend just gone, so Jimbo and I made a beeline for their spa. Here's Harriet enjoying Papa's relaxing Friday afternoon spa. I think I may have said something before about her having a hard life.

Ah yes, falling asleep in the arms of a man in a spa on the weekend. Harry gets around. Actually I don't know who enjoyed this spa experience more to tell you the truth, her or Mike. She definitely looks relaxed though.

Today I'm hanging around at home awaiting the arrival of my computer (more details can be read on Jimbo's blog). Thrilling. I'm off to work soon so Jan can take over the 'waiting' duties. But what that means is that I can soon make posts from my computer rather than having to use Jimbo's. So hopefully that also means more posts, which I am sure you're all just thrilled about.

OH! And I can't believe that we haven't said our huge congratulations to Saori and Shane on the birth of their first child, a beautiful daughter, Erika and to Emma and Richie also on the birth of their first child, a son called Elijah. The babies are contagious in these parts. Don't drink the water, people. I should really make sure I tell Grandma that.

A List

Well this post is inspired by Linda Margaret.

10 Things You Didn't Know About Harriet

1. She LOVES to suck
Ok you can keep your filthy minds out of this one. Harriet is absolutely a numero uno, spot-on comfort sucker. She has been since about four weeks of age when she started shoving her fist into her mouth and slurping all over it - she doesn't hold back and it sure can wake you from a deep sleep! So despite being adamant that we would never give her a dummy she changed our minds and now has a dummy to help settle her during the day. She is never allowed it to go to sleep with at night and it just doesn't seem to bother her - she crashes without any problems whatsoever. The main reason for the night embargo is so that we don't have to keep waking to pop the thing back in when she drops it out of her mouth (ie: essentially for lazy reasons).

2. She screams like a banshee for an hour every night
This is most commonly between 6 and 7pm - rather unfortunate timing if you're trying to watch Neighbours. There is just nothing you can do to console her, poor poppet. She screams so loudly that you can only speak to the person holding her if you shout and if you aren't within sight then you can forget about conversing. This is, however, an improvement on what used to be a nightly 2-3hr screaming match.

3. On her left eyelid she has veins that make out a distinct '2'
It's true! Rather than being 'the one', it looks as if Harriet has been chosen as back-up. The veins have been noticeable from about the first week and at first I thought they might fade away or change, but they're still there. It's cool, like being branded. But what does it mean? She's destined to always be the sidekick? To never come first? A shelf full of red coloured ribbons rather than blue?

4. Speaking of bodily issues, she has a small birthmark on her back
It's a very small strawberry splotch. When I first saw it she was about 4wks old! In our defence it was very cold when she first came home and we kept her rugged up. And when you wash her it's not like you turn her over to check out that her back is clean! Come one, it's a valid defence.

5. She is LONG!
If anyone every had any doubts that a vegetarian breastfed baby may not hold her own in the physical development stakes, Harriet is here to prove you wrong! At 9.5wks she weighs 6.3kgs but even more than that she is just bigger than other babies her age (and older!). She also has really well developed features.

6. The talking has already started
In the past week Harry has really given the vocal cords a workout, learning heaps of new vocalisation sounds and gurgling away happily to herself when we're not with her (which isn't very often admittedly). When she is getting changed or just lying in our arms she looks up and begins chatting away and waits her turn in the conversation - I speak then shep speaks, it's very orderly.

7. When she's about to do a poo, her eyebrows go pink
True! She loves to grunt through her poos and really pushes them out with explosive force! But the telltale sign is that her eyebrows start to go pink just when the really loud "THFFPPTT" rips through and then her biggest smile bursts through. Ah, I'm so proud of this poo monster.

8. She flatly refuses to smile for the camera
Harry will be smiling away, giggling and doing the bigest gummy laugh, her face wreathed with laughter. As soon as we try to sneak a camera out, be it next to her face at her feet or on the other side of the room, she stops. Looks at the camera. Becomes very serious. Loses the smiling face. Damn her.

9. She LOVES driving in the car
She can be screaming the house down but as soon as we bring out the car capsule she starts doing her smaller cries...we put her in the capsule and the cries stop...we place the capsule in the car and she starts looking around as though the world is anew...start driving the car and she's fast asleep within five minutes! It's the sure fire way to calm the little monkey.

10. Having a shower or spa is fantastic fun
Well actually I don't know about fun so much because she is a strange child. When she goes into the shower with Papa Jimbo she just stares out into space as though she's in a gentle reverie. No real smiling or laughing but absolute wonderment.

Yet more photos!

Don't forget to check out Harriet's photo album: http://users.tpg.com.au/adsl6itd/harriet/ from time to time. I've just put some more pictures up this morning.

Nothing to Say

I just realised that I hadn't posted this cute photo.

A Sad Week for Harriet

It's been a bit of an up and down week for our little Harry-with-a-skirt (this is what Lee's father called her when he found her nickname is Harry. He's an old Greek guy and probably finds a lot of things we do pretty funny).

On Tuesday she went to the local health clinic to have her 8wk immunisations. It's a free service so there was a group of people waiting when I got there. We'd walked around from home so she was in the pram rather than the more compact car capsule that she is usually travels in.


We are now all on the same Medicare card (ooh, scary 'family-type' stuff) so I updated her details and took my little plastic number 6 and waited to be called in. All different ages are catered for on these immunisation days, so there was every age from Harriet to 4yr olds. The other babies that were there were having their next lot of shots, so they were about 4wks older than Harriet. They still looked about the same size as Harriet - I realised just how big she really is for her age! I weighed her while we were waiting and she was 6kgs. She's still lean but pretty long.



Anyway, we go in and she has to have a few drops of an oral vaccine which obviously tasted evil according to the look on her face. Then she had to have an injection in both legs and another one in her arm! :o( Poor little baby. She only grizzled when she was in there and was relatively calm on the way home, but when she was almost halfway back to the house any hope of us going for a long walk that morning were thwarted. She started to scream! I raced back home and tried to calm her down but she was absolutely inconsolable. She screamed until she was red in the face and couldn't catch her breath for the following 8hrs. Jimbo came home early and helped me de-stress, it was pretty horrible to have to go through. We gave her some Children's Panadol at 6pm and that finally quelled the hysteria. She made the funniest face when we dropped the solution into her mouth - apart from the vaccine it was the first thing she'd ever tasted apart from my breastmilk.

The photos here are from her finally crashed out from exhaustion at about 8pm on the lounge. Jimbo and I soon followed.

The next day her godfather, Jim, arrived from Sydney and she proceeded to greet him by sleeping through the entire day. She was obviously totally tuckered out from her immunisation experience and its aftermath. However the following day she had another day of crying and stress - this one appeared to resolve after we gave her some Infants' Friend (a solution that helps them pass wind; basically some fart juice in a bottle). By Friday she was beginning to return to her normal cheery chubby-cheeked self and Jim got to almost see what she is normally like. Unfortunately Jim had to return to Sydney on the Saturday morning, so he didn't get to see Harriet return to full monkey-like cheekiness.



The hospital where I had Harriet runs a whole swathe of postnatal classes. I enrolled in the postnatal Pilates course (a friend of mine, Emma from vet, had done it and I remember her telling me it was great) where you can take your babies along and they stay in the room with you. There are babysitters who walk around and pick up any yelling babies but if it's really bad you can always take them away yourself and settle them. Harriet was a total trooper. She arrived in her capsule and stayed in it for the first half of the class completely asleep. Then, when she woke, she had a little grizzle and I gave her a feed while I sat on my mat. Then I laid out her blanket (it's the one from her great-Grandma) and she laid next to me for the rest of the class just watching me do the exercises. It was *very* cute! You can see her here in position, looking up at one of the girls who was babysitting (just out of shot).

I guess we are *really* lucky in that Harriet, throughout all of these upset days, has still maintained her constant night routine of going to sleep at about 9.30, feeding twice during the night and waking up around 6.30am. What a chickybabe she is! Check it out, we got a cool one.

In other news, she has also started to make actual sounds rather than just crying/screaming/grunting/snorting/farting. The other night she made a sound that was just like 'Mama'. Of course she wasn't saying mama, but the sound she made was just like it. Jimbo and I looked at each other, startled, when she 'said' it. What a prodigy! Also known as 'What self-deluded parents to think she conscioulsy made the noise'. But we're going with the first one of course. Harriet also has started waking up and not putting those crankypants on straightaway. Sometimes she can wake up and just sit there for about half an hour before she'll make noise for our attention (usually mine, for food). And she is going for much longer periods at her play time and being alot more interactive. We're getting major smiles, grins and gurgles of happiness in the morning, afternoon and evening now.

In this morning's news, I was lying there awake listening to her grunt through a major poo. It wasn't coming so I thought I'd better get her for a feed since she seems to pass those explosive poos easier if she's feeding (what a charming experience motherhood is). I picked her up, put her on the boob and what did she do? Turned her head up to me and gave the biggest, cheekiest grin! She didn't want to feed at all, she just wanted to play! So I got to spend an absolutely adorable 40 mins playing with her, all smiles and chuckles and being so cute.

I may not have mentioned, however, that this happened at 5am. But sometimes you've gotta grab those moments no matter what time of day they come. I'm sure I'll remember those 40mins a lot longer than I would have remembered the sleep I missed out on.

Harriet's Big Day Out

On Saturday it was an overcast but warm day, and we thought that we'd finally get out and about in the spring sunshine - it's been a while coming over here in Perth. It was still a little dicey on the day but the clouds cleared by the afternoon and we headed out to Point Walter. There's a cute little park and cafe there, and on the day we went there were masses of families swarming the grassed areas. We met up with Sarah (one of the vets from work) and her partner Tim. They're heading over to the UK in April so we got the lowdown on what's happening with that. Sarah also got to indulge her clucky side by holding Harriet at every possible opportunity.


And when you see her being this cute, how could you resist?! She slept for most of the day on either my lap or Sarah's and we spent a lot of time wrestling with her sunhat which is an XS but is still massive on her - I wonder how babies with normal sized heads deal with it? Her head is such a boofer one that I would have thought most baby hats would be too small!



Here she is sitting on my lap - look at how big she is! She's doing her typical frog-legged pose which looks a little Buddha-esque. She was wearing one of her last 000 suits that still fit her, for some reason this one is a big cut and comes down the full length of her body. It's very cute, with 'summer friends' written on it and lots of little turtles, whales, boats and palm trees drawn on it. This is one of the rare photos of me with Harriet, because I'm usually the photo psycho snapping away whenever she's out and about with people.

Then on the way home from the picnic we decided to drop in on James' parents since they lived relatively close by. Mike was about to go into the spa and you can see from this photo that Harriet decided to have a go herself! She loved it in there, playing with her Grandpa, floating, playing with the bubbles. The funnier thing was watching the three adults hovering around the edge of the spa with cameras, cooing and aahhing at every little move she made.

Then it was time to go home (after we had some Chinese for dinner). Harriet crashed out in the car and went straight to sleep when we got back. Poor little rascal was exhausted!

Bits & Pieces

I should really have remembered to post this photo in my last entry. Here you can see Harriet staring very carefully at Grandma and reaching out to try and play with her. SO CUTE! It's not the greatest photo because it's dark in Grandma's house and the flash on our camera is crap. You can also see here how she has a chubber roll at the top of her legs.






Last weekend we went to Karrinyup Shopping Centre - James carried the monkey around in the BB carrier for three hours and she didn't make a peep! Of course she got lots of adoring looks and comments from passers by - who can resist her?

Whilst we were checking out stuff, we went into this shop called Early Learning Centre. It is the best shop for kiddywinks! This was the prize though - a dinosaur rocker that you can sit on and have many joyous times with. It was so soft and for only a measly $150 it too can be your child's memory of how spoilt they were. We loved it!

This was also mega-cool. It's a knitted toy cow from David Jones - I thought of you straight away Jennie! They have kittens and mice and all sorts of animals, but something about this cow really stood him out from the rest of the menagerie. It's a lot more financially accessible at only $35. I can't believe that I liked the cow more than the kitten, what's going on? Are you converting me by distance, Jennie? Or am I expressing your intense desire to get out of Sydney Rotation?!







And last but not least - baby with detachable head! Harriet fell asleep in Papa's arms and she decided that this was the most comfortable position to do that in. What a weirdo. Her neck is extremely flexible, she loves to make it look as though her head is on a hinge. We don't like the suit she's in there (it was an emergency 00 purchase). we woke up this morning and the side of the leg hole was cutting into her upper leg! Didn't seem to bother her, but I don't particularly like having to wrench skin from under the cloth to get her free. (It wasn't quite that bad, but if I don't exaggerate at least a little then it's no fun)

She was very cranky for about two and a half hours last night, which she hasn't done for quite a while. Not too sure what was going on, but she went down to sleep for the night ok which was our biggest concern. And we did get to watch the second episode of The Amazing Race - Family Edition in the end. We also watched RPA - Melinda, one of the girls I know from my EB forum, is having her pregnancy broadcast on the show over a period of weeks, so look out for her. I hate to give it away but it is a happy ending in her case - YAY!

Green Sleeping Baby

Here are a couple of photos of Miss Harriet sleeping in what we call her 'doughnut', but is in actual fact a boomerang-shaped pillow. Of course her beloved Mr Croak is never far behind, in this photo he's keeping a close eye on her from behind the lounge cushion. I've just realised what a sea of green this photo is - she's wearing a green outfit (that she now doesn't fit into), green doughnut, green Mr Croak and green blanket.

She was sleeping next to me as I grabbed half an hour to watch an episode of Degrassi Junior High Season 2. There are just so many lessons we have to learn from Spike, Stephanie Kaye, Kathleen, Joey, Snake et. al. If you don't know what I'm talking about then you should be ashamed of yourself - what kind of GenerationX-er are you?! Google it.





This is another one of her sleeping in what I like to think of as her 'Picard' pose. Looks as though she's about to launch a mission to investigate alien life forms from the comfort of her large chair on the deck..or in this case her doughnut from the lounge.

Yesterday I had to go to the doctor because I have a Meibomian cyst that's been causing some corneal irritation and tear duct issues - when he saw Harriet he called her the 'cassette'! HA! Jimbo was mighty peeved that he didn't think of that one himself, especially as he said after wards that he could have said during birth that I was 'ejecting the cassette'. Anyway I was prescribed some chlorsig but I had some at home that I'd prescribed for Smellie, so I used that instead. Mmmm, self medication.

So she is now officially in size 00 clothes and we can't believe just how well she fits them either! We thought that she might be a little to small for them but it looks like we may have left the size change a little too long since it looks like at this rate it's not too long until she fits into 0 sizes! All of her 0 clothes are very summery though, so let's hope the weather heats up a little before that happens.

She has taken lately to staring at us intently and then breaking out into the biggest grins which then proceed to break out into big gummy smiles - so adorable! She looks like such a cheeky monkey when she does them too. At first we were only getting them in the morning after her nappy change, but now we're getting them during the day and night too - it's awesome! Yesterday she spent a full 20mins staring at Grandma's face (her great-grandma) making lots of cooing, gurgling noises and breaking out in big smiles. Then she spent some time with Nanna while I went in to work to organise my upcoming roster situation. I also got a chance to go adn talk to the FAO woman to chase up our baby bonus money - everyone else I know who was getting it already has it, whereas we're still waiting over 6wks later. Weird. She said that it was all processed but not deposited, so we should get that soon - way after we actually needed it since we budgeted to include it whilst I was off work and now I'm about to go back. Oh well, means we did well on less than we thought!

Community Health Check 30/9/2005

As well as seeing the paediatrician, Harriet had her 6wk check with the community nurse down at Inglewood Community Centre. Here she was seen by Bronwyn, a casual nurse who was just there for the day. This meant we didn't get to see Teresa, the lovely nurse who did our home visit at 2wks, which was a real shame. I made sure that we got her for our next check at 12wks though.

Harriet had her eyes checked (although she wouldn't look at the light, she was too intent on looking just behind Bronwyn's shoulder the whole time, even with a little ball hanging from the ophthalmoscope), her weight, length and head circumference recorded, reflexes checked and Mama got asked a whole pile of questions about her eating, sleeping and demeanour.



In this photo Harriet had cracked it and was screaming down the house, although she had been all happy and playful to begin with. The nurse is testing her stepping reflex. All was well and I got to give her a nice long feed after the exam to calm her down.

At 6wks she is off the scale with her measurements (no surprise given the parents I suppose!).

6 Week Measurements
Weight - 5.4kgs (top of the range)
Length - 60cms (off the scale for her age)
Head Circumference - 40cms (off the scale for her age)

Birth Measurements
Weight - 4.1kgs
Length - 51cms
Head Circumference - 34cms

So she is pretty lean considering how long she is! You can see that she has a little chubber roll at the top of her legs, but that's it. It's hard work for the boobs keeping up with all this growth! Actually it's not at all, I'm having no problem keeping up, but I am worried about being able to express enough for when I go back to work.

Nanna and the Capsule

One day Jan (Nanna) came over to say hi and she was very excited to see that Harriet was wearing her Celtic outfit...oh wait, actually she was just excited to see Harriet! Nanna got a good long cuddle and the baby stayed asleep for ages. She looks so cute when she's asleep that I can't help but take a thousand photos!






You can see my dilemma - how could I NOT take a photo when she's being this damn cute?! This is when she was going out in the capsule. Normally she cracks it when we put her in to go out in the car, but since last week she's been remarkably different in how she handles it. She only tends to get cranky now if we take a while to pull her arms through the straps. Maybe soon she'll even let us do that without a problem? That would rock. She loves it in the car, going to sleep within about five minutes of being on the road. Every now and then she'll have a bad period where she starts to cry every time the car stops. And seeing that this is Perth and the traffic lights take AGES to change, that can occasionally be a real problem! The outfit she's wearing is courtesy of Dr Sarah from work - the top is a soft velour texture that she loves.

Harriet also puts her head at an extreme angle when sleeping in the capsule and it looks very uncomfortable, but she loves it.

Purple Sleeping Baby

Here are some photos that I took the other afternoon. Harriet was sleeping on me being extremely cute - her face was all squished up against me and she was totally crashed out.

The photo's at a funny angle because I had to hold the camera up and guess where it would take a good photo from. She's wearing her cute purple Bonds 'tracksuit' grow-suit. What would you do if you lived in a country that didn't sell Bonds?!! I can't imagine such an existence. For one thing, I'd have no underwear...

This is a close-up of just how squished up her face it. You have to ignore the horrible cushion of the chair behind her head. I know by mentioning it I have just made it worse, but it's the last one in the set that hasn't been recovered by me. I have foolishly left it until after the monkey came along, so now it might take a while to be covered!

You may also feel free to admire the humungous curvature of my rather ample bosom in the lower right corner.

And this is the schmoopster after she woke up. Lately she has started to be awake for longer and not be cranky or wanting to be fed when she's awake - this means lots of cute times where she just stares at our faces, plays on the playmat or just stares into space (it's the final frontier, didn't you know?).