Whole Pile o' Firsts

Well it has been a busy week for Harriet's little brain. On the 27th we were lying around in bed in the morning as you do when you don't have to get up for anything or anyone. I sat Harriet up in my crossed legs after lifting her into sitting position with my thumbs as I've mentioned before. She then sat in my crossed legs. And just sat there. Not leaning against me, not really using much of my leg as ballast, just...sitting there! I got Jimbo to grab the camera so we have a few shots of Harriet's first proper sitting up . She's pretty excited about it and over time she gradually topples forward and she does still need a little support around her lower back. But not much at all and I imagine it's not long until she doesn't need that either. In these shots she's already doing the leaning forward thing quite a bit. It's cclassic because she gets to that critical point and just face plants. Funny thing is that she doesn't really get cranky about it, she almost moves into a semi=crawl position from there. *yikes* I'm not really prepared to have another mobile creature in this house just yet. Not that I think she's listening to my concerns about it.

Then yesterday I was at work in the morning and when I came home Jimbo said to me "Hey Cass, I have something to show you that is extraordinarily cute". I think "Yay, more photos of Harry" (Yes, I am a sad photo freak - laugh and point at the person with a problem). Then James shows me this photo...she's lying there feeding herself! Apparently James thought "I wonder what would happen if I let go of this bottle? She seems to have a pretty good grip of this thing". He took away his hands and, sure enough, she just continued to hold it and finish off the bottle. How cute is that?! (Ok, we're a little biased. But you're reading the blog so you have to also be a little biased. So, HA!).

Then that afternoon we were going to a wedding - Harry's first wedding! She wore a gorgeous little dress that was from Christmas and when we got there, there was another girl double Harry's age wearing the same dress...in the same size! Wow, she is a long girl. Everyone oohed and aahed over how gorgeous she is (or that may just have been me)...oh yeah, and the wedding was gorgeous too.

And finally her other big news is that this morning we were lying in bed playing the "eyes, nose, mouth, chin, chubby cheeks" game/song and I thought I'd play a little game. I said to Harriet "And where's Mama's mouth?". Blow me down if she didn't stick her hand out and plant a palm over my mouth! James was just lying there watching gobsmacked. I then repeated it for the eyes, nose, chin and cheeks. Bingo, each time she placed her little spazzy hand over the appropriate face part. We were so astounded. James said to me in a small voice "If I hadn't just witnessed that there is no way I would ever, ever have believed it". I then repeated it, asking her the parts in a adifferent order and making sure I wasn't moving my head in a way that made sure her hand was going for the right area or anything. And she did it again! After we came to our senses and she got bored of that game and started blowing raspberries and playing with her hands, I was kicking myself that we didn't think to tape it since the video camera was just lying there on the floor next to the bed. I can't tell you just how amazed we were. It was so surprising. We just weren't expecting that kind of stuff just yet. Now we're all paranoid about what we're doing/saying in front of her cos she's obviously taking it all in. Now we're in trouble.

This last photo was taken today when we were out at a park having a picnic with some friends. We got some lovely SLR shots as well but forgot to bring out the digital camera until the last minute. But never fear, I didn't want to leave my poor blog readers with no pictorial remembrance of the day so here it is. See you next time. Like, when she starts school next week or something. Hee hee.

A Festive Week

So, it was Harry's first Christmas - yay! She woke up around 6.30am, which we figured would be about what time we oculd expect to be awoken in future years. We helped Harriet open her presents in bed - that is, we had her sitting in our laps whilst we stopped her from eating the wrapping paper. The presents (a new Mozart Magic Cube won off ebay and some Fisher Price Roll-a-Rounds) went down pretty well, although we found out that the Cube doesn't have a volume control unfortunately. It's not overly loud or anything, just set a little above what I'd like.

We were having everyone over at our house - Grandma, James' parents, my dad and his wife, her brother and his children plus my sisters and their boyfriends. So it was supposed to be an up-and-at-'em-action- stations kind of day. However James and Mike had finished the verandah, we had run ourselves ragged on Christmas Eve getting everything organised and I had even half prepared the salads I was making for that afternoon. So while we were lying in bed we realised that there was nothing to do! Perfect! So we laid around playing with Harry, she fell back asleep, we thought we better make her feel comfortable so we fell back asleep with her and everyone had a nice sleep in. Mmmmm.....

The day went really well, everyone ate a lot, drank a bit and when the final person rolled out of the house at about 11pm we crashed into bed. Harriet actually dealt with the day a whole lot better than I thought she would. 4 days before she had had her vaccinations and since she had such a horrible response to them last time, I was dreading what would happen this time. She cracked it big time at about 7pm and didn't go down to sleep at her normal times or anything, but we figured that was to be expected, what with everyone handling her, playing with her and there being generally a million things to stimlate a little baby. Turns out the candle flames were a big hit and she spent quite a while watching those. They did look gorgeous flickering out on the verandah with the fairy lights in the mild evening.

Harriet cleaned up bounty-wise. A million clothes, teddy bears (yes that is a Harriet-sized Gromit lying next to her. Thanks Jussy, she loves it!), our presents, a little book set of Dr Seuss, books, a bracelet, a snuggle rug and one of the big hits of the day was the activity board Grandma bought her.

You can see her playing with it here - she can hit quite a few buttons that make noise and flash various lights around. She hadn't come into contact with something that made noise like that before so it was pretty exciting.

Big Girl

What a difference 3 months can make!

Mama loves Harry

Here's Harry having a laugh with her Mama on Boxing Day.




And another one later in the evening outside. She now has a jumper on because it was a bit chilly.



I think Mama might love the baby.

Merry Xmas from Harry

Paper tastes good...

Magazine Love

Here's Harry getting all excited by her lover boy in the magazine.

And here she is consuming the page. Told you we had a keeper with this one.

Fists of Fate

Harriet is a fully functional little person now. She copies us doing raspberries (or tries to - her little attempts are so cute and she's too busy grinning whilst doing it to get a really good one going), she has preferences for things to play with and she's already fantasising about magazine models. The last one became apparent this morning when Jimbo was reading a magazine and Harriet was on his lap. She saw an ad that had a spunky little baby with very curly hair and she went OFF! Jerking her arms around, opening her eyes as wide as saucers and, in an ultimate compliment to the boy, grabbed the magazine and rammed the whole thing in her mouth. She's such a delicate flower.
She also loves to play Eve with Papa. As you can see in that first photo, her expression is absolutely priceless when it's on the screen. She also keeps hitting James with her arm in an excited "man-did-you-see-THAT?!' kind of way. James is used to it from me, so it's essentially just another female in the house who hits him during conversations.


Mmmm...testament to her ongoing devotion to the fist, here Harriet performs the ultimate soothing manouvere - double fists. All those who have gone before have failed or been left permanently maimed. Harriet, however, mastered the skill with precision timing. She has also mastered the very dextrous motion of removing her dummy and then replacing it! Sometimes the replacing it part of the equation can go slightly awry, with various other parts of the dummy finding their way into the mouth instead. But with each attempt she is getting much more adept. Clever monkey.
Then on the weekend we finally had a glimpse of summer weather. So off came the clothes and into the pool we jumped. After applying layers of sunscreen, a wrist to ankle SPF50+ swimsuit and sun protecting swim-ring she was ready to be just as crazy and spontaneous as any other 4mth old in their pools. Which is to say not at all. She didn't like the little ring at first, but she gradually got the hang of it once she stopped grabbing on to the koala pictures on the contraption and realised she was in water.

And we've been out doing some Christmas shopping with Grandma. She was being so cute and all smiles in the Parents' Room that we nearly didn't leave. But then we remembered that they turf you out if you're a weirdo lurking in the Parents' Room all day and you can get questioned by the police, so we decided to head out. It was a close thing with Grandma though - every baby that walked in apparently needed little waves and smiles.

Well things are shaping up nicely (if not frantically) for Christmas Day. We'll see you all on the flip-side of our Festivus celebrations.

HAPPY FESTIVUS!

The Drool Monster

It's now official - Harriet needs a bib. The little monkey drools A LOT and now that it's become so serious that the drool was soaking through her tops, I decided to stop being a 'trailer park mom' (no place for a kitty) and give her a bib. Of course it was only precipitated by laziness, so that now I don't have to change her tops or suits anymore, we just pop on another bib.

So it was Mike's birthday this week and Harriet decided that she wanted to sit up with the big people when we went out for lunch at Annalakshmi. We used one of their highchairs, popped her in it....and watched her gradually slide...slide...slide all the way off to the side and then down the chair. It was funny to watch but eventually we decided to rescue her and she sat on my knee instead. But give this child a taste of the big kid lifestyle and she wants to run with it. Now she wants to be up and about with everyone all the time, so she has become a chronic knee sitter since she can't sit in a high chair yet.

She has also pretty much given up on rolling. This was the last time she made an effort. It may seem strange after her ongoing, strained efforts of the previous week, but now she's found a new game. Sitting up. And whereas last week she loved sitting up, this week she is waking up in the middle of the night straining to do ab crunches so that she can sit upright. *sigh* She's so cute when she does them though, because she strains and strains, her little face goes red and her grunts echo through the house - but she only manahes to move about an inch forward. Hee hee, it's very cute to watch during the day but very frustrating to control at 4am. It might be ok if she was in another room but because we co-sleep it has a pretty direct impact on our sleep as well. I obviously don't mind too much though because during the day we encourage her by getting her to grip our thumbs and after "1, 2, 3.." we lift her forward into sitting, where she sits with a massive grin looking around at her newly upright world.

But you can see here that she has picked up the reading thing easily. Here's she pointing out to Jimbo just what to do with the varnish tin. We've been trying to finish some outdoor stuff prior to Christmas which we're having at our house. Harriet's been helping quite a bit by lying passively on a rug enjoying the outdoors (like watching clouds or the trees) while we try to get on with a few things.


And this is just a photo of me with Harry to prove that I'm not a phantasm and that I am around enjoying this little baby on a daily basis. Here she has taken grip of the side of my hand and is hanging on for dear life. Gums of steel I tell you. And no wonder our arms are getting tired lifting her up - she is 7.5kgs and 70cms long!

Ummm...this is just here because she looks really cute. HEY! It's my blog ok, and I can post irrelevant photos if I want to.

Does anybody read this?

We're not sure whether anyone other than Jennie and Lisa actually read this blog... If you do, post a comment and let us know (so we know it's worth the effort!).

Babbling Baby

I really love this photo of Harry cracking it big time on her Papa - does that make me evil Mama? Well, so be it. I also love the mega-drool patch right down the front of her singlet, a very attractive look. I can't remember precisely what it was that made her so incredibly unhappy that day but boy it was obviously something really important.


Here's Harriet in her current favourite position - sitting up. She *loves* it and gets very frustrated that she can't sit like that all the time. This week she did a surprise roll from tummy to back, so I also helped her with a little push off to go from back to tummy. Bad idea! Now she gets to her side from her back (which she has been doing for a while) and starts screaming because she can't get enough oomph to flip right over on to her back. It must be so frustrating being a baby, just lying there on your back unable to move. Even Christopher Reeve could move between rooms.

On Saturday we went for a walk to the library to get some new books. And wow - did we pick a doozy! 'Yum Yum Molly' is apparently the most fascinating epic for babies - it will transform her from upset to gurgling in about one minute. We have to do a bit of editorialising because there is some consumption of miscellaneous animal parts (in the form of salami) and Jimbo keeps repeating the book in a singsong voice throughout the rest of the day which drives me batty. But it is this week's LotR for babies.

Speaking of the weekend, the verandah was finally finished - yay! It looks totally awesome. Jan also weeded our entire front yard, and if you knew the size of the yard and the number of weeds, you'd be amazed at such a feat being completed in less than one lifetime. Here Harriet is helping out with the placement of the string line. You also get a good look at her awesome mohawk style hair too.

And the verandah being built made Harry a very happy girl, because as soon as we were all celebrating its completion, she started cooing and laughing like the sweet peach that she is. In other updates in Harriet's life, this was the week she decided to start talking - and we mean REALLY talking! In the morning she has taken to lying there babbling away to her hands for about an hour, which might be cute if we were already awake, but 5.30am is too early for these old curmudgeons. She will babble using the occasional real syllable at any opportunity. Her other favourite game this week is to dance around to Badly Drawn Boy and get aeroplanes high into the air, ending with a big raspberry on the belly. I want to be a baby again...oh well, not long until the aged home where you get changed, fed and wheeled around everywhere.

A Photo Session Progression

"What's that? The camera? What does that mean?"




"Oh yay, it's going to be fun hanging around outside!"


"Hang on, this has been going on for a while now. I'm not too sure how I feel about it all."



"For god's sake, take that thing away from me!"