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!