Little Drummer Girl

The toy library is the great untapped resource of modern childhood. When you have a baby this whole new world of stuff opens up to you - things like toy libraries, community nurses, playgroups, mothers' groups, storytimes...I mean a whole heap of stuff. It's kinda weird and definitely a 'secret world'. We were initiated into the toy library experience in a big way up at the Maroubra branch of the Randwick library. They have a huge area where the children can run riot trying out all the toys and it's cleverly surrounded by soundproof glass.

You may remember the red & yellow car she enjoyed at Playgroup the other week? Well they have those at the library too and since I know Harry loves it, I stood her up next to one of those cars and turned around to get the camera out of my bag (I know, shocking that it wasn't alreayd out and ready to go). Well when I turned around, there she was, practically running across the floor pushing this car! I had to scramble to catch up with her! So after quite a few rounds of walking with this car, I put it aside to take home with us and pleased that she finally was confident to take some steps on her own.

The next toy I pulled out for her to examine was a bag containing a tambourine and some maracas. They were pretty fun until...out of the corner of my eye I spotted. The big cahuna. The floor tom! When I placed this in front of Harriet, well she just went OFF. She was picking up the drumstick and bashing the skin of that tom like she was auditioning for Metallica. Houston, we have a percussionist. When we took it home you can see that the passion hasn't subsided. Here she is sitting in her cute manner of crossing her ankles and letting rip with a massive BOOM. It truly is great. In fact it is such a hit and one that will obviously continue to be a good toy through the years that we're going to buy one for her to have (rather than only having it for the occasional 2wk period from the library). The great thing about it is that it is actually a real drum, not just a double sided plastic thing like other drums she has played with (and not been interested in).

Here she's showing us "Look guys - no hands!".

Umm, a particularly quiet method of playing the drums.

You can tell by the previous post with me feeding her straight from the yoghurt container that there are few eating rules in our house. This photo proves just how far some people are prepared to take that statement. Yep, here is Harriet feeding herself lunch from the floor. It was a really healthy lunch of wholemeal pasta, peas and kidney beans with a dash of dust on the side. This week she has started eating much greater volumes of solids than before. She normally only picks out a few pieces of pasta and the odd pea/bean, but on this occasion she actually ate all of the pasta which surprised me and quite a few of the beans. So maybe floor food is the baby preferred method of consumption?

It definitely wasn't the case when we went out to see Nana and Grandpa at Chinatown on Saturday night. Harry ate heaps of fried rice, and had no problem with pulling our bowls away from our hands and helping herelf to the delicacies that lay within. She even ate the Ma Po Tofu dish with enthusiasm (when it finally arrived). There was a little baby walking around in the mall who had those squeaky shoes - with every step he took they let out a loud 'squng' - helpful for his parents to find him, annoying for diners to listen to. Well it wasn't until James pointed it out to us all that we really started to get annoyed by it!

And here's Harriet looking pensively of into the distance at Playgroup. She's remembering those carefree days of being a stationary baby because as of last night, Harriet is now a CRAWLER and a CRUISER! Yee-ha! Actually it was on Friday afternoon when a friend was over with her two girls. I had only just finished talking about how Harry just wasn't into crawling although I was sure she could do it, when she looked up and saw I was in the other room. Well, she just hoisted up those knees, plonked one palm in front of another and crawled halfway across the loungeroom to me! Then last night with Nana here she started walking all around the coffee table supporting herself (this is called furniture cruising). Cool stuff!

Also she's staretd doing things like when you say "Where are Tubs' toes?" She points to the toes on her doll. And when I say a line from one of her books she crawls over to her books and grabs that book. So things are getting a whole lot more fun lately! We all went for breakfast with Max and Nell and their parental types Don and Tania yesterday morning but all attempts by me to get a photo of both girls looking in my general direction failed miserably, so that event will have to remain unphotographed on the blog. Bummer!