As big as a Fire Truck!

Last week the fire engine came to Playgroup! I didn't know and couldn't work out why there were about double th normal number of mums & bubs there. Harriet was totally entranced by a small flower for nearly the whole time that the truck was there, but she started to be a little interested towards the end of the visit. She enjoyed playing around inside the really big tyres and trying to catch the flashing lights on the front.

That may well be the response because of all the flashing lights going off around this place now that I have my beautiful new camera. The fire engine was on the old camera (boo hoo) . But I have been having lots of fun snapping poor unsuspecting Harriet Dora, although she does seem to be quite the little camera poser lately. The other afternoon I pulled out my camera to move into a more baby proof spot and upon seeing it, Harriet started cracking out the big grins! So I couldn't help myself and took a couple of shots of her grinning away.

Her latest words are 'wow' and 'cat'. Wow sounds exactly like wow, but cat is a little more on the 'get' side of things. Nevertheless she has started trying to speak when she's upset about something rather than just crying which is, for some reason I just can't quite poinpoint, rather unsettling.She has had a few thrilling experiences of watching horses, dogs and ducks go by down at Centennial Park. There were definitely a few 'wow's that day!

On the weekend we caught up with Lisa and Craig - we met up in the absolute pouring rain on King St which was bizarrely packed. Lisa had convinced Sam to relinquish some of his baby things so we are now the very excited owners ofa pair of Doc boots (too big now but so exciting for her to have when she's a little older!), lots of books (including 'Little Miss STubborn' - what are you suggesting there Lisa?) and a cool wooden skittles game. We played the skittles down our long hallway and after a few goes of throwing the ball kamikaze style at the carefully set up pins, Harriet kind of looked at me like I was nuts and just crawled down there and smacked them all down with her hand. To finish it off she sat back and started sucking contentedly on a pin. Game set and match to the baby.

She's on the go a lot more, crawling is now no problem and although she much prefers walking she will happily go scooting around after such enticing objects as Squeezmo, an empty drink container, some half eaten jam sandwich and books. Oh the books! If we get caught near the book area either one of us may not reappear for a while as we get book after book thrust upon us and an insistent 'uh, uh' as she's settling herself into a comfy position in our laps for a long spell of book reading. Her favourite book Baby Peekaboo has now officially died and will have to be re-bought we fear.

Another weekend of Sunday breakfast at our favourite cafe, discovered whilst living in the serviced apartment. The guy who owns it had a baby girl when we first started going there so he was all interested in Harriet's goings-on.

This whole cafe thing is old-hat now and Harriet brings with her some reading material to pass the time whilst waiting for her serve of mushrooms.