Welcome to the Weekend

This is absolutely the saddest photo I could take of Harriet today. And even then it was only because she was watching Squeezmo intently over my shoulder and snuggling up to her jumper in the other hand.

Mostly today she was an absolute cracker box full of energy. Feeding Doll her lunch, pulling flowers out of the ground, running after Squeezmo (who actually seems to enjoy it!). It was great to see her back to her usual antics. Thanks so much for everyone's comments and support, it's so nice and warm and fuzzy to log in and see all those comments!
I post this one merely to show those upper molars. I told you they were big 'uns! She's getting a face tickle here from Grandpa while we were at the woodfired pizza place tonight for dinner. Harriet enjoyed some avocado and pizza crust. mmmmm

And didn't I tell you that everything is better upside down?! We had to take it in turns (grandparents included) in taking her for a walk or throwing her upside down. The restaurant is a bit of a fave for a few reasons. One is the group of very sweet, very camp waitstaff that dote on Harriet, another is the great food and finally of course, the wonderful 80s soundtrack. We had Electric Dreams, Gold (Spandau Ballet) and others whilst we dined. What more can you ask for?


And these are just some shots from today because she's gorgeous and deserves to have some cute shots of her up and on display. She's so much fun when she's well! Who thought playing with a baby all day could be this much fun?

Back to (Harry's Kind of) Normal

Yay - the smiles are back! Thank you everyone for your sms, email and comment concerns. It was pretty hairy there for a while, Harriet was not her usual self at all and we realised just how full of beans and smiles she actually is.

After the hospital visit we kept close to home so as not to infect other kidlet types in the wide world. Well that drove me mad, let alone Harry. Poor mite was feeling not up to much anyway. She had a very mild rash on the back of her neck and on Sunday didn't want to walk, as if the soles of her feet were sore. This was no surprise since that's where blisters can come up, so we just carried her everywhere. On Monday she woke up and was just really wan - very strange for her! Yesterday she was a bit better and actually ate a couple of bites of bread. Her first food in over 36hrs at least, so we were happy with that.

Today she had a wicked phlegm-filled cough and runny nose but was actually in the best spirits since she first fell ill. So all in all it's been about a week of upset. She's definitely getting evern *more* teeth as well. There are 20 teeth in their baby set and Harriet currently has 10 broken through, an eleventh just about broken and I now think that #12 is making its presence known. Both of the doctors who looked in her mouth said that she had a couple more teeth coming up so I'm bracing for a rusk-heavy couple of weeks.

I popped her in a bucket today as you do. She loved it in there! Was tempted to just pop a lid on and see how long it took her to notice but then I remembered that I love her millions and she rules and is a peach so I didn't. But she played in there for ages, throwing a ball around, standing up, squatting down, all kinds of shenanigans.


This morning we knew spirits were up because she wanted to look through photos of herself. As you probably know, this is a shared favourite pasttime between myself and Harry, so I totally understand. I have even got a pile of photos just for Harriet of Harriet. Self adulation goes a long way when you have a photo-crazed Mama around.

And in other news, this is a photo of Harriet from Saturday when she was really quite ill. See all that staining on her tshirt? SALIVA! Seriously, she was hypersalivating constantly, and here I was thinking it was just teething, what a chump.

Well the story behind this story is that we get this castle from the toy library and have had it out about four times now. Harriet LOVES this thing, it's her own little play area. She loves to check out if there's mail in the mailbox, she'll put stuff in the three little holes that are behind her in this shot, she loves to spin the birds (out of view), etc. Anyway, I knew there was a secondhand toy store on Anzac Pde (you can see where this story is heading). I was absolutely adamant that we go there on Saturday to see if they had a castle (they aren't made by Little Tikes anymore, I looked it up). I just had this really strong gut feeling that we would find one there. We rock up and...TA DA! There it is! They even had the mysterious three vegetables that go into the three holes (I had always wondered what was *actually* supposed to go in there). James dismissed my toy radar, but I was mightily impressed that my sixth sense is tuning in to premoulded plastic for children. What skill.

So yes, Harriet is on the mend (but teething, as always). She is also a mad talker now - saying "No", "Baby" and "Bye bye" completely rather than just baby-talk. She also says "Mama", "Beh" (for Papa), "Ana" (for Nana), "Bee" (for light?!), "Dut" (for duck) and I'm sure lots of others that I can't think of right now.

Really, Truly Sick

No photos this time. Today we had to take Harriet to the hospital because she was well and truly sick. I had been awake all night with her (she slept, but was so restless and feverish that I only ever got 30mins sleep in a row maximum). In the morning I was putting her down for her morning sleep at about 9am when she started arching her back (a sign of pain in babies) and screaming. Drove to the hospital and she was diagnosed with hand, foot and mouth disease. You can have a look at it in more detail here: http://www.health.vic.gov.au/ideas/bluebook/hand_foot.htm

Basically it's a viral disease spread by aerosol droplet infection as well as through vesicular fluid and faeces, but since she hasn't been rubbing her hands in anyone's burst blisters or poo, I think it's the droplet method that's done her in. Poor mite, apparently she has vesicular lesions through her posterior pharynx - these will burst and become ulcers. Knowing how much just one small mouth ulcer can hurt me, I can't imagine the pain of a whole mouth full of them. Jennie told me a horror story about how a friend of hers had her child wean because sucking was more painful than drinking from a cup...don't tel me things like that Jennie! Harry's only 13mths!

Since it's viral there's nothing to offer but analgesia. So we gave her some paracetamol + codeine which has definitely helped her sleep. Only problem is that she requires 7mLs of the stuff - we have a battle getting 1.5mLs down her for Panadol! So we tried it in the bath tonight so that the sticky excess just ran into the water and she wasn't too sticky afterwards. Worked a treat! She's sleeping now and I'm about to join her...man am I tired!

So apologies to everyone we were going to see this weekend (we actually had a very full weekend booked and everything got cancelled). Hopefully we can reschedule for sometime soon. Will hopefully be back in here soon with some happy news and smiling photos.

Softly, Softly, Catch a Monkey

Well, softly softly catch a Squeezmo anyway.









Here she's concentrating more on watching Smellie run down the stairs away from her. Squeezmo is watching her too, no doubt waiting to pounce on her soon after. Little does he know that bully karma is awaiting him in the form of Harriet.


She looks down and...oh! What joy! A cat!

Now, the photo I missed here was when she actually had a look pass over her face where she thought about what to do next. It appears that all those gentle exhortations of "gentle' finally made sense, because she didn't bang her excited palm up and down all over his face!
She leant over and ever so softly (for a 13mth old anyway) stroked his fur! Yay! The possibility of human/feline domestic relations reaching neutrality may be upon us.



In other news, Harry is really, really sick today. Poor mite can barely breathe, her nose is so blocked. Her cough sounds like she's an old smoker and her fever has been so bad at times that I wondered if we could save money by frying eggs for breakfast on her rather than turn on the gas. So in honour of the good times (ie: three days ago), here is a cute photo of Harriet and Papa Jimbo doing what they do best.

Rub-a-dub Dub

Next to the cellar door there's a tub full of old water. Whilst putting the washing on today, Harriet started splashing around in it and loved creating bubbles. So I thought - marvellous, a new game!


Later on when I was hanging out said washing, I filled the tub with clean water and took down a few toys for her to float/immerse/splash etc. And she took to this game like...well, like a duck to water.
It was pretty thirsty business though and with a mid-play break for some boobie-licious delights, she was back at it straight away.

This cute smile was elicited after I showed her the photos I had been taking on the back of the camera. She then kept saying "Baby!" and grabbing the camera when I was trying to take more photos! She didn't seem to mind that they're a bit too dark.


Man, we have the most gorgeous little girl around. She has been just so much fun the past few days, playing with everything (the new game is putting stuff into stuff) and giggling away. I love her!

The Happy Harry

Now I know I said the other day that Harriet was very grizzly; well, having two premolars poking their way through your gum would do that to you. So to prove she's still a peach I have posted these photos of her enjoying life from the past two days. Here she's loving being on her Papa's shoulders as we walked up to Brokenwood winery on Sunday. She was giggling and trying to grab Jimbo's nose which was amusing to watch but not so amusing for the nose.

Here she is just this morning grinning like a loon because she was playing with the cords from the blinds. See that little tag hanging down in the top left corner? That has a huge "WARNING - not to be left where children can play with this!" sign on it. Harriet the daredevil just laughs in the face of danger. She also loves to laugh wherever Santa Bear from Nana Lee is - see it in the background? Oh that Santa Bear had been subject to many a squeeze just prior to finding the blind cord. Freaky child.
At the same time she was pulling and chewing on the cord, she was busy playing face games with me. Some of her favourite things to do at the moment are:
* flick through pages of books - not baby books, adult books. She holds the edges of the pages and runs them through her fingers like she's trying to find where she left off.
* say "No" with an absolute deadpan voice whilst shaking her head emphatically
* flick through photo albums of herself (not that there isn't ample opportunity for that)
* play with the balls from the ball pool by holding them out between her fingertips


* play with water - ANY water. Here she's playing in the sculpture fountain at Centennial Park yesterday when it was quite hot

* play with any sort of bouncing ball
* steal my necklace from me - this was made for me by Lee and Harriet just loves it so much that whenever I put it on, she gets all cranky playing with it until she gets to wear it!

Look at how long and lanky she is! Today she has a dry cough that's keeping her sleep a little unsettled but she's still cute as anything. Today was sushi day and she ate her roll in a flash. Lucky for her we've put her down to learn Japanese at IGS!

Hunter Valley Weekend

What? No photos of Harriet? *shock* *horror* It's ok, they're a bit further down. But I just wanted to show off that this weekend James and I went on a hot air balloon ride over the Hunter Valley! It was AWESOME! I honestly loved it so much, it was so peaceful being up so high in the sky and there being no hum of machinery and just the occasional blast of propane. It did require a 4.30am wake-up call but given Harriet's sleeping regime the past week that wasn't too difficult to manage. The light was just gorgeous at take off and I took some photos of the other balloons taking off as well.

The bummer about flying in your own balloon is that you can't take photos of it! Oh well, it was just so beautiful. Afterwards we went to a champagne breakfast at The Mill Restaurant and I highly recommend this place if you want to go somewhere lovely when you're Hunter Valley way. The breakfast was delicious and I ate enough for five. We met some lovely people there too, which always makes those things much more enjoyable. They had bought their grandma the ride for her 80th birthday! She was a great woman and James had to lift her out of the basket at the end though.

And just as a little aside, on our way home we saw a little duckling separated from it's family. I ran over to it but just 10cms away from my fingers it slipped down a stormwater grate! We lifted it up and I dropped down into it to try and coax it back but it kept chirping further and further away. I couldn't see it anymore but all you would need is a torch and anet to get it back safely, so we went and phoned WIRES and they were sending someone down. So fingers crossed for the cute duckling everyone! I am pretty sure it would do well since it was so close to the grate.
And this is what we came back to at the grandparents' house! This photo is courtesy of Jan and Mike. Harriet was loving sitting in the laundry basket playing with pegs. Oh yes, spend all the money you want on expensive toys but when it comes down to it, put a baby in a basket, show her some pegs and watch the magic happen. She had apparently been a little confused in the morning about where we had gone off to, but wasn't upset (gee, thanks Hazza!). Of course as soon as she saw me though it was velcro baby for a little while.

The best thing about staying with Nana and Grandpa is that Harriet just LURVES her Nana so much that I get to use two hands for most of the day. It is both amazing and fantastic!


We all went for a drive to Maitland to go to Walka Water Works, where they have some gorgeous gardens for genteel picnic type activities. I felt a ltad cloddish clomping around there in my modern day garb - thought I should be dressed in a pinafore and corset. Harriet however was dressed appropriately in this cute dress we bought from an online store run by a girl on EB. Isn't it cute? We all had lunch and Harriet wouldn't leave Nana alone. I actually got to finish my sandwich in realtively normal time whilst poor Nana was the one left chewing away an hour after we had all finished as she tried to juggle playing with Miss Harriet Dora, her ball, the roll, the drink and miscellaneous flora that Harry decided was fun to play with. On our way back to the car she decided that gravel was great fun and because we don't believe in forcing timelines, we just stood there and watched her have a ball with the small stones. Can you remember when you were so joyous over rocks?

On Sunday we had a lazy hang-around-the-house morning and then headed out for some lunchtime winery experiences. We firtsly went straight back to the place we went to for breakfast after the balloon because they had a dairy there. Mmmmmm...cheese! We bought some delicious cheeses and Harriet met Joe at the fountain. Poor Joe wasn't allowed to do the stuff we let Harriet do. For some reason Joe's mum didn't want him touching the water and there was Harriet, splashing away and getting herself all drenched, as well as almost climbing into it. If it had been warmer I probably would have helped her lift that leg a little higher so she could jump in. Then Joe would have really been upset I'm sure!

We also drove to another cheese shop but it got really busy and packed with people and Harriet cracked it, so we went to go home...cracked it again. Seeing as we were in no hurry, and as we said we don't believe in forcing timelines as well as wanting to keep the car a positive experience for the long drive home, we walked up to Brokenwood (what a pity - another winery to visit). Here she is a lot happier, grinning up at her Papa who finally got a chance to use the camera himself.

That afternoon Harriet had some lunch - pickled onion, herb & garlic fromage frais, turkish bread, hummous, dolmades, the list goes on. Oh yeah, she's a difficult eater this one! Having said that though, if there was one thing I could change about this girl it would be her approach to sun protection. She just will not wear a hat! I can distract her enough to slather some sunscreen on her, but that's as far as it goes. *sigh* She can't blame me for those wrinkles when she's older.

The Colour Version

Well I thought I'd post the colour version of that last photo since you like it so much! I think you can see why I prefer the b&w one though.

Water Fun

Today we went to Camperdown Park where Harriet grumbled and grizzled her way through the morning. Luckily we found this bubbler for her to play with so there was at least some interest, even if there were no smiles.

Stuff and Nonsense

Here are the singlets that we bought the other week from Balmain. See how cool they are! I so wish there was stuff like this for grown-ups. Not that it's been the weather for it this week anyway. Last week I had the heater unplugged and sitting in the kitchen ready for the cellar....today it's sitting plugged-in and shooting out heat in the lounge room. Brrr....what happened to that gorgeous spring we saw for a few days there?

Here's a photo of an unusually sombre Harriet taken last week when I said she had the head cold. Not even a swing ride could elicit a smile - and Doll had to endure it all the while. Poor Doll has started down the path of being dragged everywhere. And when I say everywhere I really mean it. This doll is now a permanent fixture. We used to keep it hidden on top of the filing cabinet each evening when it was time to go to bed - now she wakes up, grabs our hand and runs down to the study, pulls on your leg for you to pick her up and then she lunges for Doll. And so begins her day of dragging hell! Usually it's the little pink top she wears being clutched in the dirty toddler hand (as demonstrated in the photo here). Poor Doll's outfit is truly revolting now (both aesthetically and hygienically).

As well as seeing Aunty Georgia this week, Harriet had a visit from miss KJ aka Krazy Jane aka Kristy Jane. And boy oh boy did Harriet love her! All she had to do was look at KJ and she'd start grinning her big, toothy grin. Things got quite serious when she noticed there were pearls around her neck and I must admit that our guest proved a brave soul when she let Harriet have a play with them. She even let her tweak and fiddle with the earrings! AND her earlobes were intact afterwards. Will wonders never cease? We went for a lunchtim visit to the outdoor play equipment at Clovelly Beach and unfortunately stupid Mama Cass forgot the camera and was kicking herself all afternoon because there was gorgeous light, a cute as hell baby grinnng constantly and a beautiful ocean based setting. Hopefully I'll get another chance soon.

On the weekend Harriet missed her swimming lesson because she didn't have a swimming nappy in her bag! Uh-oh. Poor poppet had a wonderful Papa who drove around to get said nappies and although they missed the lesson, they still had some fun splashing around in the pool anyway. Afterwards we all went to Iku in Waverley for lunch. Outside it was blustery, grey and cold, but inside it was cosy and warm, soft jazz and organic vegan curry. Yum! And look who's the big girl now, sitting up on stools like an adult?!

I had to go outside to take this photo of intense concentration. Harriet had a fat fresh spring roll and it exploded all over her. Not that this was an unusual state for the meeting of Harry and consumables.

Crazy Harry

I love Crazy Harry. And, of course, our Harry is crazy. Hence this picture. Plus, it's Friday afternoon.

The Bread Challenge

We went on a visit to see Aunty Georgia yesterday. I took along a cornucopia of toys, including about three books, her trolley (see previous entry for more scintillating information on the trolley experience) , stacking cups and more.

When we got there, Georgia managed to refrain from smacking Harriet's head on the concrete (running joke - every time we've seen Georgia, she has happened to be near Harriet as she stacks it or hurts herself in some way!). And of course she wasn't interested in any of the toys. No no no, there was the very exciting SUGAR JAR and PLATE to be examined! It's awesome to see just how the everyday becomes something fascinating when you're a baby.

Even more exciting was the presence of a big pide. Yum! While us adults feigned civility and broke off strips to daintily dip into the babbaganoush, Harriet ditched all notion of superego and dove straight into it, grappling with its size admirably. She took some nice moist mouthfuls and even left us some saliva too, just so we could experience the bread in the way Harriet was.

Try as she might, Harry is still searching for her soulmate cat. Squeezmo comes pretty close but we were hoping that Micky (Georgia's DSH) might let her come in for the kill. No Way! Micky is no fool. Harry was actually patting him quite calmly on the bed but she got all excited and offered him her doll (called, strangely enough, 'Doll'). Unfortunately 'offering Doll' meant swinging the plastic head in a wide arc towards Micky and he went scrambling off the bed and ran outside. After that every time Harry went toddling off towards either Teddy or Micky, they made a beeline for the furthermost point of the backyard.

So in order to make up for the lack of feline fun, Aunty Georgia stepped up to the plate and offered some awesome upside down fun - Harriet's favourite! If there's any sor of fun to be had, it's always going to be better if it's upside down. Maybe she's going to be a trapeze artist?

What a Great Girl

I was going to title this 'What a Great Baby' but then I looked at the photos and realised she's definitely not a baby anymore!

On Saturday she went to her swimming lessons at Maroubra - she'd missed a couple of weeks from being sick once and sleeping through it the other. But there were no problems with her loving the water and all that's there. Here she is jumping off the floating board into Papa's waiting arms. The class started with 12 people and now only has about five. Oddly enough all the ones who stayed on were the babies who hated it to be begin with (besides Harriet). It's already time to re-enrol for next semester, I can't believe how quickly time is passing.

This past week her new interest is in light switches. She is very proud of herself for switching them on and off and now when she wakes up she sits upright, points at the light switch and wants a go straight away. Whoops - it's the toy you can't hide from her!

This weekend Harriet acquired two toys that she has absolutely fallen in love with. The first of these is her little pull out lounge. She jumped on one of these and just started grinning and giggling, it was so weird! So we pulled down the Thomas and Sesame Street ones for her to choose between. You can see just how exciting this was for her - what a strange thing to get excited over. But I guess when you are constantly on things made for adults it must be pretty exciting to finally have something made at baby size. We bought the SS one and now she loves to have it pulled out, she grabs 'Doll' and a book and snuggles into the corner for some baby fun time.

The other great toy we bought was this shopping trolley. Yes, yes, promotion of consumerism yadda yadda yadda. But she has a walker that has a small area to place toys, and she has started trying to fit really large unwieldy objects in there and getting very frustrated at not being able to fit them in. And by frustration I actually mean loud, high-pitched screaming. So for the sake of tinnitus prevention, we hit upon the ingenious idea of a trolley whre she can plonk whatever items grab her fancy. And boy did we hit upon a winner. James ended up playing 'trolley' with her for the whole Wilco album the other day, so that's easily an hour. Sometimes you kind of wish you didn't get something so popular.


Today Harriet woke with a head cold, after a stormy sleep last night. Being a bit grizzly poor baby we went out into the fresh air and played in the park at Centennial Park. But she wasn't really in the mood for much and we mostly spent the afternoon watching other children play on the playground equipment, although a few goes on the slide provoked some smiles. But they were pretty halfhearted to tell the truth. Hopefully with the help of some Vicks Baby tonight she'll be a bit better. Fingers crossed.

Lunchtime in the City

We thought it was about time Harriet went to meet up with her Papa in the city. So yesterday at lunchtime we met up with him and Linda and had a lovely little lunch hour.

You can see Harriet trying out her new shoes here and purveying the vista of Elizabeth Street. She's even wearing a dress for the occasion! It was difficult to hold on to her for crossing roads because she kept trying to leap out of our arms so that she could walk everywhere herself.

Apparently Elizabeth Street isn't getting the recognition it deserves, so Miss Harriet put that to right by stopping in the middle of the sidewalk and giving it a round of applause.
Not only was she enthralled with Elizabeth Street, Harriet also thought Linda was pretty interesting as well. They were playing a game that ended with Harriet smacking poor Linda around the face. It's like sticking your hand into the bear pit with this one I tell you.

And of course where did she get these mega cute genes from? Just check out this Papa, would you?! THAT'S where.