Late Again!

So with the organisation of the new house taking up all spare time, once again Harriet's blog has taken a backseat, which is most unfortunate. I also owe major, long, gossipy phone calls to Miss Jennie and the wonderful Claire - I promise to call soon guys! We've been doing our bit for the greenhouse effect the last two weeks, driving between our house and the new house constantly and using more petrol than our poor car has ever had to use before. Harry, who loathes being in the car, has become more patient and will now not start screaming for...oohh...at least 15 minutes now which is a bit of a relief. Here Harriet is meeting Papa at the front door of the new house and sharing with him a beautiful bouganvillea flower that grows along the side of our front fence. Doesn't it look lovely? We're pretty hapy with the place, especially with the new paint and once the floors are done this week I'll post a couple of photos. Harriet and I also made a neigbourly visit a few doors up and met Rohan who is 14mths, has lovely parents and may be a new playmate. Cool.



We've felt guilty at how much car time she has had to endure, so it's been a special effort to ensure we fit in some fun activities for Haz during the day. The trike is such a hit that many afternoons she wakes up from her nap by sitting upright and saying 'car'. I can fake ignorance every now and then by taking her to the real car, but I do take her out and pop on the trike for a big excursion too.

Harry's latest obssession is with buses. For once it has become a bonus that we live right near a bus depot. When we're heading out and coming back on the trike, the entry to the bus depot becomes a real focus and each bus is met with a loud exclamation of "BUH!" (she still hasn't managed an 's' sound yet) and then a "Bye, bye" as it rounds the corner to 'have a bath and go to sleep' inside the depot.


In this photo (not a particularly attractive one of her admittedly) she is making the sign for 'car' whilst waiting at he bus stop. We decided to go to Maya Masala in Surry Hills (an Indian vegetarian restaurant) and I suggested we go ther ein the bus for Harry's sake. What a great idea it was! We got to watch the driver turn a huge steering wheel, and watch people get on and off. When the bus slowed down, Harry would start saying "more" and signing more, because she thought it was all over. Leaving the bus caused a few upset tears but luckily another one pulled in behind us and provided immediate distraction. *phew*



On the Sunday of the Australia Day weekend we went out for an afternoon picnic with some Perth friends. It turned into an evening picnic replete with some good Sulo bin cricket, bbq and critical assessment of a new champagne (thanks Nicky!). Harriet was absolutely fascinated by the cricket play and watched her Papa smack the ball into long grass and bowl a few overs. Then it was on to getting Rachel and Paul to do some parenting for us, since she wasn't interested in either of us at all! Rachel gave Harry some bowling tips and Paul lined them up for some batting practise. In fact Rachel and Paul were such a hit that when they came back to our house, Harriet forced Rachel to read her about three books in a row and the next day I was forced to sing 'Rachel' ("Ra-Ra") and 'Paul' ("Borl") in all of our normal songs. Plus I even printed out a photo of Rachel for Harriet to look at in the car which worked a treat.


With all of these trips over to the new house, we decided to try and finally eat at this fantastic Vietnamese/Thai/Chinese restaurant (yes, it has all three foods there, it's a novel of a menu). We've actually tried to eat there a number of times before but always met with calamity - one time we had no cash and it doesn't take cards; another time we sat down and Harriet just began to scream and scream so we hightailed it out of there. But this time we managed to sit down and order. But even then the dining experience became a logistics nightmare, because Harry decided she wanted to walk all around the restaurant. Now this place has about 20 square centimetres of free space, so walking around isn't really an option. It ended with me walking around with Harriet on the pavement with another mother also walking her toddler around out there whilst inside everyone was finishing off their food. The food is fantastic but probably not that great as a dine-in experience with a toddler, I think luck is not on our side and take away is our new best friend.

However one of the cool things about this place is it's just around the corner from a cool big park. While we were playing in there, Harry had her first glimpse of BIG planes. Not just a plane that is physically big but a plane that is BIG in the sky. You can see in the above photo just how far back she was bending to check them out as they zoomed low in the sky over our heads. Well, Marrickville is the place to be if you're a plane spotter.

This photo is just here because I love it. She was wearing her Superbaby singlet, had no nappy on, and one shoe. Papa Jimbo came home and just laughed his butt off at what a sight she was.


One afternoon we made an impromptu stop off at the beach. Not really anything too exciting about that. Went to our favourite fish&chip place, got some tofu burgers, had dinner on the grass...well, we started to have dinner on the grass. Then Harriet spied the play equipment way at the other end of the beach and just turned around very matter-of-factly, grabbed my hand and power walked her way down there! She took off at such a pace that I barely had a chance to say anything to James, we were just heading towards that play stuff! So after we all had a play on that (yes, ALL of us), Harry decided she wanted to go and play in the sand. Except this child doesn't know the meaning of the word moderation. When she loves something boy does she love it. Not being too interested in the water (probably because it was actually pretty warm and lovely to paddle in, not at all what Harriet was looking for in an aquatic experience) she turned back to the shore and proceeded to give herself a full body exfoliation, courtesy of Clovelly sand. She would reach down and rub the sand all over her belly, down her arms and, this was the best bit, into her scalp. And again. And again. She had so much sand all through her hair that even three baths later it's still not all out.

Well as amuch as she likes sand she loves playing with water, especially fresh water. Whilst we're in a drought. And for no reason whatsoever except to be a crazy kid in it. And me being a water nazi, well, it's a very hard road to travel down. But every now and then she finds a water bubbler that she can spray out to her heart's content and man, look at the joy in her face when she gets to do it! A few days ago we were at the park while another group of children was playing there. They were about 3yrs and knew all about spraying the water with their thumb and finger. Seems Harriet learnt a thing or two from them that day because she went straight over and started spraying the water like this, it was a total crack up.

And just to end on another house note - Nana and Grandpa came down last weekend and we all went across the road to our local pub for dinner and a beer. Gotta love moving across from somewhere that has a great beer garden and food and a banner proclaiming 'Kids Welcome'. Yay! The four of us and Miss Harry had some delicious meals and considering how late a night it was for her Harriet was just awesome. She's being so much fun lately, playing games like making Play Doh noodles (which she puts up to her mouth, looks at me with a big grin on her face and says "No, no" - monkey child), shopping games (she gives me some money and I give her a receipt - she can play that for ages and ages) and just silly games of stuff like me chewing up her arm or she points out my eyes and nose and Gromit's eyes and nose. Her favourite word at the moment is 'docket' and she says it really quickly like it's a rapid fire machine gun word - "dokitdokitdokit". Now Jimbo and I are in the habit we find ourselves saying it even without Harriet there. Apparently when James was out with his parents at Bunnings they all started to do it, receiving quite a few funny looks at the time!

We should be moving out in two weeks time, so apologies if we don't find time to update in the near future. I'm taking enough photos to sink a battleship but I haven't really been too happy with many of them of late. A bit of a photography funk really, so I'm hoping the move snaps me out of it. Right now though it's past 12.30am, we've been down to the hospital with Harriet (she's fine, just an horrific case of thrush which is all over her nappy region and even beyond, scared us stupid because it flared up like that in the space of a few hours [Kristy I was thinking necrotising fasciitis after that video Jacqui Norris made us watch, ha!]) and I'm not making much sense so I think I better just go to bed. Goodnight!