The Weekend

Well technically I'm starting with Friday, but what the hell. We met up with one of the women from my photography group and drove to a big playground where Harry had a ball. There was this huge sandpit witha large spider web styled rope climbing frame. And to my utter amazement Harriet went off zipping all over the place without me! She even walked from one end of the sandpit to the other and staretd trying to climb this frame without me! I was totally stunned.

The funny part about this afternoon was that in the car on the way back home there were two other girls in the back with her. One of them was 9.5mth old Grace. Along the way Grace started to get a bit upset and began crying out. Harry (no surprise) started crying too. She was able to exactly mimic Grace's cry. I asked her what was wrong and she mimicked the cry, then pointed to Grace. I said "Are you sad that Grace is crying?" to which she nodded vigorously and starting crying herself, poor poppet. But the really funny part of the story is that since then Harry does Grace's cry when she wants to sing a song about Grace in lieu of being able to say her name. So I am reminded of Grace crying at least ten times a day so far.

Check out this work of art babycino that Harry received this morning when we went out for breakfast! It was so gorgeous that I had to take a photo. But as is the problem with babycinos, they are highly sought after pieces of property. In fact this is a PPed version - the original is below. In it you can see Papa Jimbo's hand reaching across to remove Harry's hand from the frame. Harry is waving the spoon wildly in the direction of the babycino. It was the only shot I could manage before it was glug-glug-glugged down.



One of Harry's favourite pasttimes of late is to sing "Miss Polly Had a Dolly" and do all the actions with me. She also loves to hold one of her dolls and get them to do the actions as well. We were out on the street and someone actually came up to me and said "Oh, hello Polly!" and I turned around to which they discovered that I wasn't Polly. But Harriet, so excited at hearing the name of her favourite song personality, immediately came running up, tugging at my skirt and yelling out for "Sick, sick, sick!" with one hand thrown to her forehead in pathological despair. Such melodrama - obviously inherited from James.


On Saturday we had the lovely Miss KJ over who had much news about her upcoming wedding, her parents' visit from the UK, her future plans and all other sorts of business in between. Unfortunately I am a moron and didn't get any shots of her with Harriet, but here's Harry, sporting her Supergirl t-shirt yet again, regaling us all with stories from the toddler lane.

In very exciting news for Jimbo on Saturday night he was out on the pavement with Miss Harry just down from the Enmore Theatre. We were all out having dinner with Steve before the two boys headed off to see Wilco. Well lo adn behold but Jeff Tweedy from Wilco walks past Harry in her Dora pyjamas and gives the girl a big smile! James had a near fainting boyfan episode and managed to contain himself long enough to get back inside before collapsing into boy giggles and doing a little fan dance. Harry, oblivious to all the fuss, also managed to not notice when Darren Hanlon walked into the same restaurant we were in. He gave us all a bit of a double take since it was only last Saturday that we had bombarded him after the festival. In fact the only thing that really made Harry excited was the reversing truck we saw on the way back to the car. Orange lights, beeping sounds, people standing back to let it through...well it sure was fun.

Today we went in to the Rock for Your Rights concert at the SCG. We didn't make the rally because Harry was sleeping, but we got in to the concert to hear a few favourites play. I was excited that The Herd came on but was disappointed that they didn't play 77% (no surprise really, given the 'family friendly' nature of the concert). The little one enjoyed it for the most part but started to get pretty grumpy after sitting through about four bands, so we hightailed it out of there and went up to the old Fox Studios to see if there was something a little more Harry-friendly over that way.

Well there sure was! We found a playground with a cool little cubbyhouse in there. I had to sit in there with Harry whilst we both had 'coffee' and 'babycino' that was apparently 'hot' so Harry blew on it for me. Lucky I have her around to watch out for me. She also manifested some 'water' but by the way she was drinking it you'd have thought she had a bowl of water; head down, lapping it up like a cat. I can't believe she's already at an age where she's making up games like that with nothing to go on but thin air. It honestly seems like just a few weeks ago that she could barely walk.

We went into the place a bit more and found this old world-style merry-go-round that Harriet dragged us to and started saying "Now. Now." about. Hmmm...anyone would have thought she liked that thing. She loved her ride and was transfixed throughout. We also went for a walk down to where a big party was being held. There were very large bunches of balloons affixed to some poles which I was dragged up to and demanded "Balloon. Now.". After discussing why we couldn't get them because they weren't ours for one and they were too high up for another, Harry really surprised me. She started hitting her head and said "Ouch! Pepo. High.". This was a reference back to this book we read her the other night about two friends, Pepo and Lolo, who work together to reach an apple that is too high for them to get on their own, but Pepo gets the apple boinked on his head. Just to make sure that's what she was referring to I went back and told Jimbo who didn't believe me. Then whilst we were discussing her, Harry piped up with it all over again! She also then wanted to get us to work together to get the balloons down from being high and tie one around her wrist! Seems like those books really do make an impression.


Another passion lately is the belly slide. Have I mentioned this yet? She just worked it out last week and now has to nearly always get a belly slide in whilst at the playground.

This interest is infinitely more fun for me than her other love of late - talking dolls. AARRRGGHHHHH!!!!!!! This game imvolves Papa or Mama holding one fo the dolls and 'talking' for them. Sure, that's not so bad you say. No, not for a few minutes at a time. But Harry wants this game ALL the time, to the point where you can't actually play a game with her because having to hold, animate and talk for doll means you are incapable of doing anything else. You can only wrangle out of it by suggesting another game after a certain period for which she can then move on. *sigh* It really, really is painful.


She's just talking all the time now, every day there are at least a few new words that we notice. As Kristy noticed when she came here, you have to be attuned to some of them but others are completely unavoidably there.

We also had a playdate with Tara the Tornado on Thursday but I failed in the photo stakes and completely forgot to get the camera out. Ok, pick up your jaws from the ground now people. Tara is so completely different to Harry it was fascinating having her in the house and seeing just how differently she interacted with the same space Harry uses every day.

Anyway it is getting late and I really should be off to bed. Hope you're all well and thanks for the comments lately, it's a sad little thrill for me.