Gentle

Poor Harry has been sick, sick, sick this week. During the day she's actually not too bad, with just a very runny nose and the occasional cough. But come night time, this poor baby has the croupiest sounding cough, loud enough to rattle the walls. This has, unfotunately, coincided with the weather being particularly cold at night. Since she rolls so much that you can't guarantee a blanket will stay over her, she's not always assured of a nice snuggly night's sleep no matter what tricks I try to pull. So about five minutes ago we pulled the heater into her room..leaving us out here shivering. Brrrr! Time to invest in more heaters methinks.

Harriet has gone all intellectual. And it's not just the glasses. She counts "One, two" all the time. She *loves* to count (kinda like The Count). Just today we've started to introduce 'three'. We're not big on the whole rabbiting off one through to twenty, we'd prefer her to actually know what the numbers are and proceed in that fashion. Seems to be working, because she can add and subtract one and two quite easily now - the introduction of three will be interesting! Well, interesting for us maybe and not so interesting for those of you reading this blog. "Three?!" I hear you exclaim? "Who the hell cares?" Well, when you spend all of your days repeating over and over "Park? Did you go to the park Harry? And did you go on the swing?" and other fascinating pieces of minutae from the life of a toddler, then I defy you to not see the fascination in something like three.


Her latest focus is Cooper. On Sunday we're going to Cooper's first birthday, and I was explaining to Harry that Cooper is having a birthday and he's turning one. I was in the middle of doing something in the kitchen when I turned around and there she was pulling at my trousers with her hat on, her bag under her arm and she said "Party". Ha! I asked "What party?" and of course came the reply "Coo-pah. Pah-teee." Monkey, I never mentioned the party! But we went to the toy store to buy his present and I also bought Harry a couple of little things. In this photo you can see one of her presents. A shopping basket full of plastic fruit held together by velcro. You use the little knife to 'cut' the fruit/vegetable in half (or thirds, as you can see by the cucumber in this shot). As Harriet says, she's off to do some "cuh-teen". It takes a little while each time she goes off to do it for her to remember to keep one hand on the 'food and the other on the knife. The first few cuts send one piece flying off in a dangerous projectile manner across the playroom, but once you gently remind her a couple of times she gets it going again. I first saw these at the Montessori school, but they were a lovely wooden variety. However they were obviously a huge hit with Harriet and she happily spent time doing the "cuh-teen" at the school, which was what drew me to them in the store.


She also knows her 'right' hand now. Ask her to show you her right hand and she'll do so (just like she'll show you 'doo' [two] fingers). But ask her to show her left hand and you're met with a bit of a confused look and a pause, followed by a hesitant flash of the right hand again. Did I mention she's cute?


What other stuff is she up to? I think one of the best parts of Harriet at the moment is coming to realise just 'who' Harry is. Her personality has always been pretty strong, but surprisingly she is actually very gentle. In fact I hadn't ascribed the term to her but a friend did one morning when we were out and I was surprised I had never thought of it before. Because she is very gentle. To have nearly reached two years and not ever pushed or grabbed or bitten or struck out at another child or adult or ever thrown an object is, I think, pretty unusual. She has certainly had those things done to her, so it's not as if she hasn't had reason for retaliation in kind, but she never has. I know that will change and she will hardly be this angelic for long, but I am very surprised that a child of mine is so incredibly gentle. Mind you, I never said calm. She is definitely NOT calm!


Title of this photo - When Good Hair Goes Bad. Frizz Attack! If there's one thing Harriet loathes, it's having her hair touched. Brushed, washed, wet, dry, you name it, she hates it. Although she does stand completely still for the placement of a clip in her hair because she realises the benefit to her (ie: no hair in her eyes). But getting that hair washed is an Olympic event. Now that she's fragile with the cold I haven't pushed it (hey who am I kidding, I never push it, I am so slowly slowly catch a monkey with the hair that I feel fully trained as a monkey wrangler) but when I let it go, this is the result. So I am sure you can understand why some days I have visions of DOCS finding me for indignities performed on a child's scalp.





This weekend we met up with Grandpa and Nana and whilst Harry went off for a little trip into the Botanic Gradens, Papa Jimbo and myself went footloose and fancy free across the city of Sydney. Or we went for lightning speed clothes shopping. You be the judge. Or, hey, let my new pants speak for themselves. One thing I knew but didn't really get (iykwim) before having a child was just how I would never be able to go shopping for clothes for the next five years; well six really if you include the pregnancy. Also just how much I would miss reading the newspaper, but hey, my woes are not of concern to all of you I'm sure. Get back to the subject at hand! I was doing a bit of reminiscing about the early days because I went to take some photos of a 2wk old baby as well as finding out that Nadia is having another baby girl in October (Congrats Nads & Tony!). It's amazing how that first year was a complete blur.




Today Harry woke up and I said "Today is Wednesday Harry, what does that mean?" and she jumped up excitedly and proclaimed "Nana!". Although she is not so big on the actual order of days, she definitely knows what happens on each day by name. Here she was having an in-depth conversation with Nana all about what happened on the weekend. At the end of each sentence poor Nana was met with the ubiquitous "More". She says it with such a solemn, flat voice, it's quite funny to hear, because she really just wants to hear more and now!

In other Harriet-related news, her latest love is for this book we got from the library titled 'Spaceboy Spud'. In it, Spud goes off on a rocket to rescue his alien friends from various bedtime routine dilemmas, one of which is helping the 'wee wee aliens' go to the toilet. This child is now obssessed with the wee wee aliens. We read this book, oh, at least three times in one sitting. Funnily enough though, Papa has to read the first half and Mama reads the second half. This is very important and if Papa deigns to read the second half he will be reprimanded and the book thrust into Mama's hands.

Also her latest favourite phrases are "No way!" and today she loved to tell us that she was "Happy!" as well as "inside" being a new fave word.

I love this last photo. It doesn't show her being particularly gorgeous or anything but this is the patient, waiting face she pulls when we have to...well...wait for anything. Here she is waiting for the flying fox. It is just such a Harry face...*sigh*. She's just a great kid. How on earth did I get this lucky?