Reasoning

Harry constantly amazes me. Her ability to reason is definitely one of the sides to her that make her seem so mature. A few examples of course:

* We were in the car getting out to go to playgroup and I realised playgroup was finished for the semester. I said to Harry that the playgroup was closed and what could we do instead? "Other playgroup Mama". Which other playgroup? " 'Round the corner, show". And yes, a month or so ago there was a show on at the hall around the corner held by the playgroup! I said "No, there's no show on today either". She looked at me, shrugged her shoulders, held out her hands and said "Oh no. Park?". I agreed.

* When it was James' birthday I told her it was a secret what we were buying him. One of those things was a pair of slippers from Harry. When we got home James asked what we had bought him for his birthday. She said "No Papa, secret". Although when James asked where the secret was she quite happily grabbed his hand to go and show him until he told her not to! But she still kept the secret right up until his birthday proper, with no prompting from me, I was very impressed.

By the way this is a photo of her hands straight from the big mayonnaise jar we have. You may also notice the mayonnaise around her mouth. There was a suspicious dollop of mayonnaise down her top and also lots of blobs on the floor around her feet. When I 'nabbed' her she jumped a mile (because of course we are such authoritarian power types) and explained that she was "wiping down bench mayonnaise" - which she surely was, not quite sure what that was supposed to achieve though. Hmmmmm....... (btw - no reasoning story here, just wanted to share the photo!)

* Her old trolley is on top of the wardrobe in our bedroom. The other day Harry saw it and asked me to get it down. I said I couldn't because it was too high up. She thought about it and then said "Ladder?". I told her we didn't have one (we do, but anyway...) however I was pretty impressed at her thinking of it!

* This is just a funny story rather than anything about her reasoning power. She was in the back of the car about a month ago and was singing a very loud song about "BOO-BEE-AHHH" which she wanted when we got home. She then started giggling and said very clearly "Subtle". James and I snapped our heads to look at each other in amazement. Surely not....? We then asked her what she just said adn again, clear as a bell came back "Subtle...boobia" and cackles of laughter after it! Now she loves to say "Subtle" as she's reaching her hand down my top.

* Today at the playground we walked over to the sandpit. There wasn't anyone else around so I said to her "If you want to throw sand that's ok because there isn't anyone else here" and she looked at me and said "Gentle, other people's eyes, no throw". !!!!!!! I had mentioned this to her ages ago but wow, I was surprised she recited such detail about why. I then sat back and said "Well if I sit back here then there's no-one around so you can throw sand if you want to" (Because she is going through a big 'throwing' stage where she lvoes to throw bark, leaves, sand and see where they fall). So she then thought it safe enough to throw sand a few times.

So just another few anecdotes about Miss Harry. It's really hard to believe that she's not even two yet.

Latest Stuff

So what has Harriet been up to lately? Well thought I'd do a mini-development update because she has changed again so much lately. And all beautiful, positive things which are just so great to be a part of.

* She has been drawing circles for a while and saying "Circles, Mama". But then tonight she drew a triangle and said "Triangle". That was pretty cool! I kept it of course. It's a very clear triangle, no doubt about it. Then Papa asked her if she could draw a square. The answer? "No". But she does love to draw and will do circle after circle all over the page and tell me what she's drawing which changes from second to second - "Papa...PoppyJedda...work...stroller...plane".

* She lied! This is apparently a big mielstone and I completely forgot to write about it! What a doofus I am. I was in the bathroom and had left her with a pile of markers and her drawing book out in the playroom. After a minute or so she came in to ask me a question. I looked down and there she was, mouth resplendent with blue ink all over the lips, all over the chin and, yep, all inside the mouth too. I asked her "Harriet, have you been eating the markers?". "No Mama, no". "Are you sure? Is this marker here? (touching her face) And here?". "No!" Very cute or 'coot' as Harry says.


* Independence Alert! Everything now is "No Mama". Getting into the car? My hand is brushed away dismissivley along with a "No Mama". Putting on her clothes in the morning I am obviously more hindrance than help, with a rebuffed "No Mama". She also has an increased awareness of her ownership - "Can I have a bite of your toast Harry?". "No Mama". Adorable.

*This is just a little thing but the pickled onion jar (she loves pickled onions, definitely her Mama's girl in this regard) has little mustard seeds in it. Every time she sees it she asks if the seeds are fish! Then before I can answer she says "No".


* Red lights beware! Everytime we stop at a red light Harriet pipes up with a strident "Go Mama, GOOOOO!". We then discuss how it's a red light and she says "Green light, green light GOOOOO!". The funny side of this is when she's very, very sleepy and you thinkthat she has in fact nodded off. But if you stop, up pipes a groggy "Go Mama, GOOOOO!" from the back seat.

* She loves to sing along and dance to her ABC Kids CD. Her favourite is definitely "Der Gumph" which has the wonderful line "But we all know frogs go *clap* La Di Dah Dee Dah" which causes much excitement, clapping and singing.

* If something is about to jump (read: be thrown) then it must have the "Ready, steady, GO!" all falling things appreciate as warning.

* At the zoo we bought her a tiger mask. She loves it! She loves to "ROWR" with it on and scare us. In fact she insisted on wearing it to the airport to scare Papa, so that when Papa got off the plane he was met with a 94cm tall scary tiger. She got just one or two adoring looks whilst waiting for him that's for sure. At one stage I thought the air steward was going to snaffle her up in her suitcase.

* The way she says her name is SO cute. I have to get a decent video of it. She can answer all the usual questions now - "What's your name?" "How old are you?" "Where do you live?". For that last question she can tell you the name of the street and the suburb but not the number just yet.

Ok that's about all and absolutely not enough at the same time. She loves pretend play and putting 'vagina cream' on her doll and changing her nappy and making necklaces for Doll and Bummer with the playdough. And the last few days she has woken up saying a new word that makes her giggle like a nutbar. Today it was "honey", yesterday it was "hi-meat". Don't ask. But it makes her laugh and laugh and laugh and I love that sound so much.

Harry at the Zoo (or how we spent two hours before seeing an animal)

Ok well this shot is obviously not at the zoo but since we didn't see an animal for the first couple of hours at the zoo I didn't think it would be too out of place in this post. Plus I wanted to show off the funky tights we got her from Melbourne.

So on Saturday we went out to Taronga. Started out on the bus...then the ferry...then the cable car. So much transport! So much potential for toddler happiness! Truth be told the cable car really did score big on the reaction factor. Harry was truly agog as the cable car came out of its 'tunnel' and started the trek up the hill. Even an aerial view of elephants didn't sway her from admiring the 'up high' nature of her newfound position.

But we hopped off and after spending fifteen minutes looking at wombats and koalas in the shop located (conveniently) directly opposite the cable car exit, we made a beeline for the KidZoo. When we got there Harry was totally transfixed by the water wheels and little bubbling pools they have set up. It was seriously cold and the water was like ice, but she determinedly stuck her hands in and splashed about with vigour. In fact for a good thirty minutes after we left it she kept asking for "more water" (or she could have just been thirsty and we left her chronically dehydrated, you be the judge).

There was a little wilderness area atatched to where the water was and we finally convinced her to go looking in it because...you guessed it...there were WOMBATS in there! And not only that but when we went in they were running around. Yes, running wombats. Now that's not something you see every day. We also saw an emu disappear and some kangaroos lolling in the sun ("sleeping roo" -kangaroo twitches ear - excitedly exclaiming "awake! awake roo!").

To be honest the KidZoo section was pretty disappointing, not nearly enough animals by half. Although Harriet did enjoy this up close and personal experience with a blue tongue lizard. And yes, she is hanging upside down here. Probably best just not to ask. One of the funny things she latched on to as a concept was that where each of the animals were was its home. Which meant she often named the animal we were looking at ("wombat!") then after a minute of quiet contemplation she'd point to the exhibit and announce that was its home ("Mama, wombat home").


The other big love of the day was this Kombi van parked out the back of an eco-home. It was over-run with five year old girls when we were there (it was Lauren's birthday party group) and Harry in her usual style just loved being in amongst them. She took full command of the steering wheel and was happily driving everyone to their destination of choice. Then, when they left, another little boy (a bit older than Harry) also tried to have a go at steering. Uhhh, no, I don't think so! We ended up prising her from the wheel to give him a go but Harriet was happily running off to look at the red bellied black snake in the woodpile.

Ummm...so think these two might be related or what?! We finally went on a wander of the areas that held animals and that was pretty fun, although to be honest a lot of that was fun when we were running between exhibits. The elephants weren't being particularly interested in the visible-for-little-girl areas (which is perfectly their right! neither would I be if I was an elephant) but the statues outside the elephants were of real interest to Harriet.
In this shot Papa Jimbo is about to have a heart attack because this photo just happened to be taken a split second after she was sitting happily on the statue. In the time between framing photo and pressing the shutter, Harry had decided to "jump", which means throw herself off something high into the arms of the waiting parent. That's the theory but often only the reflexes of pure adrenaline-charged panic are what save her at the moment, because she often doesn't say what she's thinking in time. You can see she is loving it though!


It's been a while since I succumbed to a photo of me in here, but this one Jimbo took of me dancing with Miss Harry was pretty cute so thought I'd pop it in. It's just a shame there's too much of me and not enough of her! But after seeing the tigers (which she was strangely fixated on seeing) it was obvious that this little girl (remember, no babies here) was totally overtired and needed to crash. So I ran around with her, played some silly games to 'get her wriggles out' as the song says, and then hoped the Ergo would work its magic and she would crash.


No way Jose! Despite asking for the hood (which surprised Jimbo, I don't think he's seen her ask for it before), she just wasn't able to get to that place where she could go to sleep. There really was just too much to look at. It was a shame though because we rushed through all the areas I wanted to see, including the gorgeous meerkats, chimpanzees and the giraffes. After admitting defeat though she did seem to have gained something from just chilling out on my back for a while and doing her 'singing' (as Jan knows her singing is actually a tuneless sound she makes when she's really really really tired but out and unable to sleep).


So we stopped and had some lunch and marvelled at how difficult (read: totally impossible) it was to just buy a piece of fruit at the zoo. I was seriously tempted to just run into one of the animal food prep areas and grab a banana but refrained admirably. One of Harriet's favourite animals of the day was the seal. We watched as two of them swam around their pool, coming up occasionally for a big intake of breath (Harry would turn to me and do a big sniff just in case I had missed the seals doing it) and then dive back down again ("seal swimming" *sniff* "down, down"). Harry and Doll both had vantage points on the side of the pool. Both were held tightly by parents. I'm not sure who would have been more of a disaster to drop in the pool.


One of our last ports of call was the wallaby and kangaroo area. Harriet decided it was time to get friendly with the locals and show them we were all just animals as well. I love it when she leans over and pats her belly and says "baby guts" - so cute!



But when I said it was almost our last visit I of course meant that the best was yet to come. We went to the wombat and platypus exhibit which was supposed to have echidnas in there too but we couldn't even see where they would be, let alone actually see any. As we were walking out we happened to come across the residen wombat out in his dirt area running around digging holes and being generally rambunctious. Harriet was beside herslf! Not only that, get this. He did a POO! Harriet's two favourite things to talk about in the whole world - wombats and poo - combined in one delightfully memorable experience! On the video I took all you can hear is Harry saying over and over again "wombat poo. wombat poo. Mama, wombat poo".


And so we went home again. It was a big day out, waking up at 7am and not getting back in the door until about 6.30pm. On the bus on our way home Harriet fell into a dead sleep. She had definitely enjoyed her day out at the zoo.

Harriet's Eight Things

Arun asked me to do a meme about eight interesting things about me, but this is a blog about Harriet so I'll write them about her.

1.) Well an interesting thing about her from today is her fascination with the word 'nocturnal'. Ask her about wombats or possums or bats and she'll jump back with "Nocturnal, Mama". In fact she went to sleep tonight and she must have been a microsecond away from deep sleep when she piped up with a very loud "NOCTURNAL!" and then fell dead asleep in direct contrast to her chosen word.

2.) She loves dogs and loves to pat them but is also quite trepidatious about it. She always approaches them with the back of her hand and seems quite proud of herself when she does.

3.) She loves to watch video of herself so much that if I am taking video of her she will stop what she's doing and run over to watch it. Of course this means all video we have of her lasts for about 8 seconds before she comes barrelling towards the lens.

4.) The hair issues! Despite all of my best attempts to clear it up, Harry still has a horrid cradle cap (scabby scalp). I have tried not washing it, washing it, picking off the scabs, rubbing the scalp but nothing works. She also hates her hair being brushed. And hates her hair being washed. In fact the only time I could touch her hair without screaming is when I put her hair in pigtails, but she kept trying to turn around to see what I was doing making it a little difficult to put in evenly.

5.) Just this week she has started to really get into singing and dancing. As you can tell from these photos, having the odd prop (poles and leaves are her current faves) doesn't hurt either. Singing is coming along with the odd word being contributed when we're singing some of her favourites.

6.) All sentences start with 'Mama' whether I am there or not. I was in the shower this morning and I could hear her out in the loungeroom just saying "Mama" and then a few other words which were quieter and I couldn't quite catch. I was yelling out "Harry, I'm in the shower" but it wasn't until I turned off the water and stuck my head out that I realised she was sitting on the lounge reading her 'That's Disgusting' book (her current love) just saying "Mama" at the start of each new page and then "bin" when reading the page about sticking your head in the rubbish bin or "poo pipe" when reading about swimming next to a sewage pipe. Very cute!

7.) She has also started to dramatically change her play and speech. Instead of just saying things that are going on around her, she is expressing herself in terms of future events and emotions. For example today she told me that she wanted to take her juice to the museum "Mama, jew-is take newsim" (which phonetically looks like someone in Israel is about to start a game of The Sims, but anyway). She is also creating new phrases that she hasn't heard anyone else say - today she said "stinky monkey" which cracked her up no end becaue we call her cheeky monkey but she loves to say stinky as well. So the combination really tickled her fancy obviously and we ran around the museum cafe with her giggling and yelling out "stinky monkey". And her play is much more creative and physical. Like in this photo, she loved pretending she had a big nose with the cone and also using it as a telescope. She also did things at the museum today like holding up the magnifying glass and saying. "Mama, look, closer" and when I explained it was a magnifying glass she would say "magnifying glass see closer" which is really exciting to hear her making those kinds of constructions.

8.) She will talk and talk and talk about people she loves (Papa, Nana, Grandpa, Poppy, Jedda) constantly. Like, ALL DAY! But when she finally meets up with them she will be struck with shyness and be unable to talk to them for about a minute or two.

And I'm sure that's enough.

Melbourne Trip II

The next day turned out to be a bit difficult to leave the apartment. We'd taken down a few of Harry's favourite toys to ensure she felt comfortable in case she flipped out at being somewhere new. But she took it all in her stride without any concerns whatsoever - in fact she was enjoying playing with Doll in the Maisy blocks and watching herself in various videos on my phone that it took a lot of convincing that Melbourne was a worthy competitor for these activities. One of her favourite things to do was stand on the coffee table and lunge herself towards the lounge. She LOVED doing this and then loved to watch the video I took of her doing it over and over again. Self admiration is no problem for this little Leo child.

When we finally made it out on the tram, we headed to the Docklands Park which looked like Harriet might enjoy it from the promotional photos. Well it was a lot smaller than I thought, but Harry did love it. And did I mention that there was a child-sized TUNNEL there as well?!! Talk about awesome! But even with some cool circular sculptures, a big wind humming sculpture and a slide about three storeys high, harriet ended up wanting to spend forty minutes standing on a little mound and throwing stones into a pile. Which would have been fine except that I didn't take any form of personal entertainment with me and it was freezing cold with the wind whipping through the park out there by the water. Brrr....

We got back on the tram after a very long stop at the park and went down into the city itself for a potter around. Harriet was showing signs of being sleepy so I walked back up to the apartment and put her down for quite a long sleep. I was more than a little frustrated - here I was in Melbourne, loads of gorgeous cafes and bookstores and places of interest within sight and I couldn't do anything! *sigh* So I consoled myself with my magazine about popular neurology instead. Harriet ended up sleeping for about three hours and when she woke I thought it prudent to get her bathed and ready to go out.

So a very uneventful day (it would have been perfect to catch up Margaret! Oh well, definitely next time though) and a quiet night at home which was actually really nice after having missed Jimbo back in Sydney.

The next day though was a Saturday and the day we flew out. So we woke and got everything packed and ready to go. We left our bags down at reception and caught the tram to St Kilda for breakfast. We got out at the wrong stop and ended up walking in icy, biting winds down to the main drag. Our first priority was somwhere warm so when we walked past a cafe that had a roaring open fire it was a no brainer. Inside we ran and bagged a table right in front of the blaze. Harry was absolutely intrigued by it although she did keep telling everyone to 'stay back'.

Harriet's latest object of interest is the humble pepper mill. She loves them! She loves to turn them and crack the peppercorns, she loves to eat the pepper (yes, you read correctly), she loves to make a little pile and use it as a feeding bowl for her wombats - you name it, a pepper mill can apparently fulfil it. Anyway it makes eating out a little difficult but also easy to entertain her. Plus when we walked out on to Acland St we had an interaction with a big black dog that Harry got to pat and kiss, then an alpaca which didn't interest her at all. Yep, you read correctly - an alpaca walking around on a lead in St Kilda. But Harry, funny mite that she is, was only mildly interested. Maybe those petting zoos have given her a false sense of the inner city alpaca population.

Whatever it was, we headed back into the city to catch a tram to the Queen Vic Markets. The best thing about that was the story waiting for it. There was a button you could pres that had a woman's voice telling you how long until the next tram. As you can see by the photo, Harry thought this woman was an absolute crack-up!

Harriet has also developed her 'scary face', copied (without any help from us) from a photo in one of her books. She also tried to age James and I by being fascinated with swinging on the poles that headed out into the traffic at the tram stop. I think it's safe to say that Harriet and poles are a match made in heaven, however the poles have a pesky habit of being placed precariously close to the road. Ridiculous.

The Queen Vic Markets were so crappy that we pretty much did a rapid circuit of a few lanes and then left. Not before picking up some uber funky striped tights for her though. I love these tights and the trip to Melbourne was worth it for them alone! As we walked back into the city we passed this little park which we had to stop in - it had these cool toys that you sit on and use the handles to dig up and move sand. Harriet (read: Papa) loved them!

We walked back to the apartment to pick up our bags and then headed out to the airport in the "man's car" (trans: taxi or as Harry loves to say, "tay-si". We were in a totally packed flight going back to Sydney and because James had his seat booked through work, we weren't sitting together. We appealed to the hostie at the gate and she managed to (somehow) wrangle us three seats in a row so that even though we hadn't paid for Harry, she had her own seat. The irony of it all was that after all this working around the issue, and worrying about being on the packed flight with Harriet, she ended up falling asleep for the entire flight all over me so that we didn't end up needing the spare seat at all! Flying down into Sydney was the most horrific turbulence as a result of the Sydney storms. It was awesome! Everyone in the plane was laughing nervously as the plane lurched violently from side to side and we flew in over the Harbour which was dramatic as well.

Anyway I have to go and finish this now because Harry has seen this photo of the little dozer and has to now see the other ones, so I'll sign out and post this finally!

Our Melbourne Trip

First things first. If you ever have to travel with a toddler, please make sure you have helpers. Many helpers. I was walking out of the house with a suitcase trailing behind me, a backpack on my back, Harriet's backpack under my arm (she didn't want to wear it anymore), the Ergo under my other arm and Harriet was walking into the pantry yelling out "Playdough!". Hmmm...I think not! Maybe I should emphasise that I was trying to keep the house at least tidy because we had the lovely Scott and Georgia looking after our critter assortment while we were away. Harriet, however, was quite interested in making everything as chaotic as possible. It was pretty funny looking back on it although at the time I couldn't stop thinking that I must have forgotten something because I was a tad harried (pun intended!).


I explained to Harriet that the suitcase would meet us in Melbourne (Meh-bin) when it went through the little tunnel at check-in. She got quite excited that the case had its own tunnel (she is pretty interested in tunnels, always pointing them out and talking about them) and was even more excited when we got to go through our own 'tunnel'. Which I made ping because I forgot I had change in my pockets - then I had to make sure we walked through separately which was a challenge because Harry was screaming at me to go and get Doll from the x-ray ramp and kept coming back to grab my arm "Mama, come!".

But we made it and even got on the plane without any forseeable disasters awaiting us. While we waited in the airport we found some cool books, including 'Pants' with a cd of songs by Lenny Henry which was pretty exciting (this is a favourite book from the library, so a bonus to have it at home all the time now).


When we got to Melbourne we rode in a minibus into the city, but Harry had to put her backpack in the trailer attached to the car. She got very stressed about it and didn't want to give it up. I explained that it would come with us and got into the car. We were facing backwards and about ten minutes down the road she lit up, exclaimed "Backpack come!" and pointed out to the trailer that she could see weaving its way behind us through the traffic. This was great news and allowed her to crash into a deep sleep for all of about fifteen minutes on my lap as we drove into the city.

We managed to check in and get upstairs without any further incident of note and Harry and I had fun doing some dancing to the stereo and looking at the cars and people down below on the street (we were on the eighth floor with floor to ceiling windows which were great!).


When Papa finally walked through the door, well, Harry was really REALLY happy - to say she missed him in the preceding two days would have been an understatement. She showed him that there were books in the drawers (the Gideon bibles), the drawing that she did for him on the hotel pad, asked him to do talking for man and girl and generally chatted away non-stop as is her want. With no food in the kitchen it was an impromptu meal of rice and milk on the floor before heading into bed for a deep, deep sleep.


Next morning Harry loved watching Papa Jimbo walk down the street while she sat upstairs and waved to him. You can see she has propped up Doll so that she can also see Papa walking to work. We had our own expedition to attend that morning, meeting up with Sif and Bryn and Jayne and Sienna at the Melbourne Museum. It was time to put the newly acquired Ergo into practise.


And it was GREAT! I was able to walk the fifteen or so minutes up to the museum without stopping for any pole-dancing. I can't believe just how quickly I could move around with Harry on my back. Although I briefly lamented not buying one earlier I concoled myself with the fact that her happiness with it was almost completely dependent on seeing her AP friends in similar positions (ie: on their Mamas' backs) so if we had bought it any earlier she wouldn't have been happy sitting back there.


The Museum is absolutely beyond any comparison to the Sydney equivalent. Truly, it was amazing. I would have life membership and go there once a week if I had the chance. We didn't get a chance to even scratch the surface of what it had to offer, because Harriet was of one mind with Bryn and Sienna, and that was that outside was where it's at. Of course the toys that were outside are, in fact, just like toys you could find at any plygroup across the country, but Harry wouldn't be swayed by her curious Mama's gentle discussion of what lay inside.


It was great to finally (finally!) meet Sif after being online with each other for over two years. Bryn was just what I thought he wouldbe like and Harriet was (surprise, surprise) the most talkative little person there. The poor thing was, admittedly, quite topsy turvy after flying interstate, seeing Papa and then having him go to work again. being thrust in a new carrier, going to a new "news-erm" (museum), meeting new people and then having a Mama that wants to walk away and chat with complete strangers. It would have been lovely to have a chance to chat properly with Sif and Jayne, but Harry had me on my toes.

At one time Sienna picked up Doll. Literally, she probably had her in hand for around fifteen seconds before Jayne and I did some toddler wrangling, and Doll was safely back in Harriet's arms. But the poor poppet was absolutely traumatised - check out this face! (ahem, and please don't think about how I was taking a photo of her at a time of distress...no really, I gave her big hugs and consolation straight after...straight after I...errmm...got the shot *hangs head in shame*).


In fact the one time she was really herself was when we were outside after eating. Unfortunately we'd timed it to be with a school excursion having its lunch break, so the children were about ten and absolutely mental with the freedom of being both on an excursion and a break. However Harry was not to be deterred, she started running around with them from one end of the playground to the other where a small group of them were playing some sort of running game. I suspect she was more than a little in the way but no-one seemed to mind too much.

We finally got her in the Ergo and on the way back to the apartment. But after about a whole ten minutes she had absolutely crashed asleep on my back! I took a cute photo with the phone but haven't had a chance to upload it yet.


I foolishly went home to put her down for a sleep but she wouldn't go back down so I decided a tram trip was in order. On the way to the trams however I found out one of Harry's favourite Melbourne pasttimes - leaf collecting. There are all these stunning large leaves everywhere which Harriet loved to pick up and twirl around in her hand, throw in the air whilst doing a little dance underneath them as they fell back down, finding special places for them in little nooks and crannies of buildings we walked past and then collecting special ones for Papa. But eventually we found our way to a tram stop.

Trams were a great ride, with Harry definitely NOT wanting to get out at Federation Square. But when we did, despite the biting cold wind, Harry was in runrunrun mode and found the closest flock of seagulls to chase down with wild abandon. You can see from this shot her combined loves of leaves and seagull chasing in action.





The light was failing but she looked so darn cute with her hat on I couldn't resist trying to get a shot hof her with the beautiful cathedral in the background. Managed to snap this one which will have to do.

On our way to meet up with Papa we walked past Dangerfield and Harriet pulled me in, stood in the doorway and totally headbanged her way through a Sex Pistols song. Then she dragged me further in and started trying on sunglasses. She's so damn funky!

We walked past an Australiana tourist shop and I stopped off to buy a postcard but Harry ahd other ideas and we went inside where she found a big tub full of small plush Australian animals on keyrings (just what everyone needs). Out of this whole tub there was ONE wombat. So now that wombat is 'bug wombat' and the small hard plastic one we bought in Sydney is 'little wombat'. She has decided that she loves all wombats and echidnas too (although not as much because they're spiky). After meeting up with Papa we realised just how tired the little one was and hightailed it back home for Harry to have her sleep.

So, that was one day in Melbourne...

We Are Alive

Just a quick note to let you all know we are still alive and well. Came back from Melbourne to find that NSW couldn't live without us and threw a storm as its way of having a tantrum. The house was all in one piece and the tadpoles and cats and seedlings all still alive (thanks Scott and Georgia!).

Have been really busy but will be back on to write a proper entry sometime soon. But here's a photo of Harriet cracking up when we were in the apartment in Melbourne. Today I said to her "Come on Poppet" and she said "No poppet. You monkey" (which means she is a monkey). I said "Oh you're not a poppet anymore? You're a monkey?" to which she grinned and said "monkey, monkey!" and started jumping around like ...well, like a monkey.

Have lots to update with (including newfound obssessions with wombats and museums, marrying Ergos, massive leaf collections and sleeping through nightmare turbulence) but it will have to wait until the proper entry.

Conversation II

This morning:

Harry: "Waiting. Here." And she was. Seriously, just standing there in the middle of the study, waiting.
Papa: "What are you waiting for Harry?"
H: "Mama."
P: "Where's mama Harry?"
H: "Shower." *nods* And waits another minute or two, just standing, patiently waiting.

Also:

Harry: "Papa! Work."
Papa: "Oh, yeah, I'm going to work soon."
H: "Papa! Work. You [meaning her], Mama, plane..." (I am going to Melbourne for work on Monday, Harry and Cass are coming down on Wednesday).
P: "Am I going on the plane?"
H: "No. Papa. Work."

Nice to know I'm wanted ;)