Geh-Ah-Ssss

This week has been, in a word, exhausting. Harry has been sleeping in the afternoons, resulting in not wanting to go to sleep at night, resulting in a sometimes TWO HOUR put down at night. *sigh* It has been so tiring that even though I have heaps to write about and stuff has been happening I just don't have the energy at the end of that to sit down to discuss how cute she is.

However this weekend has been a little different. Yesterday we went out to Darling Harbour to meet up with Mike's sister, Sue, who is over from Perth for a short visit. When we met at Wagamama's (or - 'edamame shop' as Harriet likes to call it) Harriet had the great fortune to receive a completely unexpected but fantastic birthday present - a Duplo set! Here she is with it and...well...let's just say that tonight she insisted on taking "man with wheelbarrow" to bed with her. I think we may have hit on a winner and the Duplo set is probably set to grow a little around Christmas time.


After eating up a storm at Wagamama's we set off in search of some dessert on the other side of the harbour. On our way we happened across some Korean drummers on stage going crazy with their drums and of course Harriet was captivated. She really does have a love of percussion and drumming in particular! Then it was another stop off at the spiral fountain, the old favourite. And finally we made it to the cafe of choice, where we realised just how much she had fallen in love with Aunty Sue.


Harriet sat on Sue and giggled like crazy, playing silly word games and getting tickles. She really locked her radar on Sue and went straight for her! I don't think Sue was too upset about it either as you can see from this photo.



As we all walked along the bridge back to the cars, we kind of stumbled into the Chalk the Walk festival that was on. Artists were drawing in designated spaces along the length of the bridge, with some performance art and musicians thrown into the mix as well. When we came across this artists he was having his photo taken doing a yoga pose on top of his artwork - Harriet, as always fascinated by yoga, decided to copy him! She did what he did for a few poses, then when he started to show signs of stopping she went into downward dog on her own, prompting him to proclaim "Hey yeah, that's one I should do too" and he started copying her! Harry was getting a lot of admirers by this time but was completely oblivious to all the fuss, mainly because most fo the time she had her head down between her ankles.


There's a 'yoga for kids' group starting up at my yoga class and although it's listed for children in kindy to year two I think Harry may be ok to join in. I'm going to ask them anyway - maybe I should submit these photos as part of her portfolio for entrance?

This photo was taken last weekend over at Mark and Mal's house (and Coco of course, don't forget Coco - Harriet sure doesn't!), when Harriet was loving her 'swings' (where we grab her under the knees and swing her up and down. It's just in here cos she looks so cute enjoying her 'ride'.


Today was the beautiful Poe's first birthday party. Harriet was really excited and helped decorate his wrapping paper, wrote in the card and upon arrival poor Poe had his present thrust upon him with exhortations of "Poe open present NOW!". Harry gave him a helpping hand with the unwrapping too. She's so excited about birthdays now that she's figured out the routine - presents, food, friends and singing the "Happy Birthday to You" song as she calls it.

After the party we headed out to our local cafe of choice, ate up (since I got the time wrong and thought the party started at 12 instead of 10, realised our error just in time to make it but had to forgoe breakfast, making us rather hungry by about 1pm) and then drove to the new Ian Thorpe Aquatic Centre. Harry was SO excited about going, it seriously has to be her favourite experience going to the pool.

We bought her a swimming costume the other day because she now no longer needs nappies and oh my GOD was she thrilled about it! She had to wear it over her clothes when we bought it, she wore it almost constantly at home on the days prior to getting it wet in the pool and today, when she finally got a chance to wear it in the pool, she was not just happy, not just thrilled, she was seriously ecstatic. We were in the water for two hours non-stop with her swimming everywhere on her noodle by herself. I really wanted to get a photo of her in her costume because she looked so damn gorgeous, but didn't get a chance because we were being dragged everywhere in the water with no time where we were actually out of the water to see the swimming costume in full.

But the beauty of these two packed days has been that she's really crashed at the end of the night both times. It's bliss! I know I need to do it during the week as well, it's just a little more difficult to handle. Plus she has at least two of her final molars erupting, which has been behind her complaints of her 'ears hurting' when she lies down. I took her to the doctor and he couldn't find any inflammation or signs of anything wrong with her actually. She does stand in at a whopping one metre, which is completely off the scale and the doctor was pretty surprised at her height! He was also a little taken aback by her saying to him "Sore ears, need otoscope". But hey, everyone needs a little guidance in their day to day work environment I guess!


But the reason for the title of this post is one of the coolest things that have happened this week. Today we were in the pool and I pointed out the big 'S' in the sauna sign where we were swimming. Then as we got out of the water Harry looked down at the large black letters spelling out 'SHALLOW' on the side of the pool, so we spelt through those. Then when we sat down to eat some cashews Harriet pointed out the 's'es in 'unsalted cashews' on the packet. I explained how they helped make up the words and I could then read what was inside by reading the words. I then spelt out another word on the packet and as I did so, something just....clicked. I dont know precisely but I just knew that she had had a major psychological leap of some kind in understanding the relationship between letters, words and reading. I didn't explain anything in a way that was particularly different from before, it was just obviously the right time for her mentally to process the information.


Anyway, we went on to dinner out at an Indian restaurant (we'd use the term 'restaurant' very loosely here) and Harry needed to go to the toilet, so we were sitting in there (I squat on the floor and hold her up over the bowl) when she suddenly pipes up with "Geh. Ehh?" and I look to where her finger is pointing and blow me bloody well down if she is pointing to a sticker that has GAS written on it! She is looking at me with her finger over the 'A' because she knows the 'eh' sound is incorrect and want clarification. I say "Ah" and she then moves her finger back and says "Geh. Ah. Sss". She then looks at me and I say calmly "Geh Ah Ssss - gas, that spells gas". Harry then proceeds to do it again and again. I proceed to have calm inner joy moment!


As we went out to the car she then pointed out heaps of different 's'es on different signs everywhere and a couple of other letters I can't remember now. It looks as if she is on to her latest adventure - letters! But all in good time - right now she is sleeping soundly and I'm enjoying having nothing better to do than play with photos and write blog entries. Will be back in later this week.

Little Miss Undies

Today was a huge day for Harry - get together at our place in the morning with babies and her favourite playmate Ruby (just realised they were all girls too!), then in the afternoon we went up to the Earthdance festival at Sydney Park. We didn't realise it was on but after a twnety minute kip whilst in arms Harry decided she was ready and rearing to go.

The funny thing about this toilet trained business is that all of her shorts now hang SO loosely on her. We bought her a belt but of course sometimes you need quick access to the undies! So easy elastic waisted shorts are the best option...until the elastic falls out! We were sitting in the chai tent (btw - Harriet drank about a quarter of my chai, she was greedily leanng forward for more and more sips which progressed to gulps and then she just had it in both hands and was downing it) and Harriet stood up and ran out...only to have her shorts end up around her ankles literally!

She thought it was truly hilarious and would pull them up for a bit, then run away and let them drop again. Rinse, repeat. And quite frankly when you've had a nappy on your whole life the idea of still being 'clothed' whilst in just a little pair of undies must be quite liberating.

She is also now almost night trained as well! In the past week she has only had one small wee in her nappy one morning. We're going to progress to pull up trainer pants for overnight this week probably.

Lots more to write about, her speech is awesome and she has started to express her emotions, use possessive contractions, definite articles but I am now writing this in the morning after being interrupted last night. So I better post this now or risk never doing it! Will be back soon.

News and Updates

Huge apologies to those of you who have been trying to get in contact with me (Hi Jennie!). I have been pretty buggered lately, since Harry has decided that she doesn't want to sleep at normal toddler times but instead will enjoy burning the midnight oil with her parents. Have we mentioned before that this child is amazing EXCEPT for her inability to sleep?

To be fair to Harriet there has been a major change with James going back to work this week. But it has meant that I haven't had more than a few minutes spare to do 'adult' stuff (y'know, like updating this blog, holding phone calls of more than five minutes duration, thinking straight, etc.). Anyway it has been great for James to spend time with Miss Harry after work when he might otherwise only get an hour or so.

One of her current loves, collecting rocks, is just hilarious to watch. She will search out rocks in the most unlikely of places, including shopping centre planters, carparks (although these are usually just small bits of concrete gone astray), inside other people's houses (just today she walked right up to the front verandah of someone's house and picked up two rocks, turned around and came back out again) and along any city street. The joy she gets from them is indescribably cute - check out the grin in this photo. And this was just a small rock! We were at the park during high tide and after some rain; this meant the water was right up to the riverbank edge and Harriet was able to throw in her rocks to get a very satisfying splash.

She understands lots of relative terms such as "a couple", "a few"; "too" and "two" being different words; can count up to ten and now has started to add eleven and twelve to that as well; sings along to nearly every nursery rhyme we know.

But one of the most exciting developments in the world of Harriet involves two purchases we made today. Her soft squishy toilet seat (her 'special little girl toilet') because the other hard plastic one we had was hurting her, and a pack of underwear! Yep, this girl has pretty much toilet trained herself over the past week or so with absolutely no 'work' or intervention from us. Around the house she goes nappy free and when she hasn't got a nappy on she is 100% toilet trained, telling us early that she needs to do a wee or poo and then can hold it for anything up to a minute (actually probably longer too, we haven't really tested the limits) while we get all sorted. She even woke up the other morning with a completely dry nappy, walked out, sat on her potty and did a huge wee. So we bought the undies with the intention of hopefully moving her into those at home over the next few weeks to see how she goes with some material on her butt. But even when she has a nappy on and we're out she tells me that she needs to go "TOY-yet! Poo coming!" or "TOY-yet! Wee coming!".

Which is all quite convenient because we cannot find reusable swimming nappies ANYWHERE in her size. *sigh* So luckily it looks like we can trust she'll tell us when she's in the pool anyway. We went to the new Ian Thorpe Aquatic Centre on APEC Friday and it is full of the most glorious natural light. There are two great pools for toddlers , one with lots of bubbles too. Apparently (I went out for coffee, gasp) Harriet actually swam two laps of the hydrotherapy pool on her noodle and then wanted her floaties on (which are too small for her now, another upgrade that's required). Here she is soldiering into the pool on her own, there is no stopping this child when a swim is imminent.

After the swim we went with Mal (one of my pregnant friends, congrats guys!) to Wagamama's and had some edamame. Mmmmm...oh and some salad...and gyoza...and moyashi soba...and fried rice...ummm...we may have over-ordered just a little. This shot was taken about three seconds before Harry fell face first down the steep gradient in front of her. She's getting a little better with the running skill but still has a way to go.

Just tonight when we were putting her to bed, she started telling us a story about going in a rocket to the moon. She put on her spacesuit and put one on Unit (one of her dolls) as well. Then they got in a rocket and counted down (can you believe she could even count down?!!) from five to one and then went ZWOOSHING...all over the room (which was actually space of course). and then they got in a "moon car" and went for "a drive".

- How are you getting down to the moon from the rocket?
- Moon car. Driving now.
- Where are you driving to Harriet?
- Home
- From the moon?
- Yeah. Unit has spacesuit off now (makes movements with hands over Unit to simulate taking off her spacesuit)
- Where's your spacesuit?
- Here. (holds out pinched fingers in the air)
- Want to do some space walking on the bed?
- Yeah. (starts to walk on her mattress) Oh, snuggle up in quilt!
- (parents desperate to embrace love of sleeping) Want to get in and go to sleep?
- Yeah! (cue disbelief from parents and a sleeping Harriet within TEN MINUTES)

I mean I probably have no idea about toddlers and all, but I really didn't expect this kind of extreme imagination play until she was a little bit older to tell you the truth. It's a hell of a lot of fun to be involved with! This photo is Harry telling us all about the buses that take us home. She's saying the three numbers out loud over and over so that she knows which bus it is when it comes down the street (here she is midway through saying TWO). Of course she still tried to jump in the 370 when it turned up but then again she does have an uncanny love of the omnibus method of transportation.

But gee she does some cute stuff every day, far too many things to remember which is a real shame. Plus she has a seriously cute lisp and voice generally but she is obssessed with watching herself on video, to the point where she will throw a huge crying fit over not being able to watch herself straight away and over and over again. Which means that we have precious little video of her in this gorgeous stage. Now that Blogger lets me upload video I'm hoping to snap some on the sly so that you can listen in on just how cute she sounds.

One last thing to leave on is that when we were out today we saw a packet of marbles in a netting style bag. Harry got SO excited, ran over and picked up the bag telling me over and over again that they were "marbleth! marbleth!". I was wondering where she had found out about marbles and figured James must have told her, so I said to her that when we got home Papa will teach her how to play marbles. The first thing she did was run up and give Papa his pair of socks. Then she started yeling out 'Marbleth Mama!", came over and retrieved them from me and held them out to Papa not just excitedly but ecstatically. It wasn't until James looked surprised at her interest that we realised she must have got the idea from a book we bought ages ago called "My Daddy is a Giant" where the boy can beat his very tall dad at marbles. Her memory for detail is truly amazing. We now take her memory for truth in all things and have given up questioning her because she is always correct.

Happy Papa Day!

Well Harry here is sporting the fashion item de rigeur for today. James bought me this badge in an antique store and I laughed myself stupid when I saw it! We can only assume that it is meant to be satirical, but no matter what it's plenty funny. So a big HOORAY for Papa Jimbo today!

Papa received his Neil Young, PJ Harvey and Jarmusch paraphenalia and Harriet got to say "Happy Papa Day", so all was good with the world.

We went out to the pool this morning and Harriet had a swim around with Jimbo whilst I luxuriated on the side of the pool for a full forty minutes. I got to read my two favourite sections of the weekend SMH which was wonderful and James got to watch Harriet swimming around on her own. Apparently she was adamant in saying "No Papa!" and wandered around on her own, swimming over and under a rope meant to divide the leisure area from the classes.

On the way in it looked like Harriet might fall asleep but we got to the pool, had the swim, and THEN she wanted to fall asleep. Poor poppet really crashed hard. But we were also hungry (including Harry) so we headed next door to Bodhi's for delicious yum cha in the park. Now this is why we love Sydney so much. So we had some "yummy cha" (as Harry calls it) and ran into Scott adn Damien there too but we didn't muscle in on their lunch and had our own table.

So we drove back home and even with us poking and prodding her (literally!) That darn Harriet fell asleep on the way home. Sounds cute, huh? But this girl cannot be budged once she falls asleep or she just wakes up and acts as if nothing has happened. Grr! So we got back home and tried to put her down but...yep...she refused to sleep and just got back up and soldiered on. She was running on empty all afternoon but was in a great mood and played happily with all kinds of activities, including painting and reading and we all rolled out biscuit dough and made some cut outs of wombats!

What, you can't tell that those amorphous blobs of dough are actually wombats, stars and dinosaurs? What on earth is WRONG with you? Now double click on that photo and look harder.

They were pretty yummy and Harry enjoyed eating the head of a wombat which was rather disturbing. And even more amazing was that she finally succumbed to sleep!

It was an early night at 6pm to say the least but she definitely needs it after staying up until ELEVEN PM on Friday night due to a lovely dinner party at Linda and Kicka's new place. I did *try* to put her to sleep there but when she's sitting up pleading "Mama, go back downstairs and talk people", well, it's quite difficult to argue against it as the laughs and chatter from downstairs comes trailing up.

Well it's a short post from me tonight and I'm going to try and take my own advice and enjoy sleep while I can. James starts his new job on Tuesday - more money, less interstate travel, less daily travel too, more central, better long term upward mobility stuff, nice people and of course the most important thing - incredible views across the city and a funky office setting. A pretty good week to be starting too, he gets Monday off but paid for, and Friday off due to APEC but paid for, so a three day working week is a good intro anywhere!