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.