Sparrow Lorelei photo gallery

Sparrow's second month, to 9 July 2009 - part 2

Cuteness alert! David and Carolyn Yeates sent us this jacket and hat set (the jacket is on the floor behind her). I love the colouring, and it's so very Gumnut Baby. I like seeing her in natural colours better than the chemical and candy pastels that so many baby clothes come in. But I have my grandmother's eye for colour as an adult, and when I was a little girl I never understood why she liked the colours she did -smile-.

James is very inventive when it comes to distracting Sparrow. She'd been grizzling, then went quiet, and I came back in the room to see Daddy "reading" a story to her. I had to get a photo of this. It works quite well though. She likes books that are mostly full-page coloured pictures. I went through my children's book pile and pulled out a couple that worked well. It gives me something to talk to her about when she's after conversation, and she does like looking at all the colours. Her favourite book to start with was Night Flight by Dominque Falda, published by North-South Books. I was surprised to realise how many of my kids books are published by them, but they're all good ones. The Yowie books that Bryce Courtenay and Geoff Pike wrote for Cadbury are also great, which is what James is holding up here.

Sparrow and I were about to head into the city. I pulled out the star car wrapper to see if she fit it yet, and she'd just about out-grown it! Neither James nor I could believe our eyes. It was only a few weeks ago that she was so small she was completely lost in it.

Shushanna was visiting Melbourne briefly. We usually go interesting places, and I suggested we meet at the State Library and go exploring. Here Sparrow and I are in the library's mezzanine art galley looking at some Ned Kelly art. In the culture war of her parents, I've gained ground: Sparrow visited the library before she went to a football game. That was really only because the weather's been so cold and wet, and so many people have flu of one sort or another, James has been a bit hesitant to take her to a game. Football will come soon. But first, large and stately buildings with hushed interiors, little green lamps and four-storey-high walls of books.

Shushanna, Sparrow and I having lunch at Glicks. I've wanted an excuse to eat there for some time, and catching up with Shushanna was perfect. So she and I ate various Eastern European Jewish savouries and talked environmental engineering from Israel and CERES, while Sparrow lay on the table and listened.

James was back at work for the first time this day, so Shushanna and I stopped in to say hello and so he could show off his daughter to the guys in the office. First day away from her, and he'd been missing her already. Thankfully it was only a few hours after we took her home til he came home and saw her again -smile-.

Sparrow is supposed to spend a certain amount of time on her tummy. Apparently that's the rule they give parents now, because everyone was spending so much effort keeping them on their back because of SIDS that some babies were starting to get flat heads. And the tummy time helps them with their head control. James has come up with a new variant of tummy time, and she really likes this position on his knees. She is a little too big to do it on my knees as well but I try.

We went shopping and tried her in one of the shopping trolley capsules for the first time. Up til now one of us has just been wearing her. She thought this was pretty cool and enjoyed the ride.

It was nice to be able to stock a trolley and wheel it to the car for a change instead of carrying her, her bags, our bags, and the shopping. This newfangled wheel technology is good stuff.

Almost two months old, and this is her little hand.

I see the light! No really, get that sun out of my face.

She was starting to run out of jumpsuits that fit, so I dove into Sarah's loaned boxes again and found... overalls. Well, might as well try them. This photo makes me think she's setting up for a bit of biffo.

So we had to sort through all the clothes, and Sparrow is helping me. Sarah had the good sense to simply put outgrown clothes in boxes as they were outgrown instead of wasting effort on packing and sorting. I, however, am anal retentive I mean meticulous about ordering such things. So over a day or two I went through all the clothes we'd borrowed and sorted them into types and sizes and packed them in groups, and went through all the clothes that people have made for Sparrow and sorted them into sizes, and took all the jumpsuits that we've bought for her and removed the ones that no longer fit. End result was a couple of boxes with the clothes we could put her in to hand, and the rest out of the way. Sparrow doesn't have a lot of patience for trying things on, so knowing which ones work at the moment is helpful. At the time we did this sort she had outgrown everything that was marked 0000, and was outgrowing the smallest of the 000 clothes too. Mostly because of the big nappy - most clothes are made now as if you will be wearing disposables and not cloth. Because she's effectively big for her age, finding the right clothes is tricky. Jumpsuits are still best but looking at clothes all around the place it appears that many parents by this size are trying to dress their child up as a little adult. So many replicas of adult clothes that are too silly or difficult to try and get her into, or just too cold for winter.

Look, she's smiling and laughing and waving her arms. What gets this reaction? Well, Mummy doing aerobics, but right now she's in the garden. What do you think she's seeing that's so funny?

Apparently, this.