Sparrow Lorelei photo gallery

Seventh month, 9 November - 9 December, 2009

You are eating a big red thing.
Hmm. -wiggle- -grab-
Now *I* am eating a big red thing.
A lot of this month was about food. Most of it I don't have pictures of, as it usually took both my hands to assist. Her coordination is building though, spurred on by that greatest of motivators - "can I get it into my mouth?". But this was a very early venture into the world of solid food, on a visit to Flo's house on a hot day. Nothing's better on a hot day than watermelon, unless it's frozen rockmelon or iced breastmilk. That's for her, not us, though she does have some competition when it comes to the rockmelon. We were introducing her to food carefully based on the general community nurse and state health dept advice, starting with fruits and vegetables and cereals (other than the main allergen ones) for this month. The idea is to build up her digestive system gradually so that she can get used to processing food, because to start with she won't digest much at all. This also meant I spent a lot more time staring at her poo to see what I could recognise, and checking it for signs of digestive distress related to new foods. The watermelon you see here went through almost untouched, producing a remarkably festive-looking nappy. Thankfully I didn't feed her spinach at the same time.

The introduction to food meant she started spending time in the high chair - a little at first, then more and more. Usually it was when there was food involved, but sometimes it was just a distraction when playing on the floor got old. She fits the chair a lot better now than when we bought it!. This photo is not of her eating. It's of her trying, for the first time, to pick up a round thing. That is a lime that she's holding, and it rolls very well around the high chair's table. I nearly killed myself laughing watching her repeatedly try to pick it up and having it skid away from her. She did eventually get it though.

"Daddy, that looks very tasty. It's for me, isn't it?". See the hand? Unfortunately for her, wheat wasn't on the menu this month so one poor baby had to simply smell James' regular breakfast toast. Next month we'll let her steal it. Also, note that it's a right-handed grab. She was predominantly right-handed for a lot of this month.

The nice thing about the high chair is that it can also be a low chair, and that works well for us given we eat dinner sitting on the floor most of the time. Here the Spud is trying (under careful supervision) cucumber sticks and wheat-free corn-and-rice pasta spirals. I know everyone says you feed them purees at this age, and that's all I expect her to be able to digest so that's what she gets a lot of, but she loves playing with the textures so I'm happy for her to pretend to eat the Big People's Food. And this way she can appear to be eating the same things we're eating. She gets a bit thump-thump (see the hands?) when we are eating something that we are refusing to share.

Joyously and happily eating the bowl of frozen spinach. I thought this might be a nice treat on a warm day, but apparently after the baby icecream we had when visiting Oma and Grandad, this was, well, spinach. Which is OK, but not icecream. She enjoyed eating the bowl more than its contents. We tried the thawed and cooked spinach again later and she happily ate more, so I guess spinach is tasty as long as Mummy doesn't pretend it's icecream.

This was the first month where we really had much in the way of heat, so I had to suddenly start developing strategies for helping her adjust to that after a Melbourne winter. This photo is taken on the way to visit Flo and Nadia. She's finally able to wear a summer outfit, and she's clutching what became a favourite toy: a water bottle. She got quite good at holding it and drinking from it during the month, whether it was with her feet or hands, though she did sometimes choose to chew on it upside down instead. It was partly to make sure she didn't dehydrate and had a source of cool to play with and experiment with, but I think her gums enjoyed the cool thing to chew against too.

Meeting Flo and Nadia. Nadia is the small one. Flo was fascinated by the noises Sparrow makes now - huge long gurgles and coos and crows. Nadia's not up to those yet being just eight weeks old, so it gave Flo a bit of a fright when she heard the first gurgle, a sort of "What is wrong with that child's windpipe" reaction. Which I completely understand, as I had that too. Now I don't even notice the sound terribly much, it's just part of the general carolling.

A giant push up on the arms, though it's hard to see how high she's got. She's quite satisfied with herself, and she should be - she's getting quite strong. This was another warm day, so she got to spend a lot of time hanging out in just a singlet and nappy. She liked that. Look Mum, no sleeves!

And even better, no nappy! This was the best way to sleep, though it meant I had to be a little alert for when she woke up, in case she rolled away from the towel. She wasn't really rolling a lot at this stage, but she *was* rolling (hence the pillows blocking her from the edge of the bed and the elephant placed as a tempting distraction / directional control). I had to give up doing even that during this month as she got too mobile and would move too quickly.

More Nakkedei time. It was nice to be able to give her more of this - most of the year has been too cold to do it for long so far. But she was quite happy. It helps that she is mostly (not always) predictable about when she will piddle, so I can focus my vigilance on her playing rather than whether she needs a nappy. The tambourine is still a favourite toy. Now she can make a lot more noise with it, is just starting to work out how to shake and bang it, but also it's big enough that she can use both her feet and hands to operate it. Toys that keep all her limbs busy are much more fascinating at this stage.

The only problem is, you couldn't really keep her on the towel. She'd end up in all kinds of different places than where she started. "Hey, what's that over there? Oh hang on, here's my foot to chew." I started being very conscientious about vacuuming this room suddenly. Thankfully she finds the vacuum fascinating and is quite happy to watch me while I rearrange furniture and junk and varoom around a bit.

Speaking of toys that use all limbs. We brought this fan back from George and Jasmine's wedding, and she loved it. Mostly she chewed it, but she did work out how to open and close it if as much by coincidence as design. It didn't last long, but it was fun while it did. That is the pinafore Maggie knitted that she's wearing.

The chaos that is our patio / sun room. On this day I needed to water the plants, and I was out here shuffling laundry and water buckets, and I had her with me and realised I simply couldn't leave her on any of the cushions any more. She's straight off them within seconds. So it was time to migrate her to just a blanket on the floor. Thankfully the concrete, while cold, is nice on warmer days like these. She likes being able to roll around and see what I'm doing as I move around the space.

The cat also likes this development. Alison Katerina here has a mutual tolerance with Sparrow now. The cat wants attention, Sparrow wants to hold onto her, it is mostly good. Sparrow is having to learn the word "gentle", so far with not a lot of success. Thankfully Katerina is quite patient with the human "kitten". I do like dressing Sparrow up in this particular outfit - it's a nappy designed to be on show, really.

Her rapidly increasing mobility meant a sudden need to change baby-wrangling strategies. She had been on the change mat and pushed herself off one end, grabbed the water container and tipped it over her head (much to her surprise). I got her nappy back on and put her on her rug where all the things she is encouraged to play with are. After playing on all four corners of the rug within the space of about five minutes, I heard a rattling sound, looked over and saw her here. She had pulled one of "her" books off the shelf, been about to start gnawing on it and then accidentally discovered that kneeing and kicking the toybox made the tambourine rattle. That was a great fun game, so she kept it up while deciding to also try to pick up NormanTed (the orange bear). Watching her thump and kick, I suddenly felt far less secure about how well I'd stabilised that shelf unit. So I stood there leaning against it for a while, then when my nerves got a little too tight I moved her back to her rug.

Within thirty seconds she'd left the rug, gotten to the window, and got well on the way to pulling the curtains down upon herself. I hadn't even thought about the fact that those curtains fall down easily with a good tug, but they do and it is not nice when it lands on your head. So with three misadventures in a row I realised it was time to take babyproofing seriously. I want her to kick boxes, pull swinging things and play with books. I also want to make sure none of it falls on her (or at least not too painfully) when she does it. So there's some work to come yet.

The hot weather and her increased mobility meant that the one-piece suits (or "onesies" I think they get called) weren't as great a clothing choice. It was working much better to have her in just a big colourful nappy cover with a t-shirt. That meant I needed to get some t-shirts, which meant a trip to the secondhand store. So now I have some t-shirts in good strong colours - navy, red and a light but bright green. Navy really suits her.

Every time I go I usually find one interesting thing extra for her to wear, and this was it. A lovely little bronze dress, in a very elegant style, and it's just the right size to wear on Christmas Eve. Hopefully. If she doesn't outgrow it in the next three weeks, which is always a possibility.