Sparrow Lorelei photo gallery

Sparrow's first Christmas, Albany, 2009
At play, and at play

Nothing like playtime. And a rare chance to get me in some of the photos :-) We spent a bit of time playing and hanging out on this blanket during the week.

Mum (Sandra) opened up the toybox, and found a few things that would be suitable. This wooden block and wagon set has now been happily played with by three generations of little girls.

Here's two of those generations - the first to play with it, and the most recent. I do wonder sometimes what drove Mum's choices of things to bring with her when she migrated, but it's nice that some such things as this are around. I like wooden toys, too. We did have to be careful with this set though - Sparrow took an immediate liking to sticking the long poles in her mouth, and I kept having visions of her toppling forward onto them. I ended up quietly removing the poles a number of times so that she just had the blocks - she's a long way yet from being able to put the poles into the holes, and didn't really seem to conceptualise this as a possibility let alone one of any interest.

Playing with the rattle. She really liked this double rattle thing, the texture and the way you could grip it and hold it. She played with it a lot this week. Right now she is having a break to play with it before going back to grabbing the handle on that plastic box next to her and pulling it up and down. That was a very important thing that needed to be done several times.

On the mat, outside.

Cuddle attack! and another excuse to slip in a photo of me with Sparrow.

But shade moves, as it does, so soon she and I had to go out to the other side of the house. I did like the colouring of that suit and that blanket together. Very harmonious and friendly in the sunlight.

Soft blocks. I think my grandmother Ruth made these, though I'm not sure. They look like her work. Sparrow quite liked them.

Between the previous picture and this one you can see why we spent most of this week certain that she was about to start crawling any second now. She'd been pushing herself backwards, and was getting very good at pushing herself up, and it all looked like it was coming together. And then she worked out how to sit up, and crawling was completely forgotten about. She was too busy with her latest discovery.

So here she is, sitting up on her own and playing with bits and pieces. Of course, she didn't quite have the hang of remaining sitting up, there were still moments of just randomly toppling backwards. So we carefully put lots of towels around behind where she was sitting. And she moved well away from them almost immediately.

So we moved the towels again. And she turned around so that she was facing them, with the wagon full of hard many-cornered things behind her. Anyone would think she was inclined to be difficult, don't know where she could have gotten *that* from. I have always said that my aim wasn't to protect by prevention so much as protect by teaching competence, but moments like this did challenge me a little.

Playing with random objects from the toybox. I think these are two craft-stall-type mice, the grey one hand knitted and the white one made from a piece of sheepskin. She certainly enjoyed waving them around and moving them back and forth between her hands and her feet.

She has her Daddy, a hammock, his hat, and four limbs to manipulate it with. She's happy. James might not have intended her to have his hat.

Going for a ride in the wagon.

Yeah, this isn't too bad. Sitting *and* moving. How cool!