Sparrow Lorelei photo gallery

Easter in Echuca part 1, 2-5 April, 2010

Starting out: I chivvied Sparrow and James into the car by 12 so that Sparrow could have her morning nap when we started driving. So she slept all the way through the Easter congestion and on til about Wallan or Kilmore. This is a much-desired stop for lunch at a bakery in Heathcote. It used to be the little country-town-style bakery with some vanilla slices and pies n' pasties in an old house, and everyone drove past it to the next one up the road (which really had some very nice food). This time, they'd moved across the street into a done-up-fancy cafe with granite benchtops, shiny floors and tiny tables, had doubled the size of their range to include more fancy slices and slightly more exotic sandwich fillings and had doubled their prices - and we almost couldn't get a table, they were so packed out. City tourists with their predictable opinions and careless wallets make such a cash cow of a target for the flexible country businessperson. I'm not complaining though. They had a gorgeous range of pies that were really very good. Sparrow quite enjoyed her share.

Playtime in Heathcote. We needed to have quite an extended stop there so that Sparrow could play. She'd been a bit restless. Here she is discovering the delights of chewing on pine needles and oak twigs. Chew chew chew, chew on everything hard. A few minutes later we discovered that her first top tooth had finally broken through. Hooray! It made James and me feel a lot better about the bad night's sleep we'd had before leaving, even though we knew that it meant a couple more bad nights while we were away. At least it's a clear problem we can work around and allow for.

OK, one, four, five, eight, six, ten, go! Sparrow loved playing with these two boys, who were more than happy to include her and me in the game of sliding down the slide together. I climbed up the ladder one-armed with her on my hip and she sat on my lap while we slid and the boys yelled and roared, and she thought this was all fantastic and worthy of much squeals and giggly wiggles. Her daycare has no boys, and she may occasionally miss the high-energy approach. The way they clambered on everything had her trying to look six directions at once.

We've made it to Echuca, and our opulently old-fashioned place to stay - the Steampacket Inn, in the Historic Port precinct. Sparrow is exploring while I try and work out how to make a cup of tea when the nice shiny modern kettle doesn't fit under the old taps for filling. She's starting by exploring the bed. I don't know why ornate and heavily textured surroundings suit her, but they seem to.

Lots of things in the room were just within reach or could become just within reach if there was something handy to climb on. I spent a lot of time picking things up and moving them to spots where they would either tempt and distract her or be invisible to both eyes and fingers. She liked getting to play with stuff at multiple levels, we don't do a lot of that at home. I did have to think carefully about how we set up the teapot however as it had a very short cord and all the lovely brass-knobbed powerpoints were at floor level. It ended up perched on the bathroom ledge at my eye height.

Exploring the upstairs shared sitting room. She almost looks ladylike, like a little Miss, but personally I think that she would be a Miss Chiff. Just as well there's no Chiff she can get into in here, right?

Wrong. Our visit to the sitting room was cut short when she started trying to put the Easter eggs in her mouth whole. OK, Sparrow, let's go look out the door and down the stairs instead.

Much better. Now, let's make our next adventure going to get the lens cap Mummy just dropped down through the steps into the back of the B&B's maintenance area.

Short walk before dinner in the Historic Port Precinct (where we're staying).

If we walk a block or two away from our B&B in the opposite direction to the Murray River, you get to here: the Campaspe River, which joins the Murray not far up.

Dipping her feet into the river. I don't think she was able to do this when we were here last. Rivers are very cool things, and she thought this was fantastic. All the nearby ducks fled to safety.

Dinner at the Shamrock Hotel. Look, Sparrow, it's an Irish pub. She wasn't overly impressed with Irish stew, but that might be because she'd filled up on the nachoes we got first. She did however scoff large quantities of cauliflower in between communicating with the little boy who came and sat in a highchair at the next table. She was fascinated with him playing with a fork, and suddenly we turned around and she had one too and was waving it violently around. We are still not sure where it came from, because all the adults still had all of theirs. Maybe she has learnt to manifest atoms into preferred rearrangements, or just discovered teleportation. Shortly after the fork thing she got fascinated by the big toy truck he was playing with, and I guess now I wait and see if she suddenly procures one of those from nowhere.

We ordered way too much food! All three of us were stuffed and done. Though it did mean that I had plenty of breastmilk the next day, and I was glad of that - she drinks so much more (and more often) when she's teething.

Night walk around the Historic Port, looking in windows. It's such a balmy time of year, and it was lovely weather.

Exploring our room some more. The bathroom was very exciting, and it had A Step. She must have gone up and down that step at least sixteen times.

And then she passed out.