Sparrow Lorelei photo gallery

Easter in Echuca part 3, 2-5 April, 2010

Easter Sunday dawn service on the Great Wharf, 36 ft above the waterline (it's a low river). Galahs overhead chorusing that the Sun has risen, and people assembled on the planks chorusing that the Son has risen.

It was quite a fun thing to do, really. I knew Sparrow would be awake at around 6 am (daylight savings had finished three hours earlier!), the service was at 6:30 just across the road. So she and I got up, got dressed, wandered outside, found other people heading the right direction and followed them. The group singing was fun and I think she liked it. There was a reading done in parts by members of the audience, and I ended up reading the bit about the unexpected cry of a baby in the night. Funny that. We also had a chuckle when the pastor leading the service was feeling a bit nervous because the sun hadn't risen on time. It had, but was behind the trees from where we all were. One lady walked up to the end of the wharf and said "No, you can see it from here" and he said "OK, everyone, the sun is rising over there where Dawn is standing".

The other nice thing about this was it got Sparrow and me out of the room, and then when we came back we went up to the inn's sitting room instead of back to our room so James got a little more sleep. He'd said the night before "The nice thing about daylight savings ending is we get an extra hour to sleep in". I'd given him one of my more icy "you've not thought this through, have you" looks and said "No. She will be awake at exactly the same time". It wasn't too bad, except that what daylight savings means for the person who gets up with the small child is that you have to find stuff to do to keep them busy for a whole extra hour before you can go and get breakfast in the inn's dining room. 8:30am is quite a late breakfast for the two of us, especially when we got up before 6. Both she and I ended up a little grumpy and out of sorts during the day because of it. It didn't help that her teething had had her (and thus me) waking up every forty five minutes for the whole night - I was exhausted to start with.

So here is Miss Chiff, with the remnants of her Chiff around her. I removed the chess/backgammon set, and the dice from various games, because she worked out how to get the lids off them and start pulling out the pieces. Right now she is charming up Fiona, another guest in the inn, who was quite happy to tell Sparrow how clever and smart she was on constant repeat. One little girl was quite happy with this.

OK, Daddy, are you awake yet? Let's go! Action Baby is mobile!

Easter Sunday morning, and it's traditional to have an Easter egg hunt. I don't know who told Sparrow this. We didn't. None-the-less, at one point the sounds of quiet playing developed a scritchy tinge. I looked over and she'd found this chocolate bilby hidden in James' bag, crunched it enough to make a good hand grip, then had gotten the foil open and was happily gnawing away at it with her two functioning teeth. Yes, those are tooth marks in the chocolate. I took it off her and we went for breakfast instead.

We went to the Sunday market in Moama. Sparrow managed about half an hour before she fell asleep, which meant I didn't get to try her against the little suit of armour just there.

Before she fell asleep she was a little restless. Understandable, it had already been a big morning with quite a late breakfast. Here she was watching the model race car circuit with some enjoyment, but saw the camera and decided to try and play with that instead because that would garner her more attention. That's often a tired sign.

We took her back to the B&B, let her sleep herself out, and then decided that now we knew where the bridge crossings were we'd walk to New South Wales for lunch. Moama is in NSW, and it really was a very short trip. So this is on the bridge looking back down the river to the Port of Echuca wharf. The inn we're staying in is behind the wharf, only just out of sight behind the trees on the left.

On the bridge, between states.

And, entering New South Wales. That sign further on says "Welcome to the Long Paddock". This is all mythical Australia out here, where the water road and the long paddock cross.

Shortly after entering NSW we got lost. We were looking for Moama's main street, and didn't realise when we'd found it - just kept on walking thinking "OK, there were a couple of shops, the main street must be close..." It seems Moama's main function is sport, recreation and accommodation - most of the retail and tourism is across the river in Echuca. So to find lunch we ended up at the market again, somewhat tired, shoulder-sore, footsore and sunned-out. Sparrow was happy to have some time to play on the grass and get more to drink.

A closer look at the bridge itself. Sparrow was studying the girders and passing commentary, though we don't know what she actually said. Maybe her super-polarising X-Ray vision was picking up faults in the welding.

We bought a few things at the Moama Markets. There was a man with wooden wheeled toys, and he was selling all kinds of little cars at 3 for $10. So we bought three. Sparrow quite enjoyed them for a couple of minutes, then grabbed the book and started playing with that. Her current favourite game is to open books and CDs and play with the "pages". I think it will be good for her to have some toys that are more often given to boys. Her daycare is all girls and tends to be very feminine - the other little girls are into dolls, babies, dresses and accessories. So I will be encouraging a little more rough-and-tumble and physical-challenge play for her outside of that, and also the non-stereotyped toys like cars and construction equipment. She may still end up preferring babies and handbags, but at least she will know there are other things in the world. And she loves watching boys play because they're so energetic.

One little miss had been making tired signs - but once we got back to our room and she had a break from being out and about, there was no sign of any stopping! So off we went for some more exploring, staying very close to home in the Historic Port. We watched the wood turners for a while, Sparrow got to hold and look at some river redgum offcuts, and then visited the blacksmiths and bought something special. Two somethings special, with the names of two certain little girls on them.

Look, Mimi. Look at this. I said, look at this. I'm holding it. This. (Yes, she's holding cousin Mimi's present in her right hand and showing it to me in all seriousness, but I couldn't get her to stop waving it at full speed :-) I love the serious look for emphasis.

We were eating fish and chips after her (very late) afternoon nap - she'd gotten a little confused by the day's happenings and time changes. She loved the fish, ate a little potato from the chips and then picked up the slice of lemon and put it straight in her mouth. I watched, waiting, she took it out, looked at it, and then reinserted it at a better angle and started crushing the juice out and letting it drip down her face. Apparently she likes eating lemon. She is so my daughter.

Sunday night there was a gala at the wharf, with a paddle steamer sailpast, bush band music and fireworks. We missed out on a ticket to go in and watch it all from the wharf, but that didn't matter - we could sing and dance along with the bush band from just outside our room, and only had to walk across the street to get a great view of the fireworks. We couldn't see the paddle steamers over the wharf fence because they were several feet below the wharf level (the river is lower than the lowest part of the wharf), but that was all we missed. So while James had roleplaying, Sparrow and I went out and watched people, sang and danced to Aussie bush music and got icecream. We were very nice and brought some back for Daddy too. Now, Sparrow wasn't supposed to have icecream yet, partly because it sometimes has egg in it and always has lots of cream, but mainly because it is a treat food with no real value, and we were leaving junk food til much later. However, the night before we'd got icecream from the late-night icecreamery that we could see out our window, and Sparrow had managed through much strenuous squirming and sleight of hand to get her fingers into her Daddy's cone and try some. So we'd given her more, on the basis that if she *was* going to react to it we might as well give her enough to make the reaction clear. Tonight I didn't even try to stop her having some, just offered her the cone to stick her fingers in. She's teething, after all, and the cold should be really nice on her gums. So she was pretty cheerful about this, and quite happily tried several bits of the icecream, until she discovered that the bottom part of the cone was liquorice. Right about then she suddenly decided she'd had enough icecream and she'd rather draw on it than eat it, thank you. It did manage to get a remarkable number of places though, and the bits she dropped on her feet stained them grey in such a way that when I saw it I thought she'd got massive bruises on her ankles and was trying to work out how she'd done it.

Early Monday morning, playing at the river park. Sparrow and I got up early and went out again to leave Daddy in peace for an hour. She slept better so we were up at 6:30 instead of 5:55, and I was the better for the extra half hour too. We went straight down to the Beechworth Bakery and got a hot cross bun to share - none of this waiting two hours for breakfast today, we learnt our lesson on that one. Then we sat in the park to eat it and play. I like watching her play with sticks and leaves. She doesn't get to do nearly as much of that as I did when I was a baby. She loved watching the birds get started in the morning too.

Standing, waving one's car and talking are all great play. Her talking is starting to sound a little less than random now. Most of the time it's complete gabble, but sometimes now you get a sound that's a little more like the word you think she means than chance would suggest. She did that twice while she and I were playing here. Once when I offered her the last piece of hot cross bun and said "Do you want the last bit?" and she said "Neh" while pushing my hand away and crawling over my leg to look at something else. Then a minute or two later she crawled back onto my lap and started giving me her version of kisses (they're a little imperfect, but they're getting better) and saying "Mah, mah" with each one. It wasn't the "Mam mam" sound she uses for me, and I suddenly realised that she was attempting to say "mwah", the way I do when I give her kisses. So there are more deliberate sounds starting to appear besides mam and dad. Not consistent, but starting. (She's made a sound like "yeah" or "ja" before in context a couple of times, and I'm glad that "yes" appeared before "no" :-)

At the Echuca markets Monday morning. The Animal Rescue group had a fundraising stall with lots of stuffed toys. When we walked past at the end of our early jaunt I bought her an aqua elephant, which she proceeded to ignore. We came back with Daddy and he thought he should buy her this little dragon, which she thinks is much more interesting, and I also found a bright green glow-in-the-dark dinosaur which she is moderately keen on as well.

Lunch stop at Kilmore on the way home. I am Baby, King of the Jungle: RRRRAAAAAOOORRRRRRRRR!!!!! She had a good time crawling around in the grass, investigating leaves and our shady tree. She spent a bit of time just doing reverse squats - getting into an Indian squat position, then standing straight up from the squat and staying up for as long as she could, dropping back to the squat, and repeat.

A good long playbreak is so essential. Here she's having a good bounce and stand, and stretching on her toes with great glee. A child-health person staying at the Inn with us told us that that's a good sign, they're supposed to do lots of standing on their toes at this age to build up strength in their arches for walking.