Sparrow Lorelei photo gallery

General thirteenth month bits part 2, 9 May - 9 June, 2010

Every so often I make another attempt to get our bedroom a little tidier. It never lasts for long, but each time something else gets a bit better organised and set up. And I have to keep doing that every time Sparrow gets better at getting into all our chaotic piles of stuff. Both James and I still mostly operate out of a floordrobe, but Sparrow can help sort this now and her sorting is not like ours would be. Here I am distracting her by introducing her to my big bag of hair ribbons. She liked the colours, I think, it kept her busy for a few minutes. The tomkitten has already been thrown out of the house after his contribution to the ribbon project was soundly rejected.

I had no reason for this photo other than it just looked really cool and arty. It's nice to have a black suit for her again, though I did cut the feet off.

And speaking of arty, I think Sparrow is channeling some pop singer here with the outfit and stance. She's never seen any pop singers, but the style is great. She likes playing with this broken hairbrush, and today was just walking around with it. Toys can get carried even further now that she's walking. It must be so nice to have your hands free. Makes the chewing that much better. During this month another tooth came through. She kept behaving like she was teething, and teething, and teething, and we were dutifully rubbing teething gel into the spots on her gums where the next teeth were due and checking regularly but there was no sign of any teeth. And then she was feeding one day and it felt a little sharper than normal on my nipple so I stuck my finger in and CHOMP. The top right premolar had come through, up at the back, and had been through for a couple of days by the feel of it. We'd not noticed because it wasn't where we were looking. Then the second front right tooth came through a week or two later, also out of order. Nobody told her when they were due I guess.

Caroline and Mayo and Felicity and Bea gave us this little elephant when they visited last year. After a long while of sitting in bookshelf bricks it's finally migrated back out into the toy pile, and it's very popular. Another one of the little treasures for her box stool.

She just plays and plays and plays with CDs. I finally had to start blocking off her access to them because she was getting too good at removing them from their boxes and finding ways to damage them. There are a couple of ones that are already too damaged to play that have stayed in her toybox, but they're not as COOL as the ones on my shelf. The rock collection is still immensely popular too (that's the wooden box in front of her).

Aeroplane! She usually sleeps in her cot, and usually on her side or her stomach. So sleeping here like this is unusual on both counts even though she used to do it all the time. And it's cute. This month she shifted to a one-nap-per-day pattern, though if she wasn't well it would be two shorter naps. Some of the naps were a good two hours long, too. I thought this was a fantastic development. I miss the second naptime, but having the long quiet time to myself is really nice. It also works well for daycare, where their routine is one nap in the afternoon. It means Joanne gets a quiet time when all of the children are sleeping.

I think Sparrow thinks we should be giving her a baby brother. The box of condoms got promptly removed and re-stashed out of sight, to one small baby's disappointment. I should probably submit this photo to a "choose your chew toys carefully" competition, if one existed.

She's so cheerful when she first wakes up. Doesn't she have a lovely smile? Hang on, wait, what's this?....

It's her new smile!
She started smiling like this with the wrinkled nose this month. We don't know why she started, but she gets such a great response from people she's kept it up and now smiles like this most of the time. It gives her this evil "I'm planning to take over the world" look, and she has an evil cackle to go with it. It's a bit bizarre to think my daughter is already taking her first steps towards world domination. No, actually, second steps - first steps was last month when she learnt how to make people give her chocolate cake on request.

Now that by the end of the month she was starting to walk well I could start trying her in dresses again. There was no point to them between when she started crawling and now, they were just in the way. This is a nice warm long dress and I think it's really quite pretty. Blue always suits her. She makes quite a cute picture by the window looking out longingly at the garden and telling me that she should be on the other side of this door.

As it happens, I agree that she should be on the other side of the door. I wish I could agree with her that the best thing to do is remove all my mulch and start digging in the dirt, but I get a little conflicted about that. It's essential kids' play and great for their nature understanding and physical development. And it's a pain in the butt to deal with when all you have is pot plants that don't like their roots being dug up and the cat keeps trying to use the pots as his personal toilet because litterboxes are beneath his dignity and well someone else is already digging in them so that MUST be what they are for. It's hard to give consistent messages to both of them.

But really, how can I say no to this? She's having so much fun, getting her hands in the dirt is a real source of delight to her. And this runs in my family, so I can't really stop her.

That poor girl, her mother just can't dress her right. Colours and stripes all match, but I can't help but feel I've forgotten something. The symmetry is just not quite right...

She loves the swing, and loves looking in these big pots. I love the swing because it stops her getting into the pots. The one she's studying in this photo keeps sprouting bright yellow mushrooms inside its water spike, and I'm quite sure that she shouldn't play with them.

Willow came over to visit us for an afternoon while her mum and dad were busy. I haven't babysat since I was sixteen, I think. It was fun. Willow was tired and cranky when she arrived, and Sparrow had been cranky all morning so I thought it was going to be a challenging afternoon. But no, Sparrow got all terribly concerned that Willow was so upset and started giving her hugs, offering her crackers (pre-licked to get all the good bits off first of course) and generally crowding her space. Poor Willow just wanted to be left alone -grin- It was rather cute, though I empathised with Willow a lot. Here the two girls are playing with Maggie's chicks, one each. Willow seemed happier when she had just one thing to look at, but of course whatever she had Sparrow wanted so this was my attempt to keep them both distracted. It failed, but Willow went to sleep not long afterwards and was much happier when she woke up. Especially since Sparrow then also went to sleep so Willow got quiet time without being hassled when she woke up.

One must always wear one's essential fashion accessories when in the bath. Melbourne ladies know that hats are NEVER out of season. I liked this hat, it's a pity she'll have outgrown it by the time September rolls back around and we need sunhats again. Right now it's just one more thing Sparrow can put in the bath to see what happens.