Sparrow Lorelei photo gallery

Aussiecon 4, the World Science Fiction Convention, 2-6 September, 2010

The World Science Fiction Convention was held here in Melbourne in the first week of September. James, Sparrow and I went along. We didn't see a lot of the convention - between toddler management and my being quite sick with both first-trimester-issues and a bad bout of the flu. we spent as much time out of the con as in it. But what we saw and went to was great. This is the only photo we have of Sparrow actually in a convention item - it's a speech on climate change by the Guest of Honour, Kim Stanley Robinson. Here you go, Spud, you have your photo taken with a world-famous author. I had a panel with him the next day on a climate-change related topic, so wanted to hear what he was on about. Sparrow had been fast asleep and we thought she was going to stay so for a while. But she woke up just as we came into the giant lecture theatre, heard the quiet and tried a little test-singing, then got this awed look on her face at the acoustic response and began to carol and chatter at full volume for all she was worth. After about five minutes of attempting to distract her we gave up and James took her out of the presentation to play and talk outside. So here's the only photo of us actually doing convention stuff - the rest are mostly social and out-and-about stuff.

Packing before we went. I told James he was in charge of packing food for the hotel room. He happily stocked up on the small snacks that we all tend to need on a semi-regular basis during the day. When he brought the shopping home Sparrow found the Pringles can and immediately tried to get into it. She's not supposed to have such things, but it doesn't seem to stop her instinctively knowing how it should go.

Packing Sparrow's clothes. I managed to finish her Purple People Eater dressing gown the day before we went, so that she had a "costume" to take with us. I didn't know if we'd go in the costume judging at the Masquerade or just have fun with it, but it didn't really matter. It was fun. You can see the one eye, one horn and wings in this shot. The Masquerade turned out to be in parade format and we missed the start and signup for reasons further below, so she didn't get to go in it. Which was a pity as I think she'd have had a ball being up on stage dancing to the Purple People Eater song in front of an audience. But she did get up on stage at the end as "a very very very last minute late entry" while the judges were off considering the official entrants, and got to stand with all the other contestants and have her photo taken too. I haven't found anyone with a photo of her in the costume though as it didn't stay on long up on stage.

Arriving in our hotel room. Sparrow started to look around, found the telephone and went straight for it. Phones are the best toys. She's such a conversationalist, and phones are great because you can talk AND you can press buttons. This being a real phone, it even beeped at her and made noises when she listened. The convention started Thursday afternoon, but we only went to our hotel room on Friday evening - Friday she was in daycare, I worked from home, James had a day at the con on his own to go see stuff without the hassle of a small child.

View from our hotel room window. That big white glare in the middle top is a giant LED billboard. I really don't like these things. The extra bright light was quite annoying, meant we had to have the curtains completely shut to be dark enough to sleep (and I don't need a lot of dark). Plus I don't approve of giant moving TV-like ads being beamed into my bedroom 24 hours a day, let alone being perched over a busy and complicated intersection where it can distract the traffic that's already doing stupid things. James minded it less because he could check the football scores really easily.

Saturday morning, James has gone home to feed the cats and Sparrow and I are having a short morning walk. I was pretty tired, but in the food packing we'd managed to miss packing any breakfast stuff for me and Sparrow. So she and I went out and got milk, bananas, oats and yoghurt to cover our morning meal. The dressing gown was nice for keeping the wind and light drizzle off Sparrow. It was a grey and cold weekend, ended up being a LOT of rain - that was the weekend that half of Victoria flooded.

Lunchbreak on Saturday. The convention was in the MCEC which is a giant double-building along the south side of the Yarra that took something like fifteen minutes to walk from the end you entered by to the actual convention area. Huge. Just across the road from the entry end is the Crown Casino which has a nice food court, and we had a few meals there as it was the closest and simplest thing to the con other than the tiny cafe at the bottom of the South Wharf Hilton.

Dinner at Nandos. James spent the afternoon with Sparrow and Dave watching the football. I had a kaffeeklatsch at 5 and couldn't have the Spud with me then, and they thought it was just easier to take her along for the whole afternoon instead of coming back to pick her up from me at 4:30. It was probably a good thing, I spent most of that time melted down and collapsed in the hotel room trying to get some energy back. When I got to the con I discovered that there was no place to get a drink anywhere - they made an architectural decision to not include any water fountains or bottle refill points, and the fan lounge water jugs and glasses had been removed so the space could be used for a private function. So I did the kaffeeklatch - an hour of talking - dry, through an accidental oversight not even getting the hot drink I was supposed to be provided. I was a total mess by the time I met James and Sparrow for dinner and had almost completely lost my voice. So James is walking up and down the restaurant watching over Sparrow some more while I try and rehydrate and stop crying. Sparrow is looking at all the people and being her usual charming self.

And this is what she's chewing on. A little boxing kangaroo in shiny red shorts. That was her little adventure for the afternoon - according to James, she wandered into a souvenir shop, went straight to these and started pointing at them and yammering steadily at the shop assistant. Eventually the shop assistant very nicely handed her one, she took it quite firmly and then hightailed it straight out of the store. After James finally caught her he decided that she obviously wanted one, so he bought it for her. She enjoyed playing with it for the weekend, though it's a bit forgotten at the moment.

This is the doorstop in our hotel room. Was. I realised Sparrow had been a bit quiet and wasn't in the toy space any more, went looking and found her carefully inspecting the now-disassembled parts of the doorstop. I couldn't work out how to reassemble it either. She's an inquisitive girl.

Exploring the hotel as part of our morning walk on Sunday. We were originally supposed to have a room off this courtyard area but they "upgraded" us. Sparrow went straight for the balloon when she saw it, and by straight I mean straight through the puddles. See the footprints?

More courtyard fun. This big planter pot was full of those riverstones they use for plant surrounds, and Sparrow carefully started picking them up and throwing them. Mostly in the one direction, I encouraged her to try and get them all onto one section of the floor between us so that I didn't have quite so much picking up to do. She quite liked that game.

In the park by the Yarra. I thought some grass time would make a nice break from the hotel and convention environment. Sparrow hopped straight off the grass onto this big concrete path, and then walked from one end to the other without hesitating. The park was simply not interesting. It was a bit muddy, too, though I don't know if she cares.

Though we did have a brief pause to climb up on this bench, stand on it and then climb back down.

She and I have paused in the Michelson's (is that what it's called? It's a chain bakery, anyway) for a piece of banana cake and a babycino. There are so many varieties of babycino out there. This one was mostly froth with a little hot chocolate at the bottom, and a smily face drawn in chocolate syrup on top as decoration. The syrup turned out pointless though, Sparrow was quite firm about not wanting any of it as it was obviously a waste of good froth. She drank all the non-chocolate-syrup bits and let me have the syrup. Which I don't like either, so I can quite appreciate her feeling there.

Our final evening, Monday, having dinner at the Pancake Parlour. I just liked the way she looked sitting here on the big black couch next to her Daddy.

And they each have a mobile phone. That's one of Sparrow's toys that she's got, it has no card or battery in it.

After dinner she went exploring and the very next booth was full of girls who all immediately pulled out their cameras to take a picture of "such a cute little baby". Sparrow just stood there, smiled at them and lapped it all up. I tried to catch a photo of all the cameras in operation but missed some.