Sparrow Lorelei photo gallery

Toys, clothes, play and home stuff in the sixteenth month, 9 August - 9 September, 2010

Sparrow is helping me cook. I think it was cookies I was making, or cake - I did a bit of baking this month. Whatever it was, I needed to refill my flour container from the big tub in the kitchen, which meant lots of scooping of flour and moving it around. Sparrow was quite helpful. You can see the mark on her face where she's been pressing her face into the measuring cup to get a better feel for what's in there. You may also notice a little bit of flour in some other places (she says, skirting understatement). I still don't think I've managed to sweep it all up from where it got spread.

On the box. It's a favourite spot, she can be near the heater when it's on, but also is right in reach of my laptop and all kinds of other interesting items. She'll get up on the box when the music is playing on the computer and use it as a dancing platform.

Sparrow still likes to carry around "her" shopping bag. I thought it made a nice picture with the red dress.

Sparrow had been blowing into the lint brush and making funny heavy breathing noises, and James said "what happens if we give her a recorder?". So I got down my recorder and gave it to her. She thought it was marvellous. The recorder has become a popular toy, she's getting quite enthusiastic with it here, though in the name of investigation she will try blowing both ends and poking the business end into other things too to see what happens.

What do you mean my outfit's incomplete? I'll have you know that my accessorising is *perfect*.

We were having a lot of trouble with Sparrow pressing buttons on the CD player. I wouldn't have minded except that what she'd got the hang of was the Stop button. So then she'd ask for music because she thought it was too quiet, we'd put a CD on, she'd get excited and press "Stop" because that button did something, and then she'd get upset because there wasn't any music and it was too quiet -sigh-. I tried to convince her to press the button just above it, the play/pause button, because then she could be turning the music off and on again herself. But no deal. So James decided to just try stacking the CD player up as high as he could to see if we could get the Stop button out of her reach. This is what it took. So instead of pressing buttons on the CD player, she's pressing them on the calculator and the keyboards. It didn't last though, she worked out how to reach the Stop button again. And I needed my book back.

I bought these toy cars for her on a shopping trip. She wasn't too into them at first, they were interesting but not super much so. But two weeks after we bought them she suddenly decided they were the best toy ever and carried them around and played with them a fair bit. I think it helped that James got them rolling and smashing into each other, and she loved that.

She will bring us her sunglasses and ask us to put them on for her.

More cold/flu/sick time. The best way to sleep when you're sick is to have a big cuddle in the beanbag, and Daddy was very happy to oblige.

I pulled out the kitchen timer for something one time when we were in the kitchen, and she thought it was a wonderful thing. Didn't get the hang of turning the knob, but if you shake it the bell does ting a bit. And she shook it a lot. You can see the fruit season we're in there - it's a good time for bananas, there's the first of the strawberries and the middle-to-last of the mandarines (which she loved whenever she loved them, would happily eat a whole one on her own, but would sometimes just refuse them for a few days for no apparent reason).

Chaos in the toyroom, with some of her current toys and books out on the floor.

Spring is finally here, the north wind has begun to work its magic, and the stock is fragrantly and abundantly flowering. Sparrow loves the garden and the flowers, and loves our walks now that she can look at everyone else's plants doing interesting things too.

"You're not looking at me, are you?" -grin- We have a rule, which is that she's not allowed to eat any plant bits that I don't give her. And I don't give her the stock, it has to stay on the plant, it's not good to eat. So this is her checking to see if I'm looking as she tries to eat some anyway. It must smell so tasty.

James' first Fathers Day. The kids at daycare all made Fathers Day bookmarks as presents for their dads, and this is James with his. I think he felt a bit chuffed by it. It's definitely receiving some treasured use.

A closeup. It's a tie! Most of the decoration there is by the carer or possibly "help" from the other kids, but some of that scribble is definitely Sparrow's as well. I have no idea how the carer managed both Sparrow and textas, I wouldn't dare yet! But I guess she's been looking after kids for nineteen years so she's had practice.