Sparrow Lorelei photo gallery

Seventeenth month part 1, 9 September - 9 October, 2010

Someone has just woken up from her nap. She looks so awake -grin-. Sparrow usually sleeps between one and a half and two and a quarter hours for her daytime nap, most often just under two. There was a little interruption to this when daylight savings came in in the last week of her seventeenth month and we had to work out some schedule changes, but it mostly smoothed over. The bigger change was that we night-weaned her this month, partly for my need for sleep and partly because she was showing clear signs of being ready to go through the night without food. This combined with the rapidly-increasing daylight in the mornings now has her waking up very early and demanding breakfast NOW!. So I can say goodbye to sleeping until 7am until next winter. It's usually around 6am plus or minus a little. This has made her naps run early again - instead of going to sleep at 1 it might be as early as 11. She even fell asleep in her chair at daycare one day, halfway through eating her lunch. She likes her midday nap. At home she normally sleeps in the cot for her naps, but some days ends up on the bed (which is where she sleeps at night with us). She's safe there, never rolls off though she does turn sideways a lot. James and I have a running joke about coming to bed at night and finding that Sideways Baby is sideways. It means never enough room in the bed for us! Thankfully the weather started to warm up this month so we'll be able to start sleeping her in the cot at night again in October.

You might have noticed a kitten in the previous photo. Meet Buckley, the kitten who keeps surviving despite the odds. Buckley was born on election day, the 21st of August. He/she is now old enough to be allowed inside under his/her own steam on occasion. Sparrow thinks this is marvellous, but we haven't convinced her yet that grabbing and holding the kitten down so it squeaks is not an appropriate game. So the cats get occasional time inside depending on my ability to stay sane while supervising them. Thomas is watching here and doesn't find it so easy to supervise either. Buckley got quite active and devilish this month, it gets hard to separate kitten and baby when you remove the baby and the kitten follows then chases her and pounces her. I tried having a "don't touch the kitten" rule, and that sort of worked at first (or at least was easy to be consistent about enforcing), but had to give that up at the end of the month when I couldn't teach the kitten that rule. -sigh-

Sparrow started drawing on things. I suspect she was introduced to it at daycare, but whatever the source she seemed to suddenly work out that if you had a pen, and some paper, you could make marks on the paper. It's a great game. She isn't fussy about what kind of paper it is or if there's anything on it already, but does seem to confine her drawing to only on paper. This is really the first sign of self-directed art impulse I've seen. She's been offered playdough but not really started to play with it. So it was time to start thinking about various ways of letting her be creative and artistic.

So I went out and bought some big thick chunky crayons that would be easy to hold without breaking and that would make good clear colourful marks. Sparrow was reasonably keen on the concept but only for a very short time in this first attempt. She didn't really get the hang of how hard to press straight away, so some colours were more rewarding than others. She ended up deciding that the best game was to take the crayons in and out of the box. I figured at least that meant she had the hang of picking up after herself from the getgo -grin-. We've only played with the crayons a few times since - she didn't really get enthused this month. And they're marked for ages 3+ so I need to supervise her when she's using them, they can't just hang around for her to randomly pick up and try. But we'll try some more a little later, it wouldn't be unusual for her to need a few goes at a particular toy or game before she decides it's something she wants to choose to do.

I think this gumnut was in my box of rocks for some reason. All of a sudden it appeared one day, and was this great toy for a while. Then it disappeared, equally mysteriously. But in the meantime, she had some fun with it.

Renovation time. Somebody let me go near a hammer. That's a hole in the toilet wall. If you look very closely at this picture you'll see a teeny tiny dot just where the white lines cross to the left of the hole. That's where I was trying to bash a nail into the wall, and only making it in a teeny tiny amount. But then I missed the nail, and the hammer went straight through the wall. So I don't know why the nail wasn't going in. I gave up on the project at this point, it was all too hard. Why was I putting a nail in the wall? To hang up the toilet seat insert I'd bought, as a potential thing to use in toilet training. I'm not sure what the "normal" process is, or if there is one, or if I care. But Sparrow's been staying mostly dry at nights since January or February, and up until we did the night weaning this month had been very predictable about when she pees or poops. So it seemed reasonable to at least get some of the equipment we might be using and let her get familiar with it, whether I got around to any particular "training" or not.

That was the theory. What actually happened was I put this toilet seat insert down on the bathroom floor and showed it to her, she got this terrified look on her face, started howling and ran out of the room and it took me a good fifteen minutes to calm her down. The insert is just a toilet-seat-shaped thing that goes under your normal toilet seat but which makes the hole a better size for tiny bottoms. It's blue plastic. She plays with randomly shaped plastic objects all the time. I have no idea why this one was so scary. But it was. She wouldn't come into the bathroom at all for a week because she could see it leaning against the wall in the toilet if she peeked around the corner a little bit. Eventually I moved it to the opposite wall, where it was in full view and not hidden at all. The next time I went for a pee she then tentatively came into the bathroom, talking to me nervously and firmly the whole way and craning her neck to see around the corner where it had been. When she confirmed that it really wasn't there any more she came right up into the toilet and started to look around at all the other things she normally comes in and talks to me about while I'm peeing, finally noticed the toilet seat insert when it was RIGHT NEXT TO HER, did this huge jump and double take and ran out of the bathroom again. It was really hard to keep from pissing myself laughing, though thankfully I was already in the best place that could possibly happen. She has over time got used to the insert, just as an object - I took the advice given by friends on Facebook and "let her wear it as a hat until she'd taught it who was boss" (thank you Marcus!). And that worked. I haven't had her using it though, it doesn't quite fit our toilet right so it's a little unsteady. And she's still too small to get onto the toilet. We need another step first.

Envelope hat. James is sorting through junk mail and real mail (which often collects around his laptop) and Sparrow was trying to help. Or smash keys on the laptop, depending on how she felt. So he distracted her with a new hat.

And, the bowl hat. That is an ex-salad bowl, which had been holding animal figurines on the shoe-rack. On this day she decided the bowl was more interesting than the animals.

Heidi gave us some little dolls for Sparrow's collection. They are dolls of the world, part of some cultural and historical series, and she picked out eight interesting ladies from different times and places. Sparrow loves them. On the floor are Ancient Egypt, Africa, Japan(1500AD), Rome(150AD), United Nations (WW2) and she's holding China. France1800 and the Red Indian lady are in the box. Getting them in and out of the tissue box is lots of fun.

Peas. Eating peas is fun. We like peas. Well, where "we" means Sparrow and me. James is horrified that his daughter thinks peas are so cool. But peas were fresh in season, at their best, and I figure that's always the best time to offer new vegetables and see how she finds them. Apparently, they were good.

This star dress was a score during a secondhand store trip. Despite being very tired constantly, I managed to get her and I out of the house to the Savers in Footscray. Unfortunately I could only find fifteen minute parking near the store, and couldn't bear the thought of walking any further. So instead of a leisurely stroll around looking for appropriate trousers and long-sleeved shirts for her, I got to be one of those whingy mothers who is constantly saying "No, put that down, stay with me, come this way, stop running off, get here NOW". It really wasn't much fun. Sparrow was keen to explore EVERYTHING, and I couldn't let her because I didn't have the time to be able to move at her pace. So she was grumpy with me, I was grumpy with her. I went home and told James that we really needed one of those harness-and-leash things that they have for toddlers. I just couldn't run after her, I really couldn't. I did find a few good things though in the brief time that I had to look. This is a quite expensive dress, good quality fabric and good design, in good condition, and I got it for just a few dollars. She needs to grow into it a little more but I'm OK with that.

The results of a sports store trip - a red hoop in "small person" size, and a plain, unadorned soccer ball. We had gone looking for leashes and harnesses the next chance we got and not found anything suitable, so I'd suggested a boogie board leash as a temporary solution (a suggestion I'd seen on an online forum discussing the leash-or-not-to-leash question). We went to the store, found one, tried it out, it sort of worked though she hated it. And then we found a couple of other toys that were fun. She loved the soccer ball and happily played "Ball!" with us as soon as we were out of the store and had shopping mall tile floor to roll it on. The hoop was a little trickier. She didn't like having it around her at all, didn't mind holding it and waving it up and down, but overall wasn't too taken with it. Watching me roll it across the floor for her and the kitten to chase was the turning point, and now she quite likes playing with it (as long as it's still not around her :-).

I'm slowly, slowly, getting the spare room tidied and rearranged for guests - my mother and Trevor were coming to visit at the end of the month, and then Maggie a week afterwards. Energy levels were such that I had to start working on even a minor rearrangement like this quite a few days beforehand, and just accept that I might only get one thing done each day. One couch moved. One cushion carried. One thing. Here I've brought in a pile of blankets, ready to have out for guests who might or might not find it cold depending on what Melbourne decides to throw at us that night. They were supposed to be neatly folded, but were really just piled (because folding would have been two things!) - and Sparrow was OK with that. She started throwing herself into the pile and giggling, then getting up, getting a run up, and repeat. At one point she even had a circuit going around the cushions, couch-mattresses and blanket pile with different things to climb over and then fall on. It was total jungle playground for toddlers, and she loved it. So I didn't try to make it neat and organised for a few extra days :-)

I did eventually manage to get enough of the floor clear to vacuum it, a section at a time. Couldn't do the whole thing at once because if I clear up all of Sparrow's books and toys she immediately gets them back out and spreads them around again. But I got most of it done, bit by bit. I did have to stop early on and empty out the vacuum cleaner, as it didn't seem to be having much effect. And it was certainly full, with more detritus from Sparrow adventures than I'd realised it was capable of holding. So I unplugged the vacuum, left Sparrow with the blankets and ran downstairs to empty the cleaner thing. The bin was out on the street, so it took me an extra minute. I came back to find one little girl with her upper half almost completely buried in the vacuum cleaner's innards and the remaining filters disassembled and spread around the floor. I was so proud.

Just heading out for a walk, and I had to take a photo here. It's in the alleyway next to our place, with red and blue pallets stacked high, she's in her red stroller with red overalls (also from that Savers trip!), a dark blue long-sleeve shirt and a red/white/blue t-shirt... and those bright red and blue Stompers. They're soft-soled shoes made in Margaret River, I'd ordered them online so that we could have a second pair of shoes for her, not that she needs them often. This was the first day she wore them, and we all quite like them. They're comfortable and go on easily and stay on well. And they fit perfectly! That is, until I realised they'd been padded with paper for posting and actually they were just a little too big still. Oops. I may order more pairs of these, they've worked quite well and they have lots of fun colours. My only complaint is that they separate them into "girls" and "boys" shoes, based almost entirely on colour but also some applique designs. These are "boys" shoes, because they have a star on them and not a butterfly. I still find that compulsive gendering of clothing for this age group so appalling and occasionally insulting, not to mention just plain stupid.

Style on the box. She can put the sunglasses on herself now, which is kind of exciting and cute to see how happy she gets with herself when they go on (though sometimes they *are* upside down... :-). And she definitely likes to stand on things to dance, if not just because it's fun to stand on things. I thoguht this outfit was amusing with all the stripes, and it's still funny that I managed to find socks that so exactly matched the almost-randomly-chosen colours in her jumper. The boxes are in the hallway because I was trying to find ways to section off a space that would let me have the kitten on one side and the toddler on the other and allow Thomas to be on whichever side she felt like. That worked OK til the kitten worked out how to climb over the boxes, but by then I figured it was mobile enough to take care of itself.

More on the boxes. No matter how I stack things here, she eventually finds a way up onto them so that she can stand holding onto the laptop while it plays music, and get her head right by those speakers.

I don't actually remember what was going on when I took this photo. We have present James, Sparrow, a no-longer-fast-asleep Katerina and a soccer ball, and a certain amount of motion going on, so I am suspicious of many things that could have possibly been happening at the time, but not sure what it was that made me think "I should take a photo of this so we remember it". At any rate, that sentiment failed -laughs-.