Sparrow Lorelei photo gallery

Oma comes to visit, October 2010

Around and near home

Suitcases make a great seat, especially when you are trying to steal Oma's water glass and anything that might still be in it. Everything by Maggie's bed (handbag, crossword book, pen, camera, glasses, *everything*) was a source of great interest and we had to keep an eye out to see where it all ended up.

New red overalls to wear. Sparrow quite likes them, and is modelling them with a matching prop. They're fractionally big for now, but that's good as they should then still fit well in March.

Seesawing with Oma at the playground.

This knitted dress (one of two in different colours) is new, brought this visit. Sparrow likes it. So do I. Wonderfully bright, it goes well over black, white and the matching light yellow skivvy she's got.

Sparrow was very hands-off-don't-touch-me about hugs this week. But kisses were just fine. She and Oma are playing kisses over the piano and having a great time.

Visiting the Playshak down the road, where Sparrow is burning off heaps of energy while the rest of us try not to lose too much. James and Maggie had taken Sparrow out so I could finish some writing, and an hour and seven hundred words later I joined them.

Babycino! This is on an excursion to the Queen Victoria Markets. Sparrow is taking her babycino extremely seriously.

What's wrong with the way I drink them? What, all gone? You've taken the cup away? That's all right, there's another one here and she's not watching.

At the Museum, mostly in the Children's Gallery

Maggie's first morning here we went to the Museum. It's the second time Sparrow's been there, the first was about five days earlier with Anna and her Rattus Baggus crew. We started at the Children's Gallery, and even made it *into* the gallery this time instead of getting stopped by all the distractions on the way! but did eventually make it to one of the playgrounds and into the Melbourne Gallery to see Phar Lap's bits reunited (how, um, anatomical). Sparrow discusses the state of the world with fake rocks, stuffed lizards and a scale-model caterpillar, takes a slide and rides in an old rollercoaster car. The boy that's in the playground had a Tyrannosaurus head-on-a-stick from the Museum shop that Sparrow was very keen on, but we didn't buy her one. Not yet. She can have a chicken kebab later.

Our visit to the Garden of St Erth

On Sunday we drove up to Blackwood and the Garden of St Erth, run by the Diggers Club. None of us had been before though I'd wanted to go a few times and just never got there. My excuse this time was that I wanted to buy several of their scented pelargoniums for the reconstruction of the streetside balcony garden - geraniums and pelargoniums being the plants with the best toddler-survival traits that I've found. Plus it was a lovely scenic drive to find a beautiful display garden hidden in the forest. Wombat Forest, it was called, and for some reason wombats were a bit of a theme that fortnight. But anyway. Here one little lady goes running through the daffodils, strolling along the terraces and sitting under the arbour. There's also an extra shot from when I was trying to photograph her against the daffodils but she was moving At Speed Up This Really Interesting Hill.