Sparrow Lorelei photo gallery

At home in the twenty-first month part 2, 9 Jan - 9 Feb, 2011

The revolving cupboard in the kitchen became a favourite spot this month, to my eternal distraction. It's the only cupboard I sealed with any childproofing, because it has the blenders and other sharp things in it. So it's the one she's decided she really wants to keep opening and looking at stuff in, childproofing or no - and it didn't take her long to work out how to get into it. I need a better childproofing system but most of them don't work on this kind of door. See how she's pointing at the things she wants? I spent a lot of time saying "No, don't open that cupboard" and being listened to for about two seconds before she got the grand idea of opening it again. She's allowed to open the ones either side and the one to the right is even entirely hers, but they obviously weren't as appealing. I've been trying to think where I can move the sharp stuff to but haven't got a good solution yet.

Sparrow decided that my milk crates (which are supposed to be in the sunroom but down a level where I can use them!) should be up in this space. She went to quite some effort to get them up here and arrange them, spending quite a bit of time moving them around. I didn't mind her keeping herself busy this way while I tidied up in the main part of the sunroom. I did take a few photos though - I loved the effect of the light and colour and angle in the space.

Pushing and pulling them up and down over this step was a particularly fun challenge, and had to be repeated several times. Take the crate up, move it somewhere, bring it back, tip it down, lift it up....

Today was the day I discovered - and she discovered - that she could just reach the pull-thing on the hanging windchimes. That was a delightful discovery, though it took her a bit of concentration to work out how to match hand to slightly swinging thing while looking upwards at it. Distance judgement still a little out, I think.

My beans grew, and fruited reasonably well. This has been a good summer for vegetables, plenty of rain to keep them going (though I've had to watch for fungus on leaves more than normal). This is my first pick of the Purple King beans, which are quite nice (And quite purple). Sparrow is giving one the taste-test.

Those eyes are so adorable, and irresistable, you could lose yourself in them. Which is probably the idea, as she's distracting me from noticing that the beans have passed the taste test and she now claims all of them. She started saying the word "bean" quite quickly once we had our own growing.

The beans are so good we have to turn our head sideways and walk around doing the Igor step. Note that the number of beans is rapidly diminishing from photo to photo. Guess I can't complain if she wants to tax beans off our vines though, I highly endorse this concept.

Two more photos showing how good the garden's looking. I'm quite happy with it at the moment. I moved all the plants I could to the alleyside balcony for watering while we were away, and it's worked so I've kept it. They're all enjoying the conditions. These tomatoes are Green Grape, so they'll give me little green cherry tomatoes when they ripen. I'm looking forward to that. I do need to work out more effective ways of staking them and keeping them out of Sparrow's play zone though.

Back inside the sunroom, Sparrow is using the steps herself and asking me to open the door for her. The golf clubs are in their new home spot, out of the way of general traffic.

I did a fairly major cleanup on the sunroom during this month, to make it more effectively usable and manageable. Sparrow can get in and out of here herself now if I'm not absolutely meticulous about how I close the kitchen door, so I needed to reduce the number of hazards. Plus I don't have the energy to be constantly stopping her from playing with everything when we walk from the kitchen door to the stairs. I think the point I blew a fuse and decided I was dealing with this immediately was the third time she picked up the cats' water dish and started tipping it everywhere. She still needs supervision in here but if she makes her way in alone and I don't realise for a minute it's unlikely she'll get to anything that's really a problem in that time. She did manage to bust the child-proof lock on the laundry sink cupboard (where almost all the few poisons in the house are stored) almost immediately after I cleaned everything up, but thankfully it was while I was present and she broke it in a way that meant it *wouldn't* open. The really nice thing about this new format is that the couch is now clearly visible and the first thing you see with no obstacles in the way, so she tends to make a beeline for that rather than anything else.

Another project this month was to rearrange the bookroom, or start doing so, back into a format that will work for a newborn but which will also be manageable with a toddler. So the cupboard has been tipped to its side and contents rearranged. Sparrow likes this format, she can pull things out of all the cubes instead of just half of them. I like it because while she pulls more out, she tends to just leave it on the floor where it falls so I don't have to constantly sort piles of books or clothes, I just put them back into the closest cube. The babywear is now all easy to reach and locate on the top of the cupboard, and I'm trialling the rocking chair over here (though I'm sure it will move a few times while I come up with different ideas). I also began clearing the top off the change table, not so we can use it as such (we still need to change Sparrow on the floor, she's too heavy to lift if I'm having any difficulties and when it's on the floor we can ask her to go to the change mat herself!) but so that we have a table surface that is back out of child's reach and baby's eyeline. Some place to put my cups of tea and the occasional magazine for the next eight months.

In the time between these two photos I've finished sorting the big pile of books Sparrow had left on the floor from before I tipped the cupboard and put them all away. Sparrow has come along, studied the arrangement, removed several of the books again and wandered off. But at least I managed to vacuum the carpet in there first.