Sparrow Lorelei photo gallery

Out and around, twenty-first month, 9 Jan - 9 Feb, 2011

In the alley just outside our front door. The pallets had been left stacked in a most enticing fashion for climbing. Sparrow began her way up but stopped when their back door began to trundle up. The supermarket staff mostly know Sparrow and always say hello to her.

Sparrow likes to explore the alley when we go through it. I try to allow time for this, but I used to allow a lot more and also more often. Now I get impatient because I know I have only enough energy to do what we're heading out for plus one thing going wrong, and if I spend the energy just getting her to the end of the alley we might not get to the shops (or wherever we're going) at all. But where I can I still let her explore and play on each step of the journey.

This time, she took one of the milk crates that the supermarket keeps stacked and was quite clear about dragging it up the alley with her. She made quite some distance before deciding it was more interesting to pull and push it up and down the edge of the roadway. I eventually had to be very firm about leaving it behind and not taking it out to the street. Milk crates are such great toys, I don't know why we buy her other things.

One day when we went shopping to buy bread (which we buy a lot of nowadays!) she asked for the bread at the checkout, and very conscientiously carried it all the way home. This is in front of the corner shop, which I often grab fruit at.

Of course, such a long journey from the supermarket around the back to our front door requires at least one "Sit!" rest stop, as determined by Sparrow. Her favourite place to sit and rest coming this way is the step outside the hairdressers (if we walk the other way, it's the windowledge outside the Italian fruit shop). That loaf of bread arrived home in quite interesting condition after being hugged half the way and dragged the other half with a bit of poking in between. But she still ate the bread.

Sitting "riding" on the horse carousel. Sparrow was quite cross with me for not letting her play and explore at the other end of this floor of the shopping centre. She didn't really get that Mummy had to go to the toilets RIGHT NOW or else. But the mutual cooperation-thing I try and do with her paid off when she realised that (first) she got to play with a really large mirror in the parents room and then (second) there were these horses to ride over this way. She's much better about me going against her wishes when she gets immediate rewards to going with me despite her objections. Doesn't stop the objections, but does shorten them.

Riding in the trolley while we grab groceries, and again, bread. That bread is getting thoroughly loved and possessed. I don't know where this has suddenly come from, though I'm sure I have at least one astrology book that would tell me that Taureans have strong resonances with affection, nourishment and possession so cuddling the bread and refusing to let go probably fits right in there.

Sparrow and I went out one morning to investigate the wild overgrown playground at the former primary school, as a nice change of pace. It was no longer there, but the gardens were still fun to walk and look in. was being quite cute and I went to take a photo of her. But she decided I had something she wanted, and by the time the photo took she was much closer (and still moving).

And this is what I had, that she now has. We found a nectarine tree heavy with fruit, most still to ripen but quite a few ready to pick. And the tree was really quite happy for someone to pick some - the birds hadn't found it, no school children or teachers had been by, this was the third warm day in a row and you could see the tree drooping a little with the effort of maintaining all the fruit. If we'd had a harsher summer I doubt most of it would have stayed on this long. So I picked a few fruit in a pattern that would give it the most relief, not too many, and still ended up with a fairly decent bagful of nectarines. Sparrow and I both thoroughly enjoyed eating nectarines straight from the tree.

We went to the supermarket downstairs for something, probably oats, bread and milk (my most frequent run). While we were in the milk aisle Sparrow went up to the little 300ml cartons of milk and started pointing and yammering and giving me all kinds of "I want" communications. I've never bought the 300ml cartons, had always wondered who would given that they cost two cents more than the 600ml (!). But now I know who would. Me, with my daughter. I decided that if she was going to demand milk as a special treat, I was going to encourage that and -hand on forehead, woe is me- give in to her relentless pleading. So I bought one of the little containers, she happily took it from me at the checkout, got me to open it outside and then carried it carefully back home drinking all the way. She was thrilled to have her very own milk carton. Hardly spilt any of it, either.

Another trip to the shops. We see this gentleman regularly, he always asks me how long I've got to go even if it's only been five or ten minutes since he last asked. Sparrow is wary of him, possibly because this dog is sometimes with him (it belongs to one of the more, um, "characters" who hangs out down there). This day he said "When you come back I'll have something for her, it's in my car". And he produced the little bear. I tried to say "oh no, you don't need to" but I think he'd won it in one of those arcade claw games or similar and he said he often has them to give away because he doesn't want them for anything :-). Sparrow was willing to hold it, though it did conflict with the bread a little and she put it down once or twice (she wasn't EVER going to let go of the bread!) so I had to help carry it home. She just wasn't sure about him OR his bear.

Downstairs at the fruit shop, and Sparrow has demanded (of all things) carrot. So I bought two carrots, one for each of us, and we sat on the windowledge outside the shop (at her direction) and ate them. I try and buy any fruit or vegetable she demands that's in season or reasonable, figure if she's got a preference I can encourage that. I think she's also aware that sometimes if she points and asks about something when one of the fruitshop staff is nearby they will often give it to her for free. She doesn't know it's free of course, just knows that she gets it. I try not to let this happen too often but really, if she's going to insist on being fed vegetables I can hardly complain. Right now she's giving me the sideways "This is good, are you watching me?" look while having babbly conversation about the delights of carrot. I don't know why the carrot needed to be eaten sideways, but it was. They were good carrots that day, too, she picked well.

At the cafe downstairs with Ruth and Willow from the mum's group on a spontaneous coffee date. I had ordered some kids books from the German Amazon website, and we'd gone down to pick them up when Ruth messaged to say she was stopping at the cafe and did I want to join her? So we're having lattes and babycinos, smiling at the two little ladies interacting and looking at Sparrow's new books. Sparrow was a bit cautious at first (as always) but seemed to like the shiny mirrors on the front pages of two of them. The books have gone quite well, though I did have to laugh. One of them I'd bought knowing that the title was "When little animals something-or-other are", and thought "Well, that means it will have lots of pictures of little animals, Sparrow will like looking at and talking about that". And I didn't translate the missing word. When we were looking at it here in the cafe I noticed that all the little animals seemed to be pulling grumpy faces. So I looked up "wutend" when we went home, and it meant (roughly) "angry" or "upset". So what I'd bought was a book of pictures of lots of little animals throwing tantrums. It's quite clever and Sparrow loves it though, especially if we do the actions.