Sparrow Lorelei photo gallery

People and playgrounds in the twenty-first month, 9 Jan - 9 Feb, 2011

We went and found the playground at Cherry Lake this month. It's quite nice, had several other kids there the couple of times we went. These two girls were a little hesitant at first about "the baby" playing with them but then got right into the horse action. Sparrow was thrilled. It had been a fairly cool day and was getting cooler, but the middle girl is still a little excessively rugged up - I think those are her daddy's (or uncles?) fishermans pants that she's wearing up to her armpits under the jacket.

The funny thing though was how she reacted to this. She was very vocal about it, and eventually got us to understand that this big thing on top shouldn't be there, it was wrong. She was extremely suspicious of it and even a little bit scared. I don't know why this was scary, but it was. She was not very happy about being up under it, despite that being how you got to the slide.

We went to visit Kath (the big one) and Clara (the little one) one morning. You can't see it, but Kath was due maybe four weeks after this visit, and ended up having her baby two weeks early so we were glad we'd managed to get a visit in before things got more complicated. Clara is showing Sparrow a photo book with photos of herself and naming them (e.g. "This is Clara when she was little").

It was good to have the social time, and a different type of socialness and sharing and age-related play. Sparrow quite liked both these little chairs. She seems suited to having her own throne.

A brief stop at the playground in Logans Reserve in Altona, on the way home from daycare. It's one I often stop at because it's easy to get to and park at, and we go right past it, and Sparrow likes it even though she can't use most of it. It has the disadvantage of being right across from the main beach, so Sparrow often wants to go to the beach instead and I have to herd her back to the park and away from the traffic. It's also often a very cold park, dark and windy. Today it was definitely windy.

Visiting Kristen, Jake and Charlie. Murphy stopped in too, though didn't bring Jeremy (who'd be about five months old now). Charlie was still asleep but Jake was up and about. Sparrow played with him a bit, he showed her his favourite toys, but she ended up wheeling this little pusher around and around the floor while I admired the new kitchen extension. It's so much bigger and better arranged than when I last visited them, even though it's the same footprint. Works much better for having several kids, two dogs and a pile of toys underfoot.

Sparrow is trying to claim more of my muffin, or just cuddles. Possibly both. She hadn't worked out that there were icy poles being made on the counter, and I wasn't telling her. But isn't it just such an adorable face?

Sam's birthday party. We're in the backyard of Niall and Sarah's current home in Altona, and Sparrow is mostly ignoring the other children (who are mostly a year older than her, know each other and she doesn't really know them) and carefully maintaining possession of every single maraca in the house. She had a lot of fun though. So did we.

Another great toy - something she can push. Meanwhile, I'm happily taking part in science communication and media-related conversations. It was nice to see that at the age of the older children they could mostly be left to go off and play in a room together - and frequently did - leaving the adults to chat while doing little more than keeping an ear out. Sparrow still needs us at least within eyeshot, though she only needs help or close supervision for more complicated things like the trampoline now.

We had a few hot days, not too many and never more than three or so in a row. But they were hot enough to stay indoors with the curtains closed for the day and not do a lot. This meant we'd get to evenings and one little toddler would be chock-full of pent up energy. So, playground time. The hottest time of day is often 4-6pm or so, but after dinner it would start to drop a little. And most of our really hot days came with an evening cool change, so the wind would swing around and drop eight degrees in ten or fifteen minutes. It really was an absurdly unimposing summer here. We did visit this particular playground on a few of the warm days. It's right out on the tip of Point Gellibrand in Williamstown, so surrounded by ocean and with plenty of breeze if there's any. It's normally a bit windy and cold for playing at, but it was ideal on the warm summer evenings.

It's quite well designed, too. Sparrow likes these humps they've put around the edge, spent plenty of time running up and down them. They're surfaced with that recycled-rubber soft matting stuff so very comfortable to play or sit on.

Exploring the play equipment. Following are three more photos from a different visit to the same playground, where James and Sparrow are getting into as much as possible. And I am sitting still as much as possible :-)

This playground was always full of kids when we went, and picnickers, and people flying kites (which Sparrow thought was fascinating), and kids running around on grass and rocks playing chasy and hide and seek, and huge boats going past. It's a fun one to go to.