An exciting development

There was a time that we thought that the property market in Sydney was out of our reach. But that day has passed. Last night we put in an offer on an art deco apartment and today that offer was accepted. Some day soon–bar gazumping (don’t laugh: gazumping is a legal term in Australia)–we will be the proud heavily-mortgaged owners of a top floor apartment with two bedrooms and a study, a small period style bathroom (read: unrenovated), a decent kitchen, and an internal laundry.

Oh my god.

Little treasures

Rose has started picking up stuff on her travels around the apartment. You quite often see her crawling down the hall with a sock in one hand. She also carries around her water bottle, soft toys, bits of plastic she’s found, balls, and bits of paper. This morning I found her crawling around with a leg from our spare bed. Occasionally the thing she’s carrying is so big that her crawling becomes overbalanced and she has to hobble-crawl.

She also leaves these found treasures all over the house. At the end of the day discarded objects litter the apartment. That’s because she lets go of her objects when her attention drifts to another, more attractive, bauble. You can trace her thought patterns with the objects, they betray a quick and distracted mind.

Back to work…. soon

I start back at work on February 28th and I’m all too aware that it’s only two weeks away. I have such mixed feelings about going back to work. On the one hand, it’ll be great to have a break in the monotony that is the childcare life. I think the hardest thing (for me) about staying home is that I’m here in these same four walls seven days a week. It’s tiresome and tedious, to say the least. I’ve learned to get out of the house every day, but I still have days when I look down at my watch and think, “Oh, it’s lunchtime….. AGAIN.” Basically, Rose loves routine, but I hate it.

On the other hand, I have a really sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I’m really going to miss Rose on those two days I’m at work. I love spending my days with her. I love playing with her, watching her grow, having fun and going out together. I know it’s going to break my heart knowing that she’s with someone else and not me! I really feel sick when I think about it.

But don’t get me wrong; I actually think the new arrangement will suit Rose really well. One day with Daddy will be great for them both. And one day with Delwyn will show her a new environment, new schedule, and will give her the chance to experience another family. Delwyn is one of the best mothers I know and Rose will be in the best possible hands. So I don’t feel any anxious about Rose, it’s more about me. To be honest, my job is just a job these days. I don’t feel very ambitious, I could care less about becoming someone’s supervisor or moving up the ranks and going to more meetings. My job doesn’t extend me very much and I don’t get many opportunities to be creative. Going to work is about having a bit of extra income and the enjoyment I get from interacting with my colleagues and the students. I guess the obvious thing is to start looking for another job, but I know that I’m pretty lucky with how flexible my employer has been, especially about my wanting to return to work part-time.

But I shouldn’t jump the gun. Maybe work will be a whole lot more enjoyable if I’m only there two days a week? Maybe the things that I find tedious won’t get me down so much? Let’s hope. I think at the very least it’ll make my weeks a bit more structured, and that is a good thing.

Impish glory

Isn’t this the cutest picture, ever?

You can see all her impish glory in this photo. The slightly defiant, yet whimsical turn of her lips? Killer. Fiercely blue eyes? So, so beautiful. Best of all, I reckon, is how adorable she looks in dungarees. Dungarees have to be the cutest baby outfit of all time.

You can also see that it’s been a little less humid in Sydney this last week. How? I’ve decided that Rose’s hair is a humidity barometer – at the slightest sign of dampness her hair gets super curly and plasters itself to the side of her head. Since neither Chris nor I have curly hair I never knew hair could do that. Also, no one warned me that babies could be such sweaty little beasts.

I’ve also been meaning to report on a couple of Rose’s little foibles. The first is that she’s become simply obsessed with doors. This afternoon she’s been sitting in our study opening and closing the doors. Who knows what really interests her about them? Is it the hinges? Is it their ability to close? I don’t know, but doors are much more interesting than all her toys put together. Lucky she’s getting one for her birthday!

Another funny little thing is that she gets really excited when you turn on the vacuum cleaner. She’s squeals and bounces up and down. While you’re vacuuming she crawls over and puts her face above the air vent, and chases the vacuum head. She absolutely loves it. In fact, she seems to love everything that makes a loud noise. She also likes the hair dryer and fan. But the vacuum cleaner is definitely her favorite.

Shenanigans

There’s been a lot of shenanigans going on around here, by crikey. I thought Rose was having a lovely long sleep, and then heard a noise while I was on the phone to my sister-in-law. Checking it out I discovered a certain baby standing up in her cot, biggest smile you ever saw, making stepping movements as if she was trying to climb out.

Speaking of which, if you asked me when Rose was going to walk, I wouldn’t say it was going to happen any time soon. The girl won’t walk assisted in any way, apart from cruising around furniture. If you hold her arms up, she dances, rather than walks. She also refuses to walk assisted with a walking trolley that Granny Anne bought her for Christmas. But any prop will do to help her stand up, and she’s shuffling around furniture like a speed demon. She’s also started doing this weird crab walk where one leg is straight. If I was feeling uncharitable I would say she looked like a stroke victim with paralysis down one side. (Apparently this is another step closer to walking.) She’s also doing lots of the “downward dog” yoga pose – namaste!

Today we went on a mammoth hunt for her birthday present. One of her friends, Joe, has this big door that Rose loves to play with. The door opens and closes, you can crawl through it, and use it to stand up. It has a mail box that you can post letters through it. It even has a little radio with songs. Anyway, Fisher-Price, the maker of this “Learning Home” couldn’t tell me a local stockist. I called Kmart and they told me that it was being discontinued in their stores, but that they did have a few left in some stores, the nearest one being about 30 minutes drive away. I called the store and they wouldn’t put one aside, but the guy checked and they did have three in stock. (“Be quick,” he said, “they’re half off, and there’s only three left!”). Rose was having her morning nap, and we couldn’t leave until after she got up and had her lunch.

It’s funny how things start to slow down when you want to speed up. It took forever to give Rose her lunch, wash her up, change her nappy, grab our bags and go. And then there was horrendous traffic out to the mall. We finally got there, more driving around trying to find a parking space, eventually we get inside the mall, and up to Kmart. I couldn’t find the toy in the clearance area, but I really wanted to check. I talked to an assistant in a different area who mumbled something like, “Please come back later when it’s not my shift.” After I refused to leave her section she eventually paged someone to the toy area, who seems to have never heard of “Fisher-Price” before. He mooched aimlessly around and then proclaimed that they must’ve sold out. I was not convinced.

“Umm,” I said, wondering how to phrase the next bit. “I talked to a guy on the phone this morning, and he was really helpful and knew exactly where they were.”

“Oh, yeah, that guy. He’s at lunch.”

Then I busted out the worst of it. I’m utterly unashamedly that I said, “Look, would you mind going and asking him where they are? They may still be here and there’s a little girl here who really wants one for her first birthday.” I’m sure he’d heard worse, and to his credit, he went and checked with the other guy on lunch.

Hallelujah! The guy came back carrying one Fisher Price Learning Home! I couldn’t believe it. I could’ve kissed him, but by the looks of things, my gift to him was leaving as quickly as possible.

Oh, and the last bit of shenanigans for the day? Rose refused to eat anything by spoon again. Only finger food for this little fussy eater! Anyone got any nutritious finger food suggestions?

Swimming, Cats and Football

Busy day yesterday. Rose had her first swimming lesson in the morning. She loved it, although she was definitely overwhelmed in a few places. It was pretty fast-paced, the swimming tutor had lots of games and activities planned. They included sitting the babies on the side of the pool while singing “Humpty Dumpty”, and on the line “Had a great fall!”, pulling the babies into the pool with a big splash! Rose’s eyes were as big as saucers. She really enjoyed a game involving throwing small balls around and then splashing over on her tummy to reach them (mummy holding her, of course!). They got us to submerse them up past their noses (Rose tried to drink the water and got a little choke-y) and tip cups of water over their heads. The great thing about the lesson is that the other three babies are all from my parents group.

After lunch Rose and I went over to Stephen and Delwyn’s place to watch the second half of the Superbowl, where Rose made friends with their cat. Meera and Rose circled each other most of the afternoon. Rose kept trying to pat Meera, and most of the time she was gentle. I figured that if Meera really didn’t like Rose she would’ve retired somewhere high or remote, but instead she kept hanging around, watching Rose, and staying a couple of feet away. Rose also loved pulling herself up on the coffee table, facing everyone watching the football. I think she liked to think they were watching her.

It’s been raining a lot the last few days and it was good to get out of the house. It sucks when you’re stuck in the house all day, you start to climb the walls. I think Rose does, too. She gets really grumpy by mid-afternoon if we haven’t gone out. Today it’s still raining (on and off), but fortunately we’ve got parents group to go to.

Other little girls

What is it about little girls that makes them adore other little girls? Chris has a colleague with a 5-year old daughter – let’s call her Ellen. Apparently, she’s become quite fascinated with Rose. Just after Rose was born Ellen knocked on Chris’s office door with her mum. She had a bunch of pretty dresses in her arms. “These are for your little girl,” she said. Ellen’s mum later told us that Ellen had picked out her favorite party dresses, ones that she’s worn again and again until they no longer fitted. She’d found one particularly hard to let go of, and it made her feel good knowing that another little girl was going to get pleasure from them. We’ve also had gifts of much-loved toys, dolls and ballet shoes.

Chris came home the other day with a story about how Ellen and her mum had been on a long driving trip during the holidays. They’d been playing a game: one person picks a letter and thinks of a name, the other person tries to guess. Ellen told her mum that she’d picked the letter “R” and that the person was someone “that she worked with”. It took Ellen’s mum a long time to guess, finally working out that Ellen was referring to Rose!

10 Months Old

Wow, the girl is 10 months old and we’ve started making plans for her one year birthday! It looks like we’ll be having a family gathering in New Zealand during the easter break (although we haven’t sorted out a specific date yet), and a party with her pals from the parents group. It’ll be so much fun having a group party. Rose has been really enjoying play dates with the other babies lately. Her mate Joe and his Mum and Dad (Tara and Nick) came around mid-week for a swim in our pool. On Friday we went over to Alison and Lola’s place. Lola, Joe and Rose chased a ball up and down the hallway, sounding like a herd of giggling elephants. Today we went to a parents group lunch (with spouses), which was a lot of fun until Rose got fed up with being held in our arms. She wanted to get out and move around. After putting her down, she quickly crawled away from us until she was out of sight, and didn’t look back once! That girl is fearless.

I haven’t uploaded many pictures lately, partly because we haven’t been at our photographic best this week. It’s been ridiculously humid in Sydney, and Rose’s hair has spent most of the week plastered against the side of her head. The little girl has been sweating up a storm. Here’s a couple of new ones:

Here’s a picture of Rose with her head in her book cubby. She’d crawled through the obstacle course of the chair and TV stand, stood up and started pulling out all the books.

Last weekend we took her to a nearby park and played on the swings.

And here’s my favorite. Rose was looking at me via the TV. Such a cutie!