An annoying habit

Rose has started a bad habit. Whenever you sit down to have some food, or pour yourself a drink, little Rose materialises from nowhere and starts begging.

It’s all our fault; we got into the habit of giving her bits of our food when we’re eating out in cafes. I’ve also got into the habit of giving her sips of my mineral water when I’m out at parents group. I know why we started it – giving her food and drinks is one guaranteed way of placating her in public. But yesterday I lost my patience. I was just sitting down to a nice sandwich for lunch, and Rose crawled over, stood up next to me, started grabbing my sandwich, and then stomped her feet and sqealing when I wouldn’t give her any. Enough!

Holding on, standing up, and making yourself known

Rose has starting hugging. Fiercely. We’d noticed for the last few weeks that whenever you give her a toy, she’d hug it, hold it up to her face and smile. Today when I got her out of bed she wrapped her arms around me really tight, and I could feel her really leaning in. It was fierce.

Yet there are other times when she definitely doesn’t want to hug. She recently had fairly bad fall, where she lost her balance, rolled, and her head hit the edge of some tiles. You could see quite a raised bruise and she cried her little heart out. But she didn’t want to be cuddled. Such a funny, independent thing. The interesting thing was that a few hours later she patted her head on the side (on the opposite side to the bruise), but I took this to mean that her head hurt. She’s getting to be a really pre-verbal communicator!

The last few days she’s been intently concentrating on standing up unassisted. She’s getting better and better, but still can’t manage stands of more than 5 seconds. Her balance is amazing, though, she often seems to be holding on to something in a cursory fashion. She’s really put a lot of energy into her new endeavors, and stands up over and over again.

It sucks being at work…

… when you get emails like this.

From: Chris

Subject: Hello Mummy

Message: Just got back from the park

Dou-

In New Zealand Rose was pretty reliably saying, “Dou-” every time she saw a dog. One day Granny Anne, Chris and I were out for a walk and saw two dogs – one very small one and one very large one – and she said “Dou-” both times.

This afternoon Chris took Rose on a walk, and they saw our favorite neighbourhood moggy, “Tom”. Tom is incredibly large, ginger and lazy. He hangs out on the footpath outside his house like the king of the road. He’s very gentle and sweet, and loves to have his back scratched. Rose pointed at him and said, “Dou-”

Not quite, Rose.

The keys to her heart

On the last day we were in New Zealand my Dad came over with a special gift for Rose. He’d noticed that she loves playing with key rings. She loves carrying them around, jingling them, and examining each and every key on the ring. So Dad went to a local key shop and asked them if they had any keys that they were going to throw away. When the proprieter heard what Dad had in mind, he dug around looking for brightly coloured keys. He even managed to find one with happy faces all over it. Dad got all the keys and put them together with a key chain, and presented this small but meaningful gift to Rose.

Dad, this is one small gesture of the love and care you show to your family. Thanks so much for being such a wonderful father and grandfather – we love you so much.

It’s good to be home

Yesterday’s flight was a lot better than the previous one. Rose had a long sleep in the morning before we left, and consequently, she coped a lot better on the flight. A woman sitting next to us volunteered to move seats, and we gratefully accepted her offer so that we would have more space. The spare seat was a godsend – Rose could crawl around our feet or sit in the chair.

But don’t get me wrong, travelling with a one-year old is still one of the least fun things you can do. We had to entertain her in a confined space for four hours with a paper cup, an inflight magazine, and a set of laminated emergency instructions. The hardest thing to cope with was that she kept squealing. Her shrieks are really ear piercing and it’s one recent habit I hope she’ll drop. Here’s a picture of her on the flight, enjoying her first taste of icecream:

We got her home and to bed by her usual bedtime (7pm local time, 9pm NZ time), hoping that she’d sleep through until 7am the next morning. No dice, she woke up at 6am. Still, that’s not too bad. We’ll work on getting her back into her routine over the next few days.

We had a great time in New Zealand seeing family and dear friends. Watching Rose zoom around the apartment this morning reminds me of everything she learned while she was away. She’s much more adept at standing and cruising around furniture a lot better. We’re also seeing the start of some toddler behaviour – she has just started to throw tantrums when you take toys of her. She’s also more single-minded than ever.

On grass

One of the great pleasures about staying with Rose’s Granny Anne and Pap is the use of their magnificent back yard. Rose has been out and about in it every day. She loves crawling around in circles on the grass, inspecting dried leaves and dead flowers, finding and chewing acorns, and surprisingly best of all, crawling up and down their concrete path.

You see, it’s concrete she’s really familiar with. Back home in Sydney we live in an apartment, and the closest she gets to nature is going through it in the stroller on our daily walks, or worse, waving at it from a speeding bus, train or car. Once a week my parents group meets at the local park, and then she gets out and about, but she also has to pick her way through discarded cigarette butts, beer bottles and drug paraphernalia (Yes, it’s true: one of the mums found someone’s tie off in the sand box the other day.) I’m painting a pretty grimy and dangerous picture, here, aren’t I? It’s not really that bad, there are tonnes of other parents and babies around all letting their youngsters crawl and run around, but you do have to keep a close eye on them, and it is very urban.

But back to Anne and John’s place. They have this magnificent front and back yard, with amazing flower bushes, and interesting-yet-not-dangerous insects (New Zealand is fortunately blessed at not having as much killer wildlife as Australia). Rose loves it. She goes out first thing in the morning, throughout the day, and loves it in the early evening when the heat is out of the day and we no longer insist on her wearing a hat.

Phew!

We had a great day, and none more than the littlest party girl. She loved the balloons, she loved playing with family and friends, and she loved all the presents! She was really happy all day and laughed a lot. You can see for yourself – I’ve uploaded a bunch of photos to our online photo album.

Babysitters galore!

We’ve been rushing around today, cooking and cleaning, getting everything ready for Rose’s birthday party tomorrow. The cake’s been baked, the house has been tidied, the laundry’s been done, the food’s been ordered. Rose seems pretty oblivious to all the preparations, and I’m sure she’ll be surprised when the party decorations and balloons come out, and people start showing up to wish her a happy birthday.

It’s been a really busy week for us, with lots of visits from friends and family. Yesterday morning my friends Pip and Brent came over with their girl Tallulah. Rose absolutely adored meeting Tallie (although Tallie seemed a bit suspicious of Rose — or perhaps it was simply reticence?) and showed off her excitment with a lot of customary grunting and arm waving. At midday Granny Jo came by for some lunch and a quick walk around the block. In the afternoon Chris’s Aunt Sue came around to babysit Rose, allowing me to go off with Pip to Chris’s lecture at university. Sue and Rose seemed to get on like a house on fire, and when I got back home at 5.30pm they were both sitting on the couch playing with the TV remotes. She showed absolutely no clingyness when I left and came back, and Sue remarked on how easy she was to look after. It’s so great being able to make use of all these babysitters! Tomorrow night Granny Anne is going to babysit Rose, giving Chris and I a rare night out together. We’re going out to see a band — Wilco. It’s the first time we’ve both been to a show together since Rose was born – and we’re really excited!

Visit with Great Nana

We took Rose to visit her Great Nana yesterday. She had a lot of fun doing laps of Nana’s apartment, pulling the curtains, trying to find and utilise her remote controls, and terrorising her neighbours. Rose is definitely much less sedate than she used to be; last time we visited Nana — in June last year — Rose was quite happy sitting in Nana’s lap, smiling and looking around. When we put her in Nana’s lap this time she tried to remove her hearing aid and knock off her glasses.

But she seems to understand a lot more than we realise. This afternoon she nicked off with her Grandad’s keys, and promptly took them over to the front door and tried to put the keys in the door. Her efforts were pretty futile; for one she was aiming about a metre below the actual lock. She also didn’t seem to get the concept that individual keys open doors – she kept placing the entire set of keys against the door. But still, doors…. keys…. it all shows that some cogs are spinning around in there, right?

Rose and her Great-Nana: