She's Crawling!!!

I could tell that it would happen soon - because she was getting so active and because she is just so determined - but I didn't realise that it would happen today. However, suddenly Lily is mobile and the world is a whole new place.


I must now go and pick everything up off the floor.

The downside of spring

There is a magpie between me and the shops - between me and Tilleys, between me and the world really.

Why is it that magpie swooping season coincides with spring?


I love spring. The weather is beautiful. The flowers come out. The world feels fresh and full of promise... and then a bloody magpie decides to dive bomb me from the sky and attempt to drive a large hole in my skull with its enormous beak.

I hate magpies. I have always hated them - they terrify me.

There was a magpie that lives in my cull-de-sac when I was very little. It was an evil magpie (a redundancy perhaps, but this one was especially evil) and it swooped all year 'round. It also had a particular fondness for swooping small children and used to terrorise us. One day, when I was 2 and my brother was 3, it swooped my brother when we were out in the street playing. I can still see that enormous bird coming at us with its fierce red eyes.



Anyway, this magpie isn't quite as bad. It does keep to itself outside of spring and it doesn't appear to target small children. But it will follow me for up to four blocks, swooping continuously as I run away from it, and I think that it has a particular hatred of me. You see, it has been doing this for years and yet it often seems to ignore everyone else that walks down the street.

I guess it knows how much I hate magpies - or it can sense my fear...

I have found another way to the shops. It takes me half an hour instead of 15 minutes, but there are no vicious magpies.

6 Months

Dear Lily

Today you turned 6 months old. Incredible!

You are now officially big. You can roll in both directions. You can sit up by yourself. You can say "Da Da". You can stand up all by yourself (as long as you are holding something stable). And you are seriously good fun.


This month we had some trouble with your sleep. You got a cold, then I did, and then you got in a bad habit of feeding all night. Suddenly you were waking almost every hour and insisting on feeding back to sleep right when papa got sick. So we decided to start a plan to get us all back on track. You had your "meals" at the same time every day, and we really committed to a bed time routine - dinner, wind down, bath time, pjs, feed and then bed. Luckily for all of us, it is working. You love your baths and you now go down easily at 7pm (most of the time).


During the last month we introduced you to a few different foods. So far, pumpkin has been a hit, you could give or take apple, carrot seems to give you a rash, banana may be a little too slimy, you love pear and you'll tolerate a little rice cereal if I mix it with pear. So, by and large, you have pears and pumpkin. I figure that you should be getting all of your nutrition from breast milk right now anyway and so food should just be a few teaspoons for tasting and having a bit of fun.


You certainly seem to enjoy yourself. You love sitting up in the high chair and playing with a spoon. You also love spitting food at papa and I and smearing it around the place with your sticky little hands. Interestingly, you also seem to love eating it. When you are hungry, you grab the spoon with your hand and help me to get it into your mouth and then gobble it all up. It is very cute to watch.


This whole feeding yourself thing has also affected the way that your drink your milk when I teach on Monday mornings. Recently instead of letting papa give it to you, you have insisted on holding the bottle yourself.


We also noticed that you were getting a little bored with your toys and so we went looking for something a little more interactive. We bought you some stackable blocks. Right now, however, you are not particularly interested in stacking them. Instead, your favourite game is for us to stack them and for you to knock them over and then suck the red one.

My favourite thing this month, however, is your new ritual when you feed - you reach up your hand for me to kiss it throughout the whole thing and then gently stroke my face. It is extremely sweet.

Happy Six Month Birthday gorgeous girl.

love mama
xox

No time to blog

Since we all got sick, I have not been able to find the time to blog.

Lily is teething and generally sleeping really badly and so I am not getting any sleep or any time to myself during the day. It is also a teaching break and so I am marking assignments whenever I do get any time. Plus I have crazily volunteered to help out with Kerrie Tucker's blog.

Anyway, I just wanted to share a couple of photos with you - just because they are so cute.