Countdown (Anna)

One more sleep until Granny Heath arrives from Australia for lots of cuddles, stories and play-time. (Oh, Mum, we forgot to tell you, Caroline and I are going on holiday and leaving you on Emma duty for the next three weeks...;))

Four more sleeps until Emma becomes the daughter of parents who have a one-year-old. Rough translation: Emma turns one on Saturday!!

Measuring things in sleeps is a little tricky, of course. Emma will have approximately 12 sleeps (if we're lucky) before her birthday, while we might might considerably fewer than 4 if we are kept awake by some random munchkin who decides that the witching hour (known in our house as the "bitching hour") is the best time to practice her singing. But, it's ok. We're confident that once she turns one, she'll never wake us up in the middle of the night. Ever again. Right? Right?

My hero (Anna)

Ok. Caroline is officially my hero. She's just given up precious hours of her last days of mat. leave to download photos...

I should mention that our photo collection is very arbitrary. We are notorious for forgetting to take the camera, or running out of memory because we take too much video. It's a common part of our evenings and weekends to turn to each other and say, "Did we forget the camera AGAIN!!" And we have almost no photos of daily events like storytime, playgym, and time with friends. Oh well. I guess it gives us latitude to make things up in the future when we're trying to convince Emma that we really ARE wonderful parents ;)

But, anyway - thanks, Caroline!!

Catching up - A month in pictures

Emma at home.




Emma in slumberland.



Emma at the farm.

Emma at the aquarium.




Emma with Auntie Michelle.

A baby on the move!

These were some of her early attempts at walking a fewweeks ago. She's already much more stable.

The camera doesn't quite capture how much we were both hovering as she did this manoeuvre!

Photos and video (Anna)

A while ago, our computer broke down and we've been making do with an old one. 

That's going to continue for a while, which means our promises of photos and video aren't going to amount to anything. Our computer is so slow at downloading large files that we would have to dedicate several hours to the cause and, quite honestly, with a teething baby and no sleep, neither of us are up for it. 

So, text only for a while, until such time as we either have more energy and time or a better computer. 

Sorry to all those of you (most of you) who don't read a word we write and just log on to look at cute baby photos. You know who you are (and so do we...).

Knowing us, we'll probably download a lifetime of photos the night before her 18th birthday :)

Isn't education wonderful? (Anna)

Today, Emma had the opportunity to learn three new words in the space of about ten minutes. 1) hickey 2) shit and 3) fuck...

...from the children's librarian at the local library. 

I was there with Emma for storytime. The librarian wanted to tell us, the adults, a funny story before we started the kids' stuff . She had overheard some Olympic athletes talking about the girls they had met the night before and the hickies that had resulted from these "meetings". She told the story several times, taking great delight in the word "hickey" and repeating it several times with gusto. 

Now, at a library storytime, this is the ultimate in modelling best practices in early childhood pedagogy. If you want children to learn new words, repeat them over and over, preferably in the context of a short but memorable story. 

Her next story (before "ABC Dog") was about a kid she knew who had picked up the habit of saying "Shit, shit, shit. Fuck, fuck, fuck". She thought it was wonderful, she told us, without a hint of irony, how kids often repeat what they hear adults say. She not only repeated the rhythm several times, "Shit, shit, shit. Fuck, fuck, fuck," but repeatedly reinforced that this was desirable behaviour, and a surefire way for a kid to be seen as "adorable". 

Again, early childhood literacy at its best. Make words fun, repeat them in memorable rhythms, emphasize the important bits, and laugh while you do it. 

The adults laughed. And then the librarian clapped her hands and said, "Ok. Let's start."

But the 0-3 year olds were already sitting in a circle around her, captivated by her every word...

Teething (Anna)

Kid can't seem to grow teeth one at a time. First time - 4 at once. This time - 3 and counting. 

Teething = total personality transformation + end-of-the-world crying + clinginess + sleeplessness + exhaustion + inconsolable distress

(And that's just the Mums.) 

Ergo: we're knackered.