Tuesday, September 01, 2009

We've Been Busy - Really Busy!

First of all - happy birthday Harriet! She turned four and almost overnight has decided to act like an adult. No more silly conversations or interjections, she is interested in having very adult-like conversations and offers up her own discussions.

For her birthday party she had a few requests - a three-legged race was a definite. After all, Anne Shirley has one with Diana Barry don't you know? Also an egg and spoon race, wheelbarrowing and pass the parcel. And we were so hard core we did pass the parcel *without* any layer presents, just one big present in the middle (a little steel cookware set that went to Connor). There were no tears. No upsets. Everyone had a really amazing day. Harriet's closest brush with being upset was when she unwrapped her present from Samantha and found inside a gorgeous skirt and some rainbow material for dress-ups. Why would this upset a four year old? Well, because it needed to be worn Now. Right Away. So off came her dress, on came the skirt and the rainbow material was wound around her torso by Lisa and the artist's rainbow scarf from Lisa was fashioned as a neat tie around the material. And to be perfectly frank the resulting outfit (as can be seen in the photos here) seemed much more 'Harriet' and definitely much more befitting of a celebration.

I don't think I was well prepared for the differences that turning four throws up. Suddenly Harriet is A Person. She was only ever barely a child, let's face it. And now she is just so engaging, so interesting. When I pick her up from preschool we have wonderful chats about what she's been up to during her day, and she loves to think through elaborate ideas to their absolute end point. For example the other week we were talking about how, when I finished making her Dorothy dress, she would be like Dorothy in 'the movie' (she knows there is a movie of The Wizard of Oz but has only ever seen the Youtube clips of If I Only Had a Brain and Somewhere Over the Rainbow). She then went on to discuss all the things she would need for the movie. And not in a general "Oh we'd have a forest and a road" kind of way, oh no. But more in a "I'll need a yellow brick road and it will have to be wide enough for four people and Toto and remember the Cowardly Lion is big. So we can make it by painting some yellow on paper and drawing bricks on it with lines. And I can have Tigerlily dressed up as Glinda and use Little People as the Munchkins becasue they have to be quite a bit shorter than us..." and on it went. I was seriously blown away by how detailed she went into the idea of making her own Wizard of Oz movie. Given her love of ordering people around and setting things up for videos, she may well become that film director James predicted about a year ago.

She'll have a lot of material to work with anyway. Her latest discussion topic is to open with "Can you tell me a story from when you were little please Mama/Papa?". Which is so endearing...at first. And then you start struggling to remember more and more (appropriate) stories to tell her. And then you realise you are scraping the bottom of the barrel and then you start making the odd white lie in the story to give it interest and then you realise that you'll have ot just make one up if she asks for one more. So you do. And she knows (oh yes, she KNOWS). And then you ask her "So Harriet, why don't you tell me a story about when you were little" and she tells you straight off the bat "Remember when I was, like, only two or something, and I was in the back of our little green car and I said 'I don't want to buy a new car? But then we bought it and I loved it? That was so funny because I didn't know about how nice our new car would be back then when I was only two". (Everything to Harriet that happened in the longterm past happened 'when I was two') So I've been thinking yay! I can ask her to retell me her life story so far and hear it from her point of view, how cool! Only to be brutally rebuffed the very next time you ask her to tell a story from her childhood. *sigh*

Talking about childhoods, well Teddy's is slipping away so quickly! He is already SIX MONTHS OLD people! Of course that means he is only four months old developmentally and if you take that into account then he is on a very similar track to Harriet. For those of you who can remember back that far, Harry never rolled or crawled. But she sat up confidently at 4.5mths. And Ted has been sitting up for a couple of weeks now with more and more confidence, but still no sign of being interested in rolling. I guess if you can get upright the idea of going back down on all fours just seems so *primitive*! Teddy does love to stand up and will pull on our fingers to stand up with two very solid feet and cankles giving him purchase.

He's still too young to be introduced to solids - his gut age is linked to his developmental age so it won't be until at least late October that we'll try that. I wouldn't even be thinking of it now anyway, because he still has a bit of tongue thrust and isn't interested in our eating or food either. Plus, unbelievably, he is still gummy! We were convinced there was a tooth erupting a few week ago - he was actually a bit of a cryer for a day, and was a little unsettled one night. But we're still waiting. And I, for one, am very happy to wait because teething would have to be the biggest downside to babies.

This baby though is SO different to Harriet. For one he just doesn't cry. Seriously. He might grizzle a bit to let you know what he wants differently (help me into sitting position, turn me out of the sun, that kind of thing) but really - no actual crying. And I tell you that makes me almost cry with disbelief! The most adorable belly laughs come from him and he has a real sense of humour. I'll post the little video of him laughing and laughing that I posted on Flickr in the next post. He is a *ahem* very big baby too, as you can see in this photo. And check out those arm rolls in the previous photo too - impressive, huh? No wonder I am always hungry!


And I'm not sure if it slipped you by in the first part of this post but I mentioned that I made a Dorothy dress for Harry. I truly did, can you believe it?! Her friend Samantha gave her/me some blue gingham for her birthday and I wad put to the task with whip and chair by Harry and this is what I came up with. Not an amazing job or anything but utilised my very basic sewing skills and it serves the purpose perfectly.


But I have to write up about her very exciting trip to the vet faculty on the weekend, so once I've finished her photos I will post them - Jennie you don't mind your photo on here do you?!

3 comments:

JennieMo said...

How fun! You sewing genious! I have another baby goat...she is adorable...and Norm is jealous. Maybe we can find a role for him in Harriet's movie....as Toto maybe.

You can put whatever pictures of me up that you want. Of course I don't mind...and neither does Norm.

Anonymous said...

It was so nice to read the update !! Harry certainly did enjoy the day and I enjoyed my tour of the play area, even Sam wants to come & check it out with Harriet!! xx Lis
PS you are building muscles carrying that Teddy Bear !!

TheThingsIdTellYou said...

That last photo is pure bliss, how wonderful. The kind of photo a bookworm mother would treasure forever.

Your sewing looks wonderful. I confess that all I know about sewing is how to thread the needle. I'm lost after that.

Have decided it's time to learn.