new skills

one of my newly acquired
developmental abilities is stacking
i have just started to be able
to stack these wooden rings
onto the pole
mama is very excited with this
as i never used to be able
to do it and just
flung the rings about everywhere
- it must be the result of
all this wonderful
stimulation and socialisation
with kong kong and poh poh
who are slowly and surely
becoming twisted around my
teensy tiny fingers...

hooray for grandparents

the excitement in the air
over the weekend
was all too palpable

as we awaited the arrival of
kong kong (grandpa) and
poh poh (grandma)
from malaysia
i have been over the moon
with all the extra attention
and showering of gifts
from the folks in malacca,
kluang and singapore
- thank you for
your generosity!

it has been so wonderful having new company
to talk to, play with and show off to
i love being the centre of attraction
over the weekend mama also changed my toy library borrowings
to include this little tikes slide
and kong kong patiently taught me how to
climb up, slide down and roll my balls off it
i say thank God for grandparents!

meet my peers

let me re-introduce you
to some of mama's mother's group friends
sometimes it's hard to believe
we've been together for a year now...
sharon and joshua
noah
emily
hayley
erin

meet yuka

this is yuka
a japanese lass studying english
in perth for 3 weeks
and staying at mama's colleague's home
for unknown reasons
i took an instant shine to her
and promptly climbed onto her lap for a cuddle
much to everyone's surprise
i guess i am just a natural-born-charmer...

jamesy phone anyone

in case you were wondering
whether i am over my
phone phascination phase
well i am most certainly not
i still enjoy playing with it
pressing the buttons
holding it to my ear
and shouting 'aaaah aaaah aaaah'
aping apes
and generally getting frustrated
because mama has found the keypad lock
but that hasn't stopped me from
flukey-dialling 000 occasionally!
(and checkout my hair which makes
everyone think i am a grrrrrl!)

kalahari bushbaby

hooray! i've progressed from
the constant enunciation
of 'car car car'

to the highly refined language
of clickety click clacks
i can now make
clicking noises
with my tongue
and find it highly amusing
mama would love to send me
to the kalahari desert
as she reckons
i'd fit right in
with the !kung
what a strange idea...

it's not my party but i'll cry if i want to

i received my first birthday party invitation recently
so on saturday
mama and papa took me
to clarissa's first birthday-do
i was made to dress up
in a shirt and trousers
much to my initial discomfort
but worse still was
having to get used to
so many strangers
in the one room
at the one go
so of course
i let rip my displeasure
well a boy's gotta do
what a boy's gotta do
show them who's the real boss...

readerholic

i like reading...
reading to avoid eating
reading to avoid sitting down
reading to avoid standing up
reading to avoid nappy changing
reading to avoid sleeping
reading reading reading
to avoid everything
well to be precise it's actually
pretend-reading
cause they're all picture books really

break-the-dancer

this is the fisher price
dance baby dance machine
from the toy library
why mama thought
i might like it
i have no idea
but all i seem to want to do
is yank the red monkey off it
which is a source of consternation to her
because apparently
it's not ours to break!

sculpture culture vulture

ok so it's not exactly a vulture
but it was a pretty scary looking big bird
that looked like it could peck me up in one fell swoop
so i started running away...
actually mama and papa took me
down to the sculpture by the sea exhibition
at cottesloe beach
i was too small to really enjoy the exhibits
and ended up trying to run and falling about
so the sand went up my mouth, nose, eyes and ears
and then it wasn't all that much fun anymore
especially as there was a strong southerly blowing
but mama had great fun taking pictures in the unfortunately bright evening light
(daylight saving!)
this is papa's favourite
and mama likes these ones (she can't just pick one as usual...)
grandma sheila and peter - you're missing out!

out! out! out!

i have been thoroughly enjoying
flinging balls over the makeshift gate on our deck
(which has now removed since i sommersaulted over it!)
onto the garden path and beyond
it's strangely compelling
and what makes it even more fun
is watching mama and papa
scramble about to fling the balls back on to the deck

zoolander

you know how the folks
have been borrowing these playpen type thingies
in a thinly veiled attempt at curtailing my freedom
(remember the organic veggie patch?)
well this time around they borrowed, of all things,
a zoo
which has these different panels -
an arch for me to supposedly crawl under
a spinning wheel with dolphins on one side and seals on the other
a koala, panda and another unidentifiable animal on some green stalks (??!)
a sliding giraffe on a train (!!) and three swinging monkeys
a mirror with flippable frames for you to put your face through and look like a performing seal
a couple of fishy shapes for sorting (a-hah!)
and a door for zoo-keepers to get in and out of the pens
well no prizes for guessing my favourite panel
and how long i last in there before i 'd rather be playing with a ball????!

pacify me

i love
my dummy
and i'm not afraid
of showing it
well i tend to use it
when i am going
to zzzzzzz...land
and these days
i have learnt to call it
mum-mum
(mama cringes all the time...)

all hot and bothered

what do you do
when it's too hot
to play outside
and you're getting tired
of being cooped indoors?
well you can try
crazy
boogeying
about
like this...
(toddlers
are
too
cool
to look like
right dorks)

what table manners?

now that i've grown
a little bit longer
in the leg department

i've developed this habit
of propping both my feet
up on the table
whilst self-feeding
and then kicking back
so my chair flies backward away from the table

mama has tried talking me out of it
reasoning with me
and putting my feet back down
but each time
i simply put them back up again
ooooo... i believe this is what's called
testing my boundaries!

plummy plums

it's summer stone fruit season
and lately i've been gorging on
lovely sweet and juicy plums
i love my plums
yummy yummy plums
that leave blood-red stains
everywhere
on my clothes
on the table linen
on the cushions
everywhere
and that's driving mama's laundry
into overdrive
but that's the prerogative of little toddlers
- messy eating!

ball park

mama and papa
got this inflatable boat thingymajiggy
at the post christmas sales
and only recently
decided to get it out for me
it's sort of a two-in-one toy
whereby they can either fill it with
water as a shallow wading pool
for me to sit in and keep cool
or fill it with these ball-pit balls
and pretend it's the ikea playroom
i enjoy flinging the balls out
and mama frantically running around
flinging them back in
both equally enthusiastic
about our tasks
whilst papa just lies on the couch
and observes from afar... typical bloke!

i'll eat anything # 2

i rather like
chomping on
the hose attachment
papa kindly
lets me loose at it
and i like
pretending it's
some sort of
cigar
well one has to
find ways to
amuse oneself
when it's
40 deg days
four days in a row!
(p.s. look how
tall i am getting!)

42 degrees celsius

man it's hot
i's like africa hot
tarzan couldn't take
this kind of hot

(dedicated to you, aunti letti
with apologies to
eugene morris jerome
of biloxi blues)