She's a bottom shuffler

I seem to have missed a few weeks in posting, during which time I have also missed some other things. Sleep would be the first. Young Alice is spouting her two top front teeth, as well as having had a cold/projectile vomiting lurgy. This has added up to a week of broken nights, among them a couple where sleep of anything more than 1 hour was at a premium. On Sunday/Monday, Alice actually settled around 4am, I managed to drop off some time later and then her Dad's alarm clock for boot camp went off. (If it's not one of those pesky Yardleys, it's another). Alice seems to be on the mend now and we have discovered Baby Nurofen for the gum issues.

Other things I have been missing are a name for her preferred mode of transport. From all to whom I describe her creeping movements, whereby she can cross a room using her hands to pull her forward while half sitting, half kneeling, I hear "Oh, she's a bottom shuffler". This must be an accepted phrase that I have missed out on (neither Gina Ford nor the patronising northern Baby Whisperer must mention it), yet it seems common parlance in our circles. So Alice is a bottom shuffler and may well miss crawling. She can cross a room to pull books out of the bookcase and to attempt to get to the nice and brightly coloured broadband cable already, so sees no reason to get onto all fours. She does attempt it a few times a day, but usually face plants in the process.

The other thing that everyone seems to expect Alice to do (apart from to desist calling out at the top of her voice at all times) is to perform "high fives". Twice today she has had an adult palm proffered at her, by a waitress and her swimming instructor, demanding that she "give them five". Alice just looks at them and dribbles. We need to get practising. Two of the other babies in the swimming class exchanged high fives with each other. Yes, they were older, but we need to get in on that action - it was very cute.

She did gain a gold star today at swimming for being the only baby to blow bubbles under water. Finally is a purpose behind all that dribbling and raspberry blowing.

In other news, Alice has attended her first birthday party (one for a child in a garden rather than her real first one for Uncle Tom in the pub) and helped me to celebrate my own birthday, by spending a lot of time with Daddy. Photos to follow. We seem to be so busy at the moment! Plus, I have been using her sleep times to book exciting trips to New Zealand for Easter to use up expiring airmiles, to indulge my new love of Grazia and to catch up on some zeds myself. Can't miss too many of those.

Thorpedo in the making

Alice had her first swimming lesson today and had the best time. She splashed her little arms off and giggled and laughed through the whole class.


Swimming lessons tend to start later over here than they would in the UK, but once Australians have had all their innoculations, they seem to catch up somewhere along the line in terms of swimming prowess. I think Alice is well on her way. Although I have been reading enviously of Alice's british chums' exploits in the pool, today made up for the months of waiting.


Yesterday we tried on her various cossies to choose our favourite for the big day.

We panic-bought a couple of rashies to match, but didn't need them in the end. Alice was in a class with three boys, (one of whom had to be removed due to his hysteria) and was quite the belle of the pool in her turquoise number. I get to wear a big t-shirt (so that she would have something to hang onto) and am delighted since I've only been to one 6am spin class so far.

The lesson was based around songs, splashing, watching Mummy put her head under water (which Mummy hasn't done for about 20 years because she doesn't like the chlorine on her face), laughing at Mummy having to pretend to think going underwater was fun, looking around and laughing while she was supposed to be holding onto the side, looking around and laughing while she was supposed to be jumping off the wall like Humpty Dumpty and generally exhibiting extreme good humour. She has spent the rest of the day eating anything that is put in front of her and sleeping like a dormouse. I think we'll go every day.

Poetry in motion

After rolling a grand total of 8 times in her life, we thought that Alice might by-pass crawling. Perhaps she simply can't be bothered to get moving and would rather spend her life hanging around in her pants like her father?

Yesterday she woke up a little out of sorts. She remained the same after her morning nap and through the morning stroll to get Mummy's coffee. I cancelled our attendance at that afternoon's Mothers group, thinking I would give her a quiet half day. We made our way to "post-natal" pilates (post natal in that you are allowed to take the baby that natalled along with you) where, to be honest, I expected the worst. There were a few classes in Alice's younger days where we had to flee the room, such were the histrionics. Although the instructor and her lovely assistant will hold the babies if they should cry, this was never good enough for Alice - it always had to be me. I've completed many a core stability exercise with Alice propped up somewhere about my person.

While there are usually only two or three of us in the class, this week we were five. That meant five babies. Alice was in her element. Unphased by the fact that one of the others choked on a rusk and had to be Heimlich-manoeuvred, Alice sat up and bounced around the room, usually towards a boy baby. She was particularly enamoured with baby Phoenix, quite liked Ariel but was not at all interested in Cassidy. (I wonder if she will chastise us for choosing such a traditional name for her when she is older?!) But I digress...quite the star of her own show, young Alice cheered up immensely and amused herself by travelling around the room on her nappy clad bottom, paying her respects to each baby in turn.

The rest of the day passed in cheerfulness and much of the same. Our little appartment is so small that I began to worry that she might have been stifled. We have been planning to chuck out our coffee table for about six months, so I actually did that yesterday. Using the fine Australian tradition of leaving it out on the street and watching your downstairs neighbours requisition it ten minutes later, I created a good deal more space for our intrepid baby. Before long she was travelling the living room floor on her bottom, thinking about crawling positions more earnestly than in previous playtimes and even happily standing up against the "poufe".




Look, no hands (or hair), I just prop myself up with my tum


Thinking about crawling towards the TV remote which is off to the right...

The bouncing bottom manouvre (a few days before it started to take her places)


Note to the technologically savvy Grannies - I don't know if this video will work in the e-mail format; you might have to go to the actual blog to see it...either way, it works best with the sound ON.

Clovelly kids

"Lifestyle" is the answer we often give when asked why we moved here. True, we do have mothers groups in the park or on the beach, on a boat and an outdoor cafe culture. I think I shall have to be careful to make sure Alice gets more of the parks, boats and beaches than the cafes. Two faces of the Eastern beaches:


Alice concentrating hard on her banana bread



Little friend "CharlieCinoMummyCoffeeCake"

Mummy's little helper

Alice still gets a bit grumpy in the evenings from time to time. This can usually be resolved by keeping her with me. Yesterday she "helped" me to sort the washing. As mothers tend to say in these situations, I only turned my back for a minute...