So you think you can dance?!

tod•dler
t•dl(r); noun, a young child who is just beginning to walk.

Over the last few days, Alice has cemented her role as household clown. No longer understudy to the master, she's become a real "toddler" - apart from in the obvious sense of the word - ie, she's showing no signs of walking.

She now seeks to entertain, by copying sounds or actions or general toomfoolery. Her new favourite song, "The Wheels on the bus", is celebrated by wild dancing. Picture the scene from "Love Actually", where Hugh Grant and his welsh bodyguard sing carols at the front door of a house in Wandsworth while searching for "Tiff" and some children dance in a crazy and rhythm-less manner in the doorway. That's Alice. She has the wipers ("Swish, swish, swish") down pat, thanks to months of Bear Hunt and the swishy swashy grass, and is on her way to making a sound a bit like "chatter" for the Mummies. When the other people on the bus go "Shh, Shh, Shh", she has now learned to put her finger in front of her mouth, but usually manages also to stick it up her nose to great aplomb. The rest of the song is spent rocking out. She was quite delighted when her swimming lesson this weekend had "the children in the pool, they swim, swim, swim" as one of the songs.

This morning, she was swinging on drawers while we tried to get ready for work, repeating words "sock" and "soos" and then in the car, made choking noises. Having secured my concerned attention, she started playing peek-a-boo with a book. Still obsessed with dogs, she points at anything and everything with four legs and yells "doool" (the letter g has temporarily left her vocabulary). The fact that the word is not quite clear, coupled with the fact that Alice can spot a canine at 50 paces is quite fortunate, as I have often thought that she was pointing at passing women and calling out "Dog". The fact of the matter is that she has seen a greyhound 3 blocks away, but I am relieved not to have to explain that, 'Oh yes, good morning. No, I'm terribly sorry; my daughter isn't actually calling you a "Dog"."

She is now into everything, is constantly on the move and wants to eat anything that anyone else is eating at any time of day. I'm taking the opportunity to get her used to food that she hasn't been that keen on before, like pasta and bits of cold chicken.

Still waiting for the real tantrums to start too. And the wanting to do everything herself. At the moment, my little pudding is happy to have most things done for her. Leaves more time for eating.

Editors note - No photos again, I'm afraid. The only time that I sat down over the weekend was for meals, but will make some dedicated photo uploading time soon.

You can take the girl out of England..

Alice makes a nice cup of char.

Bleurgh

It had to happen. After two months, Alice finally caught a bug at daycare. Since it took her so long, I am hoping that she has inherited the healthy Yardley lungs. This one was no cold and cough, however. Instead it was a particularly unpleasant "Stand by Me" blueberry pie scene type upset tum. Poor thing. The car seat and the carpet may never recover. Her sheets have been washed multiple times.

Curiously she seemed to feel absolutely fine during the whole episode. Understandably, she whined for about 3 seconds after the sickness but otherwise has been her usual chirpy self. I, on the other hand, had to miss a day at work, cannot get the smell of vomit out of the upholstery and am desperately looking forward to getting back to work again tomorrow for a bit of peace and quiet. She is still not eating competely normally and looks as though she has lost a little bit of weight. Not such a bad sickness - not feeling ill and losing a few (kilo)grams. I'm sure to go down with it next, in any case, so I may as well embrace it.

Any methods for stopping carpets smelling on a postcard to our home address, please.

Next post, on Alice's Blog - Biker Chick. Alice's love affair with her bike from Nanna and Grandad. And Alice meets Cousin Milly. All this to come when her mother has finished cleaning up.

Grandparents down under 2

Still no remission from visitors, yet it would be remiss to omit further details on the Keefe grandparents' trip. Alice adored the continuation of the Yardley grandparents' adoration and in Machiavellian mood spurned Grannie's milkshakes in favour of a daily croissant with Nanna. Great Uncle Jim, who is currently in Sydney, is trying to get her onto chips, but she has so far spurned the advances of McDonalds french fries in favour of her organic fruit and veggie snacks. She will not see another milkshake or croissant for some time if I have my way (although as Alice's dealer in banana bread, I can hardly pass comment).

Despite their last face to face contact being over six months ago (Skype with a blurry dog moving about in front of Nanna's face doesn't count), Alice created a great stir at the airport by kicking and shrieking excitedly as soon as "the olds" rounded the corner out of customs and appeared into view. I think that she spotted them before I did. As the visit continued, she enjoyed their company immensely and continued to leap with excitement each time Nanna appeared. In fact she deafened most of the tourists at the Three Sisters when she spotted Nanna coming back from taking photos (at 50 metres away) with her cries of delight: "Nanna!, Nanna!, Nanna!"

Alice had daily picnics at the beach and played happily in the sand. And her love of music continued under their tutelage and by the end of the trip she was singing a very passable version of "Twinkle, Twinkle", together with actions.

The lyrics according to Alice: "....Tar...Aaaaar...Up above...High...Dibo..." and above, actions to "Up".

Baa Baa Black sheep is also quite amusing - her attempts to hold up three fingers always delight - usually she manages six at least.

All in all, we had a lovely time with les grandparents Keefes and the visit was all too short. I didn't fit in all my appointments with the beauticians of Sydney and Stu and I only managed one night out apart from the wedding, after all.

Kidding kiddies - it was such a shame they had to leave after just two weeks and Alice has been alternating between growing some very painful teeth and missing them painfully ever since.

Right then. Off to Watsons Bay for Sydney skyline photo opps. with (Great) Uncle Jim.

By a mosquito?

I arrived to pick my happy little camper up from daycare today (she bounced across the room on her knees to meet me) and was greeted with the information that "She was bitten today". Conveniently forgetting that the downside of all this "socialisation" is the cessation of Alice's cosy, protected, only child environment, I queried as to what kind of insect it had been.

After I was presented with an incident form to sign which had diagrams of the scene of the crime (almost to the point of a white chalk drawing in the shape of Alice), marking where other children had been, how far away the carers were (not very) and how the rumpus had started, "Alice and peer were arguing over a toy....", I felt a bit bad for Alice although curious to see this other side of her character. We said only yesterday that we would need to teach her to share and to have a little patience, but it seems as though she is being taught these lessons outside the home in a somewhat Darwinian fashion. I hope she doesn't learn to bite back, although with such a mouthful of teeth, the recipient will certainly know about it.

The wedding of the year

The second trip of last week was to Mudgee, a four hour drive from Sydney for the wedding of our great friends Tom and Kirrily. Stu had wisely set off early in order to be on hand for any services required by the groom, so it was the same band of merry travellers (Alice, Nanna, Grandad and I) who wended our way through the Blue Mountains, over the hills and far away. Somehow converting a four hour drive into more than six hours, we arrived safely and packed "the olds" off for an evening meal and a wine tour in the morning.

Sightseeing on the way

The weekend went without a hitch - young Alice's behaviour was exemplary for her babysitters and we had a wonderful time at the wedding. Stu was a wonderful MC and I snivelled my way through most of the lovely proceedings, pausing only to enjoy another glass of fine wine from time to time.

The adorable couple

Sunday was a long drive back through Hangoversville and Nurseryrhymestown. I'm very proud of Alice for sleeping so well in two strange places in one week, but I believe that I would like to stay in one place for a little while now.

More soon when this The Visit is over...

Family reunion in Melbourne

Alice, Nanna, Grandad and I made the trip to Melbourne to see four of Alice's Great Uncles be reunited in one place for the first time in a decade. We felt every minute of the 60 minute flight - it is much harder now that she is more active, bigger and there is so much less space than in international business class - we are simply not used to it, daaaarlings.

Alice especially revelled in meeting her second cousin once removed, Alexandra, and happily tucked into some yoghurt with her new BFF.

"A friendly little soul" was the description of our heroine from all family members involved, with Great Uncle Jim teaching her (at last) how to wave back, when waved at, rather than giving random royal waves to passers by.

Playing Dead

The next set of Grandparents have rolled into town, so there hasn't been much time for posting. I have about 5 spare minutes now, before they get back from a trip to the beach (where they are refusing to swim, fearing a Jaws-style, vengeful Great White, which can crawl up the sand) and am uploading photos on Facebook in another window, so busy, busy.

So, to start with...just a quick note of a rather odd stage that Alice went through for about a week at the end of February...playing dead. She would periodically just lie on the floor for a little rest.

I once went to pick her up from daycare and she was doing it out on the lawn, with another baby poking at her, trying to wake her. Odd but cute.