Rollback?

Last week Louka rolled over for the first time ― from her back to her front. She did it four times that day, but she hasn't done it since. It's as though she thinks "been there done that" and isn't interested in doing it any more.

However, this evening she rolled from her front onto her back, twice. I wonder if she'll be doing that again.

Catching up

I haven't been very good at keeping in contact with people since Louka was born. The most I seem to do is forward the occasional humourous email. However, last week Carmel responded to one of these emails and we arranged to meet for lunch.

My mum also wanted to see us again before we head off to Perth, so we arranged to meet for morning tea. We went to David Jones Caffè Ritazza, which has recently been redecorated as part of their first floor renovations. It was very pleasant and we each got a coffee card.

Then on to Central to meet Carmel. Carmel had brought Louka a gift of a Spot book and toy. We went to a little noodle restaurant which had been recommended to Carmel, and was nice and cheap. The vegetarian noodles were good, with lemon juice and other assorted toppings added to taste. Then Louka dirtied her nappy (it's been three days...). Carmel took me up to her office and let me use a small meeting room as a change room ― fortunately there was no meeting in progress at the time. You would have expected the relief to make Louka cheerful, but instead she had a screaming fit, and didn't quieten until I'd hurriedly said goodbye and started towards home. Then she nursed herself to sleep.

Arabian nights

Tonight my parents are coming for dinner, so while I made the icecream for dessert (chocolate ginger) Graham took Louka for a walk. He took her to the chinese supermarket and introduced her to the smells there. I'm glad for her to have some links to her chinese heritage; yesterday I bought her a book called Liu and the Bird, which shows the chinese calligraphic characters for many of the words in the story ― and has lovely illustrations too.

The rain cleared and the sun came out, so we went for a walk to Crows Nest for lunch, and chose the Vineyard Café again. This time we sat in their back room, with pink and purple drapes on the ceiling, low carved tables and seats, and lots of Arabian-nights-style cushions.

Rollover!

A milestone ― today Louka rolled over for the first time ☺. I'd left her lying on her back while I started preparing food for dinner, came back and she was on her tummy. In case it was a fluke, I put her back on her back, and after a few tries she did it again. Then when Dadsy came home, she showed him her new-found skill.

Earlier we'd gone out for a walk with the pram. She doesn't like the pram. Like in the car, she tends to cry and scream until she falls asleep. This time she was happy for a good quarter hour before she started to cry.

We went to Macro Wholefoods to get some oatcakes and see if they had steel-cut oats. We got the oatcakes, but they didn't have the oats, so we went looking further. At the other end of the Crows Nest shops is another health-food shop, the old-fashioned sort that sells food rather than food supplements, and they had it. They also had the oatcakes at a considerably lower price than Macro. Oh well, I'll know next time, and I hope they stay in business for a while.

A wintry day in Sydney town

Today was cold, wet and windy, and Louka's legionnaire's cap didn't cut it, so I dug out the pixie hat I'd knitted before she was born. She looked so funny and cute in it I had to take a photo before we left (causing us to just miss a train).

In town we met dadsy for lunch at David Jones food hall. As we approached the grill bar we saw it was full, and Amanda came out to tell us that the chef had left last week for a new job. We'll miss him ― especially as he'd promised to teach Louka to cook!

I was in town to look for a baptism gift for a friend's baby, so I looked around and decided on a nicely illustrated book of nursery rhymes. You can never have too many books. Then I met my mum for a cup of coffee.

Nan Joyce's birthday

Her birthday was actually yesterday, but she hadn't answered the phone when we rang yesterday morning. Today she did answer, and said it would be fine for us to visit. (We're not sure how old she is; well into her nineties though.)

We went to David Jones to buy her traditional gift of chocolate ginger. While there we bought Louka an odd cloth book in the shape of a lamb. I also took a look at the new season's baby clothes. There I saw a delightful dress in a pretty brown floral fabric ― a change from pink. I looked at the label ― it was Collette Dinnigan! I wondered how much it cost... $79.95. Hmmm... and another very pretty Collette Dinnigan dress was about $109. I guess that's cheap for Collette Dinnigan, but too much for something Louka would grow out of within months.

Then we drove over to see Nan Joyce. She has trouble with her breathing in this humid weather, but was happy to see Louka (and Graham and me too). She was impressed with how big Louka has grown.

Two different days

Yesterday was a big day for Louka. I was meeting my former workmates again at the Bayview for lunch, and having dinner with Graham's friend Dorian and fiancée Linda.

Louka fell asleep after breakfast and was still asleep when Rob emailed to ask what time lunch was booked. I told him 12, and that I'd probably be late. Louka woke at 11:30 and had a feed, then we rushed off, but we were still 40 minutes late. It was nice that she hardly cried in the car all the way. It was also Tania's birthday, but there was no cake and no embarrassing singing of Happy Birthday. I did lend Tania two books on watercolours, as she's going to Italy in September for a painting tour. Then I gave her a lift to Artarmon station ― fortunately Louka fell asleep after a while.

Dorian and Linda live at Narrabeen. So we entered their address into the Tomtom and set out in blind faith. It was actually very simple to get there. Dorian was very taken with some of the sexy foreign voices available on the Tomtom, particularly the Russian female voice. He cooked a delicious dinner of fish, prawns in a coating, and a range of vegetables, and we followed it with small glasses of Tokay. Graham gave Louka to Dorian to hold, and she started to pout and cry. Dorian took it as evidence that he wouldn't make a good father, but really she was just tired and cranky. I don't think one glass of wine and a little Tokay put me over the limit, but I was glad I wasn't breath tested on the way home.

Louka got to sleep at 11:25 ― fairly standard for her these days ― and didn't wake till around 6:30. She had a fifteen minute feed and fell asleep again, though somewhat restless, until after 9. She had a cheerful morning playing with her book, rattle and jungle gym, then fell asleep for another three hours. That made her pretty cheerful until dinner time, even though we hardly went out ― only as far as the greengrocer for some basil.

Chez Mia

Today, for a change, the mothers group got together at Mia's house instead of a café. I took along a packet of biscuits, but some of the others had got baking so the biscuits weren't required. They'll still be good next time.

It was nice and relaxed being at home instead of "out", and we lined up the babies on the floor for a group photo.


Yesterday we had a talk at the child health centre from an occupational therapist. She said that babies' occupation is to play. She talked not only about toys, but about good ways of playing with babies to help the development of their senses. It was quite interesting.

Tomtom

Whenever we drive anywhere, we get lost. So we decided we needed a GPS in-car navigation system. We'd been waiting till the latest maps come out ― they seem to come out once a year. But now the new maps must be imminent, because all the GPS units are being sold with a free map upgrade, so it seemed like time to buy.

Well, which one? We looked in Dick Smith Powerhouse, and the salesman said they all use the same maps, and the main difference between the units is in features. Of the ones on offer there, the Tomtom One appealed to us most ― it has walking and cycling routes, and the interface looked easy to use. Online research suggested that the Tomtom One, using Linux, was less prone to crashing than other units using Windows CE.

But then we found that Choice magazine had just reviewed them. My parents subscribe to Choice, so we asked to look at the review. Choice had found some more fundamental differences between the units, such as that even though they all use the same maps, the software that works out routes is much better in some units than in others. One of them came up with a 124km route for a 30km trip! Some are better and quicker at tracking satellites than others, and the screen quality and battery time vary a lot. And the best overall performer? ― the Tomtom One.

So yesterday we went to David Jones and bought a Tomtom One. And today we tested it. First of all, we turned it on in the middle of our living room, with the blinds half drawn ― and it managed to find two satellites! Then, onto the streets. The shortest route it found to Harris Farm markets at Willoughby may well have been the shortest, but it wasn't the most convenient, and included a right turn at a no-right-turn intersection (easily fixed). The fastest route that it suggested to take us home again was much more straightforward with no awkward turns. So we thought we'd give it another test. How would it suggest we go to my parents' place? Exactly the way we would go ourselves ☺. Ah, but could we trick it? We missed the turn off Epping Road, and waited to see what it would suggest. Should we try to turn around on Epping Road? No, of course not, we could take the next turn instead. So we were happy with its navigation.

Then we thought we'd test its walking route suggestions. There's a walk we do to Middle Harbour, that goes through some bushland. We'd previously tried to walk there via the streets, with the pram, and got somewhat lost. So we thought we'd walk there through the bush, and try out the Tomtom's suggested return route. Only problem, when we tried to turn it on, it wouldn't turn on. Maybe it hadn't been fully charged, and the battery was flat? But when we got home and plugged it in, it still didn't turn on. A toothpick in the reboot slot fixed it. I hope this is a one-off, that it lives up to its Linux credentials and doesn't crash again.

Anniversary

Poor Louka! She must have had a reaction to her vaccination yesterday, because last night she just screamed and screamed for about an hour. We gave her some baby panadol, and she eventually calmed down, whether because of that or just because, who knows? Got to sleep at last at 11:15 and slept just over six hours. Fed and slept again till after 9 o'clock.

Today is our wedding anniversary, and we had thought of going to the Lindt Café for breakfast; something we used to do before Louka was born. But we didn't want to wake her when she was sleeping peacefully, and Graham had to go to work. So we met there for lunch instead.




Graham also had a lot of loyalty card points to redeem ― enough for 10 individual chocolates. So he chose five and I chose five. What a good anniversary celebration!

Vaccinations

Today was the day for Louka's 4-month vaccinations. We turned up early to the council building so as not to wait so long, and there I met Paula who'd turned up earlier still. She said she had a tradition of buying her Maya a treat after her injection, which I thought would be a good idea (at least when Louka gets old enough to understand). So after she'd had her needles, screamed loud and high enough to give me industrial deafness, and fed for ten minutes while we waited to make sure she had no bad reactions, we went to Babies Galore in search of a toy.

It's so hard to choose! There are so many things and I have no idea what Louka would enjoy. And then I saw Paula there having exactly the same difficulty. I eventually chose a turtle bath toy. She hasn't got any other toys in the bath, and it will go with the turtle in her little cloth book "friends of all sizes". And it changes colour if the bath water is too hot, which is probably a good idea.

Today someone commented that Louka looks like me. Admittedly she hasn't seen Graham, and most people think Louka looks a lot like Graham. Still, it was nice to think I look like anyone as pretty as Louka ☺.

Four month check-up

Today was Louka's four-month check-up. It was booked for 3pm, not the most convenient time, but Louka had had a nap in the morning and another after lunch. But when I woke her from her afternoon nap to take her to the Child Health Centre, she screamed and screamed. She doesn't like being woken, and sometimes not even waking up on her own.

I got to the station in time for a good train, bought my ticket, then realised I'd forgotten Louka's blue book (health record). Back home for the book, then back to the station in time for the 2:52 train. We were going to be late. Got there at 3:08 and had to wait ― the previous appointment had been late as well.

The child health nurse seemed more concerned about my asthma than about Louka. I hadn't even noticed I was breathing heavily, I'm so used to it, but she told me I needed to get a referral and a management plan. I suppose I should.

Louka's measurements:
Weight (in clothes) 7.8kg
Length 66cm
Head circumference 42cm

She's tall. On the charts in the blue book, she's close to the 90th percentile for all these measurements. And she's going fine in other ways too ― unlike her asthmatic mum. Hope she continues that way.

Keeping statistics

I've been plotting Louka's weight each time I weigh her, and I thought I'd see how she compared with the new WHO standards. So I attempted to overlay Louka's graph over the WHO's graph (not that easy in Excel). As you can see, she's hovering pretty closely round the 85th percentile.

That last data point is a bit of a worry. It was taken with our new bathroom scale, whereas most of the others were taken at the child health centre. It will be interesting to see what she weighs at her 18 week checkup on wednesday.

Today we visited my parents again, and they showed us about two-thirds of their digital photos. There are some beautiful and interesting buildings in Italy, and some lovely landscapes.

Scales

The other day I didn't hang the little squirt nappy cleaner properly on its wall hook. It fell on the bathroom scales and broke the plastic cover on the dial. Since the cover had the little line that marked the correct weight, it's not really usable any more.

I want to make sure I don't lose any more weight while feeding Louka (she's taking it all!) and Graham is trying to lose weight. So we went shopping for a new one.

We tried out two digital scales in DJs, and found a difference of about 300g between them. Obviously digital scales aren't necessarily totally accurate. Neither of them claimed any level of accuracy, so we went looking for one that did. We found one in Myer that claimed accuracy to 100g, and it was on sale for 30% off, so we bought it. No way we can test its alleged accuracy, since we don't have any weights to calibrate it with.

Louka was enjoying sitting on our shoulders at the shops. She hangs onto our hair, or in Graham's case, ears, but we don't trust her ability to hang on so we hold her up, which makes it rather tiring on our arms.

9½ hours!

On thursday night, Louka didn't get to sleep until 1am. Then she woke at 7am, and didn't go back to sleep again. She had a couple of naps during the day, but she wasn't happy most of the day.

Last night we went to my sister Micky's place for dinner to welcome Mum and Dad home. We had fish with a crumb topping which was delicious. My parents showed the print photos they'd taken in Italy, but only the first few of the digital photos. I'll have to look at them next time I'm at their place.



Louka cried then slept most of the way there, was pretty cheerful while we were there, and cried then slept most of the way home. She was happy to be held by Max, though she must be pretty heavy for him, and sat on his knee watching X-Men 2 on dvd.

She fell asleep at 11:30 after a pretty good feed and only one previous attempt to get her to sleep. And she's still asleep more than 9½ hours later!