Back on the bike

What with moving to West Ryde, and the bout of miserable weather (and perhaps a little laziness on my part?) we haven't ridden the bike for a while. And at the rate Louka's growing, she'll grow out of the bike seat pretty soon (it's only rated to 15kg). So this morning we went for a ride.

It took a while. First I couldn't find Louka's helmet. Then I couldn't find the pump. It was fiddly getting the bike past the very makeshift gate that's been recently added to keep Richard's daughter's puppy in. And then, we got to the shops and I found a place to lock up the bike ― and I'd forgotten the bike lock! Back to the house we went.

But it's pretty good riding on the roads here. There isn't much traffic on the little local streets, and the bigger ones have bike lanes. We did our shopping, then down to the playground at the end of the road.

Growing like a mushroom

Iris sent Louka a book recently, so we enclosed a photo of Louka in our thankyou note. Iris commented that Louka is "growing like a mushroom". And it's true.

Last week I had to take down the cuff of her jeans. And yesterday we took her into town to get a new pair of shoes. The last ones were size five, but these are six-and-a-half. They're sandals, so they should take her into summer (unless she grows like an even bigger mushroom).

Total eclipse of the moon

Last night the sky was beautifully clear for viewing the lunar eclipse. I showed Louka the moon, and she pointed at it but wasn't really interested. Graham took some good photos though.

Spring

It sure feels like Spring today: though the morning was cool, the temperature quickly rose to 27°. The park where the mothers group meets was crowded, but in fact only one of the other mothers was there.

Louka had broken out her shorts, teeshirts and hat.

18 month check-up

Yes, Louka will be 18 months on Sunday, so she went for a check-up at the child health centre. Well, as usual she's big: 13.3kg and 85.5cm. That's just over the 90th percentile for height, and the 97th percentile for weight (but she was wearing a rather heavy dress).

Louka showed the nurse how she can draw on a piece of paper, and build a tower of three blocks.

The nurse was concerned she doesn't really say any words, but after finding that her hearing is fine, she can make the right sounds, and she understands plenty, she decided it's not something to worry about just yet. She suggested we come back for a check-up when Louka is 2.

City to surf

This year we decided Louka was old enough to go in the city to surf. She's much more tolerant of being in the stroller than she used to be. So we entered as part of Graham's work team.

We rushed off without breakfast to make sure we'd get there in time. Stopped off at Gloria Jeans for a takeaway coffee and banana bread. That got us there in time to see the first bunch of serious runners head off. Then we joined our bunch and soon started.

After the half-way mark, Louka got a bit restless in the stroller, so Graham took her out and carried her for a while. I said, "don't carry her too long, put her back when your arms get tired". The next thing I knew they'd disappeared!











I didn't see them again till I reached the end. I waited outside Graham's work tent until they turned up. Poor Graham's arms were tired, but Louka was comfortably asleep. It was good that they'd put on a good spread: they'd hired the pavilion, so there was plenty of comfortable seating, and they'd provided plenty of free food and drink, including magnum mini icecreams for the kids.

When we were feeling recovered and relaxed, we went to find the free bus provided by Graham's work. But after waiting twenty minutes amid growing crowds, we gave up and decided to walk to Bondi Junction. So we didn't get home till after four o'clock, more than eight hours since Louka's last nursing session: a record for her.

Looking at bricks

We've decided our new house will be built of brick (when it eventually gets built). So today Louka and I journeyed to Horsley Park to look at bricks. There were two I particularly liked, but when the customer service woman said "you've got good taste", alarm bells rang. Yes, they were two of the most expensive bricks they make.


Louka was very good about it all. She sat quietly in her pram while I went round and about looking at brick walls, though I can't believe they interest her at all. And when I said it was time to go home, after playing on the nice play equipment there, she made only a very brief protest.

Louka's tower

The other day, Louka built her first tower. Previously she's only been interested in knocking them down. In fact she built two towers, in the shower. This is the second one.

Dismantling the shed

There's a shed in the backyard ― or rather, the remains of a shed. It contained odd things: crockery, a heavy red metal implement of some kind, and hundreds of bottles.



One of the walls consisted of broken pieces of fibro (the asbestos-containing kind). So Graham decided to get rid of it. He researched what needs to be done, and bought himself a disposable overall, mask, and builder's plastic. He took off all the broken fibro and painted the rest.

Where we live now