Art

Now Louka has discovered pens, she's not much interested in coloured pencils or crayons any more.

I do like the way her scribbles round the edge of the paper create a frame for the two round scribbles inside.

New shoes

I decided to buy Louka new winter shoes, as her current shoes are really sandals. I was surprised that her feet were still size 7! She tried on a few shoes with closed toes, in red and pink, then I saw a beautiful pair of brown ankle-boots with flowers. I wanted Louka to try them, but she absolutely insisted that she wanted the pink pair she had on. I think pink shoes are pretty ugly, but "welcome to the world of having a little girl!" said the shop assistant.

Actually, when I saw the price of the brown ankle-boots, I was glad Louka hadn't wanted them.

Louka takes photos

Louka wanted to try out photography, so with Dad steadying the camera, she took some photos.

Who do you love?

Louka is a real little mummy's girl ― she runs to me when she's upset, cries for "mummy" when she's tired, and hugs and even occasionally kisses me (she's not a kissy girl). But when I ask her "Who do you love?", she always answers "Daddy!".

Mothers - and fathers - group

Occasionally our mothers group gets together on a weekend when the working mums and the dads can make it. Today Nicky invited us all around for lunch.

It was good to see Maya, Natalie and Ethan, and Kiana, whom we haven't seen for a while. You really notice how fast they are growing when you don't see them for months.

















We all brought food, and I thought some fruit might be good. However, there were chocolate cakes so fruit couldn't really compete, and we ended up taking most of it home. The other food was delicious!

Louka loved playing with all Jasmine's toys, especially the tea set and the kitchen! The cubby house made from a huge box was also a great hit.

Babycinos

Today mothers group met at a small park in Artarmon, just round the corner from a cake and coffee shop. I left Louka at the park while I went and bought coffees for all (well, babycinos for the kids). When I got back I was told she'd played happily with Jake and Lucas until they'd both tried to kiss her. Then she'd run away.

When it was time to go, Louka insisted we should go to a café for lunch. Why not, I thought, it would make a change from bread and cheese. So at Dee's suggestion we went to Café NowHere in Wilkes Avenue, where she could run around. In fact she happily sat in her high chair while we had a hamburger and juice and another, very pretty, babycino. But after we'd eaten she wanted to run round and round and round the little garden beds edged with mosaic.

Mothers day

Louka had a fine mothers day. Yesterday she'd taken me shopping for my present, and I ended up with two nice long-sleeved tops (one marked down from $99 to $20).

This morning we drove to Chatswood to buy a nice pastry for Trishy's afternoon tea. The traffic was like peak hour! Graham pointed out that many people would be taking their mums out for lunch (whereas I was getting my mum to make lunch for us!) and was afraid we'd be held up. But in fact we were in plenty of time.

Micky had baked a delicious ricotta, chocolate and fig cake, for which I need the recipe.

Louka loved playing with her cousins, so much that she abandoned me. She was so excited that she had no nap, which meant she was extremely upset when the time came to go home.

We didn't take any photos, but here's a recent one.

Meeting Mervyn

We didn't catch up with Merv while we were in Perth recently, because we knew he was going to be in Sydney soon after we got home. So on Tuesday night we went out for dinner with Merv and Irina, Mike and Clare, and Sunny, another friend of Merv's. Mike chose the restaurant, a Thai place in Balgowlah, which is pretty convenient for him.

Graham caught the ferry from the city with Merv, and Mike picked them up at Manly. I arrived in our car just as they were getting out of theirs.

The waiter was very nice and thoughtful towards Louka, bringing her small cutlery and a glass of crushed ice (she'd been trying to eat the ice in the wine cooler). She ate quite a bit, but had finished before the rest of us, so Graham and I took turns taking her for walks along the street. We noticed a restaurant called Luka's Restaurant!


Since Louka had only had a short nap, and her Dad hadn't slept well the night before, we left fairly early. Louka started to cry in the car, so I tried singing to calm her down. This worked, but Dad fell asleep first!