Teeth and Transatlantic Trips pt. I

Before you say it, we know... it's been ages.. since July, in fact. So, since a picture says a thousand words, this blog will essentially contain many thousands of words! [If a picture says a thousand words, how many words does a video say? Do we need to discuss frame rates to answer this?] In fact, it's so large, we're dividing it up into different parts. Looking back over the pictures and videos, it's unbelievable how much Zafra has changed since the last post. Perhaps that's largely to do with the teeth which have just changed her appearance... don't worry, she's still lovely! But it's also to do with her increased dexterity, as you'll see...

Hello, welcome to this blogpost. Yes, I'm naked. You should be used to that by now.

Zafra and Parker have been getting on very well. It seems that Parker has entirely forgiven the hair-pulling episode of a number of months ago and there have even been brief moments where Zafra's been able to give Parker a proper hug. Here, Parker plays "catch-me-if-you-can" with Zafra...

Zafra's starting to really develop friendships, leading to some rather lovely photos...

Alfie places a gentle supporting hand on Zafra's head as he comes over to see what she's looking at.

Zafra checks something out the usual way... by placing it on her head before or after placing it in her mouth!

It tasted more like cardboard than Parsley...

Oy! Do I have to show him how to do everything???

Zafra in the tunnel...

quickly followed by Alfie in the tunnel...

followed by Zafra in the tunnel... (you get where this went for a while!)

Zafra and Alfie sharing in the paddling pool

From time to time, we like to go to a place in Christchurch called Cheese and Alfie's (it's a popular name right now!) where there's a book library downstairs for little kids. On this visit, instead of reading Zafra decided to draw...

Zafra draws for the first time

Zafra considers her next masterpiece

Top beauty tip - Hummus face mask, tomato on top.

Neil spent a good amount of time in the garden this summer, tidying it up and starting work on a vegatable patch. He found a full-size frog, possibly from last year, who can sometimes be heard croaking away in the back garden and there are still a couple of froglets in the front pond. Also, our garden keeps being visited by a robin, even though they usually only visit in the winter.

Another Robin in the family

We interrupt this blog to bring you an exciting development...

So that's one step, but will there be more...? Zafra's dexterity has come on in leaps and bounds (maybe that's not the right expression here since she can't do either, but you know what we mean...). She plays with things, reaches for things and, often, places them on her head. We have to admit, though, that this photo might just have been staged...

Rababy

We've been teaching Zafra baby sign language. The point is that she can always cry to say when she's unhappy, but if she's able to sign what's making her unhappy, for example, then we can help her quicker. So we're teaching her "More," "Drink," "Food," "Sleep," "Nappy," and, well, see if you can work out what this hand action that looks like she's milking a cow is for (there's a not very subtle clue there!)...

That's part 1 of this post. In the next part, Zafra and Parker play some more, Zafra demonstrates her ability to problem-solve and the birthday season starts. See you there.
[By the way, the sign was for "Milk." If you didn't get that, we can recommend a good optician.]

Beware the Destroyer cometh

Hello,

Now very mobile, Zafra has started to reach not just the first shelf of things, not just the second but now the third shelf so we've had to start really explaining to her that some things are not for her to play with. It's very interesting to watch because most of the time she seems to essentially understand what we're saying and will move onto playing with something else. The increased mobility means that Zafra will crawl to and through everything - in the video below Daddy has set up a little hamlet made out of blocks...

There's a rather amazing soft play area near us so we took Zafra there. There's a section for children who cannot yet walk so while other kids were running round, falling over and crying, Zafra was able to play quite happily in her section...

Zafra at the Soft Play area

What's funny about this picture is that, quite by chance, it looks like Zafra has wings.

Zafra either pointing at a flower hanging from the ceiling, or contemplating where God might be.

Everything's a little bit different now - bathtime with Daddy, for example, is less about sitting in Daddy's lap now and more about reaching for things around the bath - the curtain, the shampoos etc., as well as, of course, playing with Pirate Duck (a small rubber duck with pirate patch and bandana from Liz and Michael's wedding which Zafra adores - when she plays with it, Neil has a whole song to the tune of the traditional Spiderman music - "Pirate Duck, Pirate Duck, he doesn't care, he doesn't give a ... damn. Pirate Duck, Pirate Duck, he takes his chances, he plays his luck, look out for Pirate Duck, look out for Pirate Duuuuuuuck"). Her mobility and increased dexterity means that she and Parker can sometimes play with each other - Neil will grab a ball, give it to Zafra who will throw it a matter of inches towards Parker, who will then grab it, run around with it and return it. It's very sweet. Unfortunately, Zafra has learned from Parker that the best way to get down from heights - stairs, bed, etc. - is to jump headfirst so we have to be very much on our guard at all times.

Neil's been off work for the last couple of weeks so after having a few hours in the morning with Zafra while Jenny catches up on the night's sleep, he works heavily in the garden (tomorrow's green big collection will be of 2 full green bins plus 9 large green bags) while Jenny spends a few hours with Zafra. We come back together in the evening for a nice meal, such as at a place called Cheese and Alfie's in Christchurch (Dorset, not New Zealand), where we took the following snaps and vids...

Zafra drinking reminds us of the 80/20 rule... 80% on her lap, 20% in her mouth.

We think it's really important for Zafra to read as much as possible. One of her favourite books is "That's Not My Dragon" and at Cheese and Alfie's they had another version - "That's Not My Penguin...."

"That's not my penguin... it's wings are too shiny..."

They also had a rather interesting book there about a zoo. The child has written off to the zoo for a pet so the zoo keep posting the child different animals....

"...so they sent me a ... lion..."

Neil questions much of this book in terms of pedagogy - what exactly does this book teach children? He says it teaches an unrealistic expectation of the postal service that they will post live animals to children. Secondly, he thinks it potrays zoos as irresponsible by posting deadly animals such as lions and snakes to children. Thirdly, and we hope we're not giving away the ending of this classic piece of literature, they finally send the child a dog, but why is a zoo keeping dogs in the first place? The whole thing is rather questionable but Zafra loves it nonetheless.

Jenny and Zafra often go to parks to get some fresh air and to mix with other children of a similar age...

Moments later, the force of gravity was to take hold and Jenny was to regret standing there to take a photo.

Sleep has not been good recently. Zafra now has her two bottom teeth, a little of one of the top teeth and another top tooth trying to come through but taking forever. So she moans her way through her sleep and tosses and turns, although she LOVES the baby paracetemol solution. The result is that all of us are a bit under the weather with colds and so on, although that doesn't stop Zafra from honking snotty noses or, as you can see at the end of this video, moving from honking to picking!

Of course, Bournemouth being Bournemouth, when we have time we go down to the beach. The best time to go seems to be mornings where it's not too hot or too crowded. Jenny bought a marvellous beach tent so that she can be in the sun while Neil sits in the shade. Zafra loves to get her feet wet in the sea and now, for the first time ever, Parker will run around in the sea as well, possibly to keep an eye on Zafra - he used to run from every wave beforehand.

Zafra, playing with Mummy, sees Daddy and begins the long crawl up the beach for a cuddle.

Cuddle over, Zafra returns to Mummy for a bit of a dip in the sea.

Zafra, beach baby.

It's hard to believe that in a few weeks time Zafra will be one year old. Everyone says it goes quickly, but it's hard to believe how quickly. It's amazing having a daughter, and such a lovely daughter, and this means only a few more years before we actually get some proper sleep again!

We'll probably post again after her birthday celebrations.

Sun, Sea and Surf

Hello,

The weather warning said thundery showers, so the whole family rushed out to the garden centre to get more plants and, most importantly, another water barrel. All our new plants are drinking up a lot of water so this seemed a very good oportunity to harvest it. In the end we got another two, although only one has been fitted yet. Of course, it has hardly rained a drop since installing it, so we still don't know if Neil's actually installed it correctly!

Talking of water, another quick stop to the shops and our little girl is loving our new addition to the garden...

Zafra has perfected the art of lunging on a ball from great heights...

 

The great height is because Zafra is now starting to gain confidence in standing up by herself. She first did it a couple of weeks ago and now can stand up by herself for over 15 seconds. It's amazing to watch, considering she was such a small thing once.

Zafra's Paddling Pool. The inflatable sides allow her to crawl in and out without losing much water.

Zafra and Jenny went down to the beach the other day, to meet up with two other babies from the NCT group, Violet and Alfie (along with their Mummies Debbie and Clare, of course!)

Violet and Alfie look at passersby. While they're distracted, Zafra hunts for a sandwich.

No, she didn't go surfing, if that's what you're wondering. The surf reference in the title is because Zafra's moved up a class in her swimming so now one of the activities they do in the pool is to lie on a small board while Neil pulls her all over the place singing the Hawaii 5-O music (everyone does it, not just Neil!). She seems to be over the Water Wobbles, the period that some babies have where they hate to go in the water. Earlier today, we went down to the local swimming pool and Zafra swam underwater 6 times in about 45 minutes without any grizzles.


Neil has been working very hard recently to get the front and back gardens looking nicer. Before mowing the bejeebers out of the front lawn, though, he took this photo.

Very pretty, but they're all weeds, so they must die.

This being 4th July, we usually go out for a meal at T.G.I. Friday's. Zafra was a bit grizzly when we arrived at the restaurant and no amount of tomato would calm her down (she LOVES tomato). Then Jenny had a great idea...

Just a small piece of bread, US style.

Burger bun! Gimme burger bun!

We had a first as well - Zafra's first encounter with ice cubes. Although the photo below shows her drinking with Daddy, many minutes were spent trying to pull the ice cubes out of the glass first...

Slurp!

After a while, the grizzles returned until Neil took Zafra near a balloon. She loved it but he was very nervous that she would squeeze and pop it and just go bananas with fright. Thankfully, she didn't and was happy for the rest of the evening - in fact she only let the balloon go once we got into the car...

The new face of T.G.I. Friday's.

Now, what should I order?

What can I order that will throw well across the restaurant later?

Happy mummy and baby

  In case you were wondering what Zafra was wearing, it was her special 4th July outfit...

Time to go to bed, but not without a kissy from Daddy before we get into the car...

In case you're wondering, no, Neil isn't bothered about 4th July as an Englishman, because all his ancestors were in Lithuania, Poland etc.at the time!

So, just a quick update because we're trying to get back into the habit of writing this blog more often.

Wishing you all a happy 4th July!

The Big Catch-up... Part II

 
So, our first video is of Zafra in May trying lemon for the first time. It's just interesting for the facial reaction...

There's a competition called the Eurovision Song Contest that happens every year. It used to be hosted by a man called Terry Wogan and you would watch Eurovision as much for his sarcastic commentary more than anything else. He gave it up a few years ago because the voting had become silly - all the Balkan states were voting for each other and therefore they always won. Eurovision is a TV experience as much about the voting as it is the singing. Viewers phone in (we don't) to vote for songs and then each country awards 1,2,3,4,5,6, 8, 10 and 12 points. The results of each country are read in English and French, so it's a good linguistic learning exercise. It is considered utter humiliation if at the end of the evening your country has "nul points" (read in French accent), something the UK achieved only a few years ago. If you win the contest, you host it the following year. Ireland won it four years in a row and have never put in a good entry since because it costs so much to host. Now with the recession, what was really needed was a country with loads of oil money to ensure that they could host it. Now, which countries can we say can be considered as being in Europe? Azerbaijan, maybe? Hmmm.

Zafra contemplates who to vote for. Surely not Azerbaijan, right?

Zafra adds to the Eurovision music...

Zafra decides that this Eurovision entry needs accompaniment...

As well as watching Azerbaijan win Eurovision for the first time, we also recently went to visit Highcliffe Castle with Linda. Highcliffe is an interesting place because it is a castle that a man built while his wife was away thinking he was just going to upgrade the house a little bit. Apparently, she came back and was just a little bit angry! So they had some costumes laying around, hence the following snap of Jenny...

Zafra and Grandma in the Perfumery Tea Rooms in Christchurch

The Amswychs

At the Hare and Hounds pub after a very long walk

Outside the hall in Poole where Zafra's birth was registered. In 1955, lightning struck the clock just as Doc Brown connected a wire to it, thus allowing the 21 Gigawatts of energy to pass into the flux capacitor and therefore send Marty back into the future...

There are times when Neil has to work so Jenny goes out with Zafra. In the following few snaps, Jenny went to Farmer Palmers, a kind-of-local petting farm.

 

Counting sheep, Zafra... well, you know....!

Baa Ram You...

If Daddy had been doing this, there would have been sneezing by now...

So there's something rather funny that they do at Farmer Palmers, which is races. They strap teddy bears to the sheep and have races...

A Day at the Races

Zafra loves anything to do with cameras.

Zafra reads "That's Not My Monster"

So, some other news. It seems that a couple of tadpoles remain in the pond! It's a bit amazing considering that the pond was almost choking with pondweed. There aren't the hundreds that we had before, but hopefully some of the surviving few will become frogs.

We've been to a few weddings recently, a mixture of work and personal, so Zafra's now been to three weddings, with a fourth coming up the day before his first birthday. She's really developing in an extraordinary way. For example, when Zafra used to go for Neil's books in his study, he could just put Parker's bed up sideways to block then books. But now Zafra knows to move the bed out of the way before going for the books, instead of just giving up. That kind of persistence is why she can now climb the stairs by herself and why she has started to stand up by herself - she's done that three times. There are also times when she can pull herself up on something and then let go and be standing there for around ten seconds. It's really awesome to watch, to be honest.

We made this picture extra-large so you could see one thing in particular ... look at Zafra's bottom gum.

The one tooth has developed into two teeth, which has led to many interrupted nights. And the gurgled sounds have developed into primitive words. Dada and Mama both appeared on the same day and, rather strangely, there was one morning recently when Zafra pointed down the stairs to where parker often sits and said very clearly the word "Dog." That could have been coincidence if it weren't for the fact that she went away and five minutes later came back and did it again. What's weird is that we never use the word "Dog," we call him Parker. So it's very odd. There have also been a couple of times when she points to something and it really sounds like she's saying "Look," which is something we often say to get her attention. So there are definitely primitive words. It's very hard to pinpoint a first word - probably Dada and Mama on the same day.


Neil has become a bit of a geek with a boardgame called Star Wars Epic Duels which he bought in New York in 2002 (Adam may still have nightmares about Darth Vader's "All Too Easy" card (probably not, though!)). Neil found a way to create new decks online, so there's been a lot of printing and some buying of Star Wars Miniatures online. It's allowed a new geeky outlet while he also organises an interfaith sustainability agreement between faith communities from the local area.


Jenny hasn't been 100% healthy recently because of a wide variety of British lurgis so there's been a lot of family time at home recently as well. Oh, Jenny's birthday. Because the great British summer seems to be rainy this year we had an indoor picnic with some friends and their babies who then retired after lunch to the ball pit...

Zafra, Violet and Imogen

Ladies wot lunch

 We will try to get better about the blog - sorry for the extended delays.
  Hope you're well.