120 posts tagged “petra”

When I point a camera at Petra these days, she makes faces at me or gives me big cheesy scrunch-faced photo grins before rushing over to look at the picture.  Natural photos are not easy to come by as a result.  I have to sneak up on her.

Here she is posing with a cart we borrowed from the toy library across the road.

Petra's gotten very enthusiastic about drawing and writing recently.  We bought her a little etch-a-sketch this afternoon so that she can practice without being tempted to draw on the furniture.  (I've been finding scribbles in unexpected places because she sneaks off to test out her skills on any available flat surface when no one's looking.)   She walked around the store with it, writing industriously and bumping into things because she wasn't watching where she was going.  And she kept on writing for the rest of the afternoon.

She came up to me waving the etch-a-sketch around and yelling "P P P".  She'd written a clearly recognisable letter P on the etch-a-sketch and was extremely pleased with herself.  Yay Petra!  She's been interested in how we write her name for a while now, getting us to write it for her over and over, and she's been producing Petra-like squiggles, but today's effort was by far the clearest so far.

I took a picture for posterity.

The weather has been fabulous, amazing, stunning - 20 degrees today and August is usually the coldest month in this part of the world.  Lambs frisk, our camellias and irises are in bloom and the rhododendrons and daffodils aren't far behind.  We've visited beaches and gardens, spotted albatross on the peninsula, and shown Petra around the town.  I'm loving it here.

Here are a few photos from our outings.

 

We have spent the week recovering from a nasty flu bug - chills, fevers, coughs, the full deal.  The joys of winter in Dunedin.  Actually the weather's been very pleasant since the snow - calm, mild, and sunny - but it's undeniably winter and that's a shock after three years of perpetual summer.  My neighbours have flown off to Rarotonga for two weeks in the sun, leaving me to collect their mail.  I envy them their tropical island.

Hanging out in front of the fire with Petra brings its own satisfactions however.

We're witnessing one of Petra's periodic developmental leaps.  She sings, she dances, she runs around. She sticks stickers on the walls and draws on her feet.  She spends ages quietly absorbed in putting things in other things and taking them out again.  Her language acquisition proceeds at a dazzling pace.  She walks around the room pointing at objects, waiting for us to name them, and repeating the names after us.  She says "look" and "hello" and "up please".  She takes our cellphone and walks round the lounge talking and laughing into the aether.  She's very cuddly.  Leave takings are lengthy affairs because she works her way round the room kissing, and often rekissing, everyone.  She likes to fall asleep at night with her arms wrapped around my neck and her face on mine.  I enjoy that as well - I get to breathe in her baby smell and kiss her soft baby cheeks as she dozes.

She's also revealing her inner egomaniac these days.  Olivia came to stay a couple of weeks ago and Petra was a thug baby with her.  I gave Olivia a drink in a purple cup because Miss O is very very keen on purple and Petra stole the cup, hugged it to her chest and handed Olivia her own, much less desirable green cup.  I had to find another purple cup for Petra to avert a tragedy.  Petra's also discovered that she elicits all sorts of interesting reactions if she pulls Olivia's hair or pokes at her.  I spent a lot of time soothing Olivia's wounded feelings while trying to convince Petra to be gentle.  They did play nicely as well, as long as I hovered nearby to deal with potential trouble.

 

I'm mustering up the courage to attend a nearby playgroup to give Petra a chance to socialize with other kids her own age.  I fear that it will be a nervewracking experience as Petra tests her edges against the other kids.

Miss Olivia turned four this week and had her party last Sunday.  A very fine time was had by all.  Olivia and her 4-year-old cronies consumed vast amounts of junk food, played games, and raced around.  Petra ate grapes and veges, played happily with the wee book that was her pass-the-parcel treasure, and wandered along behind the bigger kids watching all the hi jinks.  The girls raided Olivia's wardrobe and emerged wearing her fairy dresses (she has several).  Petra got to wear a ladybird costume that was too small for everyone else.

 

Petra had a busy day today.  She missed her nap time because we were getting our hair cut.  She was so tired that she just sat on the chair all by herself and went into a trance while the hairdresser snipped away at her fringe.  When it was my turn for the chair, Petra hung out with Carla and Olivia who'd kindly come down to look after her for me.  She didn't take much wrangling though. curling up on Carla's lap until it was time to go home.  I thought she'd go to sleep in the car but she didn't.  In fact she perked up enough to help Travis get firewood in from the garage.  She climbs the steps all by herself and proudly carries in the little pieces of wood Travis gives her to hold.  At the moment she loves to help us and to show off her rapidly increasing skills.  Once she's dropped her wood onto the pile, she holds her hands out to be wiped.  She didn't used to mind a bit of grime, but these days she doesn't like to have dirty hands.

We went down to the local Starbucks for tea and coffee (it's a nice reminder of life in Vancouver) and Petra walked along the street between me and Travis.  We hold her hands and let her set the pace - she stops to stare at loud boys and buses and veers across the footpath to look in shop windows.  When we reached the Starbucks she dropped our hands and rushed up to the door to try to open it, then walked confidently up to the counter.  We've been there enough recently that she knows the drill.

She was a very tired wee lass by the time we got home and was in her high chair eating tea well before 5pm.  She didn't make it through her food despite the early start.  She ate pasta, flicked tomato sauce all over my nice pale walls, then passed out in her seat.  We had to bath her to get her to wake up enough to last until bedtime.  (If we let her go to sleep too early, she thinks she's just napping and wakes up after an hour or so, then we have a terrible time trying to get her back to bed.)

I wrote this on Friday afternoon but didn't publish it then because I was too worried about my aunt and uncle.

The good news:

• Travis's work permit came through today.  We only submitted the forms 7 days ago, so the New Zealand immigration people were very prompt indeed.  Travis got an email to tell him he could pick it up.  It came from a .gov.nz address, and was complete with a smiley face emoticon - an unexpectedly friendly touch to go with the efficiency. 
• After a few days of cold and storm, the weather was bright, calm, and warmish.  We walked up and down the street with Petra to celebrate. 
• Petra made her first spontaneous multi-word sentence, "No please" in reply to Carla's offer of a cup of milk.  She's been using phrases that we use for a while now - things like "here you are", "there you go", "thank you", "one arm, two arms" (said as we dress her) - but "no please" is the first phrase she's invented for herself (that I've heard anyway - she might be saying all kinds of things that we don't quite understand).

The bad news:

• I attended a funeral yesterday.  Mum's partner's brother died suddenly last weekend.  It was a big, warm, communal affair that the family found very comforting.  But it was upsetting even so, and even though I'd only met Murray a couple of times.  Funerals throw you back into all your own losses and I felt terribly sad for mum's partner Kelvin as well.
• My aunt and uncle were in a serious car accident yesterday afternoon.  They're in hospital with multiple broken bones.  We may be able to visit at the weekend, but we don't know yet just how serious their injuries are.   It's horrible waiting, not knowing, and not being able to do anything.

Saturday evening update:
My sister and I visited Uncle Bruce in hospital this afternoon.  He's sore and sorry and still very shocked; he's also desperately worried about his wife who's in much worse shape than him, but he's up and about and will probably be released on Monday.  My aunt, who was in a medically-induced coma for a couple of days to give her body more chance to rest and heal, was briefly awake and talking this afternoon.  She has a long recovery period in front of her but the fact that she can respond to the people around her is a huge first step.

Petra was a real star today.  Olivia spent the afternoon with us which meant that Petra didn't get her nap or her middle-of-the-day breastfeed.  She was too busy playing to stop for sleep or food.  Despite the lack of sleep, she was perky and happy all afternoon.  She's a very mellow baby.  We're lucky. 

She was, however, in danger of falling asleep in her tea time pasta - her head got too heavy for her neck and her eyelids kept closing.  I had to talk and sing and pat her face to keep her awake.  Poor thing.  I always feel like a horrible mum when she dozes in her chair.  She managed to put away quite a bit of food though and perked up for her bath.  She loves her bath so much that we can't even mention the word or she's off running down the hall yelling ba ba ba demanding that we fill the tub for her.  We have to spell it out instead. 

After her bath, she was very definite about needing to be breastfed.  And I'm not surprised since she'd gone about 10 hours between feeds - the longest gap ever.  She didn't seem fazed at all, but me and my breasts definitely noticed. 

Then she went happily off to bed just after 7.  It's strange and wonderful to have an early-to-bed baby after the randomness of the first year.  I'm still adjusting to the return of something approaching normality.

These days, I seem to spend my life perpetually doing the washing.  Who knew that one small person could produce so many dirty clothes.  Fortunately I don't mind dealing with the laundry.

Petra thinks it's all good fun and joins in enthusiastically, which means that I find socks stashed in unexpected places and the contents of our lower drawers strewn all over the floor and clean clothes mixed in with dirty ones.  Her earnest efforts to wrangle things and the way she preens and struts when she manages to hang, fold or put away something are very endearing, even when her "help" is not particularly helpful.

Here she is surrounded.