For some reason Charlotte has developed a real fascination with cleaning. She loves pushing the broom around. She loves reaching up and pulling the dish cloth off the bench and then proceeds to wipe down her plate, her table, the kitchen cupboards, the floor, daddy, pretty much anything else she can reach. She even tries her hand at loading and unloading the dishwasher, although we obviously have been trying to discourage this a bit given her perpensity for trying to grab knives out of the cutlery holder by the blades.
Overall we’re not displeased, both being of the opinion that she should do chores when she’s old enough, but we’re a bit mystefied as to where she got this all from since we didn’t teach it to her.
Category: Home
Helpful
This morning Charlotte was feeling a little under the weather, but not so much that she didn’t want to help with making the bed
The toothening
Charlotte appears to be going through another round of teething and has had the last day and a half off daycare being generally grumpy and drooling everywhere. Today she is a bit happier, but no sign of the offending chompers emerging, and ongoing floods of slobber so I don’t think we’re out of the woods yet.
Yesterday she didn’t even want to eat bananas, although she did still want to check how tasty and chewey the gravel outside was, so she can’t be too bad.
Anyway. Between Charlotte and the show day public holiday today I’ve had a pretty easy week. Far cry from the hecticness of the fitlrst half of the year.
Theories of evolution
For as long as there have been archeologists there has been debate about how fire was first created, however watching Charlotte rubbing and banging things together it all seems pretty obvious to me.
Currently she really just starting to get highly mobile and highly curious, and her scientific repertoire of investigative methods currently contains:
1. Lick it or chew on it
2. Shake it vigorously
3. Drop it
4. Rub it againt something else, or try and smack it and something else together.
This last one provides me with amusing parallels to the scientific process in the game evil genius, where your science minions wander around trying to find things that they can combine to make a new thing out of. Although the depicted process is slightly more involved, it still in essence boils down to smack two things together (and shoot them with your giant laser) and see if they make something new.
So I can completely understand how kids could have rubbed two things together and discovered fire, in every aspect apart from their 7 second attention span…
Brisbane academy of gastronomic art
In the last week or so Charlotte has latched onto the dual ideas that (1) food can be something to play with, as well as to eat, and (2) this feeding malarkey doesn’t look too hard, and dammit if dad can feed me that I can sure as hell give it a try as well.
The result is that to varying degrees she is not letting us just feed her directly, but rather insisting on picking up the food with her finger, or (more messily, strangely) trying to use the spoon herself. Now given that she’s transitioning into chunky finger food type meals (perhaps unexpectedly she quite likes broccoli) away from “You’d better not ask what’s in that” mush, the potential for food spreadage is theoretically reduced, but not enough that the overall process isn’t creating a fair bit more work for me at the end of every dinner.
So for the next little while at least we get to roll up her sleeves and ours, and spend the evening making enquiries into the canvas properties of high chair trays, the aesthetic qualities of spaghetti and pre-chewed potato, and the role of passing cats as professional art critics (I don’t know art, says Jack, but I know what tastes good when it’s dropped).
The process of science
One of the games I own and play periodically is called Evil Genius, and in it you control minions, including scientist minions.
Now in the game, the process of scientific progress and innovation involves said scientist minions wandering around your secret lair and looking for things that can be combined together to create new (and hopefully useful) objects.
This appears to be how Charlotte’s brain is working at the moment, and I’m chuffed to watch it in action. She keeps on picking one thing up, wandering around with it for a while, finding something else, looking at it thoughtfully for a moment, and then either directly hitting it with the first object (which is often a wodden block or plastic spoon) or picking it up and trying to smack the two things together. Recent combinations include aforementioned plastic ball + another plastic ball. Plastic ball + TV. Lid from toilet roll holder + bath toy. Toilet roll + bath tap. Xylohone toy + daddy’s leg. And all of them make good noises (the last combination producing a very satisfying “Ouch” for her efforts), which is an added bonus.
Takeoff
Charlotte has now started crawling in ernest.
Initially we had to make sure she didn’t overbalance in the process and scone herself on the head. Now we’re having to put the cat’s food bowl out of reach. Next it’ll be putting things up on shelves. Eventually it’ll be finding wall space to hang her medals from the International association of athletics federations meets.
As an aside, because this entry has been a while coming I have had time to contemplate the title, and I felt that some of the other title options were worth sharing with you:
- Per ardua ad astra (which is the motto of the Australian Air Force, translating as “Through adversity, to the stars).
- Do the locomotion
Sit-rep
Today Simone got official confirmation that next year she would be at the Princess Alexandra hospital for the first six months and at Greenslopes hospital for the second six months.
As for me, I will be at the QE2 Hospital.
Overall this means we will be back on the south side, and looking to blow some of Charlotte’s inheritence on reacquainting ourselves with our favorite restaurants and hang outs around town, should any of you out there wish to join us.
Also, there will be the possibility of an Australia day BBQ, work schedules permitting. More plans closer to the time.
Pentapod
As she continues to rapidly grow up (she’s onto eating solids and really likes beans and pumpkin (not together obviously)) Charlotte has almost mastered sitting up unsupported, and is making valliant efforts to push herself up onto all fours. We are already getting the house locked down in the expectation that she will start crawling any time. At the moment she can’t quite support herself on her arms and legs so she rests on her head as well, creating a sort of ostrich appearance, head in the sand like. She ends up looking like some strange five legged creature (in a pale pink jumpsuit).
Milestones
Today Charlotte reinforced our impressions that she is rapidly growing up.
She did her first proper roll over, from back to front, and heeding our friend Chantelle’s warning that it’s not science unless it’s reproducable she then proceeded to do it another two times, just to show how clever she is.
Later in the afternoon she also gave us some social laughs, the first ones she had directed specifically at us (you may recall that she previously giggled at our tour guide in Cambodia).