I've finally realized why we have eyelashes: so we can still somehow
cycle through the driving snow. I've also realized why we have
fingers: so we can wipe any water or condensation away from one's eyes
(that forms from breathing through a scarf) before it freezes. So it's
been a very cold December.
Since the playmates have dried up somewhat (I suppose most people are
running off for some warmth), we've bought a month membership card for
Hannah to go to a kind of gym for kids. You know the kind, full of
slides, roundabouts and ball ponds. She's the youngest kid in there by
a few months (since few other kids are walking yet) and she can't
really make the most of the equipment but still, she'll crawl up the
stairs to the slide (and fall down the slide), and she'll run around
chasing balloons that are being blown by fans, she'll sit on a swing
and hold on (whilst we push her), and she'll sit on a roundabout. It's
quite sweet, though also amusing, when she'll get to the top of the
slide and play with the little screw in the top, or get to the bottom
of the slide and turn around absorbed with the flashing light on the
side.
She's certainly looking like a toddler but not entirely acting like
one yet. She's sort of half way there. She'll open cupboards and slide
doors. Her latest trick is to get a spoon, but instead of banking it
against a pot which used to be her definition of fun, she'll put it in
a cup, pick the cup up and shake it around. How mature!! She's picking
up her own baby cup and putting it to her mouth but does not yet tip
it back far enough to get anything out of it. She'll push her little
shopping trolley until it hits a wall but then she's not worked out
how to turn it or move it to go in another direction.
She's worked out how to speak a word: ba. And says it all the time,
but she's not given it a meaning yet! So she's making progress. She's
always been a bit of a quiet one so she might not be that fast to
talking. Besides which apparently kids which grow up bilingual are a
bit slower. And at the moment she's still hearing more chinese from
the nanny than english from us. But Hannah came in handy last week
when a taxi driver took pity on us in the cold and picked us up
instead of someone else.
Christmas come-and-gone. We went to a few social events, or held our
own. Nothing major, but some lunches and dinners here and there in the
days beforehand. Not much present-wise, although we do have a tiny
wooden christmas tree, fireplace, snowman and presents that came for
free when we bought something else. Hannah enjoyed grabbing them off
the table and throwing them on the floor. Thankfully she's certainly
moved on past the stage of grabbing glasses or other things to throw
around. And she's definitely in the mood for imitating whatever she
can. She even tried to jump when we showed her how.... all she ended
up doing though was sort of shaking her legs a bit!
I've been going through photos and uploading them to flickr
(www.flickr.com/adamsphotos) but still got a few hundred more to do.
Much of the above moments are recorded in photos and videos on there,
or coming soon. We went and printed a bunch recently and were inspired
to look through some of the old ones. Apart from the passport photo
which was taken on day 6 with her eyes closed and looking like a monk,
the rest are quite adorable. I can't really recognize the baby that
existed in the first two months, but from the time she hit three
months until today she looks very similar. a bit more hair and a few
teeth, but broadly the same. Certainly the same facial expressions
which are really the wonder of babies. So, the closing thought for
this email - what was life like before cameras existed and how did
that affect memories? I pity the parents who could not take photos of
their kids. Having said that i bet Hannah will be distraught when she
is old enough to realize just how many photos of her exist... and
they're all online!
Well maybe by that time everything will be online and she'll just
think it's normal. And how weird for us not to have our entire lives
portrayed, recorded and publicly viewable online... indeed. Yes, i
suppose i do feel a bit older now than i used to. I've been told
Hannah will be able to use an iPhone should we give her one fairly
soon and by the time she's two, though she won't be talking a lot,
she'll already be beating me at computer games. That i can handle. But
despite all the training and practice we've giving her, i hope i'm
still the better footballer than her at that age. Otherwise it won't
be so easy to take!
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