I’ve been getting lots of visitors recently. Yesterday Lisette came over for some afternoon tea, and brought me great birthday present: a funky beanie. Today Alison came to visit and we all had a yummy lunch together.

I’ve been having so much fun since my birthday, and packages keep arriving in the mail with even more presents for me. Today a big package arrived from my cousin Min and her parents Catie and Glenn, and it contained lots of presents including a groovy backpack and a wooden elephant puzzle. A package also arrived from Jill and family containing this beautiful ballerina skirt that I just love dancing around in.

I’ve also been having lots of fun with my other birthday presents. After playing with the black cats at Grandpa’s place on Friday I started playing with the floppy cat doll that Rowdy gave me for my birthday. I call her “Meow Meow”.

 

Jida came to visit today. I took him to play at my favourite park, and then we went to one of my favourite cafes and had some yummy food.

It is his birthday soon and I hear he’s going to have a party. Can’t wait!

I went to back the toy library this morning. It was so hard to decide what toys to take home, but I ended up choosing this fancy device - I call it the “techno-rocker”. It has everything: a comfy seat, a complex control panel, and its own telephone!

 

I’m getting so confident. I’m walking really well, talking a lot and saying new words every day, following the songs and stories at Story Time, eating lots of different types of food, making new friends and playing with new toys. I’ve also been watching a bit of television: my favourite shows are Play School and Teletubbies. Though, from the look of this photo (taken today at nanna Luba’s place - love the headband) maybe I’ve been watching too much Teletubbies.

I’ve also been surfing the web a bit - with my dad’s supervision, of course - and we found this fabulous creature today. It is officially called a Helicocranchia, but I prefer to call it Wibbly Squid because it reminds me of my best friend.

Just before my birthday we all went down to unposed kids and had these photos taken. It was a lot of fun, especially the bubbles.

 

 

Another huge milestone. Last night I had my first ever shampoo. As you can see I had an absolutely fabulous time.

Today was my friend Jida’s birthday. We went to his birthday party at his grandparents’ place at Mordialloc. I had SO much fun that I didn’t sleep all day. There were lots of other babies there, and lots of great toys to play with in the “mosh pit”. There was also lots of really yummy food - I especially liked the Vietnamese rice paper rolls with mango, and, of course, all the fruit.

 

I also had a great time running along the beach and playing with the beach ball.

 

My dad took me to the zoo today (finally - he’s been talking about going for ages). We saw some fabulous critters: gorillas and orangutans; a huge Sumatran tiger; elephants; beautiful butterfiles; lions; seals; numerous types of birds; and my favourite, the meerkats.

 

I had my first swimming lesson yesterday at the Harold Holt swim centre. It was great fun, but also quite challenging - I loved doing Humpy Dumpty, but found it very hard walking across the raft.

Today we went to visit Nanna Luba and Asher. I helped Asher with his work and then played chasey with Nanna.

Our playgroup met this morning in the St Kilda Botanical Gardens. We had lots of fun today. We all ran around and chased each other, I showed off my ball skills, and we all took turns going for a ride on Mila’s bicycle.

It is hard to believe that it is more than a year since we first met and learnt about fun things like baby massage. Now we are all so grown up. Most of us are walking, and we all eat lots of different types of yummy food. A few of us have also done some interesting travelling in the past year, and have some great stories to share.

Edit (15/8/06): I’ve just added the picture above, which was kindly sent to me by Rex’s dad. It is much better than the one in my photo album: clearer, sharper, and we are all smiling!