HP7, P1

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1: 4/5

Cast: Same as the last 6 movies!

In a nutshell: Just like an old friend who has returned.  Setting the scene for all the action in Part 2.

Brief Synopsis: Voldemort’s death eaters have infiltrated the Ministry of Magic.  Harry Potter must find and destroy the remaining horcruxes in order to defeat him.

Much has been said about the greedy money making tactics of the film makers of HP7 in splitting the seventh book into two parts.  Most critics have said that Part 1 was slow and the story did not warrant splitting into two movies.  Having devoured all the books a long time ago, I look forward to each movie as a guilty pleasure, and I do not want the series to end.  Part 1 did not have a lot of action, but I felt it had enough suspense to keep the story going, and you can just feel it ramping up for some all out action in the last instalment.  I also enjoyed the interaction between the main characters now that they are much older and more mature.  It is like seeing your nephew or niece grow up.  Perhaps not the best of movies if you are not a fan of the books and movies, but very enjoyable for the rest of us.

Must be someone else’s child!

 

Jade hit the 12 week mark this past week.  At her 12 week check up, she weighed in at 5.44kg and measured 62cm long.  In relative terms, she’s pretty much slap bang on average for weight, and somewhere between the 85-90th percentile for length.  With a mother who is only 4’10”, something weird is going on!

 

 

At 12 weeks she is a lot more vocal.  In particular, the baby talk seems to ramp up when she is tired or complaining about something.  Even then it is still very cute!

 

My favourite thing that she does at the moment is put both her fists in the air and keeps them there for ages.

Dancing with the mouse

 

Kungfu Baby!

 

She is also starting to grab things now.  Sometimes we put the maraca in her hand and she’ll shake it around for about 10 minutes without even realising she’s holding it.

 

Still hates Tummy Time though.

 

  

 

 

  Pretty in Pink!

  I don’t like drenching our little girl
  in pink (can be hard to find non-
  pink clothes for baby girls), but I
  have to admit it does make her
  look prettier.

   

Loving these cute baa lamb overalls,
a gift from Jade’s Ang Aunts and Uncles.

 

 

  The social butterfly, hanging out
  with:

  Michael, Amy, Daniella & Dante
  (above)

  Gong-gong (right)

 

 

 

 

Beautiful Jade

The Social Network: 3.75/5

Cast: Jesse Eisenberg (Zombieland), Andrew Garfield (The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus), Justin Timberlake (The Love Guru)

In a nutshell: Well made and intriguing

Synopsis: The story of how Facebook came to be

 

Often I find that biographic movies tend to plod along with no particular climax and as a result are rather boring and dull.  Despite being a biographic account of Mark Zuckerberg and how he went from computer geek to the creator of Facebook (and despite the vomiting infant I went to see this with) I found myself interested in how it all happened, who were the players and what happened to them.  As always David Fincher (Director: Fightclub) has done a superb job, and the actors are all good, giving understated and effective performances.  It wasn’t a wow movie, but surprisingly it did leave me thoughtful afterwards.

Busy Baby

 

 

The life of a baby is pretty tough.  All this growing and learning, eating and sleeping makes the days fly past.

In the last couple of weeks Jade and I have been stepping out to try and mix it up a bit.

 

BABY AROUND THE TOWN

- Mothers’ Group has started up and will run every Friday for 6 weeks. If nothing else it is good to have something that makes you get out of the house each week.  It’s a 45 minute walk each way, so I’m getting exercise.  The other mother’s are lovely, and it’s handy hearing their experiences and tips and seeing what the other babies are doing.

- Mums & Bubs Session: We went and saw The Social Network a couple of weeks ago (see following post for review).  With the lights left on dim you can feed and see what you are doing.  Only, they forgot to leave the lights on at first, so it was dark and Jade threw up in the first 5 minutes.  Luckily it was not a big one and we managed to make it through the rest of the movie, although somewhat smelly.  The cinema was near empty so there was room to spread out, and it was good to not have to stress if your baby started to cry.  I think I will definitely go back in future.

- Rhyme Time: On Thursday mornings our local library runs Rhyme Time (or Baby Karaoke, as it is called at Bulleen Library).  One of the librarians takes the parents and children under 2 years old through a number of nursery rhymes and songs.  Although she is a little young to partake as yet, Jade didn’t cry for the half hour, so I take that as a sign of success!

- A Week Away: Gideon was away this week for work, so we spent most of the week out at Gong-gong and Poh-poh’s house.  Luckily Jade was flexible and seemed to bathe and sleep well there, which made me very happy as it meant I had some support if I needed it, and best of all, Mum’s delicious home cooked meals every night.  She was particularly hypnotized by the view of the trees moving with the breeze and even put up with her Mum’s very rusty piano playing.

 

BABY PICTURES

I can’t stop taking pictures of our little munchkin.  As each day goes by she gets more animated and it is harder to pick favourites.  So here is a well culled selection:

 

Good morning Mummy!!  Have you come to feed me?

 

Sitting practice with Daddy. No need to look so forlorn little Jade!

 

More learning how to sit.  Somehow Sitting Jade always looks smaller and cuter than Horizontal Jade!

 

One day she spent a large portion of her waking hours staring at her fist.

 

Fist sucking is also a favourite hobby of late.

 

In the portacot at Gong-gong & Poh-poh’s.  That’s not a sleepy face!

 

Reading Cat in the Hat with Daddy.  Very focused.

I think Jade looks like a toy doll in this photo!

 

Usually Jade gets overtired around 5-6pm each day, and this is the result.

 

*Sigh* – what a busy day.

Baby - Environmental Blackhole

Rant of the Week:
As harmless as they may appear (see Exhibit A), I have arrived at the conclusion that babies are a major contributing factor to our environmental problems.

Exhibit A

Last week our little cherub embarked on a campaign to deplete our considerable supply of linen. There were all sorts of bodily functions going on, mainly vomiting, on change mats, bedsheets, towels and me! Who would have thought such a little thing could create so much washing.

Then, there are the nappies... there have been times when there have been two nappy changes required during one half hour feed. We made the decision to go with disposable nappies which contributes greatly to landfill. The alternative is cloth nappies which do not contribute as much to landfill, but require a lot of water and soap for washing, plus electricity assuming you do not wash by hand. I will be the first to admit, that although cloth nappies may have a lesser environmental impact, the thought of all that washing scares me, so I will have to concede that I am not doing my part for the environment.

Two Apologies:

1. Apologies to those who have been waiting for an update and new photos. My computer has been playing up and needs a rebuild (good excuse for being lazy).

2. Also apologies and thanks to those who have been posting comments on the blog, I just realised that I am now required to moderate and approve the comments before they appear on the blog, whereas this was previously not required. They should all be appearing now. : )

Latest Photos:

Play time

There is something about the way babies yawn that I find adorable.
Thankyou Amma for the very cute growsuits.
Loving the fact that spring has brought some warm weather so that she can wear them.


Cycling practice, with help from puppy.


The last couple of weeks we have started to see a lot more expression from our little baby. Jade has started to smile (although Gideon still doesn't believe me!) and baby talk. Definitely makes all the cleaning and night time feeds worthwhile.

Jade has something to say


Not happy Mum


Nah, just joking

Milestones

Last week Jade turned one month old. It feels as if we have had her a lot longer, so much has happened and we have learnt so much about being parents to a newborn baby. And just as we are getting used to having our new play-thing she continues to change and grow every day… I imagine we will continue to learn how to be parents for the next twenty or so years.

This is the birthday bun I bought in celebration… of course it was completely for my own benefit.

Last Monday was also Jade’s 4-week check up. She continues to grow at a healthy rate, weighing 3.985kg and measuring 54.5cm tall. I feel very blessed to have a healthy little girl (that is, when she’s not crying).

Helping Daddy with the washing.

Hmmm… maybe washing is not so interesting.

Yes, some of the singers on X Factor really are that bad.

L: Favourite sleeping position – The Running Man

R: @ Bath time

Hanging out with Poh-poh.

Little Squeaker a.k.a. Jade

After months of being asked “Do you have a name yet?”, culminating in some intense cajoling from eager family and friends in the last month, we finally got off our arses and made a decision!

I had gotten used to using all sorts of pet names in lieu of a proper name and that is probably going to be a hard habit to break.  So our Baby Girl, Little Squeaker, Pumpkin, Sweetie, Little Munchkin, Cheeky Monkey, Rainbow, Snorkler, Little Piggy shall henceforth be called:

Jade Arwyn Meiyu Rann

 

Of the long list of names we had, we narrowed it down to a few favourites and Jade seemed to suit our little lady the most.  Arwyn is a nod to Gideon’s Welsh heritage.  Meiyu is her Chinese name, and literally means beautiful jade.

Other than that, not much other news to report.  Time is going fast, and Jade is nearly a month old already.  Every day she seems to have grown and even her looks have changed slightly as her face fills out a little. 

Here are some shots from playtime.