February 2016

January 2016

I'm having a bit of a break from posting every week this year. Instead I'll post a few photos (ok. a lot.) once a month.

These photos were taken during January. 

Molly was helping Poppy wash his car in the backyard. 

In the three pictures directly below she is pretending to be an aeroplane.

Bye-Bye 2015

My last post for this year is a bit of an extra. My 52 photos finished just after Christmas but I couldn't resist one more to see the year out.

I can't believe the change in Molly over the last year. She is a real little person now. She talks and has full command over her body (although she still gets a little clumsy when tired).  This time last year she was only freshly walking and saying just a few words. She has a huge vocabulary now. I have to be honest and say that my first year with Molly was a real struggle for me. I'm not a fan of babies - they are strange creatures to me who are very hard to please. If I couldn't cope with a baby I wondered how I would ever cope with a toddler or a child or a teenager. But I'm happy, and really quite proud, to say that as Molly grows up I learn more and more about her and I love what I'm discovering. She has the best of Geoff and me. She is very bright. This thrills me and fills me with dread at the same time. I feel great pressure to nurture her intelligence but to temper her smarts with compassion and a sense of humanity. I want her to be brilliant, inventive and resourceful but also kind, compassionate and humane. Of course I have grand visions of her vocation in life but really what it all boils down to is I want her to be confident in her skin and useful and kind to others. 

I wonder what 2016 will bring us?

52/52

Wow. 52/52. I can't believe I finished it. Not really true to what I set out to achieve though. At the beginning of the year I wanted to learn to pick one photo. To let that one photo tell my story. I haven't learnt anything in that respect! But I have a lot of lovely photos of my gorgeous daughter. 

This Christmas was very special. Molly finally understands the joy of gift giving and receiving, the excitement of anticipation and the adventure of things out of the ordinary. After a trial run with her birthday in October, Molly knew full well that something wrapped in paper was something to be excited about. "Open?" she would ask me pointing to one of the gifts under the tree. "Not yet, Bub. On Christmas day". "Soon" She would reply earnestly.

On Christmas morning the unwrapping of a gift for Molly would be followed by a quiet "Woooowww!". She was also very concerned that everyone else had a gift to unwrap also. These are all virtues I hope to encourage in her when it comes to Christmas. I'm always a bit sad at how much stuff goes with Christmas these days. Expensive presents, fancy meals, the advertising, the selling, the buying... Hopefully we can make our lives a bit simpler, a bit more meaningful. Focusing on being together and enjoying each others company and being thankful for what we have. 

Merry Christmas xx

51/52

Molly loves to draw. She's been able to hold a pen with perfect grip since she was about 18 months old. She concentrates very hard practising circles and lines and more recently, colouring in. She is very good with her fine motor skills - an artist, a surgeon...?

50/52

We're in Hobart this week. Geoff's working on the cricket test so we've hitched a ride. Molly travels pretty well but a few late nights and early mornings have caught up with her. We're getting back on track but it severely limits what I can achieve in a day.

49/52

Molly got this hobby horse from her Nana for her 2nd birthday. She was pretty much ignoring it until this week. Now she likes to ride her "sersey" around the house. We have moved ourselves up to Sydney for a month (with next week in Tassie). My sister in law and her family are travelling to Europe for a month and we are housesitting and looking after the dog.

I get this look ALL THE TIME.