The house needs a new round of child proofing.

Wow, take a little girls first steps and add 10 days!

Emily walking (first steps plus 10 days) from Candace K on Vimeo.

Stupid product design - Microwaves

In our kitchen the microwave is located under the bench top, perfectly situated at Emily height. Upon trying to use said microwave I discovered the screen showing "child". Was this some warning from the mighty powers within the machine that it was watching us? Was it going to say Adult next, did it know my name? Is this the start of the machines taking over?

Fortunately, it turns out that the microwave was only locked in child proof mode, but how did this happen. Asking all in the house that had a grasp on the English language (ie everyone except the 11 month old) whether they had set the child lock, resulted in negative replies all round.

So who had done this? Little Emily scoots over to check out what daddy is looking at and starts pushing buttons, interestingly the same button repeatedly.

Out comes the owners manual to find out how to set, and more importantly unset the child lock. To set, press the "Start" button three times, to unset, press the "stop" button threes times. Rocket science!

I don't know what the product designers were thinking when that they came up with that inspired keystroke sequence, but it is perfectly clear that they do not have a single child between them. If I have learned one thing in my short time parenting, it is that a child (particularly ours) will press the same button over and over when said button emits a satisfying beep when pressed.

Hopefully she doesn't learn the unset sequence, but I'm not confident in that one.

Walking practice

Little Emily is getting some great walking practice in, and now is not keen to stay sitting on the ground! Who is smiling more, Emily or mum?

This babe was made for walking....

We have been helping Emily walk between Bryce and I for a few weeks now, but until tonight, she has never taken unassisted steps. We were anticipating the first steps anyday now, so we grabbed the camera fortunately at just the right time to record it all.
Enjoy! We sure did.

Emily's first steps from Candace K on Vimeo.

Almost a whole year.

Continuing the theme of taking the monthly image with George the bear; Emily now won't sit still long enough to get the photo. It is the first of the standing images I guess.


Emily hadn't really seen TV until the Christchurch earthquake last month, when we were glued to the evening news trying to comprehend the devastation. Emily had worked out within 30mins that the remote control was the key to this new world and now carries one with her whenever possible.

When all else fails.

When the feeder gets sick of the kid spitting food back at you, and all normal distraction methods have failed, it's on to extreme measures. Bust out the lap top, find Tigger and Pooh on youtube and voila, instantly no more spitting.

I've never seen anything like it, from full power spitting "there is no way I'm going to eat this" to "I'll eat anything you put in my mouth" in a couple of seconds. You will note the feeder is appropriately attired with cooking apron, plus the laptop keyboard is fully covered in protection ready mode.

Bike ride number one.

Now that we have got little Emily a helmet (and it's still too big) it was out for the inaugural family bike ride.

Well into the ride, and taking a close look at the image you can see that Emily is a happy passenger, and Candace is a concerned looking pilot.

One happy passenger.

Baby Backpacking....

We went for a wee tramp on the weekend with our friends Guy and Cheryl and their little girl Mia. Both families just recently purchased some Macpac baby carriers and were eager to try them out in the bush, so we found a flattish trail and went for it.
New Zealand bush never fails to impress as you can see with the beautiful hues of green moss, luscious ferns and intricately weaved branches on the trees.





Mia and Emily enjoyed their picnic together, even pausing at one stage to give each other a back rub.


However, Mia tuckered herself out with all the excitement on Daddy's back and decided to have a small rest from all the tough tramping.



We had a great time and Emily liked being out of the stroller on our adventure, and seeing everything from adult height. She waved at alot of things in the forest and would check everything out when Bryce stopped to let her touch the moss and the trees.
Many more adventures to come.