Keeping Harry entertained (and inside) after a bath

The Development of a Child

In 1985, between January and November, my next door neighbour submitted 4 assignments for school based on my development as a child from 17 months to 26 months. I had forgotten about this until I was able to open my old bedroom's wardrobe for the first time in 3.5 years.

Thought I'd transcribe it here, as it's entertaining in parts - and I keep misplacing the originals.

31/1/85
Name: Amy Elisabeth Brown
DOB: X/X/1983
Birth Weight: 8lb 8
Height: 53cm

Factual Points
First walked: 26th January, 85
First talked: 5 months
First sat up: 7 months
First crawled: 12.5 months
First tooth: 9 months
Toilet trained: 20 months
First words: Mum, Dad

Quiet, cantankerous when she wants her own way, shy with strangers, doesn't like noise, obedient, loving.

Any Development?
Feeds herself now, understands commands, drinks well out of a cup.

26/3/85
Amy Elisabeth Brown
Age: 19 months

How well can she speak?
She now speaks quite well. Her favourite word is Pooh, referring to her toy Pooh bear. She often speaks to herself in a continual gurgle you can't understand.

How many teeth does she have?
She now has twelve teeth with another four beginning to surface.

What is her present weight? height?
She now weighs 10 kilos and is 75cm tall.

How does she behave?
Amy is good with her mum during the day but mucks up when her dad gets home. This is mainly to get attention. She becomes wingey around 5 and 6pm. Unfriendly with strangers. She goes to a play group during the week and really enjoys playing with the other children.

What are her favourite toys? hobbies?
Pooh bear and Harry horse are her favourite toys, mainly stuffed toys. She also enjoys drawing - scribbling.

How well can she walk?
Amy walks very well, she also loves running around the house.

Is she interested in TV?
Each day Amy watches and participates in Romper Room, she sings and plays her musical piano. She also loves Simon Townsend's Wonder World and commercials.

Any other developments?
She now understands exactly what you're saying. Especially words such as hot, her mum says if she tells Amy something is dangerous she falls down and starts screaming.

She doesn't eat much but she eats a lot of fruit and vegetables and very little sweets. Her favourite foods are fish fingers, tomatoes, cheese, sausages, and fruit such as apples and strawberries.

Whenever her mum goes shopping Amy imitates her by getting her pram and shopping basket. She also wears a plastic watch and whenever someone cleans their teeth, Amy cleans hers just for the sake of it.

Amy is well-behaved and likes attention.


5/8/85
Amy Elisabeth Brown
Age: 23 months

Has her speech improved?
Yes, her speech has improved a lot. She tells her dog to go away. She asks where her dad is and understands the reply.

How many teeth does she have?
Amy has the same amount of teeth. That being sixteen.

What is her present weight? height?
Her present weight is 14 kilos and she is 89cm tall.

What is her behaviour like?
She is usually very co-operative, the only time she does not obey is when she is on a swing. She loves swings. She is no longer bottle fed. She gets annoyed and loses her temper occasionally. She enjoys watching older children playing, such as sport, but yet does not play with her peers.

What does she watch on TV?
She watches Romper Room. She does not watch any set program, but she usually watches whatever is on channel two. She went out for tea the other night and was well behaved, she hardly moved or fidgeted at all.

Have her tastes in toys changed?
They have really changed a lot. She is really into mothering toys, such as bathing, feeding, putting nappies on and pushing her stroller. She loves wooden puzzles. She no longer reads as much as she used to.

Have her food tastes changed? What are her favourite foods? Has her appetite increased?
She loves her breakfast, cornflakes with wheat germ and banana with peaches. She eats about 4 triangles of sandwich for lunch. She loves chicken, chips, banana, fish fingers.

Does she socialise more with friends at pre-school?
All the children play on their own at playgroup but sit together. But their friends have twins, and Amy plays chasings and giggles a lot with them. She follows older children who are older than her and really enjoys their company. She dislikes rough children and makes sure she has little to do with them. Loud children scare Amy, so she stays away from them.

26/10/85
Amy Elisabeth Brown
Age: 26 months

How many teeth has she got?
Amy still has sixteen teeth, but is due for the next number of teeth to come down.

What is her present weight? height?
She weighs 14 kilos and is 91cm high.

Has her speech improved?
Yes, she now speaks in sentences. She says things you wouldn't expect her to say like aeroplane, chipmunk. She says please and thank you. At dinner time she says things like, "Pass me the knife, please".

What is her behaviour like?
Still obedient, but tries to exert her independence. Such as when she is down the back and her mum says to come inside, she says "No, I want to stay". Her mum sometimes has to bargain with her. She's a little show-off- but a lovely one.

Have her tastes in toys changed?
She imagines things now, she pretends she's on an aeroplane. She likes to play with water. She makes the lounge into a car and drives it, making noises. She plays with building blocks and reads a lot. She imitates the boy down the back playing cricket.

Have her food tastes changed? Does she eat more?
She now eats spaghetti bolognese and rice. She now eats chops and loves chips. Likes yoghurt. She likes fruit and sultanas, she sometimes eats four apples a day.

Does she socialise at pre-school?
She plays well with kids who are gentle, she doesn't like bully kids. She plays happily by herself in other children's company.

What was Amy's reaction her new sister?
At first she was a bit shell shocked. But now she is very loving, and protective, she doesn't like other kids touching her and often pushes them away. She likes to kiss Laura and cuddle her. If Laura starts to cry she tells her mum and dad to go and get her. She is never jealous of her. She seems to know when Laura is awake before her mum does.

She attends playschool once a week from 9.30am to 11.30am. The mothers attend and help organise activities. They sometimes go on picnics and other excursions together.

She still loves Playschool and Simon Townsend. She is no longer afraid of animals, she likes to go to animal farms where you can feed them.

If a daytime serial is on where someone is arguing Amy becomes quite concerned and wants to know what is wrong and why they're fighting.

Eliminate Excuses

As the work year is kicking in I'm busier, and getting to the gym in the evening isn't a guarantee. Last week I didn't get up when I'd set my alarm for 5am in the morning, so I compensated by going to the gym at 7.30pm or 8.30pm - whatever time it needed to be to get it done. In doing this I wasn't able to say "yes" to going out on a week night, have dinner with my parents or have adequate winding down time in the evening. I'm not whinging; heaps of people have families and a lot less time, I'm just stating facts.

I had to get up at 5am this morning to get to a work conference. There was no choice, I had to be there; I got out of bed, got ready and on my merry way. There were moments of resentment at the earliness when I was on the train, but I'm no more tired than I would be now if I'd gotten up an hour later, and I got a lot more into my day.

A big thing at my work is "eliminating excuses" - so that's what I'm going to do here with exercising in the morning before work. I've been making excuses, but the fact is I haven't been organised and I'm not really giving myself a chance to have a good go at it.

Things I can't change
- Monday to Friday, 6.00am - 7.30pm is blocked out for work related activities
- Work finish time isn't consistent

Things I can change
- Level of organisation
- Time I go to bed

How I'm going to do it
- Bag packed the night before with everything I need to get ready for work after workout. On gym days I'll wear dresses that don't require ironing.
- Lunch prepared the night before
- Gym clothes laid out to jump into

All of that took me about 20mins tonight, and I know I can just get out the door, not wake anyone up getting ready, and I'll be exercising at the best part of the day where I will have the most energy. It all sounds straightforward, but it'll obviously take some getting used to. It feels good to have found the solution though.

Places to go, people to see..

We all know I really bought a new camera so I could take better photos of Harry..

One Month of Amy vs. Amy

I've kissed goodbye to the first 4 weeks, and am now into my fifth week of training and weight loss. My week starts on a Wednesday, which was just the first day I started going to the gym, but conveniently turned out to not have the perceived pressure that Monday does. If I slightly overindulge on the weekend I've got a couple of days to correct the balance before I weigh myself.

I devised a few guidelines at the beginning to help me stay on track:

Cardio exercise at least 5 times a week for a minimum of 30mins at 65% of maximum heart rate (fat burning zone)
Weight loss is 90% nutrition, but I want to be fit too, and I am really enjoying getting back into exercise. There has not been one occasion yet where it has felt like a complete chore to get to the gym, and I have exceeded my own expectations with this guideline.

I realised in the first workout that working at 65% of my maximum heart rate felt very boring, so I upped it to between 70-80% which is more in line with a cardio training zone - and makes the most out of the minimum of 30mins that I've set.

My main weapon of choice is the Cross Trainer, as it engages all muscles groups and has zero impact on my joints. I have a tendency towards getting shin splints, so a treadmill is not going to work for me at the moment, and I don't really enjoy running that much yet. If I have more than 30mins up my sleeve I throw in some rowing.

In the past two weeks I've introduced weights, and am doing those sessions twice a week for around 15-30min followed by at least 30min of cardio.

A big concern of mine in joining the gym was that I'd be bored, but that hasn't been an issue at all, to my surprise. Each cardio machine has its own screen, which I can plug my iPod into, select a playlist and then watch a visual representation of distance travelled; 400m track, mountain, trail or the like - along with keeping an eye on pace, heart rate and resistance level.

In only a month my fitness has improved significantly. I did my best workout last night, but my silly phone didn't save the photo. So here's a comparison from another session this week that still shows the difference in what I can achieve with an average heart rate of 160bpm.

Week 1 - Resistance Level 4


Week 4 - Resistance Level 9


The music is truly propelling me along, I don't think I could do it in silence! Try exercising in time to this song...killer.


Try to bring food to work from home every day
I have succeeded on this front 100% when it comes to bringing a couple of pieces of fruit for snacks, but have lagged on the actual lunch part in weeks 3 and 4. That's when I implemented another rule; if I don't bring lunch I can only eat a single serving of sushi (with a piece of fruit from home). One time the sushi was sold out, so I had a sandwich. Soon I'll get sick of sushi and will be forced to get more organised for lunch - but I'm making better decisions more of time, so I'm not worried.

After the first couple of weeks, work started to get busy again and I am now leaving later consistently - which is when the desire for a packet of chips on the way home kicked in. Hit this straight on the head with single serve packets of air popped corn kept in my filing cabinet at work. I grab a packet before I leave to get the train if I feel like it.

Be vigilant about what I eat for dinner
When I'm tired I have a tendency to make poor food decisions, and as I live at home, dinner is probably the most challenging meal of the day. I get home too late to prepare a meal for everyone, and it's more social, not to mention easier to eat whatever is prepared. There's not really any concern on my part about the type of meals, but I just have to watch portion sizes. Dinner is where the most calories seem to be consumed in my day, which is not ideal - but this is a lifestyle change, not a fad diet, so everything in moderation and I have to allow flexibility to a certain extent.

I'm slightly over my target weight loss goal of a kilo a week, having lost a total of 5kg. I've noticed positive changes in energy, motivation, and even concentration levels. My body shape is changing (thank goodness), I'm toning up and am fitting into the next size down of clothing that I've wisely held onto for a couple of years!

It's only three weeks till I go overseas for a month - so I've got to devise some kind of plan, but I'm not worried that I'm going to go off the rails - I won't let myself do that.

Music + Exercise

For me, gym based cardio workouts must have music. Selecting the right music can be a bit of a challenge and I don't want to listen to the same songs over and over - it can get boring. I love a good playlist, and I found a program that will not only help me listen to a wider range of music but also select songs that I can workout to, depending on how fast I'd like to go.

So I'm currently downloading beaTunes which will allow me to auto-tag all my music with its BPM (beats per minute), and also make use of some of its other excellent features. This is something I've always wanted to do, but with the amount of music I have it has always seemed to be an insurmountable task. Also, a terribly boring one. So fingers crossed this way is a pain free experience!

Here's a new playlist that I painstakingly created today for a 40min workout. I'm going to head to the gym now, plug in my iPod and get my heart pumping.