New habits

We took a trip to Chadstone and Naina showed some new habits off.

Handbags, anyone's. She steals handbags at the playgroup and then argues with mum's over whose handbag is it. Anna warned me about this; it's adorable though. She's taken to trying to hold my backpack when I get back from work and demanding to be lifted up as well.


Her confidence in walking is fantastic now and there's very little stumbling or falling over. Hard to imagine it has been only 6 or 7 weeks. Really short video to follow.





Balloons at any cost, the more the better. Quickly snatched by N at Dick Smith.


Sitting too close to the TV. We've actually been disciplining N about this. I know, shocking. I try the count to 3 method (she obviously doesn't understand yet, because this makes her excited), then take her hand method and guide her back to her port-a-potty (pics to follow soon). Finally, after three goes, we turn off the TV. N starts half-hearted howls of protest but then gets on with other stuff.

Definitely takes after father and grandfather. Weather is her favourite part of ABC news.

Reading to N is proving harder ground to cover. I sometimes think it is the material we try to cover is too heavy (Real Estate magazines, Satellite TV catalogue, Australian Financial Review) and other times she's just too tired. I'd like her to be a bit more patient with the reading but tonight she got through a soft book of about 1 minute in duration before she started squirming and pushing. I probably dropped the ball a bit, because there was a period about six months ago when she wasn't so mobile and I could read to her in bed and she'd be content turning the pages and listening to me. She doesn't listen so much any more and tries to pull the book out of my hands.

Househunting

This is all about Naina, but house hunting, home loans, mortgage brokers, they suck. And agents, they are the worst of the lot. That said, the mortgage broker I spoke today was quite nice and the agent from Buxton was good as well.

Naina's not minded househunting too much. The first weekend we went, she slept the whole way through three houses so we had to do tag team visits. The second weekend, she slept through an auction while aunty Anveeta sat with her.

All good so far. I think N is looking forward to more space. She spends a lot of time running around in circles these days. We're definitely getting closer, but still not sure when that finally jump will occur.

I actually tried to use bits of Andrew's auction buying tactics, but I was too nervous to stand up the front, I drifted to the wall. Deepti says the timbre of my voice was not that confident either.

Random photos

We met Andrew Kate and Harriet in Port Melbourne last Sunday. A gorgeous cold morning meant breakfasts all-round! And N was all dressed up for the Port!


N's learning things fast now. One instruction session on how to use chopsticks at Kaneda was all she needed to clean up the miso soup... check out the head-fakes, didn't spill a bit.



Watching that video makes me feel all full of pride, like Dr Evil and Scott Evil.

Random blogs

The computer finally won - the epic battle continued after the last blog and kept crashing. Finally a new, younger, faster model took its place. Worked out I've gone through two motherboards, a bit of RAM, a video card, a power supply unit and a hard drive (without including various pirated software), before the old comp was put in its resting place (i.e. the garage with all the other ex-computer parts). Hence the time between updates.

We've started looking at buying a house which I honestly like the least of all adult tasks I have to do these days. Melbourne it is a case of trying to guess what it will actually sell for and if that is in the price range we can afford. So I've tried to go on the +10-20% asking price. Yes that's right, every house is quoted at 10-20% below the vendor selling price (underpricing) with an equally non-transparent reserve. Imagine my surprise when 80 people turned out for an auction in Malvern East and the selling price 35% higher than the opening bid. We're looking in Clayton, Mt Waverley, Notting Hill, and some western and northern suburbs. With all the news about attacks on Indians recently, the real west (Werribee, Footscary, Altona, Brooklyn, etc are out, even though they are affordable). That said a stabbing occurred within 50 metres of our front door last week.

Deepti's settled back in Melbourne; two months has passed since she got back, so it probably feels like she never left. We're planning a trip to Singapore soon, but with the house hunt on, it may have to be postponed. Naina keeps Deepti busy - apart from chasing N around the house, there's story time, play group, visit to friends' houses and searching for houses.

I'm my usual pensive state; not quite sure if I'm going forward or backward. I actually thought it might be easier to buy a house in July-Sept this year as the economy went down the gurgler. But I got my assumptions wrong, as I think every economist in the country did. Judging by how busy the shops and restaurants have got again, I think the recession has well and truly passed.