Party Time...

Wow.
Last night (Friday—I'm writing this on Saturday, but it won't be posted til Monday) I was feeding Iola when I realised that with every mouthful something was scraping against the bottom of the spoon.
A tooth! And this time it's actually busted through the gum and it's here to stay. She's had a few ups and downs with her teeth—little white spots appearing and disappearing—but this time you can feel the sharp edge of the tooth biting your finger! How cool is that?
It's been a huge week for the little monkey. We'd been wanting to get her some kind of plastic walker, since she's been having so much fun pushing chairs around the room, but the only ones we'd found to date were big-brand-name products in high-end malls that cost over a million rupiah (to put that in context, my bike, with Shimano gearing, v-brakes, dynamo lights, metal gear racks and basket, cost less than that). Tash had a bit of an explore around some of the other baby shops, though, and she found a walker/scooter identical to the Fisher/Price one we'd been looking at, but for less than a quarter of the price!
Iola loves it, and, I have to admit, it's a pretty slick bit of kit. Check out the photos posted on April 30th: cool, huh? It's kind of like a swing-wing fighter plane. The photos show it set in open, or 'V', formation—suitable for relatively relaxed speeds and inexperienced pilots whose motor coordination is just starting to come to grips with 'one foot in front of the other'. Once she's a bit bigger and more mobile, however, it locks down into 'TPM' mode (Toddler Powered Missile), which is when things get scary…
And if getting her first set of wheels wasn't enough, she got to spend all day Thursday checking out the animals at Taman Safari Park (see pics posted on Friday 2nd), and she had an absolute ball. She's got a real thing for zoos and aquariums, and found everything she saw absolutely fascinating—except maybe the elephants, which freaked her out a little bit!
She even got to cuddle lion and tiger cubs! I think her favourite (close your ears Nana no. 2) was the olive python that she discovered around a zoo keeper's neck. Tash had to keep a pretty close eye on things as the monkey and the snake made each other's acquaintance: not because she was worried about the snake biting Iola, but because she was concerned for the safety of the snake at the hands of an enthusiastic and perhaps overly friendly baby.
Speaking of snakes—my dear old mum had better keep her phobia of snakes well away from one particular exhibit. You enter an aviary-type construction through an airlock, and inside the snakes are pretty much free to do their own thing. Just off the path was a seven meter reticulated python, just hanging loose there in the grass! Can you imagine seeing that in Australia? How long would it be before some drunken yob channelled the ghost of Steve Irwin and decided the wrestle the thing?
We had a lovely day (brilliant idea, John), and we'll be using any visitors who might wander into town as an excuse to get back out there! There's a whole safari walk we didn't have time to explore on Thursday…

Two days later…
Iola went to her first birthday party yesterday. Young Rose (Jez and Liliis's daughter) clocked up a big two years, and celebrated said event at Alpha Zone. Haven't really got time to write about it today (very busy week coming up at work), but suffice it to say that Iola had an absolute ball, and so did we, Check out the pics.

PS She done got herself a new trick yesterday. She climbs up onto the upturned washing basket and 'Rrraaaahhhhs' like the tigers on the rocks at the safari park!