Following on from the post with pictures from the 4th of November, here we have three videos shot around the same time. You can see how she still liked to travel in reverse when the need arised, and that the cushions at the time were still in place around some areas of the living room. By the looks of it, Muska had not yet noticed the kitchen was no longer Anna-safe, and decided to hide under the table to see what would happen.
As you`ll know from the previous posts, Anna was already happy not only pulling herself up to a standing position, but also walking around a little. However, she had not really decided that crawling forwards was worth a lot of effort. Backwards crawling mixed with rolling from front to back and so on seemed to get her where she wanted. Around the the time these videos were shot (1st November), we discovered the best way to encourage a more normal direction of travel whilst crawling were the plethora of remote controls that hang around our TV stand, begging for interaction. Irina cleaned them all properly first, and we made sure all battery covers were properly secure, and then let Anna play. We did initially try telling her NO when it came to play with the controllers, but this only seemed to add to the thrill of grabbing them when we were not looking and then crawling off with them. We are hoping that allowing supervised play (with a battery removed if we are actually watching something at the time) will lead to eventual boredom with them.
So we tried the same whilst in Chubary, and shot these videos for posterity. You can also see Anna has improved her reaction times and co-ordination already, as she slips whilst leaning on the toy horse seat, and manages to catch herself before hitting the floor or kitten 
Oh, and in case you have noticed the last few posts have no abbreviations, I am typing these from the laptop, remote controlling into a PC at the in-laws. I am remoting in because Anna is starting to wake up through the night again, when we are not at home, and if I am clicking away on the PC, it lets her know someone is awake, and it is worth her crying until someone plays with her. The lack of apostrophes? This is down to who knows what, but if I type one on the laptop keyboard, it comes out as a ` on the upstairs PC. Why not just type on the laptop onto the dashboard for this blog directly? Because I need to move files on the hard drive around after each post, and the hard drive is currently misbehaving, I don`t want to risk disconnecting it right now.
Enough of the long winded unnecessary explanations, onto the videos.
As promised, here we have the videos shot around the same time as the pictures (30th October) when Anna was just starting to find her feet, when it came to moving from one steadying item of furniture to another.
By the 4th of November (for new comers to this blog, dates are included on all of Anna photo and video posts, as they are automatically exported to her own site, and rather than spend a lot of time altering the timestamp of each post, I have included the date within the text, so visitors to that site can picture how Anna is changing over time a little more accurately) we had decided that the large sofa cushions placed on the floor as a basic border for Anna to stay within were pretty much useless now. So after a thorough clean by Irina of all the floors, Anna was now officially allowed to crawl around most of the flat. Given her new found enjoyment of moving forwards, and experimenting with standing up and walking short distances, I think we made the right choice at the right time.
Anna Tests Just How Far She Is Allowed
I’m splitting this into two separate picture and video posts so Anna Merriman’s blog doesn’t get all confused and duplicate things again.
Anyway these photos were shot on the 13th of October, and demonstrate that our camera can struggle without the flash being turned on. Irina doesn’t like the un-natural lighting, and I don’t like blurry photos. We could get around to setting the camera up correctly in the programmable mode, but then we’d need to remember to tweak a little each time the lighting changed. Hey ho.
Although as I write this post in December, the thought of Anna not being able to walk around from one item of furniture to another seems like a long distant memory, the photos and videos (see the next post) were taken on the 30th October, so not that long ago at all. She can now even stand un-aided and balance for up to 20-30 seconds, but back then jusr moving her feet and staying balanced when moving from one hand hold to another was a pretty major achievement. Anyway, enough of my text, onto the star of this post…
Not actually another picture with Anna being fed, this time she was feeding one of her teddies,with Babushka`s help. The photos were taken on the 25th of October.
I have no idea whether it helped Anna understand the process of eating at all, whether it was just fun for her, or if it caused confusion, but it certainly made for a good photo opportunity.
23rd of October and we have (I think) the first pictures of Anna in her winter outdoors outfit. Whilst it would be overkill for most situations in Britain, with temperatures here in Astana regularly dropping down to -25 Celsius, and occasionally colder, you can see why a body, jumper, dungarees /salopettes and a thick snow suit are needed. I took some photos of Anna on her sleigh recently, I will try to find them and post them up soon.
No Michelin Man Jokes Allowed
Anna And Ira Ready For A Walk In The Cold
Posing In The Shade
As promised, here is the second part of the series from the 13th October. Shot around the same time, we have some video of Anna chewing on her poor rabbit’s ears, and checking to see if the book by her feet has been read already.
No Amsterdam related posts for a while to come sadly, this is a few photos from the 7th of October with Anna enjoying her stacking pots. Although she has recently started putting them together and extracting them from each other, they were originally used pretty much as chewy toys.
A bit of catching up to do with Anna’s video and photos once more, sorry. I’ve got all the videos on my YouTube account (AstanaClydach) ready, and most of the photos selected and resized, now it is just a case of writing the posts and publishing them.
So, these pictures were shot on the 30th of September, with Anna playing on the floor at Irina’s parents’ house. It was a sunny day, and Anna was in a good mood so Ira took the camera out and snapped a few shots.
It only got (a lot) messier from here… http://twitpic.com/sdp0d (Anna eating borsch)
Not a reference to my less than perfect low speed driving/parking techniques, but one of the few videos that did not fail to upload to YouTube recently.
Shot on the 7th October 2009, we can see one of Anna’s previous approaches to getting over the living room ’safe and particularly clean area’ fence. Although she can now just happily crawl/clamber over the cushions, her co-ordination hasn’t always been so refined. This meant she had to think of a different way to escape increase her knowledge and experience of the flat. Lining herself up with the gap between two cushions, she would slowly crawl backwards until they moved apart, and carry on until she had broken through…
Gwen was obviously feeling a little left out on the 1st of April, as Ira and I were both videoing Anna in her cot downstairs, and so resorted to throwing toys at us, in the hope of reminding the silly humans what we were supposed to do with cow and blue dog.
You can see the improvised mobile/bed toy arrangement Ira created from pushchair toys and some shoelace/string/ribbon (?)
Skipping forward a little, this camcorder video was shot on the 22nd of March, meaning Anna was now one month and a day old. Seb had come over ( 
), and we decided to have a walk along Port Talbot beach, so he, I, Irina, Anna and Gwen all piled into the car, and drove down a few junctions on the motorway. It was a pretty good day weather wise, considering it was a) Britain, b) Wales specifically and c) Only March!
Seb found some driftwood to take home (the Mondeo obviously wasn’t full enough yet!) for Mum and John, and we all managed to get some fresh air and I think we even squeezed in a quick fish’n’chips shop visit.
Oh the ‘depends if there are any dogs around’ was a reference to letting Gwen off her lead. She is only a little dog, and wants to make friends with everyone/any dogs. Some dogs get a bit aggressive and she doesn’t defend herself very well.
Also, please excuse the wind on the microphone, didn’t have a sponge to stick on it sadly.