Spring is almost sprung - apparently it starts here on Wednesday. The trees are budding and blossoming, and the pollen is billowing ... luckily Andy's hayfever hasn't been affected so far.

The seasons here seem to change really quickly. Since daylight savings clicked over last weekend, we've had some gorgeous afternoons with sunlight streaming in through the lounge room windows. I have to keep the wooden blinds adjusted so the sun doesn't shine in Isobel's eyes when she's playing on the floor, but what a difference it makes! Andy can even make it home before dark again ... most nights .

Isobel is well and truly mobile now, rolling all over the floor and now with a working range of several feet. We have to keep a bit more of an eye on her now ... and vacuum the floors more regularly! She's even learned how to pull some of the hanging toys from the loops on the arches of her playmat - how did she figure that out so quickly?! .

She'll no longer sit still for me to have her nappy changed any more, so I have to provide a toy or something for her to play with to keep her distracted. For some reason she likes one of the baby lotion tubes that sits next to her change mat - whenever I place her down, she'll arch and roll and try to reach the tube sitting in the corner. I think she likes the curvy edge along the top, and her teeth make a funny noise when she scrapes them on the plastic.

In other developments, crawling probably isn't far away - this week she's progressed from pushups (on her big toes only, mind you ... wish we could still do that!) to dragging her knees into a crawling position. She hasn't figured out how to go forwards yet, she still ends up pushing herself backwards or just rocking in place. She also has started to flail her arms around a bit lately, so her brain must be working on more arm/hand coordination at the moment.

I'm not sure if Isobel's starting to develop a bit of separation anxiety ... our baby books suggest it's possible around this age. She's sometimes give a bit of a wail if I move out of her line of sight, such as in the kitchen, because she can't see up over the couch! Bedtime is much improved over the last couple of weeks, though - apart from the wriggling and writhing on the change table, she now smiles at the sight of her bedtime story and usually drops off to sleep pretty quickly. She has been waking up during the night a few times over the last week, sometimes she goes back to sleep on her own but other times I have to pop in and give her a quick feed. Hopefully it's only a short phase she's going through at the moment.

Andy's off to Adelaide again at the end of the week - two weeks this time, but at least I'll get the car back! Not sure how I'm going to manage Isobel with netball on Saturday mornings, I might have to see if one of the spectator husbands can keep an eye on her while I'm on the court.

We're also planning another quick trip to Whistler for Easter - Andy's not getting back until Good Friday, so we'll take the following Tuesday off in return. We'll be meeting up with a few other Aussies from work while we're there, and Andy & I will take turns between hitting the slopes and babysitting Isobel. Easter is classed as 'late' season, so the prices are pretty reasonable - this is probably the last time we'll get in any skiing for a while!