Isobel is getting more expressive and more emphatic about things - great big hand movements, and the VOLUME!! She squeals a lot when she gets excited about something, not so good during bath-time in an echo-y bathroom upstairs. Her appetite has increased significantly - she now has cereal and a banana for breakfast, and a couple of slices of bread or toast for lunch. Haven't quite converted her to Vegemite yet, but she loves our crock-pot concoctions for dinner ... when we remember not to put too much chilli in them. Oops. Its getting harder to convincer her to lie still on the change table in her room, and she's started to put up a fight with clothing too. First it was just the jeans or overalls ... now it's sometimes the shirts as well, putting her hands over her head to prevent me getting it on. At least the house has decent heating, so she can still run around in a nappy and not get cold at this time of year.
The bedtime story routine has also changed a bit in the last few weeks - no longer is Isobel content to just sit on my lap and turn the pages in the book as I read to her - she has to be on the floor now, pulling books out of her bookcase as the mood takes her. I've taken to just reading through a couple of the 'regulars' while she does this, sometimes she'll come over and turn a couple of pages for me.
I know there's at least one book she listens to as I read, regardless of what she's doing at the time ... her "Goodnight Room" book which I've been reading to her each night for over a year now. One line gets repeated a couple of times during the story, "goodnight to the old lady, whispering 'hush'", and I've always drawn out the 'hush' to be more of a 'ssshhhh' when I read to her ... in some vain attempt to get her to calm down and drift off to sleep in my arms (ha!). Lately she's started joining in with the 'ssshhh' for this line when I read, and it's a bit difficult not to laugh when she does - because she's usually leafing through her bookshelf, pulling her collection of Dr Seuss books from the shelves at the same time!
We had our first bit of sunshine today in AGES ... so after Isobel woke up from her nap, we bundled her up and headed for the park near our house. She gets so excited when she gets to go for a walk anywhere - her whole face lights up and she giggles the whole way. The little shortcut past the back of our street is a bit much for her yet, but apart from that little stretch she walked most of the way herself.
Several other families had the same idea as us, so there were lots of kids in the park when we arrived. Two little girls ran up to Isobel as soon as we sat down, asking if they could 'hug the baby'. Ummm ... no. Especially not when you're sporting a cold sore the size of Texas on your top lip
. Thankfully their parents came and whisked them away shortly afterwards. There was a group of older girls loudly playing 'Locksley Castle' nearby (too many Kevin Costner movies, that lot!), and the combined noise was a bit much for Isobel at first ... a few animal cookies and a bit of juice killed some time until the older girls moved away to another part of the park. Once the local noise died down a bit, Isobel perked up considerably and the grin returned - she had great fun in the swing, on the slides and even managed to figure out how to climb the stairs up to the big slide ... with Daddy by her side on the structure, and Mummy at the bottom of the slide to catch her. She ended up trying out all three slides in the park - a little shallow kiddie one to warm up on, a corkscrew slide and a 'big dipper' style slide with a 'pause' in the middle. The corkscrew was definitely her favourite, she worked out how to slow herself with her feet and hand to stay upright and controlled. No problems at all with diving down the slide and not having me in sight at the bottom - she always had a huge smile on her face as she came around the last curve at the bottom.
We headed home after the sun dipped below the horizon - still pretty early here, about 4.30pm but we managed a good hour or so after the initial tears on arrival. More rain forecast in the next few days, but hopefully the weather will turn soon and we can start spending a bit more time down there during the week ... it certainly makes a difference to her leftover energy levels in the evenings!
I had a 'night off' last night, for dinner in West Seattle with the other board members for my crochet guild. This is my second year as secretary of the guild, and each year we have a couple of 'board meetings' to plot out the calendar for the year, plan workshops and charity projects. I feel so lucky to have been welcomed into the guild by everyone, and it's nice to have an opportunity to put something back into the organisation side of things. I'm teaching another workshop in March, and I've been working on arrangements for a guest instructor for our meeting in February - there's a big craft conference in Tacoma the weekend before our regular meeting, and I was able to contact one of the crochet instructors and have her stay on an extra night to teach a couple of classes for our guild.
It's taken a bit of to-ing and fro-ing to set up ... from first checking whether we had enough funds in the guild treasury, to extracting class preferences from all the guild members so we could decide on a couple of classes to do. But we're getting very close to finalising arrangements now, and I'm really looking forward to seeing it all come together! These little opportunities are the sort of thing I won't get the chance to do once we're home - that 14hr plane trip makes it difficult for little side trips like this once for our instructor, and the wealth of knitting and crochet classes offered by 'celebrity' instructors at these craft conferences just aren't available outside the US. I will really miss my crochet buddies when we finally head home!! But I'll be able to leave knowing I've contributed as much as I've taken away over the three years or so I've been involved with the guild.
