School's started

We finally have the fourth tooth on the top. They're all spaced pretty far apart, so she's going to have mom's original gap-toothed grin. Sometimes when she smiles she wrinkles her nose and you can get a good view of them, but it's easier just to turn her upside down to get a good look at them.

We went to the botanical garden for the Japanese festival on Monday with Robert and Andrea. She got to wear her Estes hat, finally, since it (sort of) fits. Of course, it was pretty much a lost cause because she just kept taking it back off.

She was very mellow for most of the morning at the garden, which was very odd for her. She just sat in her stroller, or on the ground, and looked at things. Here we're trying to see the Sumo, but we didn't see much because all of the people in front of us kept standing up.

We went to see the ice carving next, which is a lot of fun. The guy attacks the ice with a chainsaw (really!) and produced an angel with a trumpet surprisingly quickly. Of course, the big draw is all of the ice that gets carved off. And what good is ice without a good lick? I think she hasn't quite got the temperature sensation thing down - my hands were ice cold and she was still playing with that piece of ice...

After the garden we went to the Loop to watch a bicycle race. Kinda fun to see a mass of bicyclists whizzing around and around. Isabella's entertainment was to much away at an apple, then my bread, my chicken, and a gallon of water to top it off. Followed by a trip to the ice cream store, where she got some of the waffle cone. Despite having slept maybe a half hour in the morning, and a couple 10 minute naps in the car, she kept going until 9:30pm. Sigh. When we got home she was so happy to be able to crawl around that she did so. Very fast. For a long period of time. So much for the mellow morning!

We finally got around to getting some shots of Isabella in her usual stroller mode - sitting on the edge of the stroller, barely constrained by the lap belt, bouncing up and down, peering around the side, hanging sideways.... anything but sitting back in the stroller like a normal baby. Kind of makes the sun shade useless.

Here, however, she has outdone herself. On the way down to the bicycle race she decided (for whatever reason) that the ground was really exciting. So she leaned forward as far as she could, hanging onto the legs of the stroller, and watched the ground go by. Go figure.

She slept for an entire hour at day care today (yay!) probably because she didn't sleep much yesterday. We did our first bicycle trip (with the trailer) down to the day care today. It's not very fast (about 50 min from the front of the house to day care to work) but it's exercise. She doesn't seem very thrilled about the whole thing, but isn't complaining, either. Her feet kind of end up pushed up against the screen cover with the car seat in there. Hopefully she won't outgrow the car seat before she's old enough to wear a helmet. We bought a new, convertible car seat for the car. Thought it would be better because it's roomier, but no, it's evil too.

She's mastered the sippy cup. She can turn it, pick it up with both hands, and glug away. She's been drinking a lot the last two days (and didn't pee for 4 hours on Monday) so I think she may be getting a bit dehydrated. She also is, of course, an expert at dropping it off the high chair. She is starting to reach for it a bit, and is definitely pushing it away when she's done.

We're definitely getting some clear I want up/down, no more water, done with the high chair, and want that gestures. And the endless stream of da da ma ma ba ba. She's taken to standing up on the potty when she doesn't want to go (and sometimes when she does). I had two mornings where she refused to pee, then crawled to the wood floor 5 minutes later, peed, and then had fun splashing in the pee. Sigh. I think it was deliberate. I'm now taking her to the big potty, which seems to work pretty well. I can set her backside on the edge and she bangs the toilet lid against the toilet. We're down to one poop a day, mostly, which is handy. Although Saturday I thought she was done, went down stairs to find a clean diaper, and came back up stairs to a small trail of poops on the floor - fortunately, just sitting there, so she must (?) have been crawling at the time.

I've been setting up stuff for her to play with in the kitchen, mostly tupperware and what not. But she decided it would be more fun to help me empty the dishwasher. Bottles are a big favorite as well. She did manage to get a (big) bottle cap wedged into her mouth so she couldn't get it back out again. She's not too headlong, so so far it's been manageable. I really want to get some fridge magnets for her to play with.

I've followed her as she's headed for the stairs, and she goes up to the edge of them, looks over, and doesn't seem inclined to throw herself down them. She actually climbed her first step at Barb and Chris's on Sunday - we were sitting out on the steps in the front, which are pretty shallow, and she got her knees up on the step. She also went down a step, hanging onto me and the railing.

We've picked up the big plastic outdoor play set from Barb and Chris, and as soon as we assemble it, I can hopefully let her play on that while I work in the garden. Hopefully.

She's stood up a few times without any support. I think she feels safer when I'm around, because she mostly does it using me as a stepping stone. She's also gotten really good at crawling over my leg. I'm guessing she'll be walking before her first birthday; she's been fairly deliberate about learning new skills, but learns them fast - I was looking at the crawling video from the beach house (below) and she's *much* faster on all fours now.

We've moved to three days a week for day care. She's perfectly happy about it. There's some new babies at day care, some older, some much younger. She's still the only one who's always awake...

We're experimenting with getting her to sleep through the night. Poor Bill is taking her in the basement, in the bouncy chair, where she sleeps the best. He brings her up around 5 or 6, when she nurses and (sometimes) falls back to sleep. She's been waking up 2-4 times, but rocks back to sleep pretty easily. I'm feeling the most rested I've felt in months! She is, in general, going to sleep much easier, and has been sleeping in the crib (!) at day care. I tried her on the crib mattress on the floor a few days ago, and she fell asleep, then promptly rolled off the mattress about 10 minutes later. Oh well. Maybe we'll actually assemble the crib this weekend.

There have been a few times over the last week where Isabella's been content to just sit in my (or Bill's) lap for a few minutes. Sometimes chewing on something, sometimes not. I've almost gotten through a few books with her (she likes to turn the pages, but can't seem to get one page at a time). She also wants to be up and moving in the morning now. She crawls to the headboard of the bed, shakes it some, then pulls Bill's hair (which is much easier to grab than mine). I've had to put her on the floor while I get dressed because she makes a beeline after me if I try to leave her on the bed. Sitting on the potty isn't much fun now, either, so no more lazing around in bed.

Here is the obligatory crawl towards the camera video, taken at the beach house. It's big.