What happened to October?

It's been a very busy month, and I have a lot to catch up with. First off, our little darling is now a toddler, and has been working on walking for a week - and has mastered the stairs. Oops.

In order... we were originally going to go backpacking the weekend of Oct. 6th... then it was sleeping in a tent followed by a night in a B&B (courtesy of KWMU)... then it ended up being go down Sunday morning and hang out for awhile at Hahn state park. Oh well. She slept the whole way down (and back) due to clever timing on our part (morning nap!) Unfortunately, she did not sleep very well at the B&B, either due to too much excitement, odd noises, or who knows. But it was nice to hang around outside for awhile, especially because the weather is only going to get worse.

While at the park we went for a short hike and then hung out on a rock for awhile. Isabella played in the water, stuck her feet in, climbed all over the rock, me, and dad. She did pretty well on the uneven ground. I had put sandals on her a little pair courtesy of Zoe - but they kind of slipped off when she was crawling around. But here she is standing in them, checking out a banana peel.

The B&B was nice, although there were diaries in the room that people had filled out. Many of whom said things like "this is the first weekend we've had away from the kids in four years..." Oh. Guess we weren't suppose to bring the baby ;-). She went ballistic during breakfast, unfortunately, because the food was really good and I would have liked to linger a while. Ah well.

Isabella did have fun hanging around the room, though. It's an old house, with some cupboards and one of those add it in the corner showers. She thought she'd check it out, although she wasn't so keen on actually getting in it with me when I was taking a shower. But it had a fun rubber mat and doors that moved.

We went out for dinner and a cheap and friendly place. I thought I'd order the mac and cheese for her - little did I know that it would arrive in a deep fried wedge. Ugh! So I pried the edible parts out.... She had lots of fun feeding us pees that evening, though.

We went down to the gym a couple times in the early evening. We end up getting there a bit late because we haven't got the pick the baby up routine down very well. It's a bit crowded down there, but it's nice to get a few more climbs in. Have to bring food to keep Isabella happy, though, because it's during her dinner time. Our dinner too, but we don't complain as loudly about missing food.

Grandma came to visit! Just in time to watch Isabella take her first, unassisted steps. Dad was out of town for the first part of the weekend, but came back to find our little toddler toddling. She's really funny - she walks like Frankenstein, arms out in front of her. Over the last week she's gone from one or two steps to a good six feet. And is learning to conquer stairs.

We all went to her music class, which has started up again. She was a bit quiet at first - just stood and hung onto me - but got into it towards the end, especially the eggs, which she loves to shake (and try to eat). And the scarves were a real hit. The group is nicer than the group last time - more babies her age, and the moms seem a little less fru fru. Unfortunately, I missed the class this week since I was out of town. It's also a different instructor, who I like a bit better.

I'm afraid I was a bit distracted while grandma was here because I was trying to get a grant out of the door. It was great, though, to have someone else pay attention to her, especially while Bill was out of town. We did make it to the zoo for a little while, and the climbing gym.

Peek-a-boo has become a favorite game - she can throw the towel/scarf/shirt over her head, then giggles when she pulls it off. Tries to throw it over mom's head, too.

She's gotten the concept of words. Mo' applies to food, ba' to ball, and "uh oh" to throwing/dropping things on the floor. She looks straight at you, says "uh oh" and then drops whatever she's holding... and "up" as well, and pointing at things.

Went to midgraph this weekend, without Bill, which may not have been the greatest idea I've ever had. We left Friday morning, after a frantic get her up, get packed, pick up the rental car, move everything into the rental car, give a presentation at the faculty retreat, finish writing the talk for that afternoon on the drive out... She didn't sleep on the drive out, much, only about 45 minutes. But she seemed quite happy. She had Ly, Lu, and Sasakthi in the seat behind her to keep her amused. She kept dropping the toys over the side of her seat, which made opening the door a bit challenging.

Tao took her for a walk while I gave a talk at Iowa City (she was too tired to sit quietly in the talk). She fell asleep nursing after that, and I carried her (asleep) to the restaurant, where she woke up when I tried to lay her in the stroller. She made it through dinner time, then got tired. Had a great time in the reception after dinner - there was a table surrounded by chairs, and she went around and around the table, chasing after her ball and smiling at people. Took me forever to get her to sleep in her bouncy chair, but she did sleep straight through until 5:30am.

Unfortunately, she lasted about 20min at the conference the next morning before getting too tired, and nothing I could do got her to sleep. She finally collapsed nursing for about 20 min, then woke up again in time for lunch. Cranky through lunch, then I took her for a walk in the stroller (lovely day out), back to the hotel room, where she slept for two hours. Cranky again at dinner; happy enough walking outside (Joe spelled me some) but didn't want to sit in the chair. She was quite happy playing with Lu back in the hotel room, though. Didn't sleep so well that night - up every hour and a half.

The next day I walked.. and walked.. and walked her around and she just wouldn't give it up. Poor thing. Drive back wasn't quite as nice as the drive there - she slept a bit longer, but had a screaming fit before doing so. And got really cranky towards the end. We resorted to the lullaby CD, which quited her down instantly. She slept for 13 hours last night!

The conference room had these great low, long steps - Isabella would crawl up them by throwing her ball (or socks) up to the next level then chase after it. Then she'd turn around and go back down again. She figured out how to scoot her butt over to the edge and stand up on the next level down. Unfortunately, after all this practice she is now *really* good at crawling up the stairs, so we may need to figure out how to block off the stairs. She went all the way from the basement up to the top.

She also likes to stand right under you, then crawl through your legs. So mom's sending us a tube for her to crawl in.

She's imitating like crazy now. She picks up the phone, opens it, presses buttons, holds it to her ear (usually inside out) and says "da da da da". And she's actually dialed Bill's number several times now, and turned my ringer off...

She can do light switches now, which she finds great fun, at least for awhile. And she's got a mean hand with a bottle top. I was drinking a bottle of water and she got upset until I took the cap off and let her "drink" some. Didn't want it with the cap on... She also loves to go "ohh" into tubes and hear the funny noises, along with anything else that makes noises. And she absolutely has to pound on the keyboard. Good thing I have a wireless keyboard I can unplug. I was (cleverly, I thought) using the tablet pen while she pounded on the (unplugged) keyboard. Until she grabbed the pen out of my hand and started drawing on the screen. Sigh.

I was trying to sort through some receipts this evening. She came over to the pile, started picking them up and studying them/unfolding them, then throwing them around. Must do whatever mom's doing!

She knows what socks and shoes are for - she keeps trying to put them on her own feet. On the car ride back from midgraph she would hand me the sandal, stick her foot out at me, I'd put the sandal on, then she'd take it off. And try to put it back on herself. Given that she hardly ever wears shoes... and she really likes untying *my* shoes.

And she likes to dance to the music. She pushes the button on her "pineapple guitar" and goes crawling in time to the music. When the music stops, she stops, presses the button, and is off again. She's even rocked out to a few tunes on the IPod, but we aren't sure yet what she likes.

EC'ing has been getting a bit better. Missed two on Friday - one in the car, which I saw start but couldn't do anything about, one while she was playing with someone out of sight. But I caught both Saturday, one where I saw her get that thoughtful look on her face... Caught the one on Sunday, too, although I misjudged when she was done, which got a bit messy. But missed one this morning while I wasn't paying attention. At least she's not fighting the potty so much. And she loves to sit in the sink and play with the water... And she's been dry several nights now, even when she wakes up in the middle of the night.