Moving Around

We are seeing more and more movement each day! Whether she is reaching out to grab toys (she isn't quite holding on to them yet) or doing reverse crunches while she is supposed to be napping, Isabel has already shown she is ready to be on the move! I sometimes walk into her room after nap time to find her in a completely different position and area of the crib than I put her down in.

Isabel has also developed the ability to fall asleep anywhere but her crib! We are working through it though and she is doing much better with not fussing so much at nap times. Her fussy time of day really seems to be between 8 and 10 PM. Nearly every night we can count on at least some crying during those times.

For the most part, we are very blessed with a generally happy baby. I can only hope she stays that way and find myself knocking on wood everytime someone asks me if she cries and I reply "Not very often." Luckily she does not appear to be a child who will cry for seemingly no reason. Generally, when she cries she is either hungry, tired, wet, or gassy. Each of which we can do something about... even the gassy one! I actually read how to help a baby pass gas (not burping, but the other way!) and was astonished to see it actually work! Much better than the "pull my finger" method Tim was wanting to try.

We were also happy to discover that she takes to crowded situations quite well. We took her to a baby shower held in the staff break trailer at the zoo. It was very crowded and quite loud, but she was calm and appeared to be curious during the entire party. Several people held her and she did not mind one bit. She even got her first real glimpse of other babies and seemed very interested. I have also been showing her mirrors and watching her reactions. Either she is very vain or is interested in babies! I am not sure which it is...

It is hard to ignore all the growing she is doing. With tears in my eyes, I have started to set aside all of her Newborn sized clothes. She is just getting too tall for them. I think the "Love Me" outfit (shown above) and the elephant pajamas she came home from the hospital in were the hardest to take out of the drawer. I just feel like this newborn stage is passing too fast...

Double-click on filmstrip to see larger size

First Videos!

As much as I have been taking pictures of Isabel, Tim reminded me that we have not taken any video of her! So we made a point tonight to sit down and make some memories...

It's amazing how expressive she is getting. She started to fleetingly smile a couple of weeks ago and then progressed to smiling in her sleep. I started noticing her smiling at me in the middle of a night time feeding several days ago. It was about 2AM and I was half-asleep. I looked down at her with my eyes half open mid-yawn to see her looking right back at me, unlatch, and then open her mouth in the sweetest grin! She smiles frequently now, but it is difficult to get a picture of as she changes so quickly. I managed to capture some of her swiftly changing faces...

Then later this evening, Tim filmed her bath. She seems to enjoy bath time and we have started to make it our nightly ritual before reading a story and going to bed. Even if she is fussy, she quiets down as soon as we go into the bathroom and I see her start to smile as she sits in her tub!