Back-Blogged 2--SAN DIEGO

Here is my tardy recap of our San Diego experience. We spent our first 4 nights downtown, across from the Convention Center. Our hotel was lovely and I must say that I'm a sucker for any place that delivers delicious coffee and cream and fresh squeezed juice to your doorstep (for FREE!) every mornings. I tell ya, it's the little things that win me over! We were able to enjoy a little bit of sunshine and pool time on the day of our arrival. Isla was a hit at the pool, smiling and flirting with all our lounging neighbors.

She wasn't a big fan of the water though. Pictured is the one time that she went for a brief dip. She seemed to be wondering how we could possibly be so mean! Afterall, she was perfectly content playing with her tablespoon and measuring cup on the chair. Why did we get her all wet and cold!?

Graham had his conference pretty much all day so we tried to do touristy stuff on his lunch break and in the evening. Some of our activities while downtown included a waterfront picnic at a nearby park, delicious Indian food, a movie night with ice cream in our room (courtesy of the Redbox we found in a local grocery store), a long walk to Little Italy for what was probably the best authentic Italian meal I've eaten since Italy, and a trip to Oldtown San Diego for some tasty Mexican food. We also caught the ferry to Coronado Island one evening and walked the grounds/along the beach of the beautiful Hotel del Coronado.

After the conference ended on Sunday, we took the city bus up the coast to La Jolla where we checked into our "European"-style hotel (which for the layman, "European" = tiny)! Our room was rather quaint but cute. Plus it had a view of the ocean which was only a couple blocks away. And it was cheap. Isla and I went for a lovely walk along the trail right near our hotel. Here she is shortly before the stroller got a flat tire and I had to walk all the way back to our room carrying the weight of the stroller so as not to shred the tire....

The little we saw of the trail was beautiful though, even though cloudy.

Probably my favorite part of the trip were the 2 picnics we enjoyed on the rooftop terrace at our La Jolla hotel. We had it to ourselves the whole time and were able to enjoy the lovely view and yummy food without worrying about Isla throwing everything on the tabletop onto the floor of a restaurant or falling out of her chair (the former actually did happen, the latter, thankfully did not!) We picked up some groceries from the store and discovered my newest most favorite picnic meal: hot rotisserie chicken, Sea Salt and Vinegar Kettle chips, warm hunks of jalapeno cheddar bread, bagged salad mix and water. G and the babe took a little snooze while I enjoyed the sun that finally broke through the clouds and the complimentary magazines provided by the hotel. Oh and the coffee, fresh cookies and lemonade at the hotel every afternoon (again, it's the little things that get me!)

This portion of the trip was supposed to be more of our vacation/relaxation time but unfortunately Graham was slammed leading up to the trip so had to bring some schoolwork along. He spent quite a bit of time typing away at his paper while Isla and I did our best to entertain ourselves (see below pics, the first one in particular where Graham is so studiously at work in the background and Isla and are are taking pictures of ourselves... ) I was really proud of Graham. He finished his 20 page paper at 1 AM the morning before we left.

Our second to last day was sunny the entire day so we made a run for it and treked along the coastline to a huge beach where we enjoyed the leftovers from our picnic the previous day. The sun was glorious and lifted our somewhat exhausted spirits (due to lots of middle-of-the-night awakenings by the wee one).

The end! :)

Back-Blogged--PULLMAN

Dear Blog,

Oh how I miss you. Let's be more regular about our time together come summer! I owe you an update on our month of May, most of which was spent out of town. This has been a wildly crammed month!

Yours Truly.

I eluded to this in a prior post, but the Wilson fam (minus Ben and Michael) took a road trip over to Pullman/Spokane at the beginning of May to attend my brother Josh's graduation from WSU.

Our first rest stop. A girl's gotta get out and stretch!

Seriously, you'd think we were driving through the countryside in Ireland, wouldn't you? Never knew eastern WA could be this beautiful! Truly farm country.

Josh graduated with a degree in Mechanical Engineering. He is quite the smarty pants when it comes to all things science. His girlfriend Silver joined us for most of the weekend so we got to get to know her a bit better. Hopefully she didn't find us TOO crazy.

We were super proud of the boy, all grad-ju-muh-cated.

I love these next two shots. Can't you just see the look of adoration (going both directions!)

This is also a fav...

39 Weeks

Today marks both 39 weeks and 9 months even! Isla has her 9 mo appointment tomorrow so I'm anxious to find out her weight and other measurements and see if she's still our little peanut.

This week has been SO much better than last. After arriving home from San Diego, Isla was still wanting to hang out frequently in the middle of the night so we put a stop to that quickly and made a "no going in her room until after 5 AM" rule. And thankfully, after just one night, it worked and she's back to sleeping her usual 6:30PM to 5 AM (which means I feel almost like a normal human being again-and by again I mean for the first time since I became a mother. Hooray!)

I know I said this last week, but Isla is so SO close to crawling. Any second she's gonna figure out how to move forward. Until then, she continues to scoot backwards and can actually move pretty quickly on her belly (particularly when she's on a wood or tile floor). She is not pleased with this mode of transportation, however, and requires a lot of extra attention to get her unstuck from under various pieces of furniture.

Isla is getting really close to saying "Mama." Her syllable sounds moved from "Dada" only to "Nana" which is what she sometimes will say after we ask her to say "Mama." She is trying SO hard!

The new game in our household is called Pillow Fight. I promise, no children or animals were harmed in the filming of this video.

Isla still has no teeth but I've been trying to add brushing her gums to our evening routine to get her used to the feel of a toothbrush in her mouth. She makes my life easy because she loves it. It all started with her watching me brush my teeth. She kept grabbing at my toothbrush so I finally gave her her own and she can't seem to get enough (I actually have to take the toothbrush away from her--a good problem to have!)

I think it is official. Isla just doesn't nap for her mommy. I worked the weekend (3 days in a row which was really hard by the way!) and so Isla spent time with her grandparents, her Aunt Lani and Graham. She reportedly took some good naps for them--my sister in particular--a two hour nap! I can honestly say that has NEVER happened to me.

Isla had her first jarred baby food this week since we were traveling. She got to try a lot more new foods than usual since some of the jars had multiple fruit purees mixed in. She had apricots and cherries (in the pre-made baby food), fresh white peaches, pluots and garlic green beans this week. She also got her first of what I'm sure will be MANY tastes of cheese (in France!)-the cheddar variety. Today I gave her some chunks of cucumber and also some cut up pasta with Baby Bolognese sauce (I was jealous and ate some myself, it was THAT good!)

Isla is getting really good at giving kisses. Today I was finally able to catch a good one on camera. It melts my heart. She is also making this sound that I just think is a riot as she tries to blow bubbles and rumble her lips. I didn't catch a very good example on the video but she finally does a tiny one at the end of the video that gives you an idea....

I am a Mom

That still sounds a little strange to me. But honestly, it makes me giddy too. I am a mother! I had hoped to write a post on motherhood before Mother's Day but that didn't happen so pardon my extending the motherly celebrations later on in the month.

This year, Mother's Day took on a whole new dimension for me, obviously. I have always dreamed of being a mom and am so thankful God chose to make that a reality this past year. The first few days after Isla was born were pretty incredible! When she was first laid in my chest, I couldn't get over the fact that she was a GIRL!!! How did that happen? Croziers don't make girls! I think that's probably all I said for the first five minutes. "It's a girl! It's a girl? It's a girl!" And then I probably made some sort of comment about how much hair she had. All over. Her head, her back, everywhere. But she was beautiful and she was OURS.

The next few hours were quite the whirlwind and it wasn't until around midnight or 1 AM that we were finally left alone to "sleep." I asked the nurse if we needed to feed or change Isla and she responded bluntly, "Everything you need to take care of her is in the top drawer." Whoa. What? No directions? No guidance? Just "whatever is in the top drawer?" I couldn't believe that no one was going to walk me through how to be a mom. And then it all hit. How was I going to do it? How on earth would I take care of this precious little person who was trusted into my care?

I cried pretty much the whole way home from the hospital. I was so excited, nervous, scared, joyful, so many crazy waves of emotion. There were numerous moments in the next couple weeks where I would burst into tears, look at Graham and tell him "I just love her so much!!" Although the strong hormonal emotional waves have tapered back a bit, there are still moments where the tears well up and spill over as I look at my little girl.

The Monday after Mother's Day, we were driving back from Spokane and made a pit stop at Starbucks to feed Isla some dinner. She was sitting on my lap, wearing her green bib and looking up at me with her blue eyes and those big cheeks! I couldn't help but cry. The way she looks at me with love and maybe even a little admiration thrown in there too. Wow! There is such a special bond. And if my love for her is this great, I can't even fathom the love that my heavenly Father has for me.

Mother's Day itself was wonderful. Isla decided she wanted to start the day off together extra early but there was coffee to be had so we survived the day! We had stayed the night with my aunt and uncle in Spokane and so had a lovely breakfast with the family before heading to Manito Park. Graham spoiled me with a very sweet card and lots of delicious Burts Bees products to pamper myself with. He also pleaded with me to go and get a massage ASAP.

My family took off for home, leaving the three of us to a leisurely walk through the park and cute surrounding neighborhoods. We met up with our friends the Moodys and had a yummy meal at an Asian fusion restaurant downtown Spokane. They took us to see the falls at Riverfront Park and then on to Riverside State Park for some water and sun. It was such a beautiful day!

Graham fed Isla every meal that day and I think he may have changed all her diapers which was such a lovely treat for me. It truly was a very happy first Mother's Day for me. I felt honored and blessed to be a mom!

(How can you not just love cheeks like that!?)

38 Weeks

This week has been ROUGH, interestingly enough, given that all but one day of it was "vacation." Isla has required almost constant attention, both day and night, for reasons yet to be determined, and since Graham has been away at his conference or working on his paper due tomorrow, I have been kept exhaustingly busy attending to her needs. I'm not quite sure if she is cutting a tooth, confused by an altered schedule, overtired, constipated or if she finds her hotel bed to be merely two star. I think it is F: All of the above. She hasn't slept for longer than a 3 hour stretch since we left on Wednesday. Oh yeah, and we've all been sick. That probably has a lot to do with it!

She also spent the first half of the week refusing to nap in her hotel crib. I could get her to take 20 minute cat naps while we were out and about in the stroller but that was about it (letting her "cry it out" in the hotel room with neighbors all around didn't seem like to best option although admittedly, we did try). Finally, on our last day in our large downtown hotel room, I decided to roll her crib into the bathroom and of course that did the trick (by the way, Graham would want you to know that this was HIS idea). :)

Okay, enough with the negatives...we love this girl to pieces and don't want to send the wrong impression! It has been quite fun taking Isla out to eat over the past week. She is big enough to sit in the restaurant high chairs and really enjoys beating on the table with her hands or silverware. Last night, we were at a place with live music and she was bopping her head and dancing which was pretty adorable.

I think Isla had O.D.ed on Cheerios. I don't know if they are the cause of her gas pains/constipation but she sure is eating a lot of them! Frankly, I think she is borderline obsessed with them. But they have provided amazing dinnertime distraction/entertainment for our meals out.

As for new foods this week, Isla got her very first taste of wheat in the form of oyster crackers at a restaurant! She loved them (and so did the birds who got to clean up underneath her highchair afterwards). We also gave her little bits of our roasted chicken (not pureed) and she was able to chew and swallow just fine.

Yesterday Isla got to walk on sand for the first time. She was quite intrigued. I even dipped her feet in the ocean and I'm pretty sure she would have fussed if I hadn't immediately distracted her. She didn't enjoy the hotel pool either (guess she's not the water-baby we thought....)

Isla continues to make us laugh. We've taken lots of public transportation this week and you can always tell when someone is looking at her. Her face just lights up, her mouth opens wide and she does her panting thing. I think the girl will do anything for attention! She also is finding her sick Daddy to be very entertaining. She laughs every time he blows his nose. Nice.

Isla is SOOOO close to crawling. She gets up in the right position and can move backwards (we've had a couple close calls on the hotel bed...oops). I'll bet it'll happen before France.

6 Years

May 15th, 2004. That was the day Graham and I began dating. Officially. Graham would argue that we went on "dates" numerous times over the two years prior but I disagree. This will probably always be a perpetual point of contention in our relationship but I think Graham has finally come around as even he mentioned last night "Tomorrow is our dating anniversary!"

Okay so maybe he did take me out a few times prior to May 15th. There were evening strolls on Alki, coffee to-go sipped at Discovery Park, lessons on the rules of chess at Cafe Ladro, dessert at B&O on Capitol Hill, outdoor study times at various Seattle parks. These very well might have been dates. But I would argue that, no matter how lovely, a date isn't a date until the girl knows you are into her. I thought Mr-Lady's-Man-Crozier did these things with all his female friends. He did, after all, have MANY female friends given his subject of study.

So rewind three months back to the end of February, 2004. Unfortunately, here is where my memory fails me and I seem to have lost the record of the exact date. I was newly single as of Valentines Day from my only other dating relationship. Graham waited a good week and a half--okay, maybe it was two weeks--before making his move. He came by my dorm room and told me he was having a rough night. Would I go on a walk? I accepted and he proceeded to share with me how one of his female friends was struggling spiritually and he wasn't sure what to tell her. Interesting lead-in approach. I had no idea what was coming. I'm sure I gave him some very intellectual and wise advice before, BAM! Topic change!

We were sitting on the wall below the basketball courts at Ashton Hall (you fellow SPUers, you know where I'm talking about--oh the memories!) Graham said something like "So there isn't really a good way to transition to this but............."

Pause.

"I have feelings for you."

Silence.

Whoa! I am pretty sure I did not see that one coming. I think this is the point where I lost all things intellectual and starting stumbling over some jibber-jabber of an answer to let him go easy. What ended up coming out was "Sure, we can hang out more!" (Nice Kelsie, real classy!) That was my way of gently rejecting him I guess. Truth be told, I really had no intention of ever dating him. I didn't think we could. We were just so different.

What happened in the 3 months that followed that changed my mind? Graham often asks me the same thing. I think I wasn't as hard set on not dating him as I led everyone to believe. I mean, he had a lot of really romantic and desirable qualities (just ask half of the SPU female population who seemed to be on the chase!) He was musical and could often be found playing the guitar and singing in the echoey dorm stairwells. He was creative. And spontaneous. He had the best ideas for all of our "non-dates." He always asked about me and how I was doing. He seemed to really want to spend time with me. What girl wouldn't find that attractive?

I think I refused to believe that I was receiving special attention from Graham. I kept my guard up because I feared later getting my heart broken if I found out I was "just another girl." Graham was persistent though and pursued long and hard. I must say, it's pretty difficult for a girl to turn down a guy who woos like he did. The Lord definitely knew what I needed in a man much better than I and Graham couldn't be a better fit!

Back to May 15th. I must have known this was going to be a "real" date because I wore a skirt. Oh, and we were going out to dinner (a first!) When Graham pulled around my dorm to pick me up, there were roses in the front passenger seat (yep, definitely a REAL date!), two-tone roses with bright tips-my favorite!

Our first stop was the gas station because, alas, Graham's car had no fuel. This is probably my favorite part because it so perfectly represents the ever-spontaneous-take-things-as-they-come Graham that I adore. Really, it couldn't have been any other way.

For dinner, Graham introduced me to my first Ethiopian meal by taking me to Queen Sheba on Capitol Hill. We ate with our hands (brave first date), some sort of chicken dish which we scooped up with injera (Ethiopian bread, more like a large, spongy "pancake.") I loved our meal and even more I loved the fact that Graham was exposing ME to new foods (we've been back a few times since, including on the night he proposed). We somehow managed to make it through all of dinner without talking about "us."

It wasn't until the car ride home that I broached the topic. Graham had, after all, been waiting since February to hear how I felt. I told him that I was finally ready to become BFBF and GFGF (as we liked to refer to one another). To my surprise, he didn't seem giddy or even at all excited. In fact, he seemed quite the opposite. He later filled me in that he caught a small case of cold feet when he realized this might actually happen. Thankfully, he recovered quite quickly and we agreed to take our relationship to the next level.

Graham had signed up to play and sing at an open mic night back at SPU so we headed back to campus. I proudly watched from the audience. I probably should have just worn one of those name tags "Hello my name is Graham's Girlfriend." I'm sure it was written all over my forehead I was so excited.

After the talent night, we went back to Graham's place to hang out with his roommates for a short while. When it came time for me to go home, Graham said he'd walk me back and his buddy Glendon offered to come too. So the two of them escorted me home. Apparently after the boys had dropped me off, Glendon asked Graham "Man! When are you two gonna start dating!?" Graham hadn't had a chance to tell him until right then "Actually, we just did tonight."

Needless to say, Glendon reportedly was a wee bit embarrassed to have joined us for our first official goodbye as boyfriend and girlfriend. :)

San Diego

We have arrived! This is the first of what I hope will be many blog posts in the week to come. Dear readers, time to blog, as of late, has been basically nonexistent as you are probably well aware. The number of blog posts I am able to write is directly proportionate to the amount of free time I have which has been slim to none since...March?? Anyway, we Croziers are all alive and lots of fun has been had.

So, back to the topic of interest. We are enjoying our ocean view room on the 13th floor of the Omni in downtown San Diego. Isla is supposed to be napping but appears to have no interest. Our morning began with a bang in the airport when we were in the security line and Graham couldn't find his drivers license in his wallet. Oh the joys! And the panic. Thankfully, he located it stuck to another card (while I stood sweating bullets and frantically figuring out how we would go home and get it and still make our flight) and our morning progressed.

We are the ultimate cheapies. We were determined to take this trip sans a rental car and sans checked bags (to avoid the---GASP--$15 checked bag fee.) How we thought this possible for a week-long travel with a baby, diapers, baby food, dress and play clothes, I'm not quite sure. But friends, I am here to tell you, IT IS POSSIBLE! We had our whole system figured out, like a slightly oiled machine. I wore Isla in the front pack and pushed the stroller which carried the coats, backpack and laptop bag. Graham pulled the 2 small rolling suitcases. The only thing we forgot to take into account was the venti Starbucks we purchased after arriving at our gate. Four hands can only do so much! But we managed to get on the plane, coffee and all!

It always seems that when you REALLY want to have an empty seat next to you on the airplane, it never happens. The thought hadn't even crossed my mind today but, wah-lah, we ended up getting the whole row to ourselves so Isla was able to sit and play and nap in the 3rd seat--awesome! 

And to think our day got even better! When we boarded the city bus at the San Diego airport, we discovered the money-eating machine at the front was broken so our ride downtown was entirely free! I have a feeling this is gonna be a great trip! Now off to the pool.....

37 Weeks

Isla is seeming less and less like a little baby. She can walk long distances while holding your fingers and has figured out how to get from the sitting position to her tummy. She gets in the crawling position too but doesn't quite know what to do next. She scoots backwards, rolls and twirls to get around (though she doesn't often end up at her desired destination). Needless to say, I can't leave her alone anymore because she ends up tangled or caught under furniture or bonks her head on something while trying to crawl.

We are preparing Isla's palate for France! This week she got to try plain yogurt (which she was a bit weirded out by so we added some fruit) and this morning I scrambled her some egg yolks. I let her pick at them with her fingers and she seemed to really enjoy that. She has developed great motor control of her fingers and can pick up pieces of food with ease now! 

I've been working REALLY hard at teaching Isla to say "Mama." Everytime I say "Mama," she smirks and responds "Dada." That'll teach me.

We took Isla to Spokane/Pullman for a long weekend to attend my brother's grad and visit my aunt, uncle, cousins and our good friends the Moodys. She was a real trooper! We had her completely off her schedule but she did SO well during the day. I had hoped she would take long naps on the car rides but she only slept for short increments (because there were people in the back seat with her to look at of course!) Despite only napping for ~1 hr total each day, she stayed cheerful. Unfortunately this resulted in LOTS of night waking so I was pretty exhausted by the time we arrived home but what's new? :)