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.