Walking and itching.

I know its been a while since I have posted. Work has been oppressive and, well, blogging is lower on my personal Maslow's-hierarchy than sleep and spending time with ITL. So please forgive the long absence.

Nothing too new to report. When we were in san Diego the weekend before last, Isabelle had an allergic reaction to something:




We are pretty sure it is a food allergy. She is going to have her allergies tested next week. Poor child, she is allergen-prone from both sides of the family tree. I am afraid she is doomed in the allergy department.

In other news she is walking quite a bit more. Crawling is still her main mode of motation, but she continually makes walking efforts all day long. She can now take 10 or more steps and even stop and start and go around corners.

I think she was inspired to walk more after we (me and my friend Liz) took her to the Children's Museum here in Portland. It's a cool place where they have activities of for all ages. ITL was, of course, in the baby room (Th Magical Baby Forest"). There were about four other babies there her same/similar age....all of them were walking. Now, all of them were smaller than her too so I am wondering if her hugeness is an impediment to her walking. Either that of being carried is just a much better way to go.

In any event after vising the Magical Baby Forest she started walking more and more. It's exceptionally cute. Sometimes she is very controlled with her Franken-baby movements. At other times she just speeds forward at you like a small, chubbly, locomotive and crashes into your lap.

Below are some pictures from the Children's Museum. The first few are in the Baby Forest. She had fun there. The last few are at the water exhibit....which she LOVED. The child loves water. Loves her bath, always wants to play in the sink, loves to drink the stuff. She is a water baby. So imagine how thrilled she was when she was able to stand near and play and SPLASH in moving water. As you can see form the state of her clothing in the last picture she became one with the water. Of course, becoming one with the water included (a) Isabelle drinking the nasty germ-filled liquid and (b) trying repeatedly to get her little legs up to sit in the water.

It was fun. For Isabelle and me and Liz anyway, all other children fled when they realized by standing next to ITL they were going to be in the "splash-zone" and one grumpy mother said loudly enough for me to hear (imagine a bitchy tone): "She's just letting that child splash everywhere." Luckily, i observed that we were at the freaking Children's Museum and at a water feature nonetheless and ignore Ms. Uptight. And Isabelle, of course, couldn't have cared less.