September 5: Someone is Walking!

Isla started walking tonight!!!

Well, she at least started taking steps on her own.  Over and over and over again.  It was pretty exciting.  But Audrey was asleep and Daniel was at the gym, so it was just me getting excited all by myself!  I hope she still remembers how to do it in the morning so the rest of the family will be able to see her huge accomplishment.

Last week she took four steps by herself with Daniel.  But since then I had not been able to get her to even attempt to walk by herself.

Until tonight, when she took about three steps from the coffee table to me.

Then she took about three steps from me to the basket of toys.

Then she took two steps from the chair to the coffee table.

Then I started playing a game with her to see just how much she would walk by herself.  I moved the chair so it was about 5-6 steps away from the coffee table.  I put a bucket of crayons on the chair (her latest favorite thing).  Then I took two crayons and put them on the coffee table.  With a little bit of coaxing from me, she would leave the chair and walk to the coffee table to pick up the crayons.  Then it would take a little more coaxing and she would walk back to the chair to put the crayons in the bucket.  This game continued for about 20 minutes until I finally made her go to bed.

The most steps I saw her take was seven.  But then she only stopped because she got to her destination.  I wonder if she would have walked even more.

We will see what happens tomorrow.  There is a part of me that thinks this will all be a fluke, and she will wake up tomorrow and revert back.  But still this is progress, and it is very exciting!!

Here are some bad quality videos without sound from her walking adventures tonight.   I had to use my phone, which doesn't record sound for some reason, and try to help her all at the same time.  So these videos are not great.  But they are evidence that she can walk!

September 3: Labor Day

Daniel took the girls to the local Labor Day parade this morning, while I went to the grocery store and worked on hemming the curtains I bought at Ikea.

I guess the Labor Day parade is not too popular around here.  Daniel said there were only a handful of people watching it, at least on the street where he was.  Because there were not many kids around, our girls got A LOT of candy.  They were sitting in the stroller, and people in the parade just kept walking up and dumping it in the stroller.  Here is the loot they came home with!

The pile on the left is the pile that Audrey gets to keep.  Whenever we got big bunches of candy like this, we give her a small pile and then she gets to eat one piece every day.  She usually lines them all up and counts how many days she will get to have candy.  She is really, really good at eating only one piece a day and never asking for more.  She does however eat her one piece as soon as she wakes up in the morning, often as early as 6 am.  I figure if she is going to eat a piece of candy, does it really matter what time she eats it?

The rest of the candy needs to go somewhere else.  Audrey wanted to mail it to some kids who might need it.  (She's a little obsessed with mailing things lately).  We brought it to a cookout tonight, but we didn't get rid of too much.  I'm thinking we will save it for Halloween maybe?

Besides candy, they were also passing out bead necklaces.  Just recently, Isla has discovered necklaces.  She loves them.  Audrey has several of these bead necklaces, and Isla just loves to put them on and take them off.  (I try to keep a close eye on her, because I'm a bit paranoid that she is going to strangle herself).  Anyway, Isla doesn't really know what candy is yet, so I don't know if she was too excited about getting candy in the parade.  But I do think she was excited to get more necklaces!  Look how many she got today, and she wanted to wear them all!

Tonight we went to a cookout with some friends.  We had smores for dessert, yummy!

Audrey got brave enough to jump on the trampoline by herself.  She even jumped with the big boys.  She jumped and jumped and jumped.  Hopefully she will sleep well (and stay out of our bed) tonight!!

August 31: Ikea

Today I went to Ikea with some friends.  The purpose of the trip was to buy some things for the church's children's ministry rooms.  But we also were excited to make some personal purchases as well.  It is a three hour trip to Ikea, and we don't make the trip very often.

 I went to the store with a list and a plan.  I was going to spend about $40 on white picture frames.  I did not follow that plan.  My total ended up being $165...yikes!  I'm feeling a little guilty about that as I rarely make big impulse purchases like that.  It makes me a little sick to my stomach.  But it is not every day that we shop at Ikea, so I had to take advantage.

Here is what $165 will buy you at Ikea:

• Ten window curtain panels.   I have been looking for new curtains for our living/dining rooms for almost two years.  We have five windows, and curtains are just so expensive.  Even the cheapest curtains I could find would end up being around $50 a window.  I wanted white/red patterned curtains that were not sheer (we have sheer now and I want more coverage).  And I have not been able to find anything I like that I can afford.  

 Until today!  I found these curtains, and they were just what I have been looking for.  The best part...they were only $15 a pair.  So I could get curtains for all five windows for just $75.  I could have easily spent $75 on just one window, so this was a deal too good to resist.

 

 The curtains are a little long.  I'm planning to hang the rods a little higher and also hem the curtains a little.  But I think they will give our living/dining rooms a much needed update.

• Ten white picture frames.  I have been planning a portrait wall in our stairway for a while now.  I just needed picture frames!  Ikea's frames are not super nice, but they are super cheap.  And super cheap is what I can afford right now. 

• Two purple curtains, 30 purple napkins and four frying pans.  These are for Audrey's upcoming Rapunzel birthday party.  I think the curtains will make a pretty backdrop for something, not sure what yet.  The frying pans are inspired by the movie Tangled.  I've seen a lot of party ideas that serve food out of frying pans.  I liked the idea, but I wasn't sure how to afford frying pans.  For $3 a piece, these seem to be the cheapest frying pans around.

• A standing picture frame, a salad spinner, some plastic bowls, and a stacking toy.  I have several of these 99 cent frames, and they are great for parties.  The salad spinner was only $4, so I thought I would give it a try.  And I got the stacking toy as a gift for an upcoming birthday party.

August 30: Physical Therapy Update

Isla hasn't really learned any new skills in the past two weeks since our last physical therapy appointment, but she showed some improvement in our session today.  She pulled up much better than she did last time with Shannon.   She also showed Shannon how she can climb stairs by herself, though she does not do it with proper technique.  So that's another thing to work on for us!  Shannon and I talked a lot about Isla and her progress (or lack thereof) today, and here are a few bits from our conversation.

Shannon considers 12-15 months normal for learning how to walk.  Isla turns 15 months tomorrow, so she has 30 more days until she is out of the normal range and considered a "delayed walker."

Shannon doesn't think Isla is going to crawl ever.  (Well, maybe someday she will, but not at any point in the near future). 

Shannon said her next step with kids who are struggling is to test for vision problems or problems with depth perception.  She was telling me this as we were watching Isla show off her impressive tower building skills with some blocks.  Isla was consistently building towers that were seven blocks high, which showed that vision and depth perception are not at all a problem for her.  Isla's fine motor skills are really good.  She is great with her hands...just not with her legs and feet!

Shannon said she didn't see any other developmental delays with Isla (besides the obvious difficulties with crawling, pulling up and walking).  With Isla's early problems with torticollis and moving her head/neck, Shannon said it is common to see those problems continue into toddlerhood.  She doesn't see any signs that those problems exist anymore with Isla.  So that's good to hear.

In the end, Shannon said Isla is a mystery.  And a stubborn one, too!  When she watches her cruise around, she says Isla is so steady and sure on her feet.  It's surprising that she is taking so long to walk.  Except that maybe her leg muscles are a little weak due to her scooting.  And her confidence may be a little low due to her uncertainty about pulling herself up and sitting herself back down (she is getting much better at sitting down by herself though).

Isla is not struggling enough to necessitate more physical therapy, so we're just going to keep on doing what we are doing. We will keep working with her at home (which is getting harder as she is getting tired of all our usual tricks), go back again in two weeks and discuss all of this again!  I'm trying to write all of this with a smile on my face, but I'm growing impatient.  I know she will start walking one of these days, and I will look back at these posts and laugh at myself for worrying about it so much. 

August 29: A Better Day...Kind of!

I decided it was up to me to start the day with a better attitude today.  My grumpiness rubs off on my girls, and I know that they react negatively to it, especially Audrey.  So I decided to take them out of the house this morning and to do something different from what we normally do.

We went to the park!  We haven't been to the park much this summer, because it has been hot and crowded and I don't find it much fun.  But Audrey loves it, and Isla thinks it's fun (even though she can't do much by herself yet!).

I packed my camera, thinking it would be fun to take some pictures.  But once we got there, I realized that I left my memory card at home (this happens to me ALL the time, you would think I would learn my lesson!).  So I decided to use my phone camera, but then my phone died after I took just two pictures:

 

I also brought a blanket and a picnic basket with snacks so that we could have a picnic snack after we played.  Audrey loves picnics, so this was a big hit for her.  All in all, it was a pretty good morning.  It helped that Isla was in a MUCH better mood today than she has been the past two days.

AND THEN...this afternoon...I saw a mouse run across my kitchen floor.  EEK!  I am terrified of mice.  Daniel thinks I am being a bit ridiculous, but seriously, those little rodents scare me to death.  I realize that this is a completely irrational fear.  They won't hurt me, and they are probably more scared of me than I am of them (though I doubt that is possible!).

After I saw the mouse, I was paralyzed with fear and did not want to leave the safety of the couch.   We only had an hour of free time before I had to teach a piano lesson, but I just couldn't sit in the house for an hour knowing that the mouse was lurking around unseen.  So I packed up the girls, and we headed to Scheels, because it is nearby and they have cheap ice cream.  A good distraction.

We played in the playland.

We said hi to some animals.

And we had some ice cream.

Then we had to go back home, and I had to face my mouse fears.  I got braver as the evening wore on, as it was really impossible to just sit on the couch all night.  We have a bunch of traps set now...I really, really, really hope that mouse is in  one of them in the morning!  Just the thought of a mouse running free in my house makes me tense and uncomfortable and creeped out and grumpy all over again!

August 28: A New Backpack for Audrey (and some Whining from Me)

Audrey starts preschool next week!  Exciting times!!  Today she got to go meet her teachers and see her classroom.  I think she is pretty excited about school, and I think she will really like it.  Her first day is next Thursday.

Here is her new backpack.  I really wanted to buy this Pottery Barn backpack, but then I knew that a $30+ backpack was definitely not a preschool necessity.  Instead I paid  $5 for this backpack at Old Navy.  Audrey likes it, and I think it will work just fine for the handful of things that she will need to transport to and from school.

Honestly, I'm ready for her to start school and get out of the house for a bit.  She is just going on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, so she won't be gone long.  But I think we are both ready for a change of pace around here!  I've been crabby a lot lately.  Between Audrey's drama (she had a screaming/crying fit the other day because we were out of dryer sheets, seriously!) and Isla's fussing lately (second molar is finally breaking the skin, plus she is getting frustrated at her lack of ability to move like she wants, and I'm getting frustrated because she doesn't move like she should!), I just never feel like I have enough patience.  Nowhere close to enough patience!

Back to school time usually makes me a little crabby, because it was my favorite time of year as a teacher.  Sometimes I wish I was still teaching or working or doing something else besides being home every day. 

But I know that I would not make a very good working mom.  I don't think I would do well at balancing work life and home life, and I am pretty sure I would be stressed out most of the time.  But then I am stressed out being a stay at home mom, and right now I don't think I make a very good stay at home mom either.  All of that leads me to think that maybe it is this whole "being a mom" thing that I am just not good at.  Sigh.

Don't worry though...I will be okay!   I hate to be such a downer, and when I put things in perspective, I know that I have no reason to be grumpy about anything.   I've been staying at home with my kids for almost four years now, and I occasionally go through these "crabby" periods.  I know that I eventually will come out of it and figure things out and deal with life a little better than I am right now.  I will still welcome any tips that you want to share with me though, as I find it so encouraging and helpful to hear from other people that are in the same boat with me!

August 27: Oh my Isla!

Isla loves putting things on her head and face right now...specifically a princess crown and sunglasses.  She tries really hard to put them on by herself, but she can't quite do it.  Then she gets so excited when you help her get them on the right way.  She is developing such a cute little personality!!