Isla seems to have grown up so much in the two months since her birthday.
It seems that every few days you look at her and think: “You’ve changed since yesterday!”
Her biggest physical development since turning one is that we now have those gorgeous wibbly first steps. She has been walking for a few months now with the aid of her walker, but on our return from holiday last week she took her first proper steps completely on her own. Well, we were chuffed to bits to see them – I don’t think anything quite beats the thrill of seeing them take their first step – but Isla herself was completely over the moon!!! I think she has been frustrated lately trying to walk and talk and when she realised she’d really done it she was hysterically excited, giggling her head off and wanting to do it again again again! Her face was a complete picture of pride and amazement… just a wonderful sight.
Her enthusiasm means that now she is, quite literally, trying to run before she can walk… the more walking practice she does from me to daddy and back again, the more excited she gets, the faster she tries to go, and she completely forgets to try and get her balance in a standing position first – she just throws herself forward!
Her speech is coming along too – most exciting development lately being the word “Lilly” – she pronounces it “Law-Law” and shouts it at Lilly to get her attention, or when she can’t see Lilly and wonders where she is. “Mumma” has returned and is now definitely used in context. There are also a lot of words that we don’t understand, but which seem to mean something to her – on holiday everything was a “bish!” But we also had other words like “Bo” which meant boat. She doesn’t try to say thank you but whenever you (or Lilly) hand her something, such as food or a toy, she will accept it, then pause and give you a huge cheesey grin for a second as a way of acknowledging that she is happy you gave it, before she eats or plays with it.
Food wise she can eat almost whatever Lilly eats now (in fact, probably more as Lilly is going through a very fussy stage). But she has no intention of using a spoon herself – she never tries to grab it from you and is quite content to be fed, Queen of Sheba style. She will do finger foods though, although if you were to offer to put it in her mouth for her, she’d be quite happy with that… lazy bones!
Isla is definitely a daddy’s girl at the moment – she looks to her daddy first for comfort if she bumps herself or is hard done by in some way (usually by having a toy snatched from her by Lilly). She isn’t shy but she can be a bit sensitive around other people outside mummy, daddy and Lilly at first – even grandparents. She just needs five minutes to take in the new surroundings and new faces before she feels comfortable.
And her sense of exploration is definitely being fully exploited – she loves climbing, especially on chairs and up the stairs (which we only allow her to do under close supervision of course!) Like any 14 month old she has no sense of danger whatsoever! Recently she discovered the joys of slides and can’t get enough of them. We have a tiny one in the garden which we’ve had since Lilly was a baby and she will never get tired of whooshing down time after time.
At night she sleeps fairly well – on holiday recently it was world war 3 every bedtime with screaming and creating no matter how tired she seemed. Luckily, since we came back she has started going to sleep without a fuss, and generally sleeps through the night. However, on the occasions when she does wake up – it always takes at least an hour to settle her down again… exhausting! We have stopped giving her milk in the bedroom before putting her down – she now has it downstairs half an hour or so before bedtime with Lilly. And she doesn’t need milk the instant she wakes up either – she has water on waking then milk a little later on like her sister – so I think we can finally do away with those blessed SMA cartons that’ve been costing a small fortune but were so handy to keep by the bed!
I just love seeing Isla grow and develop – between the ages of one and two there is literally never a dull moment. (is there ever?!) Just can’t wait to see what the next couple of months will bring…
