Baby play: Touch your toes!

Isabella started noticing her feet last month, but was not yet able to grab them. She could reach to about her knees. So one evening I decided to sew some ribbons onto her socks to encourage her to grab her feet. She won't leave her feet alone now, especially when she wears a babygrow with cute feet (her ladybug and cat babygrows have smiley faces on the feet) or when I'm changing her nappy. Today I even caught her putting her toes in her mouth!

A Portrait a Week 10/52

The last couple of days have been so sunny. We decided to have a picnic for lunch today in the garden. Got the picnic blanket out, toys, hat, etc for Isabella, but she was not happy being outside. We brought out her bouncy chair, still not happy. We moved from semi-shade to complete shade, still no luck so our picnic was cut (very) short and we moved back inside. We did enjoy a long walk this morning and again this afternoon which was lovely. Isabella seems to only know going outside as time for napping in her pushchair, not for lounging about on the lawn! We will be spending short bits of time outside every day now (weather allowing) so Isabella can slowly get used to the great outdoors.

Baby play: Wooden spoons and a pot

Isabella is really becoming very interested in everything around her. Every day she's more comfortable and able to sit up (supported) and is now starting to reach for things while she's sitting and not only when she's lying under her play gym. She tries to touch everything in her reach now. Maybe one of the reasons why she's sleeping less during the day at the moment- she's too eager to learn and explore everything around her.

So yesterday I gave her two wooden spoons, or spatulas actually and a pot and showed her how to tap them against each other as well as on the pot. She eagerly took over from me and managed to reach forward and accurately aim for the pot quite a few times. I just love seeing how interested she is when she realises we're playing with something new.

Here are a few pictures, not the best as I had to try and take them with her on my lap.

Box play

One of my favourite things for children to play with are boxes. Even Isabella at 4 months enjoyed her first time playing in a box today. And the boxes the nappies come in are perfect. It's big enough for a child to fit in (I know from experience you can fit a 4 year old in these boxes!) and they're still small enough to build with or stack on top of each other. There's so much you can do with empty boxes. Here's what Isabella got up to in her first box today.

Woah! Look at those colours!

Open and shut. Up and down.

Buggy Park

This is the buggy park at the children centre I go to. It's where you park your buggy if you walked there. Can you imagine this in South Africa? You could choose a different pram to go home with each time! 

Our pram is the one in the far back corner of the picture. I left her blankets and even my jacket out there with the pram while we were at our mums and babies group for about an hour and a half. And as you can see others leave their toys etc there too. I know things can and do get stolen here too, but I love how safe it is here and that people don't just take other people's stuff. 

Little Ladybug

Isabella's aunt sent her the cutest outfits this week. The one she's wearing in the picture fits her now and then she also received some really sweet summer outfits to wear in a few months time. Here's our little ladybug.

Admiring her new outfit while being dressed in it.

Counting my spots.

"You said ladybugs fly, why can't I fly?! I want to fly!!"

She keeps trying to reach for her toes to touch the ladybug faces on her feet. Unfortunately she's just not quite stable enough for this!

ladybug 2014-03-03 from Anneliese Mostert on Vimeo.

Portrait of the Week: 9/52

Oops! I'm a little late with last week's portrait. The week somehow flew by. We didn't do much besides me going to the dentist on Tuesday and oral hygienist on Wednesday. Isabella came along of course and behaved herself really well. It's always easier to be well behaved when there are lots of new people and things to look at. We went for a few walks, but then was too lazy to go out Thursday afternoon for Isabella to be weighed so we'll try and get ourselves over there this week to see how much the little miss has gained. We had a lovely weekend, it's always so nice to have her daddy around all day over weekends. Isabella is now totally in love with her daddy. She will flash him the biggest smile whenever he walks past her and then she looks away shyly, just to look back at him with another huge smile. She is cute!

Anyway, for our 9th portrait of the week I chose this one, as the rest of the week's photos were taken on my iphone and were nothing spectacular really.

Isabella got to try her swimming costume on for the first time which she got from her Pappy and Gogs. She's working on her tan whenever the sun is out, which is not all that often at the moment! No, actually I was just going to let her kick about in the sunshine without clothes on while it was a bit warmer, but then I decided to play dress-up instead. She's hoping to get that swimming costume wet soon!