A Portrait a Week: 13/52

We had some carrot sticks as snacks yesterday and I gave Isabella one to munch on. It clearly tasted better than putting a toy in her mouth and she kept putting it back in her mouth. Of course it was dropped several times and no carrot actually made it to her stomach but it must have been nice to suck on, lick and give relief to her itchy gums. I was impressed that she was able to pick it up off her high chair tray herself and she's very able to bring anything to her mouth now. So far we have a very happily eating girl. Hope it stays this way and she won't become a fussy eater in the future! Pear for another two days and then we're trying some sweet potato I think.

First taste of pear this morning

This is very much becoming a baby blog I'm afraid!

Isabella has only been having baby rice cereal this past week. This morning she got to have her first taste of steamed and pureed pear. As you'll see from her face she was not too sure about this new taste at first but soon started enjoying it and finished it all.

Eating pear for the first time from Anneliese Mostert on Vimeo.

A Portrait a Week: 12/52

We had a BIG exciting weekend! Firstly Isabella's Ouma Sarie and Opa Jürgen came to visit from Germany. She gave Ouma a little bit of a lip when she saw her the first time Saturday morning when waking up but after that she's been a very smiley little granddaughter and loved spending time with them and having lots of cuddles.

Second big event was that Isabella started eating solids yesterday! Well, semi-solids really. We've started with baby rice cereal and will try fruit and veg purees next and (maybe) wait until 6 months to try some  real solid food which she can try and nibble on herself. I did not expect her to keep much in her mouth for the first few tries, but she was very interested in what was happening and seemed to keep wanting another taste of what's on the spoon. She had a go with the spoon herself too and is able to easily get it to her mouth so I'm sure she'll enjoy feeding herself some finger foods later. Second meal this evening and she did even better. Yesterday each spoonful was accompanied with her pushing her tongue out and I expected it to take her a while to stop doing that, but today she had several spoonfuls without pushing it out with her tongue and kept eagerly opening her mouth towards the spoon. Yay! Sooo exciting to let her try new things and so glad we started earlier than the advised 6 months by the health visitors at the clinic over here. She slept really well last night too. Don't know whether it was the cereal or just a lucky night! Elizabeth, if you're reading, thank you so much for ALL the advice- in general and especially recently regarding solids :-) We really appreciate all your help and support over email! 

The health visitors here are so very against babies starting solids before 6 months and they won't even find out the individual baby's circumstances and how she's doing but will just keep telling us to wait so it's been hard at first to go against their advice as we'd like to think they know what they're doing, but I'm glad we took the leap into starting a little earlier.

And then number three: Isabella is 5 months old today! Which also means I'm half way through maternity leave :-( I can't imagine leaving her for a whole day... I'm enjoying her so much. As much as I don't want her to get any older and stay a cuddly sweet baby forever, she is just so much fun the older she gets. Learning and exploring so much now. She's exploring making new sounds now too, making repetitive sounds starting with na-na-na and this week now also started saying da-da-da.

So anyway, here is this week's photo taken yesterday while she was having her very first meal of baby  cereal.

What do you mean that's it for today?

A Portrait a Week: 11/52

We got a carrier for Isabella to sit in when we go walking and tried it out today on a walk along the canal. Clearly she enjoyed the carrier and the walk as she fell asleep after having just woken up from a long nap! Need to try and get her a different hat until she grows more into this one as it kept falling over her eyes...

Bookstart

I finally got around to collecting Isabella's baby Bookstart pack from the children's centre this week. When she's a bit older she will get the toddler pack and then after that the pre-school book pack from Bookstart. And it's free! It included two board books and some nursery rhymes and songs. She and Andre enjoyed the books again yesterday evening before bed. She's really starting to enjoy her books now, getting very excited as we read to her while she looks at the pictures.

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!