In my defence:

... we were away at Greenbelt for the Bank Holiday weekend (Friday till Tuesday), emptied the caravan on Wednesday, went north to Teesside on Thursday to visit Bill's Dad and got home late on Friday, had a full day out with friends to Moreton-in-Marsh Show on Saturday and been out at church all morning - so not much time to get things straight!

I feel it's time I blogged about Isabelle, now she is 10 months old. She's still not mobile - her attempts to crawl pretty much stopped when she learned to sit - but she does love standing up (supported). She pretty much forces us to help her stand whenever she can. She's not quite safe enough to leave hanging onto something, but she's nearly there. Last Saturday at Greenbelt she spontaneously started walking while being held up, so that was fun! She absolutely loves pressing buttons, being in the bath, and blowing little bubbles. She loves a little game we have where she will vocalise something and I will copy, then she changes the pitch or the sound a little and waits for me to follow suit, over and over again! She is quite keen on food, although doesn't take much at each sitting. I usually give her a portion of whatever we are eating, as long as it is suitable, otherwise just the veg, and she pretty much feeds herself as it is all finger food.

Temperamentally she is very laid back, easy going and happy. Her beaming smile is bestowed upon many people, although lately she has taken more to seriously studying faces before eventually relaxing into the big grin. She takes life at an easy pace, not rushing to reach her milestones (!) ... who knows, maybe she is as tired as I am seeing as she wakes several times a night - I am determined tonight to try and count exactly how many. I remarked to a friend this morning that I thought she was waking me about 6 times per night - "well, that's better than the 14 times Tamsin used to wake you," she said, "I used to wonder if there was any point in you actually going to bed!" I'd forgotten about that. I am thankful for small mercies! But still want to get Isabelle used to a bottle so that I can water it down at night to night-wean her.

Oh, and my plan was to start HE properly tomorrow, seeing as Tamsin would have been starting Reception. But having had such a manic week I don't feel ready in any way. I plan to use Sonlight Pre-K (and some of it hasn't arrived yet), Miquon maths, Handwriting without Tears, and Reading Reflex as the main backbone of our stuff with bits and pieces added day to day as interests arise. But I haven't got my head round it all yet, so maybe it'll have to be next week.