you knew it had to happen..iona is walking..she has been walking with the assistance of furniture, ernie, us and her fabulous radio flyer wagon for quite awhile...but now she is free range! in the end it seemed to take just one evening with her new friend lorenzo (and his fabulous parents marcella and kevin) to give her hte inspiration she needed...lorenzo is a bit older and walks like a champ (and now scales the furniture too!) and after watching him all evening iona decided she was ready...she is now about 50/50 walking and crawling...crawling is still faster but everyday she becomes more determined to walk all the time...we take her for a spin in the hallway of our building most nights before bedtime...she has regular stops including the elevator, the window overlooking the back yard and our neighbor's doormat...she loves the gnome and mushroom
we actually thought we could escape purchasing more shoes..we thought her sweet robot monster robeez would be good, even great, for walking..one day into the adventure they looked as if they had been eaten by a cat so we had to step up and get some sturdier big girl shoes... and that is when we learned that big girl shoes are expensive! jaclyn recommended stride rite, other friends said see kai run...all of which run $40-60..i am not begrudging my girl good comfortable shoes..this is a lesson everyone should value as early in life as possible..but little feet grow fast AND iona is a water and filth fiend...so i could just picture her sassy new leather shoes covered in lake muck and soaked through...and that is when i found keen's for kids...those funky hybrid water shoes (hugely popular in our town...)..the price was similar but they love wet and filth...a perfect match...of course she screamed bloody murder the first day we put them on but now has become fairly used to them..they are still a bit clunky for her but it is nice to know she won't slice her feet open swimming or wandering the world...now if we could just get her to accept her bike helmet all would be great!
summer has finally arrived here (although the frost free date is not until the weekend)..we have been swimming several times already the lake is still cold!) and matt has been out in the kayak already...iona cannot get enough of the water...cold and chattering she will still yell when we take her out...she also found her first fossil when we were out last week...perhaps the start of a great career....we are set for a great summer..a new farm share, swimming holes galore, a new PFD on the way so iona can come kayaking with us and our craigslist bike trailer is working out great!!! it is light and easy to pull and we have already used it several times to go to the grocery store and will soon take a weekend ride to the farmer's market...we also have a couple of trips planned...to see the fellmans in philly, a trip to NYC and a long stint in Maine in august (one strange perk of my new job is a ton of vacation time...i plan to use it!!)
we totally missed posting pics from her first birthday... here are the cupcakes mom and oma made! they were actually quite easy but after frosting several dozen we were on a weird sugar high and felt quite sick...the party was really great..all the fellman's came up to help celebrate and oma and opa came from texas..our girl had a great time and received very thoughtful gifts...books and toys and jammies and the wagon! we still can't quite believe everyone made it a whole year...we are definitely seeing who our girls will be...she is funny and weird and sweet and loves people (and dogs..and water)...life
could not be any better....except maybe while eating peanut butter.....
