Wednesday, October 27, 2010

High brow humor

Isla loves it when her 9 year old cousin J makes farting armpit noises. Nice.
And she loves Velveeta. Gourmet tastes. Yeah, our kid is classy.

OH--she said "mom" Sunday. Made me all warm and fuzzy.

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Momma's little Isla B

It's amazing to see personality develop. Isla is definitely her own person with her own likes, dislikes, and mannerisms. She loves seeing that little girl in the mirror and knows where to find her in the house. She looks for her over my shoulder as soon as she gets out of the tub.

She loves Speckles--she's the only "person" Isla will kiss voluntarily without prompting. She opens her mouth and leans in for Speckles's nose. I think we've caught her so far and kept the smooch from actually happening.

She loves Alison Kraus music, especially Down in the River to Pray. There have been several times in the car that the song has prevented a major meltdown. I have to play it over and over. And it's the only song I've downloaded on my iphone. One night I played videos for Isla as she fell asleep. As long as Alison Kraus was singing, she was quiet and content. When Brad Paisley started singing at the beginning of Whiskey Lullaby, she started fussing again. Alison started singing again, she was mesmorized. I have to sing Down in the River to Pray a lot also.

Isla can scoot across the floor pretty good as long as no one is watching her. Seems like when she knows someone is paying attention though, she expects to be picked up and placed into whatever position she wants. She still doesn't go from laying to sitting on her own--she did it one night when she was mad and wanted out of bed. She has the pulling up thing down pat--that happened a week or so ago. Up, down, up, down. She's got that covered so now I'm terrified to leave her in a room by herself, especially since we have hardwood floors in our living room. We've taken to playing downstairs a lot more--more padding.

As soon as she mastered the pulling up thing, she went back to concentrate on her verbal skills and started babbling a lot more. She says da-da-da-da-da but usually only when she's upset about something. I haven't figured out if she wants to tell on me, if she wants da-da-da-da to rescue her, or if she's cussing him out. Either way, she doesn't associate da-da-da-da with P yet.

Her receptive language skills are on fast forward now though. Each day it seems like she learns a few more words and what they mean. She knows she is Isla, she knows what a drink is, bite, bottle, puppy. I try to do some signs with her as often as I can but I usually forget.

She likes watching her sign language video. Actually she likes watching tv in general. I know, shouldn't be done, but that would be unrealistic for us so we try to focus on educational programs. She likes Dora and Sesame Street. And it was really funny when Rachael Ray was breading chicken in a paper bag and shaking it the other day.

Sleep's been hit or miss lately. Some nights she'll sleep for 8 hours without waking up, some nights it's every 3 hours. Tonight she went to bed at 5:15 and got up for a bottle at 8:15. I hope she'll sleep until 4 or 5 before she's up again.

We had pictures taken in our Elvis Halloween costume. I'll post soon. I have several pics I need to post, as well as some video of her making a huge mess splashing in the tub this morning.

Speaking of tub, we've been to the pool again--how fun. She's also started taking some of her baths in the tub without her inflatable duck--her little bottom slips and slides all over the place which she thinks is hilarious.

My favorite time of day is as Isla's going to sleep. Some nights she fusses and fights it but there always comes a point when she just lays in momma's arms looking up, smiling, telling me how much she loves and trusts me. I'll stroke her cheek and she'll grin. If I'm looking away and she wants to look at me, she'll sit herself up and lean around to look in my face with the sweetest grin you've ever seen. aaaaagghh. Nothing is sweeter. Then we say our prayers, I tell her "sweet dreams princess" and put her to bed.

Life is good.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Busy momma!

I've been one busy momma the past week or so. One of my maternity leave goals was to clean out/organize the storage room and have a huge garage sale. Six months later....DONE! The great thing was once I got all the garage sale stuff out, the stuff that lives in the storage room permanently was pretty much organized. We still have some stuff in the garage but I'll call Restore about coming to pick up a couple pieces of furniture and K is coming over today to pick up more of her stuff. We got rid of a TON of stuff and helped a few other people get rid of some also. M only brought over K's clothes and managed to sell $140 worth of stuff! The most amusing sale was the guy who asked if there was a way to plug in the breast pump to see HOW it works. I told him I don't have working parts anymore but if I'd certainly plug it in for him so he could try it out. He and his wife had a sweet little girl who was just over a year old and they're due again in a few months. I also sold our bassinet--those were our 2 high dollar items. The girl that bought the bassinet was someone I worked with years ago at Blue Cross. I hope little Noah likes it better than Isla did.

I've also been getting the hang of this whole teaching thing. I'm starting a new class Wednesday and am so relieved that it's the same class. It was supposed to be a different class than what I had done, but he had an attorney scheduled to teach a public administration class and me scheduled for a law class. Made pretty good sense to switch us. The best thing is I've read the text book already, I've done PowerPoints for the first 7/9 chapters, and I've already done initial discussion board posts. I spent a few hours last night looking through my new classroom to make sure things in there looked they did in the old one. I think it will be a lot easier the second go round.

So what's been going on with Isla B while momma's been so busy? She worked the garage sale a lot. Grandma and Grandpa were there the whole time and Daddy and cousin M were there a lot too so she just kinda went from person to person. She wanted to help momma write stuff. She got a new stroller out of the event. The lady that was my mentor when I started my job had just purchased a stroller from another lady I work with--I'd actually seen it at D's daughter's yard sale and knew it was nice and unused. But it was very pink and J'd daughter found out she's having a boy. I told her I'd trade her strollers if it would help. So K has a blue and gray, unisex stroller for her little boy and Isla has a pink stroller. K also bought our swing base for the carrier and since our carrier is out of date in a couple months, she can take the fabric parts from it in hers to use instead of her pink stuff.

Isla's still working on mobility. She can get to a sitting position from an all-4s position but she tends to get mad and frustrated when she tries to do things like that. Not much progress on the babbling front, but we're getting more kisses these days. Lately she's decided that baby food isn't as tasty and momma and daddy food. We got a new bed that has a wall unit with mirrors over the headboard--she loves to stand at the headboard and talk to that baby. Yesterday we had pictures taken in our Hallween costume--I'll see if I can post a link to those. Tomorrow we're supposed to have our 9 month pictures taken. So busy!

More later--need to go shower and get moving!!

OH--I have a blog entry about Alison Kraus I need to post. I'm not sure what happened to the email I wrote it out in though. I'll find that and add it in a day or 2. Meanwhile, if you hear my baby crying, start singing "As I went down in the river to pray, studying about that good ole way...."

Later!

Friday, October 1, 2010

A splishin' and a splashin'

Guess who went to the pool tonight? Our gym has family hours on Friday evenings and the warm water pool is open for the kids. Isla LOVED it! She got the hang of splashing and seemed to surprise herself when she's splash herself in the face. Daddy dunked her a couple times and she was fine with it. There were other little kids there that she LOVED watching play--she'd watch them and laugh and squeal. It was so cute and she was adorable in her little Minnie Mouse and Daisy Duke swimsuit. (Don't tell Daddy but I also bought her a bikini at a garage sale this morning! He will NOT approve!)