Great Weekend!

We took Grandma and PopPop to Branson over the weekend. Isla did so well for the long car ride! She kept putting them in the backseat next to her and jabbered and jabbered and jabbered. We stopped in Springfield at the zoo. It's a fairly small zoo, but very clean, nice, and not crowded at all. Plus they had electric scooters for rent so my mom was able to stay off her feet. We all had a great time--I'll post pictures later.

The second day of our trip we noticed a HUGE difference in Isla's speech and language. She was parroting everything my parents said, putting together new combinations of words, and speaking more clearly. She even got hippopotamus and kookaburra out fairly clearly! Of course, "PopPop" was said many times. She did well while we did some shopping and sat still for the first half of a variety comedy show we went to see. The magician in the show kept letting birds fly overhead so she LOVED that. After intermission, we moved to the back which was a good thing--no birds in the second half. She and I had to leave the theater 10 minutes before the end of the 2 hour show. I was so thrilled with how well she behaved!

Sunday we went to Butterfly Palace and she got to see many butterflies flying all around us. The place was really neat, but overpriced. Still, she had fun and we got some great pictures.

Today we were back in the car all morning again--she slept almost half the way home but before that, she kept wanting momma to sing more and more. She's learned gestures for Wheels on the Bus at daycare and also likes If You're Happy and You Know It. She tries to sing along to other songs which is so cute. Oh, and I've started to sing Apples and Bananas to her while she's eating and she's actually eating those two fruits now! Yeah!

One thing she's doing that I'm not so thrilled about is asking for the TV to be on. Some mornings when she's up too early, I've turned on her videos so she'll sit and watch so we can stay in bed a little longer and she has quiet time. She really only seems to want to watch when she's tired, but I'm not sure I like the idea of her asking for that. I guess we'll just watch and make sure she doesn't watch too much TV and make sure we turn it off during normal play time.

Tomorrow it's back to work for momma. I've gotten some of my things to do list done in the past month, but not everything. I think some more structure will be good for me. I'm going to work Tuesdays and Thursdays. This Wednesday it's field trip to the fair with daycare.