Weekend Recap in Photos

As always, we had a glorious time with Porter and Elsa. Here are some highlights:

Dinner the first night- pizza!

Toes!

It definitely wasn't a quiet weekend.

Wrestle-mania

What a trip to IKEA will do to two busy toddlers

Pretty girl meet....

...cheesy girl

Looking WAY too sophisticated

Two peas in a pod (er, log)

Best Buddies

Elsa hearts Pelican

And a few videos to give you a very good idea of how entertaining the entire weekend was. It was a boisterous weekend, full of LOTS of talking, singing, and playing.

And, yes, in the bathtime video the off-camera dialogue of the Mamas is almost as amusing as the girls themselves. I didn't realize just how silly I sound when I'm talking with or about my child. What's with all the "we" talk?

Growing up

Everyday Isa seems to be moving further and further away from babyhood. It's exciting and sad for me all at the same time. I have selective amnesia about the early months home. The sleep deprivation doesn't seem as horrible as I know it was but so many of the other memories are still intense. I loved having a baby and I fully admit that I miss that stage. Isa was a remarkably easy baby, so there wasn't a lot of crying. Just lots of snuggling and playing- and not so many fights at the dinner table!

Toddlerhood certainly is entertaining, though. Isa is a total ham. She has recently started acting out scenes from her favorite books. Usually she chooses another character in the story for me to play. ("I, Lily. You, Mr. Slinger.") When she's not acting out a specific story, she's often pretending to be an animal or making up little scenarios for the two of us to act out. We get "stuck in the mud" a lot- a game played by lying down on the couch and pretending to be stuck. We hide from imaginary monsters. We have lots of dance parties!

She still sings ALL THE TIME. In addition to our usual repertoire, she often makes up her own songs. She'll essentially narrate the day for me in song. Sometimes it makes sense. Sometimes it's simply a string of words with a melody. Unfortunately, it's most often done in the car, so no videos for you to hear.

Lately Isa's been all about "making something new." I have one crafty kid on my hands. Which is fun but a bit tricky at this point since the crafts she can do (without getting too frustrated) are a bit limited. Here she is using her new fingerpaints. (Side note- Crayola Color Wonder products are fabulous. Certainly not as intense in color as the real deal but NO MESS!)


A glimpse at the future. I'm sure to see this look again, though perhaps not with a pair of fairy wings on her back.

We're still slowly meandering down the lane towards potty training. Bit of a set-back with last week's poo issues. Her buddy Evan figured it out last weekend. His mom was also easing into training when it just sort of clicked and bam!- he used the potty all weekend with only a couple accidents. I'm hopeful that spending every Tuesday with him will convince Isa to get trained as well. To help encourage her, we have a new Potty Chart at the house. Every successful trip to the potty will earn her one sticker. When she fills up a row, she'll get a treat (fruit snacks, M&Ms, etc). Note there are no stickers up there yet.....

And lastly, I have FINALLY turned Isa's carseat around. She didn't care that she was rear facing and so I never took the time to wrestle with the Britax. But I've been having trouble with my lower back recently. On Tuesday, as I reached to put Isa into the seat I felt a muscle in my lower back actually POP. Extreme pain! So today I (carefully so as not to further injure my back) turned the beast around. I was pleasantly surprised by what I found under the seat. Not nearly as bad as I had expected, although the seat did yield quite a bit more.

On Friday we head down to CA to visit Porter and Elsa for a nice, long weekend. Expect tons of glorious adorable photos of the girls together!

Warning- TMI ahead

11:30 p.m. run to the store for toddler suppositories. 'Nuf said.

Isa-isms

Anyone who has read this blog recently knows that Isa is INCREDIBLY verbal. Shockingly verbal sometimes. Which can be dicey- I really have to watch what I say because she will parrot back everything. She has started to memorize her books and will randomly spit out lines from them. Sometimes it takes me quite a while to understand what she's talking about even if the words are fairly clear. And, honestly, sometimes it's just really, really funny. A few examples:

Right after Christmas, she ran into the living room with her face in her hands and told me, very dramatically, "I devastated!" (Thank you Fancy Nancy!)

We were wrestling/snuggling on the couch this week. Isa unclipped her pacifier from her shirt, clipped in on me, and tried to put the other end in my mouth saying "Put your paci in and calm down." (Hmmm... she may have heard that line a few million times....)

Today we were taking a long walk around the neighborhood. We passed a dog behind a fence that barks loudly everytime anyone goes by. On our way back, as we neared the fence, Isa started yelling "No doggie! No barking! Be 'siderate!" (i.e., "considerate", learned from one of her books)

And finally, an example of the wonderful things she parrots back. She ended up in my bed last night and woke this morning at 6:45, adament that she needed to "go pee-pee in potty." Inner groan but I rolled out of bed and got her into the bathroom. I was gritting my teeth trying to be patient about the exceedingly unpleasant wake-up. As I helped her take off her jammies, she hugged my legs and said "I love you mostest. Wide whole world." It didn't feel quite so unpleasant after that. :)

(And, yes, yes, I know that I need to take some photos and get them posted. Wrist slap noted.)

The P Word

As in potty.

We've flirted several times with potty training. Back in September she started telling me ahead of time when she would poo. Since she was also in a phase where she hating having her diaper changed and would be physically fight me each time, I thought we'd try potty training. No dice. Too soon.

Later in the fall, we tried again. Unfortunately, the cat was also really sick and after a single afternoon of cleaning up 3 toddler puddles and 2 cat pukes in less than 3 hours, I called it quits.

In the last month Isa has asked several times to wear her big girl underpants so I figured why not try. I remained hopeful that she'd be one of those kiddos that trains in a day. (I'd read the book afterall!) As with all toddler training , I kept up a constant stream of reminders "When we wear big girl underpants, we ONLY pee in the potty" or "You need to keep your big girl underpants dry", etc. And intellectually, she got it. She could walk through the entire process with her potty and could tell me how it was supposed to go. But she didn't quite recognize how to get to the potty BEFORE going pee all over the floor. I'd get frustrated after multiple accidents and the diapers would go back on.

Soooo..... I decided that I needed a change of focus. I'm just not going to be able to handle a week straight of that many accidents without totally losing my patience. And so what if my child doesn't train in a day? She'll get there eventually, right? We put the diapers back on and I told Isa to let me know if/when she wants to use the potty. Over the last week she has started at least telling me when she needs to go pee, although she often refuses my suggestion to go sit on the potty. She taught several of her stuffed animals to use the potty which is quite funny to watch.

Now, admittedly, she has discovered that this can be used to her advantage. Twice after being put down for nap or bedtime I heard her calling me "Mama, need to use the potty!". While I know that it's partly a delay tatic, I want to encourage her, so I get her out of the crib and off we go. And you know what?!? Both times she did go pee in the potty! Woo-ha!!!

(Here's where I was going to insert a cute new pic but turns out I haven't loaded anything new since Christmas. Oops. So, here's a repeat of a cute shot from her first time wearing big girl underpants back in September.)

January Eats

Okay, so I realize we're well over a week into January and I've just now finished the "monthly" meal plan. Better late than never. Here's what we're eating for the rest of the month:

Jan 10 - meatloaf muffins with roasted squash
Jan 11 - sesame chicken & soba noodles
Jan 12 - leftovers
Jan 13 - tuna noodle casserole
Jan 14 - leftovers
Jan 15 - parents' house
Jan 16 - take-out, etc (Isa at parents' house)
Jan 17 - pork chops with cherries, mashed sweet potatoes
Jan 18 - lasagna
Jan 19 - leftovers
Jan 20 - leftovers
Jan 21 - friends' house
Jan 22 - honey teriyaki chicken with pineapple & rice balls
Jan 23 - leftovers
Jan 24 - pork soft tacos
Jan 25 - sausage with peppers & onions, polenta rounds
Jan 26 - leftovers
Jan 27 - Paula's mac & cheese
Jan 28 - leftovers
Jan 29 - rosemary chicken with ravioli
Jan 30 - leftovers
Jan 31 - leftovers

I'm happy to post recipes if anyone wants them. Isa has been rather obsessed with soup lately and will eat large quantities of it for lunch. I'm hoping to make a big pot of soup at least once a week for lunches and freezing. If any of those are big winners, I'll post about them as well.

The Sigh

We've had a rough week in terms of nighttime sleeping. With the double whammy of nearly a week spent at my parents' house and the excitement of Christmas, Isa's had a lot of trouble going to sleep and then staying asleep at night now that we're home.

A couple nights she resisted being put down at all which is very usual. Once I finally got her to stay in the crib, she'd eventually wake up and start yelling "Mama, Mama". She'd be wide awake in her crib and stand up asking to be rocked again. She'd get hysterical if I didn't pick her up. One night she did that every 2 hours, all night long.

Well, a couple nights ago, I went in for the first back-to-sleep rocking session, feeling rather frustrated and impatient. Isa cuddled right into my chest and I put my chin down on her forehead while we rocked forward and backward. After about 10 minutes she started doing what I call the Maggie Simpson- very loud pacifier sucking. This always indicates that she's in a deep sleep. Before I could stand up to put her back in her crib, she sighed deeply. And I was instantly sucked back to the first several months after she came home. Back when she was very small, I used to have to rock her until she was deeply asleep or she would wake up the instant I laid her down in her crib. I used to wait for that heavy sigh to know that she was asleep enough to put down. I can't remember the last time I held her long enough at bedtime to hear that sigh.

And suddenly all the frustration was gone, replaced by the bittersweet knowledge that time is moving much too fast. I can now rest my chin on the head of the baby that used to fit neatly on one forearm. I need to savor every one of these late night sessions because someday- sooner than I want to believe- she won't need to be rocked back to sleep and I know I'll miss hearing that sigh.