Standing tall.

Isabelle has been working on pulling herself up lately. It's pretty hit and miss whether she can get herself on to her feet and how long she can stay there. But, like everything baby, that can change literally overnight. Yesterday morning when she woke up I walked into her room to get her. And there was her cheery little self, standing up in her crib hugging her giant stuffed giraffe that looks over her (see photo, although in her new room it has its head and neck over her crib as if the giraffe is looking in at her). She turned to look at me, flashed a huge semi-toothless grin and continued to hug her giraffe. As seems to occur on a regular basis these days, my heart melted, and I had to laugh.



Eating has started to become more of a challenge. As we give her more and more finger foods she seems less and less interested in eating her jarred baby food - even something yummy like applesauce. I try not to give her any of the finger foods until she has finished her jarred fruit or vegetable, but I think she knows that she will eventually win the battle and that I will bust out the cheese. Mmmmmm, the power of cheese.

A good time was had by all.

This weekend Isabelle's cousin Emily came to visit her. Emily is 7 and came up on the airplane all by herself. It was quite the big event for her and us as we haven't seen Emily since June. Isabelle adored Emily and Emily adored Isabelle. It was quite wonderful to see them together, although it made me a little sad that they do not get to see each other more often. I think we are going to try and set up regular visits for Emily so that she gets to know her cousin better and can be an important element in her little life.



Isabelle is getting more and more mobile each day. She now regularly pulls herself up onto her knees (note to self: she can now grab verboten items off the coffee table) and on occasion can get herself onto her feet. Although this is usually in some sort of downward-dog type position, which doesn't last very long before the baby topples over. She also had a propensity to seek out electrical cords...

Is there a way to truly baby proof your house short of living in a padded cell? I am starting to think there is not. Despite our best efforts she seems to grab something pointy or dangerous, to a small person, on a regular basis. Sigh....and so the struggle goes on.

She is also starting to eat regular foods. It started with small pieces of cheese, which she LOVES, and has progressed to peas, rice, bananas and tortellini. All of which means, today we invested in a drop cloth. I am quite amazed at how much food can get in her hair, pants and high chair. I see one of those trough-like bibs in her future, you know the ones where the baby can just scoop the "left overs" out of it for a continued meal? What a brilliant invention.

In other news, her newest favorite toy is the cat toy. It's from the Sharper Image, its a remote control mouse with a dangling fuzzy mouse that trails behind it. Stuffing the fuzzy mouse into her maw seems to endlessly entertain ITL, but the more comical part is the chase for the mouse itself. She will crawl all over the kitchen chasing the mouse and pummels it when she catches it. I am starting to think having a middle name that means "lion" was fortuitous for sure.

Update: in very recent (i.e., yesterday) developmental news Isabelle is now really starting to pull herself up onto things. She can now get to her feet standing in her crib and on the outside of the bathtub and on various climbable items around the house. Speaking of the bathtub, last night I put a mirror in the side of it (knowing how much she enjoys interacting with the cute baby in the mirror) and you would have thought I created a baby-fun-house. She splashed and squealed and smiled and laughed at herself in the mirror. By the time I was ready to rinse her, I didn't need a bath because I was soaked, just from sitting on the outside of the tub. It just amazes me so much how little things make her so happy. And how seeing her happy fills my heart.

Waving goodbye to my maternal instincts.

Okay I admit it - I was wrong and Paul was right. Luckily, my admission is not hard to make because it deals with the adorable Mensa-like activities of my baby. Isabelle can indeed wave. Over the last two days she has displayed, and reinforced, her ability to wave at you on demand. I cannot describe the warmness in my heart at seeing her chubby little hand wave bye to me in the morning when I leave for work.

When I was deciding whether to have a baby, one of my best friends, Maggie, told me that a child opens your heart and allows you to love in a way that you have never known. Maggie is a CPA and a lawyer -- she is not a mushy person. So her saying this was rare, but at the time I didn't understand. Every night before I go to sleep, I go into Isabelle's room. I bend down and kiss her head, inhaling the dizzying scent of her sweet, wispy, soft hair. Afterward, I step back and watch her...just stare. She appears to me like an angel, a bit of magic, an embodiment of true love. I could not have imagined these feelings 8 months ago, I could not have known really what Maggie was telling me. Now I know. Now I understand.

Okay, onto less heavy things. Last night at dinner Isabelle ate a lime wedge. First she just tried it. Then she started gnawing at it. Then she ate almost the entire thing and proceeded to carry it around for almost the rest of the evening. Oh, and she eats magazines (see below). Babies are such odd little creatures.

Two for the price of one.

So with my ever present powers of observation, I finally noticed yesterday that Isabelle is getting not one, but two teeth. Both of her little bottom-front teeth are indeed coming in. And while we had about four days of a cranky baby and giving her baby Advil - it seems that we are now back to having our ever-happy child. I have tried to get pictures of these little tooth buds for you all, but so far even trying to see the teeth, nonetheless take pictures of them, seems to be a losing battle. Alas, one of these days I will capture the teeth (currently just tiny little pointy white buds) and post them.

In other news Isabelle seems to now be waving....Paul thinks so anyhow. It's not that I don't disagree with the fact that she is "waving" it's that I am not sure it's a response as mush as just something she does with her hands when there is nothing in them. I have been wrong before, however, so we shall see.

She is crawling quite well these days. She has started to explore other rooms. Yesterday she went into the dining room and discovered the basket o'cat toys. Note to self: remove small choking hazards from large child-enticing basket. Two of her favorites are the moving mouse (see photo below - it's attached to a string so as to be fished front her maw should she poke it too far down her throat) and Mini's little foam ball, which seem to fit perfectly into ITL's mouth (okay, I took that away from her). Needless to say, I need to stop buying expensive baby toys because it seems I can rely on sundry household items and kitty toys for my child's extreme entertainment.


Oh, and she likes her new swing, as you can see if you click here. The first time she was a little unsure, but later that day she decided the swing was fun. Plus it lets her be outside where she is free to look around at everything (yes, that is a carpenter's pencil in her hand...what can I say?).

Questions and answers.

I saw this on another blog and thought it was cute. It's one of those questionnaires you fill out so friends/family can learn about you - only this one is for your baby or child. Anyhow, here are Isabelle's answers:

3 Things That Scare Isabelle:
a. hmmm, not much. she seems to have no fear of elevation, cords, electric items or sharp objects. The closest thing I can say is that she startles when Paul turns on the 865-horsepower blender we have. Of course, the startle is immediately followed by a huge grin and a "heh heh heh."

3 People Who Make Her Laugh:
a. me (of course!) especially when I am making very high pitched silly sounds - which, by the way, sound absurd and not funny - but criminally insane - when replayed on video.
b. her daddy. He is the absolute apple of her eye, much to my chagrin....
c. her cousins Zach and Molly (ages 9-11) who are quite silly and good with her and adorable themselves.

3 Things She Loves:
a. her emery board. You know the fat one that is like a sand-covered tongue depressor. She waves it around like a loon.
b. her highlighter....its one of those fat ones. She carries it around, crawling with it in her hand like a gorilla on her knuckles. Sigh....I really do buy her nice toys.
c. her "sheepy." You know one of those sheep skin rugs. She will be crawling along and just stop and lay her head down on it and suck her thumb (extra cute!). Alternatively, you can wrestle her with in making growling sounds, which she finds abundantly entertaining.

3 Things She Doesn't Understand:
a. waiting for her bottle.
b. why she cant simply dive off the changing table.
c. why kitty doesn't want to stay around and have clumps of her hair plucked out.

3 Things On Her Changing Table:
a. a tub of Aquaphor.
b. the wipe warmer.
c. various small toys to occupy her with (which incidentally only seem to distract her for a split second before she is again attempting to dive off the changing table).

3 Things She's Doing Right Now:
a. making faces at herself in or licking the giant mirror we balanced against the wall so she could "look at the cute baby."
b. crawling amazingly quickly toward the cat's wet-food bowl, collecting handfuls of cat hair and other floor debris as she goes.
c. stuffing something, anything, into her maw. Say for instance leaves, pieces of grass, or cat hair.

3 Things She Can Do:
a. follow you crawling for about 10-15 feet.
b. attempt to clap (her hands never manage to touch) - but the attempt is extra cute.
c. move from a lying down position to an upright seated position in .0002 seconds flat.

3 Ways to Describe Her Personality:
a. happy. She is almost always smiling and chattering (don't hate me I have no idea where this cheery, docile personality came from) - other than one night last week when her tooth was coming in, I really don't remember her crying in the last 2 months -uh, other than when she bumped her head into the pointy living room table we have....or when I took her emery board away from her while giving her a bottle, lest my eyes be poked out with it.
b. inquisitive. She wants to look at and notices the tiniest things.
c. charming. She has zero stranger-danger and flirts with almost everyone she meets.

3 Things She Can't Do (yet):
a. walk or for that matter stand up for very long. She just doesn't seem interested.....at all.
b. drink very well from a cup - she almost gags herself every single time.
c. change her own diaper....

3 Absolute Favorite Foods:
a. sweet potatoes
b. applesauce
c. those Gerber finger food rice puffs. If you throw them at her she does quite well at picking them up with her pincher-like claws and stuffing them into her mouth.

3 Things She'd Like to Learn:
a. how to overpower me and crawl away while I am trying to change her diaper.
b. how to avoid, at all costs, having her face wiped after a meal.
c. how to get the kitty from running away at the speed of light as soon as she sees the baby.

3 Beverages She Drinks Regularly:
a. formula.
b. water.
c. her bath water.

Yeah for me!

Last night we were working on Isabelle's self feeding. This entailed me chucking baby-rice-puffs at her and letting her pick them up off the floor and stuff them into her mouth. In one short week she has gone from rarely getting a puff into her mouth to getting it in almost every time. It's not always pretty and it sometimes involves her smashing her entire hand into her mouth - but hey, it gets the job done.

Of course, we have been cheering her on whenever she has success eating something with her little pinchers. Every completed bite gets a "good girl", "what a big girl" and/or a sitting ovation. Well last night, after a resounding chorus of applause, ITL made the first small attempt to clap her hands (in self admiration, I presume). My heart just about melted from the cuteness of it. She didn't get her hands together, of course, but she did wave them at each other - all the while grinning with satisfaction. She did it twice, in fact, the second time so Paul could see it.

It seems so amazing to me that 8 months ago the idea of tiny hands getting remotely close to clapping would have held so much exquisite joy for me. So much has changed in that time. I suppose having a baby does that to you. Maggie once told me that - that having a child brings out the wonder in the parents because you start to see the world, as best you can, through your child's eyes. I find myself gazing skyward to look at whatever ITL sees, listening for sounds that seem to grab her attention, and laughing at silly faces and noises right along with her. I know my experiences are no different than any other mother's, but that doesn't stop them from being magical and rare.

Mt. St. Enamel

I have been wondering and wondering when she was going to sprout a tooth. It seemed like although she was ahead on most of her "milestones" she was late on the tooth-front. Well, I needn't wonder anymore. While shoveling sweet potatoes into her open maw on Friday I noticed a small white spot on her lower gum and sho-nuff when I felt in there I could feel a little tooth pointing up through the skin. Part of me was excited, part of me sad. It's seems like its her fist big step away from babyhood and into toddlerhood.

I am sure I am being typico melodramatic, but its true. I cannot believe how fast she is growing. Where is my tiny baby who just laid there waiting for me to pick her up and carry her around? She has been replaced by a little chubby bundle of energy. A little being showing more of an independent personality every day. When did that happen?

In other news she has a list of favorite toys for the last few weeks. Are they the shiny new toys I bought at Babies R Us? Are they the items from Amazon I only ordered after reading 862 customer reviews? Are they adorable gifts sent by friends and family? No. There aren't. They are (1) a thick emery board (think tongue depressor); (2) a measuring cup; and (3) a fat highlighter. Don't ask me - I don't know, like I said above, its her new little (strange) personality beginning to shine through. And there is new news on the toy front. For the first time, last week ITL cried (well made some grumpy whining protests anyhow) when I took a toy (the emery board) away from her. I had to laugh just a little. The "mine" time has cometh.

Crawling is going well. She is getting better everyday and can cover 5-10 feet pretty quickly when she wants to. Mostly she crawls away when I am trying to change her diaper. Which has led to at least one peeing on the carpet incident (okay that was caused by me wanting to let her bottom dry out....Thanks Mom). She's starting to want to pull herself onto things. Not up onto her feet yet, but onto me or Paul or her giraffe stool in her room. I cant imagine that it will e very long before we walk into her room one morning and find her standing up inside her crib, grinning from ear to ear.

We got new landscaping this week (yeah!!!). I took Isabelle to see the grass today. She picked and picked it like crazy and of course tried to stuff it in her mouth, as you can see here. She really enjoyed it outside though. She loves to look at the trees and plants and things in the sky. She seems so fascinated with the world around her. And my world, of course, is fascinated by her.

She was born on the same day as Muhammed Ali...

And I have to admit -- it did in some small way make me chuckle when ITL made the 14 month old cry (in all fairness the child was tired and ITL wasn’t doing anything "bad"). But perhaps I shouldn't have chuckled. See, Isabelle now thinks it’s funny to grab, with her claw like pinchers, your face. The eye area in particular seems to be her favorite. Yesterday, while changing her diaper and making cute cooing sounds near her chubby little face she reached up and grabbed my eye-skin....hard! Trying not to react with hot tears and shrieks of pain, I fake smiled at her saying "oh, Mama's eye huuurts, doesn't it?" To which she smiled and attempted to grab at me again.

Fluke? I wish I could say so, but then this morning whilst giving her her bottle of hard earned mothers milk she proceeded to bap me repeatedly in the face. Which made her smile so much, when I protested, that the milk oozed from the sides of her bottle-plugged-grinning-maw. Sigh....I have spawned a brute.

Nothing else new on the baby front. Paul is going to buy a real sweet potato today and we are going to bust out the peas for her to try and eat with her little mitts.

On a developmental note, last night she did manage to smash a puff into her mouth all on her own. Just one. Then she gave up and opened up, waiting again for me to feed her. It seems she can grab the finger foods fine - and when she tries, she gets things into her mouth - it's the trying effort she lacks. Mostly she just keeps the bits in her pudgy hands without any effort to place the bits in her mouth. This strikes me as odd as literally EVERTHING else she finds she stuffs into her mouth.

The picture above was from a friend's birthday party a few weeks ago. She is such a good girl, she happily played on her towel and wore her party hat. I also discovered she very much likes ice cream, making mmmmm sounds at little tiny spoonfuls I put in her mouth. Mmmmm, ice cream....

The town bully.

One of Isabelle's favorite fun things these days is to wrestle, either the sheepy (sheep skin - see picture) or her large stuffed-animal rhino. She thinks it especially fun if you growl while holding either item and roll her around a bit.

In other news she appears to be the town bully. At a recent BBQ with friends she made a 14 month old cry. How did she do this you ask. By repeatedly raking her claw-like pinchers across the poor child's face is how. Needless to say I felt bad.
Now I know she has no mens rea, but nonetheless, I felt bad. Is this the start of hazards of being raised by SAHD? We shall see...

Crawling away.

This is the first entry in Isabelle's blog. So, because I am new to this, and uhm, relatively computer-challenged, you will have to bear with me. I am hoping to upload new photos on this site and if I can figure it out videos as well or at this cite. Until then, here is Isabelle's first blog:

Isabelle is now crawling. Its not efficient and its not always pretty (although it sure is cute), but it gets her to where she wants to be. She has so far ventured into the kitchen. Her latest trend seems to be attempting to get into Mini's food bowl. We already moved Mini's dry food (aka protein filled choking hazards) upstairs along with her water bowl, but left the wetfood bowl in the kitchen.....not sure how much longer we will be able to do this as Isabelle seems intent on finding the bowl and no doubt trying to eat what's in it (mmm, yummy Senior Science Diet!).

The other hazard of crawling seems to be our house in general. We bought plug protectors and have generally tried to make things safe, but, well, I am not sure how well that's working. She is drawn to cupboards and drawers (next on the list to be secured) and to anything hard in the area (such as the wood floor, the tile around the fireplace, and the glass doors on the TV cabinet). Sigh... I am sure I have loads of bumps and bruises in my future and should just relax about it - but for now - I hover around like a hovering hover-thing in the hopes of not hearing a loud THUD! of the head on the hard thing.

Regarding eating, we have been trying to give Isabelle some finger foods such as vegetable puffs, Cheeri*s, and cheese. While she loves eating these tidbits she seems to have no interest in actually feeding them to herself....sigh. She is the little princess, and like a chubby baby bird, opens her maw and wants the food poked in.

It's not clear whether she is understanding sign language yet. We started working with it (eat, more, and milk) at 6 months and most of the time it seems like she has a fundamental grasp of "eat." "Milk" seems hit or miss and I am not sure "more" has any meaning at all. But alas, the video said it would take until month 9-10 to see results, so we will keep working on it.