My genetics!

Other than her brown hair and brown eyes, Isabelle looks like Paul. Everyone says so, because...it's true. We have a baby picture of him and one of me. There is no resemblance to me as a baby and A LOT of him. She also has a bit of his personality, ie she gets frustrated and grumpy when she can't do something right away (I am sure she is swearing in baby-language). Of course, she also has an exuberant and cheery personality and is almost always happy. So, uhm, well she's not just like Paul. Let's leave it at that...

So, I am thinking, how is this child LIKE ME (damnit)???!!!. Here is how. She loves meat. Beef, pork, turkey, she loves it all and eats it with great gusto. What a good girlie.

Last weekend Paul BBQ'd ribs and we decided to hand one to Isabelle as she was lunging for them anyhow and grumpy to be fed scraps. other than almost choking herself from tearing off a huge chunk o' meat, she loved them. That's my girl!

Walking and itching.

I know its been a while since I have posted. Work has been oppressive and, well, blogging is lower on my personal Maslow's-hierarchy than sleep and spending time with ITL. So please forgive the long absence.

Nothing too new to report. When we were in san Diego the weekend before last, Isabelle had an allergic reaction to something:




We are pretty sure it is a food allergy. She is going to have her allergies tested next week. Poor child, she is allergen-prone from both sides of the family tree. I am afraid she is doomed in the allergy department.

In other news she is walking quite a bit more. Crawling is still her main mode of motation, but she continually makes walking efforts all day long. She can now take 10 or more steps and even stop and start and go around corners.

I think she was inspired to walk more after we (me and my friend Liz) took her to the Children's Museum here in Portland. It's a cool place where they have activities of for all ages. ITL was, of course, in the baby room (Th Magical Baby Forest"). There were about four other babies there her same/similar age....all of them were walking. Now, all of them were smaller than her too so I am wondering if her hugeness is an impediment to her walking. Either that of being carried is just a much better way to go.

In any event after vising the Magical Baby Forest she started walking more and more. It's exceptionally cute. Sometimes she is very controlled with her Franken-baby movements. At other times she just speeds forward at you like a small, chubbly, locomotive and crashes into your lap.

Below are some pictures from the Children's Museum. The first few are in the Baby Forest. She had fun there. The last few are at the water exhibit....which she LOVED. The child loves water. Loves her bath, always wants to play in the sink, loves to drink the stuff. She is a water baby. So imagine how thrilled she was when she was able to stand near and play and SPLASH in moving water. As you can see form the state of her clothing in the last picture she became one with the water. Of course, becoming one with the water included (a) Isabelle drinking the nasty germ-filled liquid and (b) trying repeatedly to get her little legs up to sit in the water.

It was fun. For Isabelle and me and Liz anyway, all other children fled when they realized by standing next to ITL they were going to be in the "splash-zone" and one grumpy mother said loudly enough for me to hear (imagine a bitchy tone): "She's just letting that child splash everywhere." Luckily, i observed that we were at the freaking Children's Museum and at a water feature nonetheless and ignore Ms. Uptight. And Isabelle, of course, couldn't have cared less.

Obeservations on communications at one year.

I am reading a book called "How Babies Talk." It's about how babies learn to communicate and learn and what a huge and involved process that is. It's actually fairly amazing that such tiny creatures can grab words from a sea of babble and learn, remember and finally repeat them in context. The analogy that the book gave was if you went to a foreign country where you knew nothing about the language - how hard would it be to pick that language up. I suppose for some people that may be easy, but for most of us (like me, who after 2 years of high school French class, I still don't think I could do much more than ask where the post office is) it would be a difficult tasks indeed. And quite frustrating.

Anyhow, the book suggests that monitoring your baby's communication abilities will be fun and interesting -- to see just how far they progress in 3, 6 or 12 months. So to memorialize where Isabelle currently is on the ole communication index, here is what she knows, as of today:

Words Isabelle can Recognize (i.e. if you ask her where one of these items is she will look for it):
Brush (as in hair brush)
Mini
Meeko
Hat
Teeth
Nose
Eyes
Ear (this one is a little hit or miss still)
Hair
Teeth
The Baby
Daddy
Mama
Sheepy
Ball
Bath
Bye-bye
Hi
Kazoo
Flute
Belly
Cow
Lion (as in her stuffed lion chair)
Leo (her stiffed fluffy lion)
Toothbrush
Tower (i.e., the tower I build out of her blocks that she loves to whack down)

I am sure there are more, I just can't seem to think of them right now. I will update this post if I think of more.

She also has learned a few more signs, although, much to my irritations, she continues to use the sign for "more" for "help" as well. Sigh.... Here are the signs she can do and/or recognize:
More
Bath
All done
Water
Bye-bye

Lastly, she has learned how to make some animal sounds when you ask her what X animal says. Here are the animal sounds she has mastered thus far:
Cow = moo
Chicken = bock bock
Snake = ssssssss
Owl = who who
Lion = ROAR (this one is the cutest by far, to see such a tiny cheerful baby making a guttural little roar)

In other news, she still refuses to walk more that 3-5 steps. She is crawling like a mad woman and is really starting to climb on things. She continues to use her head as a bettering ram on various objects throughout the house.

All is all she is doing great. And I adore her more and more each day.