It's been a long time since we posted!! Life has been busy! Here's a picture of Isabelle and David playing patty-cake. And a picture of Isabelle in David's bed with all of her critters. For some reason his bed is more fun to play in.

I went back to work full-time and we've put the kids in day-care part-time. It's been a good change for everyone, I think. Isabelle absolutely loves it there. She's made some friends and the change of environment is good. Every day she come home and tells us about her exciting day... riding in the wagon, playing with the blue sand, playing with the kids and the big momma kids (apparently nothing just big or small; it's big momma or baby sized). One day last week she and her friend Jesse ran around and played "funny faces" and chased each other, laughing for 45 minutes.



David seems to like it there too, although he is still at an age where he would like us to carry him around all day and snuggle. The people at daycare are very attentive to the kid's needs are are big on comforting when it's needed. David's not really at an age that he likes to play with toys with other kids, but he does crawl around chasing and laughing with Isabelle and seems to like the social part of daycare too. And the environment of the daycare is pretty similar to home, same kind of toys, same kind of music, books and most importantly, the way they interact with the kids jives with the way we do things. I think that was one big reason that Isabelle never really adjusted to the last daycare we had her in... the expectations were just too different.

I am so grateful to have had the last year to be home full-time with the kids. It was such and important year to be able to do that. Now though, I still get to be with them in the morning and John gets the evenings still. I make it home to kiss them good-night and get to spend a little more time with John. And we get to have weekends off together. So after all of that... yeah... good change.



A couple of weeks ago we went to Tahoe with John's family. Susan had found a house to rent for a week and we spent a few days visiting with everyone. The kids had a terrific time with all of the attention, but didn't sleep much. Even so, they were happy and fun and didn't melt down until we were about home. Two days away seems to be enough for them, and for us... we were all tired and glad to be home.

Above are a few pictures of the kids at the park in Tahoe. David likes climbing up the slides, which is good exercise for him, since he can't really slide dwon them very well yet, and isn't too steady walking. Isabelle played basketball with Aunt Susie and Uncle Greg.



We also celebrated David's first birthday in Tahoe!! He got lots of presents and clothes and had fun painting himself with chocolate cake!





Another milestone for David is that he started walking!!! His first steps were taken on August 13. When we were in Tahoe he took 9 steps. He is still practicing, of course, but is doing really well! He can walk holding something in his hands now... mostly he walks with that cute shoulders hunched, arms poised to shoot out and maintain balance posture that they start out with. He'll be running in no time.

Isabelle likes to climb in David's bed when he wakes up from nap. Sometimes he's not quite ready to get up, or at least he's not ready for her enthusiastic hugging and playing. She doesn't seem to notice, and most of the time, he doesn't seem to mind.


Here's another picture from our little artist. If you can't tell, it's a duck! She mostly likes to (still) draw happy faces, but also draws flowers, spiders, balloons and suns. She also has begun to draw a picture and then color it in, so cometimes when she's finished it just looks like a big colored blob. If you ask her though, she can tell you what it is!

One of David's top teeth finally broke through, but he's still drooling like a faucet. I think he must have other teeth getting ready to come in right away.

He is getting ready to walk too. He can now sometimes stand without holding onto anything for about 5-10 seconds. He doesn't fall as much since his balance is improving, so we're happy about that!

She's had a strange fear of trees on and off for the last few months. We aren't sure where this comes from, except that she has quite an imagination... Anyway, we've spent some time trying to encourage her that trees are good. We talk about how they provide homes for animals and shade for us when it's hot, and so on... often she'll ask us to touch the tree as though if we can (and will) touch it, it must be ok. So we pat the tree with confidence and say, "this is a good tree..." or something like that.

Today Isabelle and I were out in the front yard, and Isabelle hugged the tree.... that's our girl:>)

Last weekend we went down to Heather and Mike's for a pre-4th BBQ. We had a great time. I brought the camera, but I think both Heather and I took about 4 pictures. We were just too busy with keeping Mike in check. Oh, and our little ones kept us busy too. Thus, I have only a couple of pictures to show you. One from us, two from Heather.






Jen also came by last week for a quick lunch time visit. Isabelle doesn't see her too much, but Jen has left enough of an impression from playing with her that she talks about her and asks when she's coming over sometimes. David likes Jen too. This time, he liked her shoes a lot. We don't wear shoes much in our house, so it's a novelty when someone keep theirs on and David might get a chance to bite them, or at the very least drool on them. He spent a lot of time trying to do that.

It's been a week since Julie stated that David had been sleeping through the night. And she hoped she didn't curse us. Well, in the last seven days, he's been up 4 of them. This morning when I got up, I don't think he was really hungry or wet, he just wanted to play. David was singing and banging on the mattress, while he still had his head on the mattress. I think he was discovering the world of sounds. But why does he need to practice percussion at 3:14 a.m.?

And the best part was, after I changed him, and gave him a bottle, and he fell asleep on my shoulder, I put him back in his crib, naturally, right? Then about 60 seconds later, his gyroscopic inertia attitude indication unit told him he was horizontal again, and he started to sing! So I picked him up again, getting him mostly vertical, again, and he fell asleep. Again. This time I held him for 15 minutes to hope that he would go into a deep sleep, and not notice his being layed down back in bed. This time it worked. Yawn!

I feel we may be raising the next catwoman. Isabelle likes to sing a few nursery rhymes substituting 'meows' in place of the words. Then she started to crawl around the house on her hands and knees, with occasional meows as she maneuvers through the furniture. Today she went one step further, and crawled up to me, and rubbed her chin on my hand. She hasn't got a black cat suit yet, but I'll keep you posted. Isabelle also has a little bit of a dark side. Although, unlike Selina Kyle's knack for stealing, Isabelle sometimes likes to step on flowers. Stomp on them really.

Here's a little story about that stomping part. Early in the spring, Isabelle started to pick dandelions. And that was fine, since there were everywhere, and they were going to get sprayed soon anyway. Well, she then started to pick just about any flower she came across. I think I've mentioned this before. So we are trying to teach her to leave the other flowers alone, so other people can enjoy them too. Also, we don't want her bringing a bunch of flowers inside, as they will eventually end up on the floor all scrunched and mashed. Then one of our cats will get them and 'process' them, then leave them in another spot on the floor.

So the other day, we were out at the park, and Isabelle really wanted to pick a flower. I reminded her that we only pick dandelions, and we should leave the others for everyone to enjoy. Then, as we turned back to the park, she reached back with her foot and stomped on it! As if to say, "if I can't pick 'em, no one will!" That little girl is funny.

Well, I hate to say it out loud and thus risk the chance of cursing us.... but it APPEARS that David is now sleeping through the night!! HOORRAYYYYY!!! The weird thing to me is that he didn't sort of "cut down" on getting up at night, he just all of the sudden started sleeping through. That's what makes me a little nervous that it's just a growth spurt and it won't last. For now though, we've slept through the night for 3 days in a row and it's been GLORIOUS!!

He continues to do well. He has such a funny, sweet, snuggly personality while also being persistent and determined. He makes the greatest faces... a very expressive face; and I can tell already that he has a good sense of humor. Nothing too much is new with his development that I can think of. He's eating more and more solid food, seems to have a good appetite and isn't terribly fussy about what he eats. He has five teeth already and enjoys using them!

David has terrible balance, but I don't think he has realized that yet, as he continues to do things that his body doesn't seem ready to do. Right now he has a bumped eye and mouth from falling and looks like a little boxer:>( Today he bumped his mouth and made his lip bleed... again. I am glad not to be queasy about the sight of blood.

Isabelle is her same silly self. Her newest thing is pretending to be a cat. She crawls about on the floor, and particularly when she wants positive attention, she meows at us. The other thing she likes is to ask us to, and of course we do, sing familiar songs like a cat. So she'll say "sing Twinkle Star Kitty-Cat", and that means that we Meow to the tune of the song. It's funny and silly and sometimes irritating, but we do it because soon enough she won't want us to sing to her anymore at all. ( I had a flash of mortality and realization of impermanence today...)

We did have a couple of really bad days as a result of too much sugar. I've said it before, and swear to myself that I won't let her have any, but then we're out somewhere and I think ok, a little won't hurt. So she has some candy and we pay for two days after. She's absolutely terrible!!! She won't listen, she throws tantrums, she's mean to David and to us, she's fussy and moody and horrid to be around. Don't get me wrong, she has her tough days otherwise, but they are nothing compared to when she has sugar.


Anyway... I think that's the update... here's a couple more of her "masterpieces." The one face that's black with male pattern baldness is John. She did draw a sort of similar one today though, and when I asked her what the things were on the sides of the head ( I thought to be hair) she said eyebrows, so I don't think she's drawing hair too much yet.




We're going to the Campbell's house on Sunday for the day, and Isabelle is excited to play with Jordan. We should have some good pictures from that to share on the next post!

Happy Father's Day!! We didn't have a very eventful day, but it was nice. We went swimming in the afternoon, which was the first time this year. Isabelle loved the water again.The first year she went she was 6 months old and LOVED it. Last year it was not so much fun... cold and kind of scary... this year is fun again.

David was not so crazy about the water. I think it felt too cold for him. He splashed around a little, but then didn't seem so happy so I got out with him and John and Isaelle played in the pool. He liked being cuddled up in the warm towel and watching the action.



I am convinced that Isabelle is a budding artist. Do any of you readers out there know what kind of drawing a 2 1/2 year old is supposed to be doing? Isabelle is drawing shapes and simple pictures. Right now she loves to draw "happy sun." I think it's also interesting that in another picture that looks similar to this one, she decided to use a different color for the mouth. I think she's brilliant.



David has his two front top teeth!! He is still drooling like a little faucet and now has started grinding his teeth. It must feel good to him, but it makes our skin crawl. He also is a very very persistent little boy. He used to be obsessed with grass, but now he is facsinated by the bathroom trash, the cats' food and water bowls and the ficus tree. So, the kitchen is now gated off, the bathroom door stays closed and there's a toy baracade around the tree. Good grief... with all the toys around here, you'd think he could find something else to do!!! He's a little explorer at heart maybe.

We went to a birthday party today for some friend's 4 year old son, Benny. They rented a place called Kid's Gone Wild. What a cool gig that was! The party was 2 hours long. The first hour is spent in this big room with these giant inflated slides and bounce houses. Some of them are bigger and/or taller than others, but they all are designed so adults can "help" the kids play on them. We had as much fun as the kids did!

I guess on the weekends this place take reservations for parties and during the week it's pretty much open and you can go in for an hour at $5 per kid (adults are free). Apparently Benny's grandpa takes him there for an hour every Thursday. (Cool grandpa!) I think we'll be frequenting that place, pretty often when the weather is either too hot or too rainy to go to the park.

Anyway, after we bounced around and slid for an hour, we went into another room for pizza and cake and present time. Isabelle was very excited about cake. When we told her we were going to the party and would have pizza for lunch she added, "and CAKE!" How do they figure that out so fast??

Another highlight of the party for her was the GIANT inflatable monkey decorations. She started playing with one at the end and wanted to bring it home. Kelly and Sandy kindly offered it to us, but unfortuinately we didn't have a car seat for it and it had to stay at the party.

I think we've found the site for Isabelle's 3rd birthday party!

It's harder to sit and write for two reasons. David's crawling like crazy. And he's going everywhere... in a hurry. He also doesn't separate horizontal crawling from vertical crawling. It kinda funny to watch, actually. He'll decide on heading due south, and he starts to motor off in that direction. Then, Whump! He hits his head on something, eventually. Then he looks up, as if to asertain the best route without ropes and caribiners. Then he tries to go vertical. He's geting a good routing on the couch and futon, but hasn't summited either yet.

He's is not quite sleeping throught the night yet. He generally sleeps about 4-5 hours at a stretch. Then one of us will get up to feed him a bottle. He only drinks about 6-7 oz at a time. He's always had a weak or lazy cardiac sphincter, so he spits up all the time. Also, until it gets stronger, we can't really fill him up enough to last the night. The good news is that he is getting better at keeping everything down, so now we'll just work on getting his belly a little bigger.


Speaking of David and good news, he had his 9 month physical last week. He is all caught up size wise, and he is developing as expected for a 9 month old. He's eating Cheerios in his high chair, which is a good indication of his fine motor skills. He's also using his own monosyllabic words, waves back and likes to clap. And boy, does he like to put things in his mouth! I don't even think that he picks things up to play with them or to learn how things feel or move. The hands are just delivery means to the mouth.

Isabelle is interacting with him a little more. She'll sit with him and watch one of the Baby Einstein shows, and crawl around on the floor with him. She also wants to 'help' David get up, or bring him over to the other side of the room. As you might guess, she doesn't quite know how to hold babies. The other day I turned to see what the "mmmmph" sound was due to, and there was Isabelle with a choke hold on David. She was trying to get him up on the couch, and realizing he is a bit heavier then a stuffed animal. She also likes to climb into his crib and play with him when he wakes up from nap. There have been a few choke hold incidences during these times as well.
As far as siblings go, they mostly get along well. We are starting to see some rivalry now that David is becoming more interested in toys and is more mobile. And it's hard for her to understand that he doesn't mean to pinch her or pull her hair, so why isn't it ok to push on his head until he falls down and starts crying? And so it has begun...

David has learned to crawl! It seems like he learned really fast once he was able to get up on all fours. One week he was strong enough to do that and was rocking back and forth, the next he put together to move one hand forward, and one leg, but couldn't really figure out how to go very far. The next week he figured out how to crawl a little, but not that well. Then later that week he got pretty good at it, and pulled himself up to stand at the couch. Now he's just motoring everywhere. He never commando-crawled like Isabelle did. We're pretty proud of him:>)

Isabelle is talking and singing and adding new words to her vocabulary every day. Her newest words are "delicious" and "excellent"! I am amazed daily that she can put sentences and concepts together. And she has such a memory!! She picks up everything. Kids are so smart!

We've started to put the kids to sleep in the same room. We really have been waiting until the last possible moment to do this, because we're still so sleep deprived (since David is still getting up a couple times a night). We just couldn't bear to make the transition and lose even more sleep. We were putting David to nap on our bed and sometimes in the bassinet, even though he's really too big for it... David likes to wake up and sit up immediately, and one day did this and fell off the bed. Then a day or two later we went to get him from nap and he was standing up in his bassinet. So, that was the end of that.

The transition hasn't been too bad. Isabelle wakes up if he's too noisy and we have to make sure that Isabelle is sleeping before we put David down. Otherwise, Isabelle sings and plays until he wakes up and then yells, "David, Hiiiii!!! You awake??" David has begun to sing himself to sleep also. Tonght John walked around the neighborhood with David on his shoulder basically yelling to hear his own voice... "Ahhhhhhhhh, ahhhhhhhh..." That lasted about 10 minutes and then he was completely out with his mouth hanging open. Strangely, I will miss these kinds of things as he gets older and more independent. I do love having a baby in the house... No, we probably won't have another one...

Yesterday we met John's Mom, Joan and Matt at a great little Chinese place for lunch. We had quite a feast!! We ordered one of those group meals and the food just kept comin'!!
Anyway, the kids had a ball seeing everyone. Isabelle insisted on eating with her chopsticks and actually did a pretty good job of getting some food in her mouth! After she was done eating she wanted to get down to go see Grandma Jeanne and then played spin the penny with Aunt Joan. That was a big hit. David took a turn on Grandma Jeanne's lap and he and Isabelle had one of their giggle fits, which was really funny. Then somehow, spin the penny became a sort of "quarters" game using pennies and those little chinese tea cups. I think Uncle Matt had something to do with that.
Sorry there aren't any pictures for this one... getting out of the house isn't as easy as it used to be, and the camera didn't get into the bag. Next time...

Kevin came by on Saturday for dinner. The kids had fun visiting with him, although Isabelle was a little shy for the first half hour or so.


OOps! We wrote this post on Monday, but forgot to post it! Sorry for the delay.

This is my latest favorite picture of David in his camos!! C'mere beautiful!!

It fun for us to see these little milestones in the kids development. We just had to get a bigger car seat for David, as he outgrew the old carry along type. He likes it a little bit better anyway, as he can now look at Isabelle next to him, and apparently he makes faces at her. We can't really tell. We just hear Isabelle giggling.

Isabelle is also becoming a better artist. Where she was more of a interpretationist, letting things happen in a stream of consciousness sort of way, she's now really creating her own works. She's almost mastered flowers, faces, and spiders. Something I also enjoy, is watching her as we draw something. She'll hand us a crayon, and tell us to draw a flower, for instance. Then I start to draw one, and her eyes are fixed on my hand with such a powerful gaze. I can't tell if she's trying to learn by observation, or if she's just amazed at what we grown-ups can do.

Bath time is now a lot more messy, I mean, fun. We put David in with Isabelle into the tub. He's actually in his little tub, in a tub. They get along really well, and they LOVE TO SPLASH! It is actually quite funny, as one gets a mischievous look on their face, then the hands get going. After about three splashes, water invariably gets into their own eye, and the splashing stops, as they get a confused look on their face and try to shake out the water. "Where....What the?" Or at least that's the impression we get from David... Isabelle is much better at verbalizing... " Uch... David splashed me!!"



Isabelle has started to play imagination games. She sometimes shows me the "ladybug" in her hand or lets me smell an imaginary flower. The other day she was pretending to go to work. She made a "purse" out of this hangy thing from her door and needed her keys. She would kiss us good-bye and say "I'm going to work!" Then she would use her keys to fiddle with the door and say "I'm home now!" She did that about 20 times and each time we played along...

She also has started to improvise her songs. One of my favorites is when she sings patty-cake and instead of "put it in the oven for baby and me, " Isabelle sings "put it in the hotdog for baby and me!" I have no idea where she got hotdog from??!

David is growing and as happy as ever. I think he is the happiest baby I've ever seen. You can wake him out of a dead sleep and he'll roll over and smile. He's just a little cutie-pie. He's almost able to get himself into a sitting position by himself and on the verge of crawling too. He just hasn't quite figured it all out yet. But he's determined, and for most of his day he is rolling and pushing up and moving around on the floor. It makes me tired watching him sometimes.

John saw these in the window and couldn't resist!
(Does anyone remember that Carol Burnett Show parody of Gone With the Wind? Oh well, it was damn funny...)


My Mom made these for us to brighten up our kitchen and cover up our ugly, dark brown paneling pantry doors. Isn't she as handy as a pocket on a shirt??

Thanks Mom!!

When did you first learn how to eat an icecream cone? It's hard to remember... We decided to introduce Isabelle to icecream cones. She's had the soft seve yogurt kind before, but those aren't the ones that cause the problems. No no... it's the hand-dipped ones that seem to be such a good idea when it's a hundred and fifty degrees in the summer in Davis. You wait in line for 20 minutes at Baskin Robbins, make a selection and settle someplace in the shade in hopes that the cool tasty treat won't melt too fast. One lick... yummm Two licks... PLOP!!! Onto the pavement.

We decided to prepare. Isabelle LIKES icecream cones! And she did quite well at mastering the art of eating one!

David is starting to use his hands and arms with a little more coordination and strength. So we are having him feed himself. He's getting pretty good at it. And he's such a character. As you can see in this photo, he's clearly milk drunk.

Yesterday was David's developmental screening at Sutter. They offer it to all preemies just to follow up on how they are doing. We saw a social worker who was very nice, a physical therapist and a pediatric nurse practitioner. The physical therapist was the most helpful, as David is behind in his gross motor skills. We've known that for a while and it isn't that uncommon... Anyway, the good news is that he seems right on target for most things. He picks up things and had pretty good fine motor skills, displays object permanence and also has really good social skills.

The physical therapist gave us some exercises to do with him to try to strengthen the front part of his body. Apparently in preemies, it's common for there to be an inbalance between the anterior and posterior because they develop strength in the womb in the posterior body first. Then during the last several weeks they develop strength in the anterior. Because of all this, even though he can sit up, but has poor balance because of the way he's compensated. His lateral muscles are undeveloped, so his movements are jerky as he tries to keep his balance. The good news is that it's early and we can help him fix the imbalance before it gets to be a big problem.

I also found it really interesting to talk to the physical therapist about her opinion of the "Back to Sleep" program. (I thought that maybe David's imbablance was partially a result of us putting him to sleep on his belly.) In her opinion back sleeping it's not a natural way for babies to sleep and she told me that they see all kinds of term babies that develop problems because of this, and that there's no proof that it prevents SIDS. The more likely reason for SIDS is soft mattresses, (in her opinion).

He's 8 months old now with an adjusted age of 6 1/2 months. The nurse weighed and measured him and didn't use the adjusted age for this. He weighs 22lbs and is still in the 50-75th percentile for an 8 month old. I don't really know what all of that means except that he's continuing to gain weight and grow like he's supposed to. That makes us happy because he's still pretty spitty. The nurse said that as long as he continue to gain weight and doesn't appear to have any irritation from the reflux, they qualify him as a "happy spitter." Bummer for us and all of the laundry we do, but again, happy that it's not worse than it is.

Isabelle didn't get to go to this appointment. Initially, I was irritated that we had to get a sitter for her, but once we were there I totally understood and was glad we didn't have the option to bring her. She stayed home with my friend Diane and they had a lovely time. The went to the horsey park and we're banging on things "making music" when we got back. It's so nice to have someone to jump in when we need to do things like this. And I think as much as Isabelle loves us, she gets tired of our ugly mugs and likes having new people to play with.


Oh jeez... speaking of imbalances though!!! Poor Isabelle did a face plant right into the concrete the other day! We were going out to get burritos and she tripped and fell and bounced her mouth off the pavement. You parents know that sickening feeling... You see it happening in slow motion and there's no way you can get there to catch them in time, then you're hands fly up to your mouth and you hope they don't see your reaction. She split her lip inside pretty good and had a nice big fat lip. She still has a fat lip in fact, but seems ok other wise. I got great advice from another mom for lip injuries, which was to put them in the bath with a popsicle. Pain relief, distraction and no mess!

The other great thing to report is that John's work has agreed to continue with an arrangement that makes it possible for me to be home with the kids during the day and work in the evenings. It's still not the ideal situation for them, but they've been generous in their compromise. With the exercies we need to do with David and the fact that I adore being home with the kids every day, we are so grateful. John gets one on one time with them the three evenings a week that I work and then on Saturday mornings. He's just the best Dad ever! And the kids light up for him like no one else. We're pretty happy with our little family.

David has learned how to clap his hands. It's the sweetest thing... he can sit up now, although he loses his balance pretty easily, and sometimes just sits and claps. He also likes to practice his new skill when he wakes up in the morning. Somehow, it isn't as cute then. He rolls onto his back and , clap, clap, clap squeal, squeal. Flip flop, grab Mommie's hair, smile as she untangles little fingers without waking up Daddy... So CUTE!!!

This morning at 5:30, I finally gave up and decided to get up with him. I get up and get dressed which is apparently enough time for him to roll onto his tummy and go back to sleep. So then, I go lay on the couch. I get all the pillows off, lay down get all snuggled up, nice and warm in the blanket... Ahhhhh... and, Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!! He's up again. Being a parent is the BEST!

David is getting pretty good at sitting up now. I know that's a small step, but when you're a parent, you really enjoy these little milestones. He can't get himself up yet (I'll write about that when it happens too), but when we put him in a sitting position, he'll hold it for a while. He also loves to roll around, and look about while on his belly, as you can see from the photo in the last post. I'm sure he's gonna start crawling soon. He sure likes to kick when he's sitting in his high chair or stroller, but I can't remember how the transition goes from kicking legs to crawling legs.

Isabelle is enjoying her brother now a bit more as well. She asks to sit with him on the couch, and they laugh and giggle at each other. Of course, for David, Isabelle is just the most fun thing to watch in the world. He loves us, but he perform many more functions for him. We're more of a necessity. Isabelle is just the bonus, generally more interesting.


Isabelle has a very good eye for caricatures, I guess I would have to say. Every now and then when she's eating oatmeal or crackers, or whatever, she'll stop and say, "Doggie" or "bird." Then we look to see what she's talking about, and if she's looking at her spoon, we'll look there and see the shape of a dog, cat, face, etc.. Of course, when the media is oatmeal, I can't show you her transitory artistic interpretation. Yesterday, she was playing out on the side walk with her chalk. She was drawing faces, circles, and general scribbling, as two year olds like to do. Then she stopped and said, "Horsey." I looked, and yeah, she drew a horse. I think that's pretty cool, since she's never actually seen one, only on the TV.

Well here we are 10 days after the last posting. And that was a very minimal one at that. Let's see what I have to tell you. David continues to be cuter every day as a little more personality develops. He really likes to sing in the morning when he wakes up. It is a really sweet and cute little thing to hear, now that I can write about it, but when he wakes up at 4:30 and starts, it's not the preferred time. Sometimes he's also in bed, in between us, and he starts to roll from side to side. That's all fine until he gets the hands and feet into it. In fact, this morning he smacked me right in the ribs of my back, Whump! At 5 a.m., a whump on the chest is actually quite loud, and a little bit scary.


Isabelle is getting into the copy cat stage. Which is great, 'cause we can see her learning and thinking and practicing words. And now we really need to be careful about what we say to each other or other people when we're out or on the phone, for instance. Now, we are not a couple of foul mouthed sailors, so we don't have a lot to worry about, but the other day she said a couple of things which she must have heard us say, but neither of us remember saying it.

Here's my story, since I can't remember Julie's right now. I had just taken Isabelle out of the bath, and put her in her pajamas. She was drinking her warm milk, and reading a book, so I went back into the bathroom to wash the soap off her bath toys and rinse out the tub. The tub still had water in it, so of course, I started to let the water out as I picked up the toys. All of a sudden, in the corner of my eye, I see Isabelle, and she wants to help. Which is fine. There really wasn't much left to do anyway. But Isabelle still wanted to play, er....help. So she reached in the tub to splash a little bit. Next thing I know, her sleeve is all wet, and I said, "Oh, Isabelle, you got you sleeve all wet."
She looked down, and noticed the wet sleeve, as if it magically appeared. Then she said, "Oh, Darn it!"

Now, I really don't think I say that phrase a lot, or ever. But Isabelle sure learned it, and its context. Which is wonderful. But when did she learn it?

David likes green beans!!

Isabelle's favorite song to sing right now is Twinkle Twinkle Litttle Star. She sings it probably 52 times a day... at random times, in random intonations, at random speeds. The other songs in her line-up are Sweet Child O' Mine (Guns n' Roses), Blackbird (Beatles), Hush Little baby, and You Are My Sunshine. I used to just sing these to her at bedtime, but John downloaded these songs and now we have a little playlist that is requested a couple times a day.

Today at lunch Sweet Child of Mine was the request. Isabelle used to be a little confused by all the guitar work because obviously that's not the way I was singing it... she'd look at us like, is this part of the song?? But now she really gets into it... does air guitar and some drum beats.

Today she surprised me by getting stuck on the part "Where do we go now, ayayayayayayay" It was pretty funny. Then she said "rock on Daddy..." and I said "Daddy's at work, but yeah... keep on keepin' on.... rock on Daddy!" I've tried to teach her to put her goat-head up, but she's not quite coordinated enough to do that.

Then she ends the song with a big smile and says.... "Yayyyy...!" Fun having a little rocker in the house. David on the other hand might be a little raver.... he sure gets happy when John dances around to house music.