Maybe stomping her feet is just her version of a dance?....

Isabella had her first somewhat negative notes on her daycare sheet today. They said:

"Isabella had a good day! She has been somewhat fussy, especially when someone refuses to pick her up. She's been stomping her feet when she doesn't get her way :( "

Now, really, could this girl act like that?


She was at daycare for a really long time today. Jeff had meetings and I was late leaving work, so I didn't get to her until a little before 6. When I got there, she didn't notice me at first so I got her stuff and kind of spied on her because I'm always kind of curious how she acts there when she doesn't know I'm there. She was just happily walking around and playing. When I said "Bella" she saw me and got really excited and came over and I picked her up. But she immediately wanted back down, which was kind of odd. And then she proceeded to crawl all over the place in a hyper sort of way, I haven't seen her crawl like that in a really long time. Then, she wanted to play with an older girl playing with a puzzle, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to get her out of there!

She's getting eaten alive!

Poor little Isabella got bitten again at daycare today. This time she was pushing a walker toy and someone came up that wanted to use it. They bit her right on her left thumb. It didn't bleed, but you can see the marks. I tried to take a picture, but it didn't turn out very well.


I took her in to the doctor for her ear infection re-check today. Everything looks good, thank goodness! The doctor said sometime the tubes get clogged up with wax and don't really do their job or sometimes you catch the ear infection before it has a chance to drain out. Luckily she made me feel a lot better that we just didn't miss any drainage. She said we would know, that the drainage might look kind of like snot and pool up in the ear or even run down the side of her face. She said the tubes look good and clear right now.

Later today I put Isabella in her high chair for a snack. I left the room and a bit later I heard my car alarm go off. That little devil grabbed my keys off the table and hit the panic button. Maybe it was her way of signaling to me that she needed more nutrigrain bar... stat! She had me panicked for a second.

Low Key Weekend

Our weekend was pretty laid back and it was very nice. Grandpa came to visit on Sat and brought us lunch. Jeff "conveniently" started his weekend project of replacing our broken garbage disposal one hour before Grandpa arrived. Isabella wanted to help and since it was a plumbing job I had to shoot this picture because she was showing a little butt crack.
I think the jeans she was wearing don't quite fit her yet, so I switched her into some different pants later on.

When Grandpa arrived he jumped right into the project. I heard some talk about a trip to the hardware store, but they got it done with no trips needed. I'm so glad we have a fully functional disposal again. Isabella creates lots of messes at mealtime and lots of it just ends up down the sink. Thanks for all your help, Grandpa! Jeff admitted later on that although he didn't purposely start the project so that Grandpa would be there to assist, but he felt better knowing that if he did get really stuck, backup was already nearby.

Grandpa got to witness Isabella throwing fake tantrums. She sort of fake cries and stomps her feet really fast. Every stunt she pulls like that I just say "she must have learned that at daycare". I believe that will be my excuse for lots of things to come!

Later that night I ran the dishwasher before I went to bed. I heard Jeff yell (scream) a few minutes later and I ran to see what was going on. There was water all over the kitchen floor. We thought for sure we'd really messed up the installation of the garbage disposal, but it turned out I had jammed a spatula in the dishwasher door and that was the cause. Whew!

I've started finding things in drawers that don't belong there and I know my little Isabella must have been there when I wasn't looking. I'm sure the cute-ness of this will wear off quickly, but I'll just enjoy it for now. Leaving you with a little video of Isabella trying to get the camera.

Little Bite on the Lip

Isabella had an incident report today at daycare as she fell and bit her lip. It sounds like it bled a little and they tried to treat it with a cold pack, but she decided to try to eat the cold pack instead. She's fine and it is very minor which is why you can hardly see it in the picture. It doesn't seem to bother her nearly as much as the diaper rash she has developed AGAIN from the antibiotics. We were watching for it and I thought she was doing so well and then all of a sudden - horrible. So we are back on the magic butt paste (which we use every so often anyway) and we even put her burn cream back on her again. Poor girl!

Another Step in the Ball Popping Machine

Isabella likes to set her sippy cup on her ball popping machine. She doesn't really notice that it kind of hinders the balls rolling down back into the machine process...

Top of the morning to you!

Today Isabella's daily sheet from daycare said she was "very conversational and friendly". For some reason that made me get the picture in my mind of her with a British accent and a top hat, walking around to the other kids at daycare and saying "Hello, good chap" I don't know why, but that picture just formed in my head...

Happy Inauguration day to all!

You down with RSV?

Yeah, you know me...

Isabella has something called RSV. Basically it is just a really bad cold, they can't do anything for it. It was going around her daycare last Tues. I thought she was feeling a little crummy on Friday, but thought she was just teething. We took her to the Dr. on Sat. and they said she had RSV, and an ear infection in one ear and almost an ear infection in the other ear and a fever just a little below 100. I felt bad because I was debating about whether we should even take her into the doctor for what we thought might be a cold. It sounds like Jeff and I must have missed any drainage from her ear tubes, because when that happens we are supposed to use her ear drops and then that should stop the infection from coming on. So, now she's on antibiotics and the ear drops, not to mention her special face cream. She's gotten a lot better since Sat. morning. She's dancing in the kitchen right now, something I haven't been able to get a good video of yet.

Evolution of the ball popping machine

...beginning last Nov.

• Step 1: Being horribly afraid of the machine and not wanting anything to do with it.
• Step 2: Slightly intrigued by the machine, if kept at a far distance.
• Step 3: Enjoys watching the balls fly out, even giggles at it, but still not getting too close.
• Step 4: Gets close enough to reach for a ball
• Step 5: Can't get enough of the machine and sticks her face as close as possible to get the air to fly through her hair.
• Step 6: Learns that pushing the red handle starts the music and air.
• Step 7: Runs over to the machine and starts it, but once all the balls pop out, game over.
• Step 8: Learns to pick up the balls and put them back into the machine!

Step 8 is huge! Just last Sat. I was saying how nice it would be if she actually picked up the balls. I think part of the fun for her is supposed to be chasing the balls, but usually we (Jeff and I) are the ones that end up going to get them.

And it all comes back to the yellow chair....

Isabella had an incident at daycare today. She was bitten! We aren't sure who did it, she's about the biggest one on her side of the daycare room these days. According to the report, she was playing with the glider (a.k.a the yellow chair) and someone else wanted to play over there and came up and bit her on the hand. That was all the details Jeff was given. She's fine though, and I assume it won't be too long before she's doing some biting of her own, unfortunately.

Daddy cheered her up tonight by giving her a funny hairdo in the tub.

Isabella's 1 year check-up

Isabella had her 1 year check-up today. She is doing well. She got the green light to start drinking whole milk. I'm still nursing her in the morning and evening, so we will see how this whole transition thing works.

She had to get her shots and also a couple blood tests where they had to prick her finger and drip out blood. Poor girl! She did well through out the whole experience, but there were quite a few tears. She was crying, but she was also very interested in what was going on. So she would cry and kind of stop to see what was happening and then start crying again. Her ears are also looking very good.

She got her normal stats taken.

Height 29.5 inches 70th percentile
Weight 21.5 lbs 55th percentile
Head 17.75 inches 50th percentile

Also, since she is over 20lbs and 1 year she gets to ride forward facing in the car! She's really enjoying it.

Go Hawkeyes!

Let's get this party started!

Hello Aleah, are you ready to cheer with me?

Go Hawks! (a.k.a Hawks Rule!). We are happy to report that the Hawkeyes won the Outback Bowl on New Year's Day! We went over to the Lemke's to watch it and Isabella got to play with 5, yes, 5 of her little friends. Because of all the activity, I must admit I didn't see every play of the game, but that's okay since it wasn't even close and I like watching the kids play and hanging out with our Hawkeye buddies. I knew there was no chance I could get all the kids to actually look at the camera, but I thought it was pretty good that we got them to be all in one spot. It was a lot of fun, we have to get together more often, whether or not the Hawks are on. Isabella has sort of outgrown putting her hands up in the air when we say "Touchdown, Iowa!", but we can still get her to do it every so often.

This makes me realize the football season is over and I hardly blogged at all about the season. Jeff and I went ahead and got season tickets again even though we weren't sure what football season would be like now that we had Isabella. As the season approached, it kind of snuck up on us that we didn't have a babysitter and since going to a football game takes a big chunk of the day, it was going to be hard to find someone. Luckily, the Maine game (we won 46-3), Dano stepped up and came to babysit. It sounded like their day went wonderfully. Thanks Dano - you are truly a #1 babysitter!

The Florida International game (we won 42-0) we had our sitter Cindy come. We actually found her from an ad I put on Craiglist and she has been perfect for us - we really lucked out there. She has two grown girls of her own and you can tell she just loves to watch Isabella.

The Iowa State game (we won 17-5) Grandma Linda and Grandpa Jack were in town for a visit, so Grandma watched Isabella while we went to the game. We were all going to tailgate together, but the rain put a damper on that, but we still got Isabella to her first tailgate when Grandma dropped us off.



For the Northwestern game (we lost 22-17), my friend Stacey was in town and I decided to sell my ticket and take Isabella up to tailgate. The weather was beautiful that day, so that was a good time and we walked and walked and walked since we wanted to visit a couple different people at different tailgates.


For the Wisconsin game (we won 38-16) we had Cindy watch Isabella again. For the Penn State game (we WON 24-23.. it was huge!) Grandma Linda and Grandpa Jack were here again. Thanks Grandma for watching Isabella! (and dropping us off near the stadium in the cold weather!) And for the Purdue game (we won 22-17) Cindy came to watch again. What a season it was!

Thank you Uncle John and Aunt Kristy

A big think you to Uncle John and Aunt Kristy who gave us Iowa basketball tickets to yesterday's game against Indiana and offered to watch Isabella while we went to the game. The game was a bit of a yawner, but we didn't make it to a basketball game last year and it was fun to get to one. We were kind of hoping to grab dinner afterward, but the game took a little longer than we expected and after waiting in traffic to get out, we decided to head back home (plus we had over-indulged on a large popcorn at the game and weren't particularly hungry). Luckily, they offered to watch her again while we go out to dinner sometime and we are going to take them up on the offer! Isabella was in a great mood when we got home, she must have had lots of fun playing with her aunt and uncle. When we were saying good-bye to them, it kind of seemed like she kept turning to us to wave good-bye to us, like she was already ready to have us leave again!

My Toddler This Week

Apparently when you put your baby down the night before her first birthday she wakes up as a toddler. At least that is how it seemed to work for Isabella. For the last couple of weeks she has been walking like nobody's business. And she loves to walk! She seems a bit more like a little person than a baby. And when BabyCenter sent me my weekly update on what my baby should be doing it said "My Toddler This Week", it kind of freaked me out and made me a little sad. Isabella is also saying a lot more words. It might be jibberish, but we've heard mama, dada, hi, bye, uh-oh, thanks, yum-yum. I swear I've heard her say on multiple occasions "thanks, dad" at appropriate times. We are also trying to expand her food horizons away more from baby food. We tried that a while a back, but after the "string bean incident" at HuHot (we had eaten lunch there and she had a string bean. In the middle of the night I went into comfort her because she was crying a little more than normal and there was vomit all over her crib but laying in the middle of her room was one lone string bean, in one piece, undigested, how it got all the way over there, by itself, we'll never know...), so we went back almost exclusively to baby food. She'd much rather feed herself, but she can't be trusted to always chew her food. She also has a hard time understanding to take a piece of food, eat it and then take another piece of food. She'd much rather take everything on her tray and shove it into her mouth at once. Her favorites right now are pizza and bananas, and we recently just started to give her a large chunk of banana and just had to video how funny she is with it.

Fun with Cousin Gus

I wanted to mention the fun Isabella had with her cousin Gus when he was visiting. Yes, there were a few squabbles over toys and Gus has shown us that he really knows the word "Mine!" but overall they had a really fun time together. Every morning when Bella would wake up Gus would smile and say "Bella!" and then he would want to hold her so he would sit on the couch and get to hold Bella for a few minutes. When she wasn't around he would question where she was "Bella? Bella?". If Gus spotted one of her pacifiers laying around he would run and grab it and find Bella and he would show it to her, she would open her mouth and he would pop the pacifier in. At the beginning of the week Isabella was pretty laid back when Gus would take a toy from her, as the week went on and she got more cranky I saw her getting a little more possessive and once I saw her put her head back scream like she was saying "that is IT! I've had it!".

We caught a few videos of the action.





Oh her birthday, Isabella went out in the snow for the first time and Gus pulled her around on her sled. I'm glad the video Grandpa Jack shot picked up the sound, because she is laughing and laughing while being pulled. It is pretty funny.