Catching Up

I took a couple of videos off of our camera right before Isaac's birthday. Here they are.

This is Isaac right after Christmas:


This was back in early December:


This was at the State Fair in September:


This was back in July:

Big Boy Bed

Joe and I converted Isaac's bed to a toddler bed on Wednesday night. That morning he nearly threw himself out of his crib, so I figured it was time. He's done really well about staying in it. In fact, he hasn't gotten out of the bed once without permission. He is growing up so fast. Look how proud he is of himself!

Oh, I had to share this of my niece and nephews. It is the cutest thing!

And Ivory Makes 4

That's right. I am now the proud aunt of 4, count them, 4 little blessings. My little niece was born Friday September 14. I just can't wait to see the little bundle. I have to again ask my brother-in-law's forgiveness for taking his father way in his time of, what was it Jeff? "child birthing and rejoicing." My father-in-law was with us that weekend to install new floors in our kitchen and dining room, which look beautiful, by the way. Thanks Nonno!

On another note, our home fellowships started back up at church on Monday. We are excited to be able to go this year. Last year we weren't able to because of Isaac's sleep schedule. Admittedly he got to sleep two hours late Monday night, but that's because the little guy refused to go to sleep in the car on the way home. We can be in the car for fifteen minutes with the sun shining right on him and he konks out, but give him a quiet, thirty minute car ride in the dark and he jabbers the whole way home. He kept saying "hi." "hi." trying to get our attention. It was too cute and all I could do not to laugh at him.

Isaac has recently discovered "Melmo". He realized how great his dance and sing Elmo was and got interested in anything with Elmo on it. Sue sent three DVDs when Joe came down over the weekend to do the floors. Isaac loves them. They come in handy when we're trying to get dinner ready. We just sit him in his booster, turn him towards the TV and he's good to go for twenty minutes. I swore I'd never be that mother - not that I wouldn't put my toddler in front of the TV; I had no disillusions about that - I just never thought I'd be encouraging Elmo, after all, he's so annoying! At any rate, I've become that mother and couldn't be happier about it.

Happy Birthday America

Joe and Isaac have been busy with Daddy Day Care Part 2. Isaac appears to really be enjoying his time with Dad. When I come home in the afternoon he briefly acknowledges my presence then begins pointing to Joe chanting "Dada, Dada...." Yeah, I get it baby, you and Dad are buds. How 'bout a little love for mom?


The little guy is learning new words and new things every day. To his list of words he has added pear, chicken, shovel, nose, eye, bike, pee-pee and nite-nite and let's you know when he has a stinky diaper by waving his hand in front of his nose and saying "woo woo." It's very funny and I'm amazed and impressed by him every day. He has continued his reign of terror over our poor cats who are de-clawed, might I add. They, now realizing that he is far from fragile, have decided that enough is enough. Wrigley bit Isaac for the first and second time this weekend and Joe and I allowed it to happen. We've told him too many times to stop stepping on the kitties, stop pulling the kitties' tails, stop trying to ride the kitties, awww sweet boy petting the kitties - it's time he learns the hard way.

On a side note, please be in prayer for me. I have several ovarian cysts that pose no medical threat but are causing, sometimes severe, pain in my back and abdomen. The doctors are hoping they will resolve themselves, but in the mean time pray that the pain stays manageable with ibuprofen.

Tubular

As many of you may know, Isaac had tubes put in on May 17. He had been dealing with multiple ear infections, and had been on antibiotics consistently since Christmas. The tubes will make Isaac far less likely to get ear infections because they allow fluid to drain out. Since then we have seen a big change in his vocabulary. Not only is he saying more words, he seems to understand us better. I decided to document his progress but unfortunately I had some technical difficulties and the middle of the video was cut out.



In addition, Isaac also says shoe (shu), Grandma (amma), kitty (izzy), yeah, no ( nu nu nu nu), and wow (wu). He also blows kisses and gives piranha kisses (imagine a big, sloppy, open-mouth, teeth-first kiss).

Oh, and just for kicks, here's a video of Isaac at ten months. This is back when he still looked like he wore a toupee.

Isaac Eats with a Fork & Spoon

Yes it's true! My 14 1/2 month old son CAN indeed eat with utensils.

Woes of a Working Mom

Monday during my lunch I ran into a man I work with who was there with his wife and daughter. She's been fortunate enough to be able to stay home with their little girl who is two months younger than Isaac. The two of them have been married for over 10 years and had been praying for Hannah for years and had nearly come to the conclusion that they would never have children. She was telling me about how she cried when Hannah turned a year old and how quickly the time has flown by. Everyone can relate to feeling like time passes too quickly but those with children have a heightened sense of this. She started talking about how she hates to go anywhere without Hannah because she changes so quickly and is doing so many new things that she's afraid she'll miss something. She really struck a cord in my heart and with my response of "I know, it just breaks my heart that I can't be with Isaac during the day," I broke into tears like a big baby. For the rest of the day I remained in the same state; if I so much as broke concentration of what I was working on, the water works started all over again.

Joe and I have been listening to the Money Matters PodCast pretty regularly. For those of you who aren't familiar with Money Matters, they're a Christian Ministry dedicated to teaching what God has to say about how we should handle money. One of the things I hear them repeat so often is a passage out of scripture that says the debtor is servant to the lender. How true this is. I look back now on all the student loans we took out based on the advise of University Financial Aid. Some we needed to be able to finance our education but others we took as cushion, to put into savings since we had very little and felt we really should have since we had no health insurance. They told us that some of the loans would be cleared since Joe was going to be a teacher and that it was cheap money to borrow. We were young, stupid kids. If we didn't have these loans, would I be able to be home with Isaac? Maybe; probably not. I don't know; my husband's a teacher and we all know they're underpaid.

All I know is that I was home today with Isaac because he became sick Tuesday afternoon and although he hasn't gotten sick at all today, he's slept most of the day. He could probably use an extra day of rest that he undoubtedly will not get enough of at daycare tomorrow but I'm forced to bring him in out of guilt about all of the work I have to get done and the people who are relying on me there. I guess I'll just say a little prayer and push on.