Wednesday, November 10, 2010

She's Just Growing Up!


Izzie is growing up way too fast. She's no longer a baby. She is a toddler. I get so sad knowing things are changing, but I am looking forward to the things we will be able to do together in the future as well. I guess in a way she will always be my "baby."
She can do so much now. I sometimes forget what I have said in previous posts, so excuse repeats. Here we go:
She adds words to her vocabulary all the time. Her favorite words of the moment are dog and daddy. I love how she says "Dah-dee." It's clearly two syllables for her. The other day at the grocery store, Todd would walk away from our cart to grab something just feet away. She would yell (in a cute way) "Dah-dee!" She would do it every single time, like "hey look at me daddy." She likes to say "uh oh," too.
I think I might have told you all about her fake cough. She figured this out a couple of months ago. She will cough and once she realizes that we give her attention by patting her back or asking "are you ok?" She continues to give this poor little, weak cough. She is a comedian. If she hears anyone sneeze or cough, we get the same reaction from her. She decides she is going to cough, too.
Izzie is running. Forget walking. Izzie is a girl on a mission. She has no time to waste. She also likes to run when she knows she is doing a "no no." For instance, touching the plug-in air fresheners. She knows this is a "no no." I will hear her walk towards it. I will turn around, look at her, say "no no." Before I can even start to walk towards her she decides to run in the opposite direction avoiding all eye contact with her mama. She is also stubborn. It takes at least two or three times of saying "no no" and chasing her before she gets the point.
She likes her bottle. I know we should be off the bottle. However, we just weaned not too long ago. I don't want to make life really difficult for all of us at this point. It will probably be another month or two. She only gets a bottle of whole milk at bedtime, nap time, and sometimes in the morning. On the plus side, Izzie has never had a pacifier... so we don't have to worry about that.
Izzie loves Yo Gabba Gabba. I don't let her watch too much tv. One day, I just turned it on Nick Jr. and this crazy shoe was on. She loves it. We let her watch this and Sesame Street.
Izzie dances. It's more of like a head nod with sometimes an arm thrown up in the air, mixed with an occasional stomp of the feet. Pretty funky stuff. She's got to learn some better moves ;).
She claps and high-fives.
Her favorite toy would have to be her play kitchen she got for her birthday. I would include the shopping cart in there, too. She loves to open and close the doors to the stove and microwave. She pretends to eat and drink as well. She is so smart.
Izzie loves cell phones. I would give her dad credit for this. She even knows when its "off" or "on." On is when the phone is lit up. She clearly know the difference and gets very upset if you hand her the phone when it is off. She holds it up to her ear as if to talk. Now, sometimes you can hear her say "ello."
She likes to play with clothes and dress herself. Ok, she really doesn't dress herself, but she will find something in the closet or room she can put over her head and wear. Most of the time (embarrassing I know) it's a bra or bathing suit top.
There are so many little things that she does everyday that I am astonished by. I have no clue how she learned so many things in such a short time. There is always something new I notice. I will tell Todd or Todd will tell me something she is doing new. We sometimes look at each other like we are crazy until we see it with our own eyes. I love this little girl. She is amazing. Thank you God for sharing her with all of us.

Birthday Weekend Celebrations







Saturday, Todd returned from the hospital. He seemed to be doing much better and even got to spend a little time with his daughter. I know he was dying to see her. I got a little rest that morning while my awesome mom (gammy) cleaned our house. I don't know what we would do without her sometimes. Izzie's great grandparents were coming that afternoon. Sunday was going to be her big birthday celebration, too. We had a lot to do.

That afternoon the Gamecocks beat Alabama, and the great grands arrived! It was a great afternoon. We all hung out and ate dinner together. They gave Izzie her birthday presents. Izzie actually tried to open them herself. I was really impressed. She got a cute old fashioned jack-in-the-box and doll. She loves her jack-in-the-box so much. She doesn't quite have the coordination to turn the handle, but would sit on the floor next to us for an hour as we did it for her. We went to bed that night, knowing we had a busy day coming.
We had lots of family help and got everything ready for her party at 3pm. It was at our house. We are lucky enough that our house is able to hold that many people. It almost didn't. We had about 30 people there. It was also warm outside, so of course people wanted to stay in. I don't blame them. It went by so fast. Izzie wore her little pink tutu made my her mama :). She also wore a monogrammed shirt that matched with silver glitter shoes and a big bow. A girl always has to have a bow. Well, this mama at least makes sure her baby does.
We had family and close friends there. Ate finger foods and pizza. Izzie's favorite food is pizza by the way. She got lots of needed clothes and toys. We were running out of toys. All the ones she had were getting old and boring. It was hard keeping her interested in them. I was probably just as happy as she was getting them. She really sat by me and looked at every present. She would grab one and hug it. SO SWEET! She kept hugging them over and over... even her clothes, haha! Next, was cake. Izzie was a professional with her cake. It was literally demolished in minutes. She needed no help figuring it out. However, she did not like the bath that came after it. We quickly got her cleaned up. She went right back out and started playing with the other kids and her toys.
What a day. It was wonderful. I'm so thankful my family was there to help with the setup and cleanup.

So far behind with the blog. Her FIRST Birthday.

Izzie turned 1 on October 8, 2010. To be exact around 3:24pm. It was an anticlimactic day. Being the horrible mother I am (jk), I scheduled her first year appointment at the doctor's office on her birthday. I should have been a good mother and scheduled it maybe for the following Monday. However, I did not think of that and it takes about a month to schedule an appointment at her ped's office, so off we went to the doctor's office. Todd was literally deathly ill with some sort of food poisoning, so he was quarantined in one of the spare bedrooms. Izzie's Gammy was nice enough to come with us to be the official "hold-her-downer" (don't you like that word I just made up?). My mom was not fond of the idea, but gave in. Izzie was 23lbs and about 30inches long. Big, healthy girl. Then, the horrible nurse came in to stick her. My mom did her job valiantly and held Izzie down while I sobbed in the corner and covered my eyes. We've been through this process so many times at the doctor's office and I still can't handle it. Oh yah, did I mention I'm a nurse? I stick people multiple times each day I work. I don't like seeing my little one in pain though.

Izzie then took a trip to the mall with her aunties and gammy. I went home to check on her daddy. He was still really sick, running a fever. I still made his stay quarantined to his little room.

Gammy brought Izzie home. She had bought a little birthday treat. We all got to enjoy watching her dig into a double doozie (the cookie sandwich with the cream icing in the middle). Well, her dad didn't get to see it. I did feel bad for him. He didn't even get to see Izzie on her birthday, but it was all in order to keep her from getting sick. Izzie then left the house and went back to her gammy's for a little spend the night party.

I had to go to work that night. I only work Fridays and Sundays. I got to work and within an hour Todd had called me from the Emergency Room. He ended up staying all night in the CDU (clinical decision unit). The CDU is a part of the hospital where they put the patients that they aren't sure if they need to be admitted or not. It's like a step above the ER. I left work about 11pm to be with him down there. He ended up getting discharged Saturday morning around 1oam.

Anyways, that was my poor Izzie's birthday. I know she still enjoyed being with her gammy, poppy, and aunties. However, it could have been better. We just had some unexpected developments which happens when you have a family. Don't worry this is just part one of the story. It gets much better for her. It ended up being a wonderful weekend full of celebrating Izzie's first year of life. We all love her so much.