Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Big Girl

[Caution: graphic content]

Well, we've made the plunge.

As in, toilet plunger.

Isabelle is wearing big girl underpants.

We're not out of the woods by any stretch, but she's only having about a mistake a day. Contrary to my expectations, she's doing quite well at peeing in the potty, but having more trouble with poop.

So the other day I come upstairs, and I hear an excited girl, crowing, "These fit me! These fit me!"

I come around the corner, and there's my big girl, naked from the waist down, waving her underpants over her head like the victor in "Capture-the-Flag."

[that's it for graphic content, sorry if I disappointed anyone]

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Isabelle Can Spell (sort of)

And her first word is... not her name, but "rescue." As in "Rescue Aid Society." She's been running around the house singing at the top of her lungs the theme song from the old Disney movie, The Rescuers:

"R -- E -- S -- C -- U -- V"

Okay, so she won't pass any spelling bees with that, but I think it's a good first effort!

Sunday, August 06, 2006

The Worst Night Possible

There are nightmares and then there are nightmares. August 4, 2006. Stomach flu. Projectile vomitting. All three of us.

It goes like this. Carrie tucks Isabelle into bed, comes back and lies down. Isabelle cries for a drink of water. Brian gets up to give it to her and winds up in the bathroom puking instead. So Carrie gets up to give it to her and winds up in the kitchen puking. Isabelle gets her water, we get back to bed. Woops. Isabelle's turn. All over her bed, again. So weak we can hardly stand, but we had to get her up, wash her, get her changed, change the sheets on her bed, put them in the laundry. All the while Isabelle is howling because she's sick and exhausted and wants to go back to bed but has to wait until we get the clean sheats on it. Back to bed. Woops, our turn to puke again. We only had two pairs of sheets for Isabelle's bed, but we changed them three times. It would have been four, but once I succeeded in getting her to puke in the bucket.

All night long.

But wait, there's more! Not only were we all puking, but the cat was, too. Every time Carrie went downstairs to puke or do laundry, she stepped in it. In her bare feet, of course.

Did I mention that that evening, knowing that Isabelle was feeling queazy, we had bought of 12-pack of ginger ale? The cheap box broke open and the cans rolled out and exploded on the kitchen floor, six of them, spraying soda on all four walls and the ceiling and every surface in between.

The next day went like this:
11:00 get up. eat crackers and sip ginger ale
11:30 Watch the Rescuers
2:00 go back to bed
5:00 get up. eat crackers and sip ginger ale
6:00 Watch the Rescuers again
8:00 go back to bed.

Friday, August 04, 2006

Isabelle's Art

I've been watching and admiring Isabelle's art skills maturing, and decided it was time to document them. Her first pictures were back and forth scribbles in one corner of the page. Then, she sought to cover more of the page in straight, back-and-forth scribbles. Later, she added circular scribbles, and then dots, to her artistic repertoire. This summer she has just begun giving names to her compositions, and they have begun to have resemblences to their subjects.






Isabelle, as I have mentioned, is into the movie Cars. This car, probably a fire truck, because of the blocky shape, has a clear pair of eyes and a mouth, as well as suggestions of wheels.




I'm not sure where the spider is, but I suspect its in the darker squiggle. This may be an interpretation of a scene in the movie The Rescuers, in which a spider weaves a web in a swamp to catch a dragonfly. I may possibly have the picture upside down, I'm not sure.


"A Grounding Wire." One of Isabelle's latest fascinations. We discovered them on telephone poles, now we look for them on houses. The yellow may represent our yellow house.