Beginning of the End of Diapers

Warning: Our more timid readers should skip this post.

Isabel has seemed so interested in anything related to going to the bathroom recently: toilet paper, flushing, wiping, you name it. She follows us into the bathroom when we need to make use of it, and even offers to... errr... help us out (eww!). So we thought it was high time she got her very own potty. As the picture shows, it was a big hit. Now we have trouble getting her OFF the darn thing.

And yes, I know she's got her clothes on. This is Phase 1: Introduction to Potty Etiquette. Phase 2 will involve actually using it.

Scarlet and Gray

We got Isabel her 2007 OSU outfit. Kyle also taught her to say "Go Bucks!". I'm working on "Vanderbilt Commodores"... Six syllables? That'll take a few months for her to master!

Language Arts

One thing that's really cool about having a child is watching all the "firsts". Not just the big ones, like "first word" or "first step". It seems like every day Isabel is doing at least one new thing. Kyle and I will look at her and say, "Where did she learn that?". Right now, her biggest area of growth is in language. Just within the last two weeks, she has shocked us with an occasional sentence. Well, sentence is pushing it; let's say sentence fragment instead. For example, the other day she said, "Read book". Now she's said "read" and "book" separately plenty of times. But together? This is heady stuff for us doting and wide-eyed parents.

Another grammatical feat she's mastering is her name, either "Isa" or "Isabel". A month ago she seemed to have no interest in her own name, being satisfied with saying "mama" and "dada". Now she not only points to herself and says "Isa", but this week actually combined her two new tricks and said "Isa school", to remind me she was going to school that day.

We need to take more video/audio recordings of this phase, before she starts speaking in perfect English. We are really enjoying this time of "ca-ca-ca-ca-ca" (crocodile) and "pi curl" (big girl). At this rate, it's not going to last long!

Labor Day (aka "Flying with a Toddler")

We spent the last several days on vacation in North Carolina. This is the first time we've flown with Isabel since she was around 6 months old... it was a completely different (and much more difficult!) experience this time around. To top it all off, she was getting 4 teeth at once. Until we figured out what was causing her to act like Linda Blair in the Exorcist, we were seriously considering keeping her an only child! But then it was infant Tylenol to the rescue. Still, she wasn't her normal self until Sunday, the day we left.

Nevertheless, we had a great time in NC. We spent a few days at Mom's new house and then headed off to Atlantic Beach, with a quick stop in Wilmington to visit my aunt, uncles, and Grandma. The condo at the beach was awesome, and very family friendly, with both an indoor and outdoor pool as well as a playground. Isabel loved the pool and had fun building sand castles on the beach. She even got in the ocean, but only while being held. She also got reacquainted with "Gaga" (Grandma) and "Tito" (Isabel's version of "Tio", or Uncle, Danny).