out of the crib

and into a bed. A Big Girl Bed. A bed that big girls sleep in.

But she is only two.  Two and a few weeks.  Still so little.

It had to happen.  She has been miserable sleeping for nearly all of her life, and we couldn't think of continuing the scream-fest that has been her bedtime much longer.  We also couldn't think of continuing the sleep-on-daddy-fest that has been ongoing for weeks, too.  The little couch in the playroom just isn't big enough for a grown man to sleep on, much less a grown man trying to hold onto a wiggly-even-in-her-sleep two year old.

So last night, we-the-parents raced around to the mattress store and the general store and picked out and picked up a twin-box-spring to go beneath the twin mattress we already owned, and a brand new set of Big Girl Bedding.  After dinner, we-the-family got her all set up.

And last night, sweet baby Bun, all of two years, one month and eighteen days, slept in her Big Girl Bed.  All night long.  Without waking once.  Even though we had to enter her room twice after we'd put her down (think hard to turn door knob, squeaky no matter what we do to them hinges, feet that are louder than we mean them to be, etc.)  - once to get the cat out and a second time to cover her up.

Not a peep did she make.  All night.  There was just one thunk, and that was it.

This morning, sometime after eight (!), the bitty Bun woke and cried.

As her mother tried to wake her big sister, who'd asked to be the first to greet the baby in the morning, there was a tiny knock at the little sister's door.

From inside the door.

And when her mother opened the door, there was the bitty Bun, standing in cold bare feet, with a cold little neck and cold little ears and cold little hands and carpet marks on her face from the spot on the floor where she'd spent most of the night.

She even walked me over and pointed to the exact place where she slumbered.

Guess we should've entered a third time to check on the thunk.

Sleep sweet Big Little Two Year Old Isla.

a little bit of a talker

It's taken twenty months, but the bitty-bun-baby is beginning to speak.  It's cute. It's exciting. And it's challenging for all parties involved.

"Isla, say 'blackhawk'. Blaaaaaaaak-haaaawwwwwwwwk. Say it. Say it, Isla. Say blackhawk."
"Mama, she won't say it," says her big sister.

"Ilawah!  Ilawah! Ilawah!" says the baby.  "Ilaaaaawaaaaaaaahhhh!"

"UGH!" says Mama.
...

The thing is, it takes us* so long to understand what it is she's trying to say that by the time we realize she's saying, "Isla walk", we've already carried her or strolled her through the entire outing.  And by the time she figures out how to say what she needs to convey in a manner we can understand, she's worn out with frustration and the whole incident usually ends in tears.  Most often hers, sometimes her mother's.

Still, she's talking.  If you're interested, (and how could it be possible that you aren't), her vocabulary includes the following:
Mama, Dadoo, Aowee, Rem, thank you, you're welcome, yeah, no (thanks to her big sister), applesauce, pasta, meow, woof, quack, I'm tall, bubble-bubble, I'm slow, Isla, walk, God, all things, amen, vroom, augh-guh (aircraft) and the aforementioned blaugh-guh (blackhawk).

*By us, I of course meant we-the-parents.  Her big sister has no trouble understanding exactly what it is Isla wants and has no hesitation about translating:

"She wants to give me her ice cream, Mama. She wants to share it with me."
"Isla says she wants to go to an eating store."
"Mama, Isla thinks we should have movie night."

deserving of a better blogger

She really is. Because she is way more interesting than the lack of updates on her blog relates. In fact, she could be *the* most interesting one-year-old Isla Mireille ever. Ever.

She is nearly a walker. Although she still chooses crawling - or 'crab-walking' depending on the surface - as her fastest means of ambulation, she can and does walk fairly well. We-the-family (and especially her big sis) love to applaud her short strolls from couch to table or ottoman to sliding glass doors or bed to dresser or toy to sister. And we-the-family are all of us truly amazed at how she manages to find her balance, even amid a near fall. It is incredible to us how she can stay herself, locate the center and then propel her tiny frame onward toward her current goal. The sweetest part of this entire process is the look of joy on her face, the smile of 'I did it' in her tiny eyes. She is so amazed and proud. So are her onlookers.

Isla continues her streak of independence by demanding to feed herself. She does not, repeat does not like to be fed. She wants pieces she can pick up with her fingers. She wants to hold her own cup. She wants to use the spoon on her own. She does not want any food that prevents her from doing it all by herself. Conversely, she does want almost all foods that allow this self-feeding style, though bananas are recently not one of those foods. This we find strange, since it is one of the few 'baby' foods she will still consume.

Her spoken vocabulary is growing, but it is easy to see that she understands far more than she can say. "Isla, sit down" is a constant phrase during the day - one that follows the two-footer around from chair to chair, box to box, shelf to shelf. And she knows what it means, because she always stops her climb, bends her legs and turns her head to see if the command giver is actually watching. "No!", also heard with regularity, brings her to tears. "Isla, come here" is the phrase that surprises Mama the most, because the strong-willed girl actually does it. She will also "dance" on command (or at the sound of any music she likes) and most of the time, we-the-fam can get her to clap as well with an encouraging, "Good job, Isla!" or a "Yay!"

The bitty babe only has two teeth. Still. Two small, white pearls neatly lining her bottom gums. We await the arrival of more, but alas, so far there are no signs of comrades.

She just turned one. And here she is, after lunch on her birthday, playing with her sister's hairbrush in her car seat. Cutie-pants.

chewing

on everything. She is so proud of her one little tooth and the tiniest beginnings of her soon-to-be-showing second tooth that she tries it (them) out on every single thing she touches. Dirty shoes? Check. Dirty socks? Check. Leaf from patio? In it goes. Worm? You betcha, baby. It all goes into her mouth and onto her tooth.

Everything, that is, except carrots, spinach, apricots and green beans.

Yeah, you read that sentence correctly. She chewed a worm. A big, brown, squishy, slug-like, wormy caterpillar that made its way in one day during the spring worm storm that showered our home and yard with an incredible variety of creepy crawlies for two weeks time. Not only did the smallest person in our home manage to find the smallest creature in our home, but once she found it, she also refused to release it, holding it in an increasingly tighter grip as her mother, weak from the shock and horror of finding her baby with a worm in her mouth, tried frantically to free it from her tiny fist.

At the end of the event, the worm was captured in a baggie for identification by the resident bug expert upon his arrival home, and the Isla was extremely unhappy with the mother who took her new favorite food and toy away. Big sister probably had the worst of the deal and appeared shell-shocked herself after witnessing her mother's screams and the ensuing tug of war with her baby sister.

Some people might call this less than stellar parenting. Here at chez-baby-pants, we call it protein.

done with shots

for the next six months! Woo hoo!

Her six month - oh.man.six.month - check up went well. She tipped the scales at a perfect sixteen pounds, six ounces ... a whopping ten pounds more than she weighed when we brought her home. She is twenty-seven inches from head to heel which puts her in the 95th percentile for height.

Today's four-vaccine combo went over about as well as the last round. And after it was over, the band-aids wouldn't stick to her little legs, so she kept getting poked on the sore spots with more. Sniff. It was sad.

In other news, Isla's slept well for two nights in a row. We're holding our breath and saying our prayers that tonight is no different.

talking

Sort of. She has one word ... and it sounds sort of like mama. She says it when she wants me. Which is usually when she's hungry or wants to be picked up. She stops saying it and smiles when I get to her. So we've pretty much decided it is 'mama'. And I'm pretty much claiming first word rights, which is awesome since I missed out on the claim first time around, what with that Dadoo person hogging all the baby love and stuff.

'ah-na-ma-mamama
ah-na-ma-mamama'

Yep. That's me. Woo Hoo!!

gearing up for the new year

and celebrating her first new year's eve with some bacon, lettuce, tomatoes and Peroni. It's all that her parents are able to muster after the Christmas celebration, a week of general maneuvering around the broken down car, a very intense afternoon parental discussion and five and a half hours of driving from grocery to grocery and fish monger to fish monger in search of red fish, which is apparently only available fresh if you live in Louisiana or Mississippi. (What??? says Mama.)

In reality, it was only two and a half hours, but what with the screams of the unhappy baby coming from the backseat, it felt like longer. And certainly, judging from the intensity of those screams, it must've felt like a lot longer to the baby, too.

It's been a big week for our bitty little bun, and she's held up like a champ. She was completely patient with her Christmas Eve dress (and matching bloomers) and managed to make it through the wonderful Christmas Eve service of Lessons & Carols with no fuss. She took a leisurely view of her first Christmas morning and slept through the majority of present time, which due to a different time table, stretched into her morning 'nap'.

In honor of our dear little Isla, we decorated her first Christmas tree with a variety of handmade tartan roses. Though the tree looked pretty, Isla seemed to notice only the lights. Her favorite ones were the multi-colored blinking ones Mama stashed in a clear vase as a pseudo baby-sitter while she was trying to accomplish a few tasks (without dangling the baby) one day.

It's hard to believe that she's experiencing her first holiday season. It's hard to believe how quickly it's passed us. It's hard to believe that in a few, short hours, the year that saw her birth will be over, and a new one will begin in its place. It's hard to think about how much time has already gone by, how quickly the days move, how speedily she grows. We will wake up tomorrow in two-thousand-something, and our sweet, tiny baby girl will be grown.

Our sweet, Christmas morning Isla...

24 weeks old

It's been a big month so far, and we're only a couple weeks in. This month Isla had her first bottle. She also got her first cold, and had her first 'emergency' trip to the doctor's. And she narrowly survived her first attempted-escape from her bouncy seat. She's doing great, the aforementioned incidents not withstanding, and we-the-family continue to press on as a foursome.

Her last non-life-threatening visit to the pediatrician had her weighing in at a sweet fourteen pounds and measuring 26 inches long, head to heel. She took her shots in the same manner that would any sane person experiencing the quick stabs of four back-to-back injections (including the one the nurse precedes with, 'this is the one that really, really burns') - she took a deep, shocked breath in and let it out in screams that did not subside until her tiny face was completely crimson. And who would blame her?

The curious incident of the baby and her bouncy seat took place while her tired mother was attempting to get a fast shower. Bun-baby waited until her mother was good and sudsy and then somehow managed to propel/throw/stretch/otherwise maneuver herself over the side of her bouncy chair. Which would've been bad enough, but like all the instructions say, mama had strapped that baby into the chair with the 3 point harness. So the baby, though partially out of the chair she apparently detests, was not completely free. She was instead, dangling by that 3 point safety harness with her head either on or very near the hard, cold, tile floor.

Her mother is not sure if her head actually hit the floor, or if she was just dangling there, because when she poked her head out of the shower to see why the baby was crying, her first thought (and spoken word) was, 'oh, crap!' and she bounded out of the shower, soap and all to rescue the small, unhappy child. And who would blame her for crying, what with her top-heavy body hanging, rag doll like over the edge of the metal and plastic frame, and her own inability to lift/pull/stretch/ or otherwise maneuver herself back into the hated chair? Not to mention how awful the safety harness must've felt around her poor little abdomen.

All that, and the not-to-be-detailed blood spitting incident leads us to today, where the sweet, mostly happy Bun is learning to stand (entirely too early for the likings of we-the-parents). She loves her big sister, and is possibly cutting some teeth. She still loves music and loves being held. We-the-family love holding her.

due, very, very, very soon

She's coming soon. So hopes Mama, Big Sis, and especially Daddy who is weary of Mama's requests for backrubs, ice cream and sleep.

Stay tuned for the series, coming summer 2010.