an animal lover

Though not necessarily animal-loved in return.

Isla has always been fascinated by animals.  And like most toddlers, she loves to look at picture books whose pages are filled with fuzzy, furry creatures.  She's a very good animal-caller and we-the-parents are so proud to say she can tell you what a fish, bear, lion, cat, dog, fox, bee, bird, mouse, rooster, chicken, baby-chick, duck, horse, elephant, turtle, giraffe, monkey, tiger, cow, sheep, pig, bunny, frog, zebra, squirrel and koala say.

She's loved to watch her pet cat Rèmy since she was born, but now, as she finds surety on her small feet, she loves to follow him, chase him, corral him and pet him - very gently and sweetly - anytime she is able to catch and terrorize persuade him to join her for some play.  Most of the time, Rèmy complies, and so the bitty-bun is able to get her fill of furry fun.

In addition to her love for Rèmy, Isla also find great happiness in seeking out and waving to 'woof-woofs'. She spots them from her stroller during her morning ride, from her car-seat as she rides along to our favorite store, from her seat at restaurants, from her perch on the playground swing, and each time she shouts with joy, "WOOF-WOOF!  WOOF-WOOF!".  Her chant is repeated over and over and over until someone near her acknowledges the presence of the pup.

During a recent visit to North Carolina, bun-baby had the opportunity to spend some quality time up close and personal with her grandparents' Westie.  Chloe the dog was a fascinating subject for Isla, and yet Chloe did not find Isla equally so.  Isla followed the dog around, giggling with glee, trying to get in a pet, laughing and chasing when Chloe tried to escape (on her own tiny legs) from the tiny-legged girl who kept sneaking up on her.  In the end, it was a bad situation for everyone, as Chloe, annoyed and bite-y was retired to the sun porch.  The dog, used to a pampered life of freedom, spent the remainder our visit quarantined.  On the other side of the glass, Isla lamented the loss of her fluffy pal, "oh-NO, woof-woof".

Now, daily, at mealtimes and bedtimes, Isla adds her own line to the family prayers ...
God bless Averie and Isla and all our friends and family . . .
And woof-woof.

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."

a do-it-yourself-er

And feeding herself full-time with varied success.  Though she can pick up and eat pasta all on her own with minimal mess, her favorite food to consume with no adult assistance is applesauce.

On a related note, applesauce is extremely difficult to remove from carpeting.  It also sets up to a super-glue-like consistency if left sitting on a hard surface overnight.

Look at that cute little face ...

her very own, very independent, person

Very. She is very independent. And it's interesting that at one, she can assert this kind of independence with an astonishing will and regularity. Even more interesting that we-the-parents continue to be surprised by her clear determination and force of person.

Isla is one year, two months and fifteen days old, and refuses to sleep on anyone's terms but her own. She has been awake for nearly a month now seems to be able to survive and flourish on very little sleep. Meanwhile, we-the-parents become more haggard by the day, as the increasingly shorter periods of continuous sleep evade us.

It's not only the sleep department that receives her special directives. As previously mentioned, she is also the queen of her own plate. Isla only yesterday broke her recent carb-only diet regime with her first ever bites of "dino-chicken". The management award for this success goes to her Dadoo who was able to persuade the young gourmet to take that first taste. Until that amazing moment, she was, as that same daddy pondered, a candidate for scurvy, or possible rickets, as her diet was solely pasta of varying shapes, rice, and bread.

Today during lunch, she refused all of her mother's attempts to feed her pasta (what?), instead demanding with a firm 'uh, ahhhneee, uh, ahhhneee' and a finger point that what she must have, and indeed would eat, was the bowl of leftover jambalaya sitting in front of mama.

Will she wear socks? No. Or, maybe yes. It all depends on her mood. Will she wear her sister's underwear on each arm and her head? Yes, especially after her mother takes the first set away from her. Will she pour milk down the back of her booster seat? Yes. Will she cooperate during a diaper change or put her hand in all the yucky stuff? Yucky stuff, all the way. Should she climb up the ladder on the swing-set? No, but she will do it anyway, despite what her parents sternly command. Will she eat her cheerios or place them carefully down the front of her onesie? Depends. Sometimes the answer is both. Sometimes they end up on the floor. Will she like the same things tomorrow that she does today? Probably not, but then again, what kind of fun would that be for anyone?

It is certainly a benefit to her that she came out of the womb as adorably cute as she did. At the end of a long, night-turned-day-turned-night-again, it's those sweet little baby smiles and soft little baby giggles that help keep her more-than-exhausted parents smiling as well.

tall as a perfect hand is high

Yup. You knew it was coming. But it's true. Isla is twenty-nine inches tall (link is here if you don't feel like working that one out yourself. It is Friday, after all). Twenty-nine is a lot of things, but the best of them is currently in her crib*, quietly sleeping off last night's three hour jam session.

Our girl le deuxième has been off her game just a bit over these last days, but it is to be expected after her last check-up. Thirteen months and ten days after she was born, Isla had her first and only 1-year-well-visit. It was an informative visit for the we-the-parents and an unhappy one for the poor girl who once again endured five needles in the short span of two minutes. She really, really screamed this time. Really.**

Despite the horror of those long needles (which appear to be long enough to actually go through her tiny legs), our sweet one year old is doing great, standing tall and weighing a slight nineteen pounds. Heavy enough to wear your arm out after a short hike but not quite heavy enough to flip that car seat around. ***

The pediatrician did say she is the cutest one year old Isla in the entire state of Georgia, though, and that's enough for us. Ok, she didn't really say that, but we-the-parents are certain she was thinking it. Because we sure are.

Cute: 189 ounces fuller (that's 11.7 pounds) and 9 inches higher than her debut.

Isla eating her first french fry. It came from Five Guys Burgers and she thought it (and all those she tasted after), was delicious.
-----

*crib ... get it?

**Random thoughts: How do they honestly expect a child to be calm when they are jamming so many sharp things, filled with burning liquid no less, into their little bodies? And it seems remiss not to somehow protest the sheer length of those things. The needles could honestly go straight through a baby's leg. Isn't some agency supervising this kind of thing? What do we pay our government for anyway?

***Of course we aren't dreaming of relieving this tiny girl from the terrible plight of facing backwards when everyone else in the car is seeing life from the other direction. Because, really, what kind of parents would we be if we were thinking of doing that. We wouldn't even ponder it for a moment, the recommendation, I mean, since it's not law or anything. We wouldn't. And that is totally because we are such great parents who never, ever, ever mind the blood-curdling screams coming from the back seat when we're driving somewhere tedious after a year of no sleep.

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.

is one year old.

Right now. One year ago, now, our bitty baby Isla was born.

We love her.

Happy 1st birthday, sweet Isla.