Obsessed With Isabella: November 2005

chunk-chunk being silly on the couch...

Yesterday while I was dusting I gave Isabella a damp papertowel so she could help me, and she went around cleaning everything....including the floor as you can see...

cleaning mommy's slippers...

making sure the laptop is clean...

Here's the rundown people...

I know you've all been waiting on the edge of your seats to hear about my weekend, so I figured I wouldn't make you wait any longer. Here goes...

THURSDAY: We drove up to DL and hung out and grandpa Tom's and uncle Jason's for a couple hours and then headed over to aunt Ang & uncle Brians for Thanksgiving dinner. There was about 24 people there, so for a girl who comes from a family of 3 that's a big crowd. Isabella played with (and fought off) her cousins Emberly and Brianna the entire time. We had a sit-down meal, which for Doug's family is unusual, but was fun. Isabella basically ate cranberry sauce and cookie salad for dinner. We hung out there for a few more hours and then headed back to grandpa Tom's. Isabella went to bed at 7 which is an hour before her usual bedtime. Doug and I went to bed at 8. Man, we are getting old...

FRIDAY: We hung out the entire day. Emberly and Brianna came over for a little while and played with chunk-chunk. Later that night the boys were supposed to have band practice, but for whatever reason they didn't. So we headed over to auntie April and uncle Kevin's place for a shin-dig. We had lots & LOTS of fun. ;)

SATURDAY: We hung out at grandpa Tom's till the afternoon and then headed home.

SUNDAY: We went to my mom's & sister's house. We hung out, ate, watched the Viking's win (big surprise), ok it actually did surprise me, and then took Isabella outside for her first outing in snow ever. I had so much fun taking her outside. I think I had more fun than Isabella did. She got to ride in a sled and she just sat there and giggled the entire time. She walked around and kept falling over, but didn't get mad about it which I thought she would. Too much fun!!! Then it started to rain which of course started to freeze. We headed home a little before 5 and had to drive about 40mph for the first 20 minutes. There were tons, and I mean TONS, of cars along the side of the road. None of them were in the ditch and there was usually 2 at a time so we didn't stop to see if we could help. The last 14 miles there wasn't any freezing rain, so it went quickly then.

Wow, I summed up our 4 days pretty quickly.

Today we just hung out at home. I got some cleaning done, but not as much as I wanted to. Sunday is our big cleaning day, and since we weren't home I figured I'd just do it all today, but I wasn't really in the mood.

I did call the head start here in EGF though. We are thinking about putting Isabella into head start soon. She can't get in until she is 18 months old since they don't have early head start in EGF or Grand Forks. When I talked to the lady over the phone it sounds like a great idea. We mainly want to put her in head start for the socialization. Isabella doesn't have any little baby friends, so it's hard to have her interact with kids her age. Personally I don't think she's suffering too much, but eventually she'll need to be around other kids. From what I can tell she seems to get along with people and strangers well, but who knows how she'll be when she's 2 or 3 when she's never been around a kid her own age. She would go M-F at 8:15-12:15. We were already thinking about having her go at those hours and just a couple times a week, but we now are leaning more towards having her go M-F. This way if I wanted to work a few hours everyday I could. Doug could still sleep during the day and wouldn't have to stay awake with Isabella.

I think the hardest part of all of this is how I'm going to deal with it. I mean Isabella goes to my mom's about once a month for the weekend, but this would be every single day. I don't think Isabella would have a problem with this at all and I'm sure she would like it and get a bunch out of it, but I would miss her. It's not that I don't trust others to take care of her for 4 hours out of the day, but I just really enjoy taking care of her. I have days where I wish I didn't have to watch her and play with her, but 99% of the time I love it.

Another thing that's good about head start is that they are trained and qualified to teach her things. I try to teach her things, and I read to her, and take her places, but the people at head start are trained to help kids learn. I think that if she went to head start she'd have a little bit more experience with different things. I feel that as a mom I'm doing a good job teaching her, but I've never been trained on how to teach kids at different ages, and what you teach them.

I also think that it might benefit her to be away from me for a few hours everyday. Luckily, she's not a clingy baby. She doesn't freak out usually if I'm not in the same room, but I think it'd be good for her to be with complete strangers for a little bit. It's probably be a good way to teach her that I'll (or her daddy) will be coming back to get her. She'd probably also learn to be a little more independent in some ways.

I'm actually really, really glad that she won't be able to get in until she's 18 months because it gives me a little more than 3 months to prepare myself for her being ripped away from me. :) It's just really hard thinking that I've watched her for this long and then all of a sudden I won't be her main caretaker. I think it will take awhile to get used to it, but in the long run it will benefit Isabella. As long as my baby is happy then I'll be happy.

Alright, this post is really long so I'm done...

This pic is kind of funny because it looks like Isabella and Brianna are racing or something...

This pic is blurry, but bell-bell's face is funny. There was a guy at Ang & Brians for Thanksgiving that Isabella didn't want to be by. In this pic she is watching him walk behind the couch going to the kitchen. There would be times that she would all of a sudden be close to him and she would stare at him and slowly back away. I wanted to burst out laughing every single time she did this. It's funny how babies are weirded out by certain people...

Isabella and cousin Brianna looking at a picture of grandpa Tom...

This picture is too funny...I wasn't able to get a good shot of them coming in and out of the playroom, but when I finally got them they were both laughing about something...

uncle Jason and his new hairdo...cute huh? :)

Isabella and grandpa Tom using the computer. He was letting her type so she'd be ahead of all the other 14 month olds...

3 people with full belly's...

cousin Emberly sharing her popsicle with chunk-chunk...

Isabella and cousin Emberly harassing uncle Jason after Thanksgiving dinner..

Isabella and cousin Brianna....yes I know the picture quality sucks...

(from L to R) cousin Emberly, grandpa Tom, Chunk-chunk, and cousin Brianna...

Isabella after stuffing an entire donut hole into her mouth. Every time we go to DL, grandpa buys her donuts. I guess that's what grandparents are for...