When They're Quite, Think Trouble

Ok, I know I am just going to be freaked out everytime I see these pictures, but it's just one of those things you have to remember and the pictures make the story.

One thing I have learned with Isabell is if you're preoccupied with something, anything, and at first she's running around and you can constantly hear her, then after a while you notice you don't really hear her so you think she is playing nicely so you just leave her be; Big Mistake!!! A few times she had gotten a hold of my toothpaste and put it on the door, her doll, and then her dog.

Well, this time I was talking to my friend Kathleen at the kitchen table, and I could still hear Isabell, she was right behind my seat. I thought "Oh how nice that Isabell is playing so well." and "Oh how cute Isabell is talking to herself." Finally I decided to turn around and see what she was doing, and at first I was horrified. It looked like her baby doll hand been brutely killed and the blood was rubbed all over her face. After a few moments I realized Isabell had part of a strawberry in her hand, and that was what the red was, not blood. I felt relief until I saw she got it on the carpet too. Luckily I had just bought Shout and it worked like a charm. No red in the carpet, and almost no red on the baby's outfit, just a little on the collar. Well hopefully I have learned my lesson about Isabell being quite.

Pee Pee in the potty, but still not ready

So I'm still a little behind in my dates, but slowly I'm getting the hang of this. I find the pictures to be the hardest part. But anyway, on the real story. This past Monday June 28, when Isabell woke up from her nap I went to go change her diaper and it was completely dry. A quick not, this is the same diaper I put on her after she woke up this morning, meaning she hasn't peed all day. So I figured she was bound to pee pretty quickly, why not try the potty. So I set her on her little toliet. Of course she made me sit on the big toliet, but after a minute or so, I heard the sound of little droplets. So I told Isabell in an excited voice, "You're doing it! You're going pee pee in the potty! Good job!" I don't think she got it right away. But once she was done I asked her if she wanted to wipe and she just started freaking out. She would look at the toliet, point inside of it and say, "Oh no! Oh now!" I tried explaining that it was a good thing, but she didn't get it. We gave her a popsicle, rewarding her for being a big girl, but after that she seemed to forget about the incident and hasn't really been into using the potty anymore than she had been. So in conclusion, I still don't think she is 100% ready to be potty trained and the more I think about it, I don't think I am ready for her to be potty trained. All the messes to clean up, and that's mostly it. But it has to happen sometime. I think we're going to have to get her pull-ups though because now when she says she has to go potty, she pulls down her pants but leaves her diaper on and won't let me take it off for her. Independce I know is a good thing, but man is it annoying at times.

At the Lake with Granpa Bill

Grandpa Bill, Isabell, and Spencer

Isabell playing in the water

Gavin, Isabell, and Spencer

On Saturday June 25, we had a small family gathering on Spencer's family side to see his Grandpa Bill from Florida. It was the VanClifford family, Aunt Kris and Aden from New Zealand, us, Austin, and Grandpa Bill. It was a beautiful day out. The water was still really cold but that's ok. Isabell loves Spencer's cousins Logan and Gavin. She wanted to be where ever they were at. They're the only reason she even got in the water. Once they left so did she. She loved all the open space though. Spencer and Austin took Logan in the canoe and almost tipped it over. They were gone for quite a while but Spencer said it was really fun. Aunt Kris and Aunt Lori took the rest of the kids to the playground while I stayed behind with Uncle Christopher and Grandpa Bill who kept falling alseep. Once the boys returned they played a game of horse shoes and Isabell loved going and picking up the horse shoes. We let her throw it a couple of times, but boy oh boy were we scared if she was facing our direction. Luckily no one was ever hit. Then Spence and I played a short game which I won, 4-3. Afterwards Spencer wanted to hang out with Austin some more so Iz and I went to my parents house and she got to play outside some more. She had a lot of fun on the slide and sand box. She's afraid of bees and kept saying she heard them, although sometimes I think it was just the wind or something. I love just watching her play by herself, to see what she does, and to see what she says. To see her take things we have talked to her about and then take that into her play. It is very fascinating and cute.

A Trip Because We Can

This past Monday we went down to Onalaska and I was sitting on the couch next to my father and I said, "Let's go to Spokane." He replied with, "You can, go ahead." I sat there and thought about it for a minute. Me, go to Spokane without my family or at least my father?? I had never done that before. Then after thinking about it some more, I realized that I could go to Spokane if I wanted to. Spencer didn't start work til the next week and we weren't doing much with our summer vacation, just sitting around watching movies or letting the day pass away. Quite boring actually. So I pitched the idea to Spencer and he was game.

We left the next day, Tuesday June 22. We left after Isabell's nap time hoping she would sleep for a few hours in the car, but sadly it only last for about an hour. She was pretty good most of the trip, but started to get a little tired of being in the car when we only had about 2 and 1/2 hours left. Now I don't know if she was trying to trick us, or if it was a true statement but after that point she kept saying, "I need to go poopoo!" After she said it we would ask her if she actually needed to go or if she just wanted out and she would reply with, "I want to get out." So it will remain a mystery which was the truth, but it made me feel really bad everytime she said it, but we had already stopped once to see if she would go and she didn't, so by that point we just wanted to get to Spokane so the kid had to suffer in the car seat.

Once we got to Spokane Isabell was sooooo happy to be free from the car she just went all over Grandma and Papa's house. She was so full of energy and she warmed up quickly to Grams and Papa. She became really attatched to Papa, which isn't surprising, but it did make me feel bad when he was trying to get breakfast ready in the morning and Isabell wouldn't leave him alone.

Isabell fell asleep on the way to the park. Apparently we were bad parents because we went during nap time.

Spencer and Isabell at Manatoh Park.

On Wednesday Spencer and I thought it would be fun to take Isabell to a park so we went to Manatoh Park. I think she really enjoyed it, but me on the other hand, I'm a little out of shape to be walking all over and I was definitely not dressed for the warm weather so the trip was a little short. Afterwards we went out to eat at the Golden Corral Buffet. Now that everyone enjoyed. Isabell got her chocolate milk, and snacky foods to eat. She did pretty good most of the time, sitting in her own chair half the time and sharing one on my lap. Spencer even let her have her own bowl of ice cream (a small one of course). Amazingly enough she barely ate any of it. There was a problem that it was melting quickly but still I was surprised she barely made a dent in it. She did have fun though with dipping her cucumber in it and licking it. That day was ended with the three of us going out to Tum Tum. Now that was really enjoyable. Nice and relaxing just being the three of us. You know what's funny? It takes a family vacation to spend some quality time together. I mean right now Spencer and I pretty much do nothing all day, sometimes we do nothing together and sometimes we do nothing separate, but all in all it's pretty much nothing. But when we're out at Tum Tum together, we do everything together. We play with Isabell and when she's napping or asleep we play games together. It was really enjoyable.

Iz in her new swim suit Grandma (Dee Dee) got her.

Thursday Isabell really wanted to get in the water. She kept saying "Go to the water." "Go swimming!!" So Spencer and I braved the cold and took her in the water. She really enjoyed it. I couldn't get myself to go more than four steps down. Spencer actually got in all the way, but only up to his waist, so he could pull Iz in her floating device. At first she had a problem with the cold water when just her feet were in, but when we put her in the tube she didn't say anything about it being cold, I was suprised because I would have squealed like a little girl. After the Iz and I played for a little bit up by the cabin then we went inside for lunch, and then put Iz down for a nap. During her nap Spencer and I played Mario Party2. We both really enjoy playing games together, espeically ones like that. That night Debby made taco soup for Papa and a bunch of the fam. was coming over for it so we did too. It ended up being us, Debby, Nate, Steve A., Jeanette, Grandma, Papa, Molly, Cameron, Monica, Donnie, Allie, Dylan, and Blake. It was really fun. Isabell became super attatched to Monica. Always wanted to be with her and playing with her. It was really nice seeing Isabell play with those kids, running around and chasing them. What made it so nice was, she wasn't ever mean. Usually in the past Iz is a bully when it comes to other kids but not this time. Then we were back out to Tum Tum.

Friday was a bit of a crazy day because we had to clean the cabin, go see Grandma and Papa, go see Grandma Laura, then head out back home. Grandma's neighbor, Margrett had recently passed away so her relatives were having an estate sale and Grandma was over there helping every now and then again. I really look up to my Grandma. She is so willing to help others. I always hear her talking about helping with this, looking after that person, and so on. It seems to be she always has at least 4 or 5 people she has under her watch. For example right now, Granmda P, her neighbor Lou who has cancer, her sister Linda who recently lost her husband, and then the lady' neighbor's family and the estate sale. I really admire her for that, and I hope I can be the same way, but not just when I'm older with "nothing else to do". I realize now that sometimes I get a little too caught up in my own life and problems and forget to think about others. I'm working on changing that. Anyway back to the events of the day, helping clean out Margrett's house made Grandma think about when both she and Papa are gone and everything her kids are going to have to go through. I told her, a lot more of it is probably going to want to be kept by your family than you think. So she took me on a tour of the downstairs walls. It was fascinating to see a century put on walls through my family's life. I would love to keep a lot of it, actually I would love to keep it all right where it is and make it a museum type thing of our family, but I know that's a little ridiculous. She has a lot of things that are just "old" and not used anymore, so that makes me think I should randomly start saving old boxes and packages because some day they too will be old and cool looking right? But I know Spencer would kill me if I just started collecting a bunch of junk/garbage.

Isabell at Autobahn Park with her new dolly.

We met Grandma Luara and to our nice surprise, Uncle Wayne at Autobahn Park by Finch Elementry School. Grandma Luara gave Isabell a new doll and Isabell was so cute, carrying it around on the playground. Then we moved on to the little water park they have there now. Isabell wouldn't go in any of the sprinklers all the way but she did have fun "kicking" the water with Mama. Afterwards we went to Tomato Street for dinner, and oh my did Isabell love that place. They had a big chalk board in the waiting room she got to draw on, then she could draw on the tables and she got playdough to play with. We ordered her food but to no surprise she barely ate any of it. After our meal we were still sitting around chatting and I thought I would be nice and stack up our glasses for our watier. Apparently I stacked them a little too high because after a while, just all of a sudden, they fell in my direction leaving my with a pop, ice tea, water, chocolate milk, wet spot on my pants. I was so embarressed because it kinda looked like I peed my pants, so now I'm just this pregnant lady with a weak bladder. Oh well.

From there it was on the road for the long trip home. Isabell did much better but we left at 7 and she didn't fall asleep til 10:30 which is very late for her. We stayed the night at my parents house because we had to be out at Iknswa Lake at noon on Saturday to see Spencer's Grandpa Bill from Florida. The weather in Spokane was really nice the whole time we were there. Spencer and I even got to see a thunder and lighnting storm out at Tum Tum our first night there. We just sat on the swing in each other's arms, it was extremely nice and I hope that happens more often.

Trying Again

Ok, so my new approach to this is going to be just starting with what is happening in life right now, and if I feel like it (and hopefully I will) I will try doing posts about things that happened in the past. I'm doing it this way because if I tried to start with the past and work my way forward I would never get anything done because I would feel so overwhelmed. So hopefully this will help me stay on top of it if I just from from now to the future with a few glimpses of the past mixed in.

I'm really excited about this because I really do want to be keeping a journal, two actually, one for me and one for Isabell, but right now I'm not doing either. I'm hoping this will help because I like typing better than writing and it's much quicker. But of course whenever I start a new project I get really excited about it and then I quickly loose moment, so we will just have to see how this goes.