Ah-uh Yes and Ah-uh No

Isabella has not showed us any communicative output really. She makes sounds, but they are usually Mmms, and Ahhhs, and the Ah-uhs that, depending on the context, can mean anything random. However, with the occasional change in tone in how she says it, it seems that sometimes she means Ah-uh as a "Yes", and other times Ah-uh means "No".

Here are 2 instances…

Instance #1: After rolling in her crib and crying for about 20 minutes, I realized that she will not go down for her nap, so I went to go get her and asked her “Why didn’t you sleep?” and she said “Ah-uh”, in such a diva-nated tone that tells us “Ah-uh, I don’t want to.”

Instrance #2: We were in the car and it started to smell like something died. So I asked my husband if he farted and he defensively said No. I asked my son if he farted and I got another defensive No. Since I was asking and was 100% sure that it wasn’t me, I asked Isabella if she farted, and she answers, “Ah-uh”… like “Ah-uh, I sure did”.

Apparently, It’s All About Her

Isabella has developed this newfound assertiveness, which is actually a euphemism for stubbornness (hahaha!). She is curious (another euphemism for nosy), and loves getting into everything that we are into. She loves interacting with her brother (more of bothering him actually) and she will block and grab whatever he is getting into, which makes my son upset.

Isabella wants everyone’s attention, and she has her menacing ways to remind us often that the world revolves around her. (Yes, this also includes the dog as she would lean on Missy like it was her personal warmed up couch when the dog finds a cozy corner to lay in).

She wants to be on your lap while watching TV, she crawls on top of you when you manage to find 5 minutes of quiet rest on the floor mat, and she will smack your face with her hand (doesn’t hurt, but she will keep on bothering you) when she finds you with your eyes closed when you barely laid down, like she's trying to say "How dare you get 5 minutes of shut eye!", That or she tosses her shoe on your face (which hurts sometimes).

This is Isabella's way of telling her brother that it is HER turn to use the laptop. 

(WARNING: Don’t be fooled by that smile on her face)

Here are other examples…

Example 1: She cries for attention.
Oh she cries when she wants us to just pay attention to her, it is this fake loud cry with no tears (that I suspect will be more amplified since her last surgery). She cries when she sees us getting dressed up, thinking that we are leaving her. She cries when we leave the room to go to the kitchen to make her food, she cries, and her plea for attention is most definitely heard.

Example 2: She loves herself.

She likes looking at herself in the mirror or looking at pictures of herself on the computer. She also likes watching a slide show of her pictures, and the moment the slide show stops, she cries to tell us that she wants more.

Example 3: She messes up my chore schedule.

Isabella wants me to just focus on her when I need to do something else. Whenever I fold the laundry, what normally will take me only 15 minutes to complete, takes me a whole hour. I would have to resort to playing endless rounds of peek-a-boo, and make it feel like something exciting each time, needing to do it for each piece of clothing I need to fold, because otherwise she will sit on top of whatever it is I'm trying to fold, or she will mess up the stack of neatly folded clothes, or get into the laundry basket and take all the clothes out and sprawl them all across the floor, getting dog hair all over it.

Example 4: She will judge you.
When I take a shower, she will crawl her way to the bathroom and sit in front of the glass shower door and just sit there watching you…. judging you.. making sounds, that make you feel uncomfortable having a baby look at you naked and making comments that you do not understand that you step out all soapy and semi rinsed. I swear, the moment I wrap my naked body with the towel, the “comments” stop.

Example 5: Your time is HER time.
When I lock myself in the commode, she will crawl and bang on the door with her shoe trying to tell you to hurry up with whatever sit down business your attending to. Almost like she's telling me that anything else that I do is less important than the privilege of paying attention to her. If I open the door so I can pretend to watch her, she will climb up and would want to sit on my lap, while I’m doing my “deposit”…. which leaves me doing my business in installments. 

Example 6: She is better than her brother. 
We will sit and chit-chat with her brother or have a silly wrestling tickle match on the floor and she will be there, putting her tiny body in the middle of it. She will yell, watch you with a stink eye, make those judgmental sound comments, fake cry, or toss her shoe. She will do anything in her power to put a stop to all the brother related fuss so we can all just focus on her.

Example 7: She torments her brother. 
She will take apart the Lego sculpture he spent all morning building, she will sit on top of whatever he is reading, topple over the bin of little toys he is playing with that we would have to tell HIM to clean up, and she likes pulling his hair, and HE will cry. Not a fake cry, rather a full-of-tears-he-is-hurt-cry or a my-sister-is-so-annoying-and-he-is-so-frustrated kind of cry. While Isabella, god bless her menacing heart, would give him a smile when he looks at her with tears in his eyes, or when we look at her and ask her what she’s up to.

We have put Isabella on time out for not having “gentle hands” (pulling brother’s hair), and after three days of time outs, she seems to get the picture that she cannot pull her brother’s hair if she wants his attention, which she seems to want a lot of.

Not to say, of course that she does not cry when brother does something, she cries when her brother changes the channel (while she’s watching the Wiggles, so he can watch his 7 year old boy TV shows), and he proceeds to watch while she proceeds to cry and crawl to grab away the remote from him, which she is usually not successful in doing, because it is HIS turn on the TV.

While we are enjoying this exchange in torment between brother and sister, (which is a typical sibling thing in any household), and her tormenting us, (which is typical in any home with a toddler), we also enjoy that she has turned into this little diva, making everything all about her. =D

Okay Baby Girl the rest of this year you can make it all about you, 

then come 2013 we’re gonna have to work on tapering it off a little.

Poop Happens

Isabella poops two to three times daily. With two being the minimum quota and three being having extra marginal profit, and the occasional four being a reason to celebrate the extra commission.

The ideal poop consistency is that of peanut butter (if you are eating, and you decide to stop reading this, I won’t be offended, promise.)

With the diet change,  ordered by GI and Renal to a non-restrictive diet, we were faced with dealing with the occasional constipation that we have managed according to its constipation alert levels that is signified by certain poop consistencies.

Level 1 Alert: 
Level 1 Constipation Alert means different things. When Isabella has not gone in the morning like she usually does, or when she does go but they are like small pellets and are dry (like that of a rabbit or a goat), or if she gives us a donut hole (like a piece of a chocolate donut hole from Winchell's), or if she produces what we call Play Doh- a pasty kinda flat piece of brown doughy poop, this is called a Level 1 Constipation Alert. This level of constipation is usually managed by giving her some prune juice. While usually a successful means to make her go by lunchtime, every now and then, we do need to proceed with a plan to remediate a …

Level 2 Alert: 
After being prune juice-boarded, and still not going by 4 pm, a Level 2 Constipation Alert will be in place. At this level, we will have to give her a dose of this minty-flavored-chalky-substance called Milk of Magnesia. At this point, because level 1 remedies did not work, and she has already skipped about 2 bowel outputs, we will need to deal with diaper overflows, poop went throughs, and sometimes, just sometimes, the all the way to the back poop cleaning.

It is important to note though that this level of intervention usually works and would not necessitate the need of a Level 3, but sometimes, rarely really, we do need to up the ante to a…

Level 3 Alert: 
It is already day 2 with the constipation battle. For the first half of day 2 we will try a Level 1 approach, and  and if she still has not gone, a Level 2 approach will be administered in the afternoon, and if that does not work, by bedtime (after already doing her daily bedtime ritual of a bath, brushing her teeth, taking her meds, and being dressed in her pretty jammies, and no luck with the production of her precious poop) then suppository Baby Pedia Lax will be necessary. Pedia Lax is really our last resort, and we are usually hesitant to give her this, so we would try and give her some belly massage and wait it out. But since she gets really restless and cranky when she has not gone (and I can’t blame her, for I will feel the same if  I’m all plugged up.) then Pedia lax seems to be the only way to go.

Usually, due to our hesitation to give it at the right moment (which is always the time frame before we did it plus the time we wasted on waiting after we give her the belly massage), she would go in her sleep and we will have to deal with all the all the plugged-sordid-mess-of-bowels in the middle of the night.  So lesson learned, when faced with a high level of constipation alert, DO NOT hesitate to give Pedia-lax by the afternoon of Day 2 Level 3 Constipation alert if we do not want to deal with giving the baby another bath in the middle of the night, and the need to address the dirty bedding laundry, ASAP. 

Peek-a- BRO!