Sitz nanuk

So, the Little Miss is on the verge of a verbal EXPLOSION! I can just feel it. She has progressed from grunting mmmmkkk to sitz!! sitz!! sitz!! and nananuk nanuk nanuk. She especially loves to walk really fast, swinging her arms madly back and forth yelling "sitz! sitz! sitz!" It is pretty funny...what could she be saying?

She has also picked up a few more words lately and will sometimes try to imitate words. Some of her new words:

seps aka steps
awuh aka flower
shews aka shoes
ocks aka socks
sncksks aka Snickers
dog!!!! aka dog (she only says this in a really loud, high pitched voice)
book aka book (yes, her first word was book but it was more one of her first mmmkks, which she said when she meant book. Now sounds more like book.)

It probably seems like we're obsessing over the fact that she's not really talking yet, and maybe we are. You always say (before you become a parent) that you won't compare your child to other children, but darn it, that is pretty hard! Especially when Isabella's playmate is 2 months younger and walked and talked way before Isabella even started. And of course you worry about your child. So how nice was it when my "Your 18 month old, week 2" email from Baby Center this week contained a link addressing this very topic! Here is a quote from the article: "some more cautious and reserved children tend to wait until they understand a great deal of what they hear before they actually speak." Hmmm...quiet and reserved? Sounds like Isabella (wonder which parent she got that from?)!!

At dinner tonight I was making a mental list of some of the funniest things to watch her do.
(This list is in no particular order, as it is a mental list)
1. Blow on her "hot" food
2. Blow her nose
3. Walk really fast yelling "sitz!!"
4. Yell "CAT" at the top of her lungs every time we drive past the PetSmart shopping center
5. Drag her beanbag chair around the house, sometimes pausing to turn around and plop down in it; sometimes holding in in front of her face and then falling face first into it.
6. "Drinking" from anything that could hold liquid (usually an appropriate container); yesterday Nick found her taking an empty milk jug out of the recycling can and "drinking" out of it; the other day she found an unopened can of coke and held it up to her mouth with both hands and tilted her head all the way back; tonight she found a small box of wine in our pantry; this weekend she actually got ahold of my wine glass at dinner (luckily she didn't tilt her head far back enough); and I could go on and on.

She loves to count. She can't (acurately) count very high but if you ask her "how many" or "can you count the", she will start pointing to the items. She has been doing that for awhile, thanks to the book "10 tiny tadpoles". But she would just kind of point at the items at random. Now, with small numbers of items, she will point to each one, one at a time. So that's kind of neat. She has also picked up a few more letter sounds. G and C, I think, are her latest ones.

I am having a good Spring Break. The weather this weekend was great (we went to the zoo on Easter, so hopefully I can post some of my Dad's pictures). Then it got cold and rainy on Monday and Tuesday. Today the weather cleared and I think (I hope) the rest of the week will again be glorious. Putting a slight damper on my hopes for good weather, however, is the fact that Isabella came down with a fever tonight. Poor little thing, we would be in the middle of something and she would just crawl into my lap and lay her head on my shoulder for a couple of minutes. Hopefully it won't turn out to be anything major, but we'll see.

We have already had 2 showings of our house! We have another one tomorrow. I have to share the story of our 2nd showing because it was about the most stressful 30 minutes I have had in awhile....We got a call Friday afternoon saying that we had a showing Saturday from 10-11. We did some cleaning on Friday and then Saturday morning, we did the rest. We went to my parents house and hung out, had lunch, then Nick went to work and Isabella and I came home for naptime. I went to sit on the porch to read and enjoy the weather. At one point, about 2:35, I came inside to get a drink. I happened to notice a message on my phone. The message arrived at 2:10 pm (this is an important detail). The message said "Hello, an agent would like to schedule a showing from 2 - 3 pm today". Ok, so the call came at 2:10 and I am getting the message at 2:35. I was upset because I thought, darn, I have missed the opportunity for a showing, I hope they do not get mad that they will have to reschedule. So I call the number back and the lady tells me, "you should have already seen the agent by now" I said, wait, they are coming?!?!!? I have been here since 1:00 and have seen no one come to the house. The lady says, "well, we called your cell phone.". Like that was an intelligent comment! I tried to remain calm and said "yes, I know, but my phone was inside and I was outside and it is now 2:40". So the lady says she would call the agent, please hold. She calls and the agent is on a road that could put them anywhere from 5-10 minutes away.

PANIC!!

Luckily, the house is still all clean from our morning showing; Isabella and I had only been there for 10 minutes before I put her down for her nap. NAP!! Isabella is still asleep and I hate to wake a sleeping child! I ran (and I do mean ran) back and forth to the car, getting everything we needed for the next little bit and also putting the dogs in the car (Snickers is too old to jump into the back of the truck, we have to lift her). Isabella woke up during all my hustling and bustling so I basically scooped her out of the crib, dumped her dirty diaper from earlier into the trash and ran out to the truck. I buckled her in and then I couldn't find my keys! I must have left them in the house! Oh wait, the music is on...the keys are in the ignition. Duh. So I am actually starting up my car and driving down the driveway when the agent and buyer show up!!! I think I was, as they say "sweating my balls off" by this point. Hopefully all future showings will allow me more than a 5 minute window to get everyone out of the house!!

Feedback from those two showings was positive...we'll wait and see!