The hokey-pokey

Our slightly shy, introverted daughter almost never sings or dances on camera. She will be singing and dancing unabashedly, but as soon as she spies me with the videocamera, she clams up.  So I was very happy to capture the following last week while we were home together! She is absolutely loving the Dora CD player that Grandma & Papa Beach sent her for her birthday. She will spend long periods of time in front of it just listening to her songs, and sometimes singing (or dancing) along.

Daddy and monsters

A couple of nights ago, Isabel had a rare occurrence of waking up crying pretty hard at about 11:30 pm. I went in there to see what was wrong, and the minute she saw me, she said "I want Daddy!" I figured this would warm Luke's heart, so I gladly went back to our bedroom and traded places with him. After he came back to bed, he told me that he asked Isabel if she had a bad dream. She said yes, and he asked her if it was about monsters. She said no, but wasn't able to tell him what it was about. So, the two of them had a long conversation about dreams, that they are only in our heads, and not real.  He told her that dreams are sometimes good, sometimes bad, but they are just things that we "think about while we are sleeping." She seemed to understand this and was pretty awake at this point, so to take her mind off of whatever she had been dreaming about, he told her about Grandma and Grandpa Beach's new paddleboat that she gets to ride on when we go down to Florida for Christmas this year. She got over her bad dream and went back to sleep just fine. 

Fast forward to this morning, when I went into her bedroom to get her ready for the day, and the day began like this:

I walk into her bedroom, and she immediately starts crying (real alligator tears and sobs, mind you). 
Isabel: "But I want Daaaaaddddyyy!:
Me: "Honey, Daddy isn't home right now."
Isabel (still crying): "But where is he?"
Me: "He is at work."
Isabel (still crying): "But is he going to come back?"
Me: "Of course he is going to come back! He will be here right after work this afternoon!"

I managed to get her calmed down enough to come downstairs with me. Much more composed, she continued our conversation:

Isabel: “I had a dream and wanted Daddy.”
Me: “The other night, when he came into your room, and he told you about Grandma and Papa’s new paddleboat?”
Isabel: “Noooooo! I had a dream and wanted Daddy!”
Me (the lightbulb came on that she may have had another bad dream before waking this morning): “This morning?”
Isabel: “Yeah.”
Me: “What did you have a dream about?”
Isabel: “Monsters. The pink one came and when I laid down to the side in my crib (here she demonstrates by laying on the floor on her side), he took me out of my house.”
Me: “But you know monsters aren’t real, right? They are just for pretend, in our heads.”
Isabel: “Right.” (Off she marches to her Tinkerbell chair to watch Barney, and hasn't brought up monsters for the rest of the day).

I sure wish we could get these conversations on video, but they are so spontaneous, I guess my “transcripts” will have to do!

Does she really have to grow up???

Ball boy

Thought you all might enjoy a video of Josiah playing with the ball toy that his godparents Jenna and Aaron got for him for his birthday. Josiah has a "mini" version of this on his Exersaucer and he loves putting the ball in and then watching it go down the track. Jenna suspected he would love this toy and she was right! It didn't take him long to figure out how it works! Enjoy!

A birthday cake do-over

Friday was my birthday, so I endeavored for the first time in my triple-decade-plus life to make a cake from scratch (scary, I know).  I gave myself a C+ on the process, because the cake fell in the middle a bit and I had to add 12 tablespoons of powdered sugar (which the recipe did not call for) to the frosting in order to thicken it enough to ice the cake with.  But, the finished product seemed to turn out well (aesthetically, at least!). 

We decided to put it to a family taste test.  We included Josiah in this taste test because you will recall from an earlier post that when we set his first birthday cake in front of him, he was not all that interested, what with his 102 degree fever and only two days away from being hospitalized with a nasty case of RSV. Who could blame him?? So this was the first birthday do-over for Josiah! We were hoping for a chocolatey mess, and the photos below will show you that is exactly what we got! 

Out of the gate, he is MUCH more enthused about the cake this time around than he was last time!

"Yeah, buddy! I know! Triple chocolate cake! Aren't we the luckiest kids in the whole world?!? Dig in, buddy!"

Oh yeah, definitely a hit! Look at that big toothy grin in the middle of the chocolate face!

"Dear Jesus, thank you for chocolate cake!"

Shoveling it in....

And when he was full, it was just as much fun to demolish and squish the cake between chubby fingers!

And, even better, a video of how much fun he thought it was!

After our cake antics were over, they were both stripped down and went straight into the bath. Their first ever together!