Monday, March 9, 2015

20 months


My Isa baby is a full fledged toddler now.

The other day she met a woman who said, "Wow, she's quite petite, isn't she? I mean, you and Patrick are quite tall, so it's strange how petite she is."

Patrick and I looked at each other. Is she looking at the same child? Isa's been above the 90th percentile for every body measurement since she's been born. What was this woman thinking? Well, we think because Isa walks and talks like a child much older than she is, this woman was confused by her age. To her, Isa acts like a much older person in a tiny person's body. In a way, this woman was right. This was the best characterization anyone has come up with about Isa: she is like a tiny, two and a half foot tall, fully-fledged person.

She speaks in full sentences. Last month, she learned the whole ABC's song, and I never even taught it to her. I'm assuming she picked it up from Sesame Street. But there we were one day. Isa is sitting in the shopping cart at Aldi and she sings the whole ABC song, right down to "next time won't you sing with me." And I'm looking around the store like, "does anyone else see this kid? Whose kid is this? Who taught you the ABC's!?! Answer me!" :)

She counts to 14 (because after 14, every number is 14 until she gets to 20). She counted to ten in Spanish at 18 months! Who are you, sorceress? What have you done with my normally-developing toddler?

I remember reading a while back that growth hormones get secreted while the baby sleeps. Since I read that I swear she wakes up some days noticeably bigger and more capable. She just woke up one day and said, "I want to see an egg." So I showed her an egg from the fridge. She tells me, "Please cook it. I'm hungry." She doesn't do a lot of this caveman speak that is common for her age: cook-egg-I-hungry. No, with Isa it's, "Please cook it," and "I want to see. I want to help you cook it. Please let me do it." What the what?

I really like having this little adult-impersonator around. It's fun to pretend she's actually an adult and hold a real-life conversation with her. Then, inevitably, she's tired or her skin is itchy, and she breaks down and becomes a toddler again. She hugs me and cries and I remember that she's still a baby. Then, I hold her and nurse her and give her the confidence and security to get back on her feet and into pint-sized adult mode.

I get the best of both worlds, really. I get this cool friend to talk to and hang out with, but I also get the little baby to hold and snuggle with. She will sit on my lap and hug me for 30 minutes straight, or fall asleep in my arms. But when she wakes up, we sit and chat like the ladies on Coffee Talk.

Let's see. What else is new? We are all going to L.A. for Spring Break, where I have a conference for sociology. We are staying at my friend Jose's family's house. We also have (free) tickets to go on The Price is Right while we're there! Come on dooooowwnn! We are going to Uruguay at the beginning of the Summer: June 9 to July 7. We will be meeting with home builders and planting some fruit trees and doing some other small projects on our land. We will rent an apartment and a car for the month, so we should be comfortable and I hope my Spanish abilities improve!

I am currently babysitting for two families (where I bring Isa), teaching online, and conducting interviews for my dissertation. I need to do 100 interviews and I've done 9. Woo hoo! I basically spend all weekend (while Patrick is home with Isa) doing interviews with people. So, my life is basically 7 days/week working, but at least it is set-my-own-hours kind of work. Patrick is working about 50-60 hours a week teaching Spanish at Hinsdale Central. We are busy people right now. But we have goals and it's fun to work toward reaching them!