Isabel learns new things.

Being Isabel's mommy is so much fun. She constantly cracks me up. She likes to tease and loves to laugh. She's started doing some new things recently (warning, proud mama alert!):

1) Isabel is starting to sit up by herself! She's not great at it yet, but we've been practicing! If you prop her up like a tripod, she can stay that way for a bit.

2) Lately when I nurse her, unless she's sleepy, she's been stretching her hand up to check my mouth to make sure I have all my teeth. I sure do appreciate her concern in that area. ;) She also occasionally attempts to pull my bottom lip up over the top of my head. I think that one's just for her own amusement.

3) I've been feeding her one meal (at dinnertime) of oatmeal lately. She let me know unequivocally that she does NOT like rice cereal, so it's oatmeal for her. If I put her in her bumbo chair to eat, she tells me that she is done eating by turning her upper torso completely around like an owl so that I'm looking at the back of her head. She can't do this when she's in her highchair! A sure way to get her to eat her oatmeal cereal? Add some squished up banana to it. She loves bananas.

4) Isabel also LOVES jumping. Her abuelita gave her a jumperoo, and it is currently her very favorite toy. She loves to JUMP VERY HIGH in it. Well, as high as her little legs will go, that is. The jumperoo obliges by playing a refrain or making some fun booooiiing-y sounds. One of the refrains sounds like, "Taaa-daaa!!" She loves it and grins with all her gums, especially when I tell her what a good jumper she is. :)

5) Isabel has recently discovered that she has a right leg. She's already found her left knee, and both her feet, but this right leg is a new thing. She LOVES to kick her right leg....when she's nursing, when she's on her changing table, and especially when she's in her new whale bathtub! Unfortunately for her mama, the bath time kicking results in the almost total soaking of yours truly.

6) Flipping. Isabel can now flip from her back to her stomach...but just to the left. She gets her right leg swinging over her left and after a few attempts, over she goes (unless she gets stuck with her left arm underneath her). However, she hasn't figured out how to roll back onto her back. She whines when she's tired of being on her tummy, so I flip her back over and then she does it all over again. She thinks this is especially fun on her changing table. She likes to kick her box of wipes so that I have to grab for it before it goes flying off the windowsill, while at the same time, holding onto Isabel, her dirty diaper (which is usually unfastened right then), and whatever else the wipes container smacks into on the windowsill. Why don't they issue new mamas an extra two sets of hands at the hospital?

7) Scooching. This is a technical term for babies who don't crawl yet, but somehow manage to move from the place where you put them down to another place. Isabel can scooch herself all the way around from facing one direction to facing the opposite direction if she has the proper motivation (i.e., if we are behind her)!

Isabel loves her Boo (our Chihuahua, Booboo), and he loves her right back. He likes to lick up her drool and his doing so makes her grin. I may even let him at her after she's finished her oatmeal....that way I wouldn't have to do any cleanup! Whenever I put Isabel on a blanket on the floor to play, Booboo comes over to check on her. He is very diligent about keeping those crazy babas (drool) at bay. He looks up at me, and I imagine he's saying, "See mom? I'm keeping an eye on my baby sister. You can go ahead and wash her bottles in the kitchen now." Thanks, Boo.

I have also discovered that Isabel likes to sleep in while I get ready for work. This is fine with me, since I can just leave her in bed while I take my shower. Sometimes I am ready too soon, though. If she isn't ready to wake up yet when I go to the bed to get her, she quickly turns her head away from me as if to say, "Not yet, mommy." Then I call her name again, and she turns her head the other way with her eyes screwed tight shut. It's really cute. :)