Progress, of sorts

Yanina and Viktor took care of Isabella Saturday when we went down to the clinic. They took her to the zoo, where she saw everything - penguins, hippos, giraffes... She came back very happy and all bouncy. Apparently there was a re-visitation of the "scary hat" we saw when we went over for dinner. I heard all about how we shouldn't wake up the scary hat, and it was sleeping in the other room "shhh!" She had almost fallen asleep at their place, apparently, but wouldn't go to sleep when she got back. Until 3:30, at which point she crashed until 7pm. Out like a light. She fell asleep in her underwear, but woke up dry (yay!)

We've had mixed luck with the potty thing. She really likes wearing her underwear, but has been throwing fits about sitting on the potty. Saturday morning, though, she woke up and said "Me no want to pee in my diaper, me no want to pee in my underwear, me pee in this!" and picked up the potty. But then she went back to not wanting to sit on the potty.

So tonight I managed to get her to "volunteer" to sit on the potty by making jokes - asking her if the potty was going to bite her, fly through the air, etc. And asked her where she should pee - she seems pretty clear about the fact that it should be in the little potty. After a bit of badgering, she asked to sit on the potty. Then we had a big accident. And then she asked, out of the blue, to go potty.  

Turns out we missed her 15 and 18 month appointments, so we had a last-minute trip to the doctor to get shots. Then we had to go back the next day for a regular visit; she just kept saying "no pokies!" and required much consoling with toys to make it through the exam. 

Her language skills have taken another leap - and she can "leap" physically as well, although we're trying to keep her from doing it off the steps... I think the longest sentence we've gotten is "daddy go upstairs get sweatshirt for mommy bring downstairs". She's starting to get words like "cold" and "dark". And she's learned the secret of "just one more" and "last time!" (repeat many times). She's been adding slang responses - "sure!", "stop", "almost there!" And if she's sitting at the computer and you try to take the mouse or keyboard away, she says, "no, read my email!". She's also learned what "Cassowary" means - there was a cassowary in one of her music class songs, and there was a picture in national geographic this month. So now she wants to see pictures of them all the time (they're large, very bad-tempered, emu-like birds).

Her favorite game these days is to put pony tails in mom's hair. Chasing mom or dad around is also fun, as is bouncing up and down on the couch.