Isla has had a language explosion this month. I started keeping track of the words she says so I could see how many she is saying. Toddlers are supposed to have at least 10 words by 18 months and I knew she had a lot more than that. Well, after listing them for a few days, we realized she pretty much says anything we say. The ones she says spontaneously started numbering up past 30 or 40 and kept growing each day. Then there are the ones she constantly repeats, like if I say, “I’m going to make french fries” she will repeat, “fra fry”. So, I didn’t know if I should count those words too, or just the words she said by herself. So I just stopped counting because she was well above 10 words either way. One funny thing is despite the fact that she says so much, it took her until this month to learn the simple sounds “uh oh”, and she couldn’t even say it right at first, she instead said “oh uh”. But she prefers another word when she has a little mishap, a four letter one that starts with an “s”. We aren’t used to these early talkers and weren’t prepared for that! Click here to see a video of Isla talking along with a few other recent videos of her.

Isla has also been stringing words together this month and has said such phrases as “me potty” when I was changing her diaper, “eye see” which refers to the fact that her eye is seeing something, “see book” when she wants to see a book, “see that” when she wants to see something else, and she signed “more, eat”. She prefers to shake her head “no” instead of saying it, and to sign “eat” instead of saying it. She still signs “all done” instead of attempting to say it, and sometimes signs “more”. She even engaged in a little word play this month when I heard her in the back seat one day saying “Owey, owie, Owey, owie, Owey, owie…”
Isla loves the snow! She says, “neeow” and loves watching it fall and reading her books that have snowy scenes in them.
Isla still loves trying to go potty, but hasn’t gotten any better at it. She sometimes runs to the potty, but can’t get on in time and pees in front of it. Other times she just goes where she is, or walks to a corner to go in. I took the potty chair away for awhile because I couldn’t handle all the puddles I had to clean up. We still take it out every now and then when she insists though. On December 3rd, she went potty in the potty chair for the first time. But, it was Joshua’s potty chair (a doll we have from when Owen was potty learning). We made a big deal about it anyway and Isla got to go upstairs and help dump it into the toilet and flush it down. She loved waving bye bye saying, “bye bye potty” to it as it went down.


Isla continues to love books. She absolutely loves being read to, but she also loves to just sit in her chair and read to herself for long periods of time. She has the book, A Monster At the End of This Book and she reads it to herself often. She sits in her chair and tries to say, “you turned the page!” in a loud voice, but it comes out, “ya turned a age!” in a high pitched baby voice. It’s so cute.

One day Grammie was over and Isla was sitting on her lap to have a book read, but Grammie and I were also trying to have a quick conversation. While Grammie was talking, Isla pointed to Grammie’s mouth, then to the book with a very serious expression on her face. As if to say, “hey lady, focus on your task and read to me”. Another funny thing about books is that Isla thought that she could do whatever was being done in the book and had no sense of proportion. So, if there is a picture of food, she wanted to eat. If kids were playing outside, she wanted to be outside too. And one day, she saw a fire truck in a book and she put her foot up on the book and said “wee, wee” like she wanted to hop into the book and start riding it. As the month has passed and she has gained more experience with books she seems to understand now that she can’t jump inside of books and interact with the pictures.
Isla demonstrates how she has a skewed sense of proportion!
When we went to Grammie and Grampy’s house one day, Isla started saying, “Asa” over and over again. At first we weren’t sure what she was saying, but then realized she was asking for her cousin Asa! She started yelling his name really intensely. He came over later to play with her and she was really pleased to be able to boss him around all evening.
Isla with Grampie
Isla and Asa with Grammie
Isla does many cute things all the time. She likes to pull tissues out of the box and blow her nose. One day she also wiped Owey’s nose, then Daddy’s, and then the Christmas ornament’s noses. She says “shhhhhh” with her finger to her mouth. She says “puppy, kitty, puppy, kitty, puppy, kitty…” over and over again, just because she likes puppies and kitties. One morning we were woken up by a dog barking. Daddy started play “yelling” at the dog waving his hand towards the dog and saying “go nigh night puppy! go nigh night!” Isla then started “yelling” too, saying “puppy!” “nigh nigh!” “nigh nigh puppy!” while she waved her hand in the direction of the barking. Now whenever we hear that dog barking Isla goes on high alert and starts yelling at him to go “nigh nigh”. She loves to ride on daddy’s back during wrestling time. She says, “ba pa, ba pa” (back pack) to alert him that she wants to get on. He then runs or crawls around while she laughs and screams with delight.
Isla helps Daddy around the house.
Isla enjoying the cardboard from the box our new dining table came in.
Isla loves to read her tiny little book.
On the 18th and 19th Grandma came from out of state to visit! Grandma brought Isla a new doll, which is very cute and had shoes, so Isla decided that this Grandma person was pretty awesome and she took to her right away. She went up and gave Grandma hugs and kisses and Grandma was so touched because the last time she visited Isla was really little. Isla seemed to know Grandma was someone special and she was immediately comfortable with her and wanted her attention and wanted to play with her while she visited. It was a new experience for Grandma having to split her time between two grand kids, and Owen doesn’t make it easy, but it went pretty well.

When Grandma was visiting we went out to eat. Isla wanted to get out of her high chair and she started to walk around the restaurant with her squeaky shoes and make friends with the people at the other tables. She would walk up to them and then smile and talk to them. Everyone loved her and an older couple sitting near us especially seemed to be taken with her. Right before Christmas I took Isla to a mall and she just reveled in going up to people and smiling at them. She saw some older ladies in a hair salon store window and stopped to wave and smile. She then realized she could go around the corner to get to them. She walked right up to the older lady and started talking gibberish to her. A few days later we went to Chipotle as a family. As soon as Isla was done eating she wanted down. She started walking up to the other customers and marching her feet to make her shoes squeak. Once she got their attention she would tilt her head and smile at them. I guess she has this whole making friends thing down!
The next time Grammie visited after Grandma was here Isla had to show her the new doll that Grandma had brought. Isla said “push” and then I showed Grammie how if you push the doll’s hand she giggles. Isla then said, “tickle, tickle, tickle, while tickling the doll.
This month Isla has really started to become possessive of Mama. Every time she saw Owen on my lap she would run over and desperately say, “Mama, Mama!”. Then she would try to push Owen off my lap. Owen says that this is because she doesn’t understand that he is Mama’s baby too, and also because, “Isla thinks she’s the center of the multiverse”.
Isla, after hearing Daddy and Owey go outside, tried getting in on the action. Only, she forgot a few important items…
Of course, we celebrated the winter holidays at the end of the month. Click here to see lots of photos. Or just look at this cute one of Owen and Isla and their cousins:

Isla loves to play with her big brother. She gets so excited when we pick him up from school. On the way home she keeps trying to say things to him and goof around with him. One day she was playing with her new Christmas present, which is a tiny doll who has tiny shoes that can be taken on and off. Isla wanted the shoes on and off her doll over and over again. She was also walking the doll on Owen, bouncing the doll on his leg saying “wa wa, wa wa” (which is how she says “walk”). She then took the shoes by themselves without the doll and bounced them on Owen’s leg saying, “wa wa, wa wa”. We all laughed at her first joke! She seemed pleased that we thought it was funny