The Messer tradition continues

This is Isaac's standard kitchen game with a twist...he always pulls out all the containers and sets them around on the floor, but this was the first time he emptied the shelf so he could sit on it.

Toddler craziness

I have a confession to make. I've been working with kids for about 20 years, and I don't think I understand any more now than I did when I started. If there is one thing I have learned, it's that no matter how much you learn, you'll still never know nearly enough. Isaac keeps throwing me for loops. This past week, my child, who has been the world's best sleeper (We would read a few books, rock for 5 mins, then he would ASK to go lay down in his bed. I know, luckiest parent alive, right?) has all of a sudden decided that he is going to FIGHT going to sleep. A week ago, his bed time was 7:30 to 8 o'clock. This week it's at around 10:30 to 11...and we have had to rock him for the longest time until he falls completely asleep before we can put him down or he cries and pitches a fit. I am really hoping that maybe he is teething, because otherwise, I don't understand what happened at all.
Another thing that has thrown me quite a bit...munchkin has pretty much always called my "Mama". Paul is "Da-dee," so sometimes I would get a "Ma-mee," but for the most part, I'm "Mama". Well, today the child started calling me "Mom". I don't have the slightest where he got this from. No one even refers to me as "Mom" so where did he pick this up? I'll tell ya, those little boogers like to keep you guessing.
On the funnier side, today we were all in the store doing some Christmas shopping. I was looking at something and Paul had Isaac up on his shoulders. All of a sudden, Paul said to me, "What is he doing?" I look up and Isaac has gotten my pen I was writting with, pulled up his shirt, and is drawing all over his stomach. Daddy gave a terrific effort, but he could not get all the pen marks off during the bath. Ah, toddlerhood.

Vocabulary

This is some of Isaac's most recent new skills. He's starting to pick up on words pretty quickly, and now he will try repeating words you say (and they often actually sound like the word!). I figured it would be much easier to put up video than to try and explain the way he pronounces things!

Nolan

Isaac loves his cousin Nolan (better known to us as "No-No").

Soccer Boy

Uncle Chip, this one is for you. We recorded this back in August, so we already knew he had some soccer skills before you started working on him :-).

Random

The Monkey is growing so fast...I can't get over it. He's starting to play pretend, and he loves mimicking everything. He's loving stuff animals and very sweetly gives them hugs.
He put a bunch of animals around himself and "read" to them.

My little executive.

This is Isaac's "concession stand" at the playground.

The boy loves hats.

Busch Gardens

This was Isaac's very first amusment park ride, and boy did he love it! He was thrilled when we went up in the air.

They have possibly the biggest playground/jungle gym ever created. It's absolutely huge. Isaac loves playing around in it even though he's too small to do some of the


Monkey loves hats.

You've got to respect the animal...Isaac said "Hi" and patted his horse to thank him for the ride.

Waving "hi" at Mommy.

I think if Munchkin could do only one thing for the next year, it would be slide. He would slide all day long if we let him.

My little Goof-ball

A little munchkin update for you... Isaac is getting this talking thing down. He seems to have skipped single words for the most part and gone right to phrases. I've always known you have to be careful what you say around kids because they copy everything you say, but I didn't even realize I was saying several of the phrases he's been copying me on (and they seem to be some of his favorites). He still does very well saying "peas...peas" any time he wants something, but now we've added "thank you." It's quite cute really. He asks "Where is (fill in the blank)" then if you repeat the question to him, he usually responds with "I don't...know." The ones he has snagged from me are "I know" and "I got you!" (that one is new). He really likes cows and sheep and if you ask what they say, he will tell you "moo" and "baa" (and he gets this smile when he does it like he's really proud of himself for knowing that). One of the cutest things he said the other day. He has been saying "love you," but last week we got "I love Daayee (better known as Daddy). One if his favorite games is calling us in the house and we answer. He says "Maamuuuhhh" and I call back "Isaaaac." Then he calls "Daaayeeee" and Paul calls "Isaaaac." This is our came that goes on almost on a daily basis. He's also started calling us like this when he wakes up. I love it, but we do occasionally get some funny looks when we're doing it in public. I'm just so thrilled he's started saying "Maamaa" fairly regularly. I was "Daayee" too for a long time. We were in Target one day and Isaac was with Paul. I had gone to pick up something, and Isaac was wondering where I was. So he started calling me. He's yelling "Daayee" and I could hear him half way across the store. Paul started getting nervous that someone was going to think he had swiped this kid who was trying to call his dad.


I love this picture. It looks like he's trying to work out a problem in his head.

Jumping on the bed (notice the foot up in the air).

This is what he does when he's asking where something is or saying "I don't know."


This is the goofy grin.

My little ham.

I'm not sure what he was doing here, but that's what his face looks like when he is saying "peas...peas!" very earnestly. (He was probably asking me for the camera...he loves looking at the pictures of himself on the screen.)

My little girl...no more

Ok, so I finally had enough of people saying "Oh, she's so cute!" and "What's her name?" and "James, get out of the little girl's way" and (my personal favorite from a little boy at the airport) "Are you a girl?" he asked Isaac. I hardly ever corrected anyone (although if they asked Isaac's name, then it was sort of obvious), I'd just answer their question and let it go. But it had reached the point where he got at least twice as many "she," "her," and "girl" references as he was getting masculine pronouns. I don't entirely understand that since I dress him very much like a boy, but you never can tell about people.

So here is his long beautiful hair (I guess I need to have a girl)...




and here it is getting all chopped off.

That's sort of how I felt about it.

And here is my cute little monkey with an official "boy haircut."

I must admit, it has really grown on me, and now I think he's too cute.

Locked Out

I have a post to put up that I know a few people will be very interested in. I will get that one up soon, but while you wait, I thought I'd give you a good laugh. Today Isaac locked me out of the house in my pj's. (Go ahead, get all the giggles out of your system.) We have a screen door with a lock that Isaac always turns when he's trying to get out the door. I realized that I had left something in the car and went to go get it quickly, completely forgetting about his prior locking Daddy out of this particular door. As I'm getting the stuff out of the car and locking the doors (with Isaac standing at the screen door), his previous door locking experience hits me like a ton of bricks and I had one of those stomach sinking, heart stopping moments. I get up to the door, and sure enough, it's locked. So I spend the next 10 minutes trying to get Isaac to unlock the door (in his defense, he did a pretty good job--he turned it back and forth but he just couldn't get it to unlatch). This whole time I'm staying pretty calm because I can see him and I know everything is fine. After about 10 minutes, Isaac got frustrated because he couldn't get the lock to work, so he just decided to close the front door! At which point, I will admit I had a moment of panic. I was worried about what he might get into without me able to see him and also that he would lock that door too, and then I would be totally lost. I was trying to find a way in without tearing our screen door up, but after he closed the front door, alas, it was not to be. I dug through my stuff to see what I could use to tear the screen, and all I could come up with was a ball point pen. So I commenced to hacking my way through the screen so I could get in the house and save my baby (who I was not too happy with at this point). Needless to say, he didn't lock the second door, I did get in, and I did not have to go over to the neighbors house in my pj's and call 911. Thank God for small favors :-).

Virginia Living Museum

It was the last day the Virginia Living Museum was having the Dino-Mania exhibit, so we decided to go one last time (luckily, this time I remembered the camera).

Isaac is waving to the triceratops family.
This boy will touch anything. He enjoyed petting the crab.

He seems to have a thing for frogs--he likes to kiss frog statues. Maybe he's waiting for one to turn into a princess.

There is a big log in the museum that Isaac absolutely loves crawling around inside. (It seems to be quite popular with the other kids too.) He was peeking out at Daddy through a little hole in the side.

Florida Trip #2

Isaac and I went down to Florida again this year (partly to go to the beach and partly to give Daddy a break). Of course, the beach was pretty much ruined by tropical storm Fay. So we found some other fun things to do.
He got this hat from a restaurant we went to, and boy, did he love it. He just kept repeating "hat...hat...hat".

Isaac fell and got a cut on his mouth. We tried to get him to suck on an ice cube, but he wouldn't have any of it. So I broke my no sweets rule and let him have some fudge popsicle to help it feel better (bo-bo's seem to often call for rule bending). He took a lick, his eyes lit up, and he said, "mmmm". He went nuts on that thing for a bit.

This is one of Isaac's favorite games... if someone is lying on the bed, he loves diving over them.

Not sure what this was--fuzz in the mouth maybe?

Repeating the Museum of Natural History... He seemed to enjoy it more this year (especially since he can run around and check everything out). He loved hitting all the buttons that make the animal noises.

Here is one of the Indians that confused him so badly last year. This year, he wasn't as amazed.

They have a very cool hands on area that he loved playing in.

This picture is deja vu--just like last year's. I'm not sure if he's looking at the same thing he was last time. He's waving to the totem pole on the wall.