My Notebook: Bella's Baby Bullets

Isabella turned 16 months on March 29th!! Bella is truly a joy to have. She is an incredible baby girl. I am so blessed to be allowed the privilege of being her Mommy.

She is getting SO BIG! At her last appointment she weighed in at 23 pounds and she is 33 inches long. She is in the 97th percentile for height. At least she will not be a shorty like her Mama.
Bella got her first hair cut two weeks ago. She has a TON of hair as I have mentioned before, and it was all in her face. John heard me say I was getting her some bangs, so he thought he would surprise me and get it done. Well, he didn't know I meant like long bangs that i can sweep to the side, so she now has traditional school girl bangs. I hated them at first, but now they have grown a bit and i love them. Her face is so pretty now, and her eyes just pop out at you, so bright.
Walking is the norm now, she is a great walker!
We had an Easter Egg Hunt yesterday, and Bella held her own basket all through it and gathered her very own eggs too. She had a great time.
Unfortunately Bella got her first scraped knee on Easter as well. What a tough cookie, not one tear! I even thought it must have not been that bad, but when I went and looked, it was. I was so sad over her perfect baby skin being scraped, but she didn't seem to mind. I love her courage and hope it stays with her always.
Her dancing is at a whole new level now. Yeah yeah yeah, we all make our babies dance and perform circus tricks for us, but with her it is not like that. She can be concentrating on a task, music comes in anywhere in the background, and just like that she begins to sway and laugh and clap and even snap her fingers! Without John or I saying a thing. It is so cute to watch!! She loves music! This may end up being my very own Wild Child! (I secretly love that because that was what my uncle called me growing up and to this day still does...........I think its cool, even though it may be the life of me some day)
Isabella is such a great communicator. She doesn't have a huge vocabulary like Tyler did, that is not what I mean. I mean she talks to you and gets her point across even though I don't know one word of what she is saying. She sits with you and she makes eye contact and she is talking in her own language. For minutes at a time. I mean it is a conversation too, like she speaks and I comment back tyring to guess what the heck she is saying, and she talks right back. She motions to things while she "speaks", she raises her eyebrows, laughs, swings her head to the side, talks faster and louder when she is aggravated with us, slaps her hand on her leg, she drags you to what she is talking about to show you, I am in awe of this behavior really. You have to see it to understand what I am saying. I know all babies communicate, but she is my third, I have not seen anything like it. Really, really amazing stuff. I especially love it when she grabs me by the hand and takes me somewhere. If she wants to play with a certain toy, she holds my hand, walks me to it, points at it and then sits to play with it, then if she wants me to join her she simply taps the floor with her hand motioning me to sit. The latest is when she pulls me by the hand to the steps, then she sits on a step and motions me to sit on a step with her. Then she just "talks". We were at this for 25 minutes the other day. I sware she thinks she is really talking. What a big girl to sit there that long and just babble with me, she talks, waits for me to respond, laughs, what a trip. I cherish these moments.

Bella has new molars. OUCH my poor baby! But, there is a huge pay off for that FOOD!!! She loves crackers now! She enjoys having a big one to eat on her own! Her other favorites are bananas, yogurt, cereal bars, diced peaches and cheese of course. I just started her on white meat, now that she has some chompers....she likes it, but doesn't love it just yet, so she has it about once a week. She doesn't need it though, she gets the protein else where, so I am not worried. I don't give my kids any meat until they can eat real meat because although I make my own food for them it is so gross to process the meat up in the blender sometimes. A Dr. I am fond of that is quite earthy said to me with Tyler "it is the way nature intended, no teeth, no way to chew, no need for meat". I agreed. He also added "you have done so great making your own baby food, for God sakes, don't give them the meat in a jar, that is basically cat food" GROSS, and it smells terrible too! Oh yeah, when I am feeding her more than one thing, I cant just feed it to her, nope, say she is having a fruit and a veggie, if I am giving her a spoonful of the veggie, but she wants the fruit she says no, and will not open up til I give her what she wants right then! That is "if" she lets me feed her, she is into self feeding now, what a mess. She likes me to open the pantry too and she knows how to grab her cheerios and snacks from in there when she wants some!
Bella LOVES bath time. Problem is she never wants to come out, so prying her out of the tub kicking and screaming is never fun.
She is playing with her siblings more and more. She really loves them, and has a special relationship with Ty. She goes to him and pats his back and he gets on all fours on the carpet so that she can ride him, it is pretty darn cute.
She loves going up the stairs, over and over again. Scary!
Bella is enjoying going to the park and being outdoors too. A very well rounded little girl. I am lucky!