Isabelle

Lately when I look at Isabelle I swear she is fourteen, not four.  She just looks so grown up.  Everything about her is changing so fast.  And, I hate it.  Hate. It.  I try to remember how she looked as an infant, how she snuggled up when I held her, how she nursed, how she looked while sleeping, all of it.  Sadly, it is hard.  I would not have thought that four years ago would seem so far away.

My friend, Erin, blogged about her daughter, Kate and it was beautiful.  I loved every word.  I doubt I will write as beautifully as she did, but I am going to try.

So, here in a nutshell, is Isabelle at four years old.  These are the things (or at least some of the things) I hope to remember about her at this age.  And for the record, four years old is a pretty fantastic age.

Isabelle gets dressed the instant she wakes up.  She loves to pick out her outfit complete with shoes, socks and usually some sort of headband and necklace.  Even though it is winter, she would prefer to wear shorts and short sleeved shirts.  Since I have put away most of them we sometimes have a minor meltdown about what to wear.  She is very particular about her clothes and what she wears, but above all her socks are the most important.  She will spend an incredible amount of time putting on socks, adjusting socks, and then deciding to get new socks and try again.  She is crazy about her socks.

Her favorite show right now is Calliou.  Man, I hate that show.  She watches it (after getting dressed) while drinking her milk for the day.  If she had it her way, after Calliou we would do creative and educational things all day long.  Playing playdoh, coloring, making crafts, doing "school", and playing memory are just a few things she asks to do just about every day.

Right now she is figuring out how to determine what letter a word starts with by saying the beginning sounds.  She is a pro at rhyming, a skill that seems to have developed overnight.  She went from having no clue to waking up a rhyming pro.  She can count to 100 pretty successfully and can write her name, mom, dad, and molly.  She still uses signs, though not near as much.

Isabelle is a singing girl.  She loves songs and you can count on her making up her own songs and singing them at least once per day.  Sometimes after we put her in bed she continues to sing and sing and sing until we have to tell her to be quiet and go to sleep.

She is a great big sister.  She loves Molly and Lawson and spends a vast majority of her time playing with them.  She tells me multiple times a day what a "cutie little brother" Lawson is and loves to help me out with him.  I know she really cares about him because I have found her picking sock lint out of his toes (she hates sock lint in her toes)!  She also likes to make him laugh by playing peek-a-boo or crawling around chasing him.

Isabelle loves the outside.  She loves riding her bike and her scooter, playing on the swing set and much to my dismay, loves playing in the dirt.  She's not afraid of much including bugs, spiders and worms.  YUCK!

Her favorite foods right now are pizza (from Top That Pizza or Papa John's where Uncle Danny works), crunchy chicken with noodles and broccoli, and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  I don't know where she got it from, but she seems to have a bit of a sweet tooth.  HA!  She is in a really bad habit of asking for dessert after every meal.

She is a daddy's girl at heart, and each morning when he leaves she can be found standing at the garage door waving goodbye.  For some reason she has also started telling him, "If you find a polar bear, put him in the back of your car."  I have no idea where she got it or why she says it, but it's adorable.  She depends on Jason to come home for lunch and is pretty sad when he can't.  Most of the weekend she is found right by his side.

Recently, Isabelle has started saying to both Jason and I, "You didn't get your lovin' from me today."  She then proceeds to crawl on our laps and give lots of hugs and kisses.  It might be my favorite part of the day.
And, despite the fact that she tells me she will turn, "five, then six, then seven, then eight, then nine, then ten," she promises she will still sit on my lap even when she is forty-eight.

Isabelle is a lover (she never fights back even when her sister is hitting her), a drama queen, a bit of a wuss when it comes to injuries, hysterically funny, always helpful, bright, smart, beautiful, and a million other things.  I want to bottle her up and keep her just this size forever.