Let it Snow!

We woke up this morning to snow, which last night was forcasted only for parts south of here. Tobe set off for work....only to return a while later. It took him over 45 minutes to get less than five miles into his commute when he decided to head back to the casa de Phillips. Isaac enjoyed looking out at the snow (mean mommy didn't let him venture out) and managed to pull out every toy he owned this morning for a bit of playtime. Here are some random tidbits from life at casa de phillips:

1. A friend of mine from work came over for lunch on Monday because school was out due to the MLK holiday. Isaac loves Ms. Paula and lets her carry him and feels right at home beside her (not normal for Isaac and "strangers"). He cried when she left and since Monday has randomly gone to the front door and asked for "more". He wants Ms. Paula to come back. We have opened the door and showed him that she isn't there, but he still misses her greatly.

2. Words are flowing from Isaac's mouth left and right. On Sunday he randomly started saying "juice" and "bowl." He walked around the house repeating the word "bowl" for about five minutes straight and it is now firmly established in his vocabulary. Here is a list of some of the words he currently says: more (sounds like "Mooooooooe"), please ("peasssss"), no-no, go, bye-bye, car, dog, cracker, movie ("davie"), book, spoon ("poon"), bowl ("boooooooowl"), me (ma-eee), yes, bird, color, ball, daddy, mommy (mom-meeee), and can do many animal sounds (cow, owl, snake, duck, chicken). His words have quite the southern drawl, which likely means my southern accent is much stronger than I would like to acknowledge. Seriously the words "more" and "me" have about eight syllables when Isaac says them. Perhaps I should hire a linguist coach so my child does not sound as if he were raised in the woods of the deep south.

3. Need someone to clean your house??? Isaac is for hire! He really has grasped onto the concept of cleaning up toys and keeping things picked up. We started teaching him this a few months ago in the bathtub by having him put all of his bath toys back in the bucket at the end of bath (his reward is getting to pull out the drain when everything is cleaned up--he LOVES to take the drain out and watch the water go "bye-bye."). We quickly followed this lesson up by cleaning up some toys at the end of the night. He can now pick up all of his toys before nap time and at the end of the day(with some assistance) or a mess he has created when asked. He also helped me dust the other day and loved it! Do you think Merry Maids hires workers that are only 18 months old?

4. Isaac's love of books continues to grow. He now takes a book to bed with him when I put him down for his afternoon nap. He selects a book and toddles to his bed, waiting for me to lift him over the side. He reads for about five minutes and then is off to sleep. I usually creep back in and steal the book out of his crib once he is asleep so he won't wake early and start reading instead of sleeping for his full nap time. The other night we did have some tears when he realized that he could not take a book to bed at nighttime, but has come to accept that tragedy and has since moved on.

5. About two weeks ago we finally banned Isaac from the kitchen while I am cooking dinner. When he was a baby he used to happily swing in his swing (aka death trap) in the kitchen while I cooked. He then moved to sitting happily in the bumbo and then on to playing at the fridge or window sill (we have very low windows in our kitchen). Lately though Isaac decided that he needed to be directly under my feet while I cook. Being the observant parents that we are, Tobe and I realized this was not a safe practice for our child and banned him from the kitchen. This was met with great tears and anguish the first few nights (the tears lasting only about five minutes each night but one would have thought we had severed a finger rather than simply telling him "no"). One night he laid with his body in the living room and his little toes barely on the kitchen floor, crying as if I had abandoned him on the side of I-35. However, we are happy to report that we can tell him it is time for me to cook and he happily plays in the living room, stopping occasionally to wave at me from the kitchen door.

6. Saturday as we were confronted with the fact that our house might fall down around us (another post for another day), baby girl decided to shake things up a bit. Due to some very mild issues, the nurse on call put me on bedrest for the remainder of the day. So I laid on the couch while Tobe manned the house. Before this incident, we had emptied the entire contents of our master closet into our bedroom so Tobe's dad could do some repair work. By bedtime, our closet remained empty while our bedroom looked as if it had been hit by a bomb. Tobe cleared the bed for us and we fell into a deep sleep......not before I once again told Tobe the story of the girls who lived on my dorm hall Freshman year whose dorm room looked as if they never unpacked. There were no sheets on the bed---in fact it was often hard to find the bed under the chaos. At night, the girls would simply clear a tiny space on their beds to lay down. It was the most comical and disturbing sight I have ever seen. Someone toilet papered their room in January and they proceeded to take this paper down in May when they moved out.

7. We had a lawn service working on our yard last Thursday in preparation for winter. They were in the back yard mowing and whatnot while Isaac and I ate lunch. I guess he got tired of hearing the roar of the mower and of seeing these strange people walk past the windows because he began yelling, "bye-bye!" to them quite energetically. He became a bit distressed when they did not leave. After finishing up lunch, Isaac and I moved into the living room to play for a bit before naptime. Coincidentally, the yard service men moved to working on the front of our house. As soon as Isaac heard them he toddled over to the front window and began yelling "bye-bye!" at these men. Who needs an attack dog when you have a determined 18 month old?

8. Why has Channel 5 (our NBC station) felt the need to pre-empt EVERY show today to talk about the weather? Yes, it is important to discuss in the morning with all the school closings (By the way, good thing Dallas ISD didn't get defensive over the fact that they were the only district open....oh wait, yes they did!) and traffic issus. But by hour six of their broadcast about "Artic Blast 2007" they really had run dry on how many ways they could discuss this winter weather in Texas.

9. Finally, am I the only American (along with my sweet husband) who does not really "get" American Idol? Sure I love Kelly Clarkson and feel a mothering need to protect poor Clay Aiken, but I just do not get the American Idol craze. Isn't it all scripted to some point? I caught about five minutes last night of this show and witnessed some of the worst singing ever---these people have got to be plants set up by the network to increase ratings. Surely there are not people walking around with as little self-awareness as portrayed by these potential American idol contestants. And have they someone managed to get Jewel to be a judge? I just don't get it.

Hope everyone is staying warm and cozy with all this cold rain, ice, sleet, and snow!