Remember when?

When Izzy was first born, the hospital took some pictures of her (and tried to sell them to us). I scanned in the proofs, and here they are. I can't believe she was that small...and already throwing gang signs...

Izzy and Daddy

So, Izzy has become super vocal lately, and also has learned how to clap. She claps whenever she likes something. She also can do "High Five" with a little bit of initial prompting. She especially likes squealing at an extremely high pitch, and does it with glee. All in all, she's progressing into a teenager rather quickly.

Here she is with Chris. She LOVES it when she sees him, and gets so excited that her legs start kicking.


She also loves sitting on Chris's shoulders, and has recently learned that when she's up there, she can lick his hair!


Here she is in the morning with particularly bad hair. The day before, she and I had gone swimming, so after, I did a quick blowdry on her hair. It dried standing up everywhere, and the next morning, this is what it looked like.


And here she is Jumperoo-ing. She gets going so fast, and throws her head back with abandon. You can't really tell in this picture, but she jumps on the tops of her toes, which I figure has to be uncomfortable, but if it really hurt, she'd probably stop.


And this final picture is one of deep contemplation...the meaning of life...Kant's imperative...if she poops now, will it go up the front or the back?

New Car Seat!!! (And traveling Gear!!!)

After much indecision, I finally decided to get a Britax Marathon for Izzy. So, I went online, and found a good price, and was able to buy it through HipMonkey.com, which gives all of its net profits to a foundation that helps purchase car seats for children in need. And then, the next day, I changed my mind. Figures. So, I called HipMonkey a few times to try to cancel the order because if I wanted to get the Britax Boulevard, there was a much better price at a different site. So finally, I emailed HipMonkey, and was told that they were having telephone problems, but that they definitely could cancel the order and PRICE MATCH the Boulevard, so Yay! I got the one I wanted.

Not only that, but I have been planning out how to travel from Richmond to Milwaukee with Izzy, but not Chris, so I bought this thing called the Traveling Toddler, which attaches the car seat to a rolling carry on. I bought it through Amazon, which sent the order to HappyMothers. But then, Happy Mothers tried to send me the Tote a tot. So I called them and had it all fixed, but later realized that they were charging me for the Tote a tot, not the Traveling Toddler. So I called them again, and they said they would credit me the difference.

So I also needed a rolling carry on, and finally decided on the Eagle Creek ES Tarmac 22, partly because it got great reviews, AND partly because it has a No Haggle Lifetime warranty. So, I went to Backcountry.com, and used my 20% off coupon to get it. Then, days later, it went on sale for less than I paid, so I talked to them, and they credited me the difference.

All in all, it took a lot, but I am please not only with what I got, but also with the prices I paid for them. I hate feeling like I spent too much.

So, here are some pictures of the final products.

This is the car seat attached to the rolling carry on with the Traveling Toddler.


And here it is, tipped back, so you can see how it will roll.


Here is a top view.


And in this one, you can really see the Traveling Toddler. It's the black straps across the carry on.


And finally, here is the Britax Boulevard in Onyx.


It took me forever to get the car seat into the car, mostly because I couldn't decide if I wanted to use LATCH or the seat belt. In the end, I used both. Also, Britax uses a Versa-Tether system to anchor the car seat from the top, and I installed it per the instructions, but it didn't look right, so I went online to see what people said, and then re-installed it based on what they said. It looks fine, but I can't wait to use the seat forward facing.

So, now, I think I am ready to travel with Izzy...maybe...

Why you should try to keep your child as small as possible...

Okay, I don't really mean you should starve your child, or bind their feet, or anything like that. But if God should bless you with a petite baby, who doesn't grow very fast, but is in all ways healthy, you should give Him a big shout out. Because when I was first looking for stuff for Izzy, I was really excited to pick out her "gear" and finally settled on this awesome carseat made by Chicco. It is grey and green, and washes easily, and is generally cute. So I bought it and the matching stroller. Little did I know that Little Miss Chunky Butt would grow out of it in less than 8 months, and require a brand new car seat, and would never be able to use the old one again. So, now, not only do I have to buy a new car seat, but I have to get pregnant and have as many babies as I can in the next 4 years and 4 months (I read somewhere that car seats are only good for 5 years) so that I can get as much use out of this stinking infant car seat as I can. The stupid c-section means that I have to wait at least a year before getting pregnant, so I should just charge the obstetrician 1/5 of the cost of the infant seat, because he's cost me that much by cutting open my stomach. Anyways, so now I am trying to pick out a new car seat for Izzy, the Godzilla baby, and I have a confusing number of options. Should I get one that goes to 40 lbs, 65 lbs, or even 80 lbs? Do I need a "tummy pillow"? Should I pay the extra $30 so that to adjust it, I can just leave it in the car and turn a knob? Or should I buy that new sports bra instead, and wear it when I wrestle the car seat out of the car to move the harness straps around because Miss My-Feet-are-Clearly-an-Indicator-that-I-am -Going-to-be-Bigger-than-a -small-Whale has grown again?

After talking to many people (Thanks Jennifer and Emily), and doing lots of online research, I'm pretty sure that I am going to go with a Britax. I was set on the Marathon but after talking to Jennifer, who has the Boulevard
now, I don't know! But I definitely want it in this color scheme (onyx). The Boulevard is only different from the Marathon in that it has "True Side Impact Protection" which means extra padding on the sides, "Multi-Position Headrest height" which means that the side impact things are adjustable so that they can be moved to correspond to where your child's head sits, "No re-thread harness" which means that with the turn of a knob, the harness is adjusted to the proper height, and the Infant body pillow, which is just some extra pillow padding for smaller babies. Now, to get all that, it's just $30, and on top of the $230 for the Marathon, it barely seems like a stretch, but $260 looks like a lot more than $230. But hopefully, which ever one I get, it should last until she's like 6 years old, or if Little Miss Now-You-Have-to-buy-a-Chevy-Tahoe-and-get-rid-of-that-tiny-Hyundai keeps growing like she is, then in 2 years.
(Oh, and in the 20 minutes it took me to write this post, the Boulevard went up $22, so now it's $285...stupid Amazon.)

Oh, and here are some pictures of her from the past few weeks. She's started rolling around like crazy, and has recently shown that big girls CAN do the splits.