Isaac 18 months and beyond

18 MONTHS

Oct.10-16,2005
A bunch of different new words—yes, snack, juice, cheese, animal, up, water, and vamos!
I was reading a book in Spanish with Isaac and I taught him how to say luna, but since he had just learned moon, he looked up at me and said, “muna!”
Isaac had his first Sunday in nursery at church since he’s now officially 18 months old. He did great, but the main reason there were no separation anxiety issues was because mom stayed the whole time because the nursery leader needed extra help. Sharing is still a tough concept for Isaac (I’m sure it will be for a while), but when he gets frustrated he tends to grab the other kids faces which is not a good thing.
We got a potty chair to attempt the very beginning of potty training—he loves to run around naked after bath time and squat and you know what. Basically it would be nice if we could redirect the you know what into a potty chair as soon as possible.
He uses the Spanish words “bate bate” when he wants a yogurt smoothie and also to sing, because we always sing him the “bate bate chocolate” song when we’re making a drink for him in the blender.

Oct.17-23, 2005
Isaac is figuring out that he can use language to do more than just name things and ask for food:
He’ll pick up keys and say Vamos! and B-Bye when he wants to leave a place. It makes for a good excuse to leave places early.
When we walk around he’ll yell “hi!” to people and keep yelling it until he gets a response- he’s a real social animal and forces everyone around to be social too.
When he wants help getting access to something he’ll ask us to pick him up by saying “up-up.”
When he wants to go see his friend Sage, he’ll go over by the door and say “Hi Sagie!”
Isaac is a little obsessive about some things:
He’s crazier than ever about numbers, and he’ll scream and drag us over to the signs in the hallway that show the floor numbers. When we take him, he gets this gratified smile just looking at them. And on the topic of numbers- he can distinguish 1, 2, 3, and 8 individually.
He’ll demand to hear the same song over and over 5-6 times, and same with a scene on a video. This week’s favorite was the tractor segment on Baby McDonald and he kept yelling Tractor!
When we finish praying, he’ll repeat amen, and then ask for more…
New words this week are zapatos, nine, nose, water, tractor, football and basketball (he can distinguish these 2 sports when watching them)
He’ll clap and say “Yay!” when he figures its time for praise.
Wentzel (one of my mission comps aka Heather Carr) came to visit for the day and we hung out at Sea World with our boys. LOTS o’ fun.
He learned to slap people five a few weeks ago, and is eager to demonstrate. .

Oct.24-30, 2005
Ice cream, daddy, mami, horse- animal differentiation
Mas breakthrough- increase in frequency
Pre-Halloween week. We got serious mileage out of some superman pajamas that we bought at Wally World for the Biz. It even had a cape attached with Velcro.
Awful waffle—James has Isaac saying “awful waffle”
Ee-ii-oo—On the way home from church the other day Isaac started saying ee ii oo and we finally realized he was requesting Old McDonald Had a Farm.

Oct. 31-Nov 6.2005
Isaac can now say one, two, three and uno dos tres –he also recognizes the letter P because its in our elevator and in our parking garage
Lots of new words—he’s becoming a great parrot and loves to repeat things, epecially numbers.
He’s also started to notice letters this week—he loves to point out whenever he sees a letter or a number
The brinca brinca incident. . . .James was away on business in Texas on Monday night, so I took Isaac to a Halloween party at one of our neighbor’s churches (Roberta & Jazeer). They had little games for the kids and Isaac had fun—especially with the miniature basketball hoop. He also loves to say “basketball” now. Towards the end I noticed that one of the brinca brincas (inflated jumping thingy) didn’t have any kids so I asked if Isaac could get on for a minute. He had a blast jumping around, but at the end when I was about to get him out, he got a funny look on his face and tossed his cookies. I got him out in mid-puke and luckily most of it landed outside, but it was still a bit traumatic for both of us. Oops. I guess he’d had too much water before he got in. . .lesson learned.

Nov. 7-Nov. 12, 2005
The counting is getting even better. He’ll count to three by himself in English and Spanish and he occasionally makes it all the way to ten if you help him out. It’s funny because he’ll also mix the two languages and say “one, dos, tres”
At Food 4 Less the other night he was super pumped because he looked up and saw the number four and recognized it as cuatro or “catro!”
James was out of town again in Texas this week and Isaac actually got pretty sentimental when he saw pictures of papa (or daddy).
He’s very into the “old macdonald” song and in the car will constantly request more E I O.

19 MONTHS

Nov.13-19, 2005
Numbers are still his favorite, but he’s starting to show signs of interest in letters. He already knows “P” from the elevator and now he’s starting to say a few more like “A” and “T”
Isaac has also become aware recently that there are different shapes in the world, and his new word is “circle” which for the moment he likes to use for all of the shapes from circle to square to trapezoid. And who can blame him when circles are the coolest shape around.
He’s also calling his rubber duckies by their Spanish name “patos” and he’s overgeneralizing that word for anything that looks like a bird right now.
I think he’s getting the idea the everything has two names since we switch back and forth a lot with English and Spanish at home and when we’re out. Lately he’s been pointing to water and saying “Water. . Agua!” He’ll also pick up shoes and say “shoes” sometimes and zapatos (“apatos”) other times. He’s our bilingual guinea pig, hopefully we don’t confuse him too much.
Turkey hand prints in art class—fun but messy

Nov.20-27, 2005
Happy Thanksgiving! We headed up to Utah for turkey week and spent time with James’ family. All seven siblings came so it was a blast. And with 10 grandkids running around it was blissful chaos.
He got super dry skin and was pretty congested the whole time we were there, but that didn’t keep him from having a good time, but it did create lack of sleep for his parents. Isaac also kept us on our toes by taking up the sport of chucking random things down grandma and grandpa’s stairs or sneaking into grandma’s pantry and making mischief with anything he could reach.
Isaac loved being with his relatives and started picking up on a few names like uncle “Timo” (Tim), uncle “JoJo (Joseph), aunt “Ara” Lara, and aunt Amy. He also got the hang of gamma and gampa (grandma and grandpa)
So little by little Isaac has also figured out that not all animals are called dogs and he can now say cat, horse, cow, and pato (duck). Having Stimpson the family cat and Sarna the family dog around helped him get a clear picture of the cat/dog distinction.
It snowed the last few days we were there and we took Isaac on his first sledding outing in Rock Canyon park. At first he was freaked out, but by the bottom of the hill he was asking for more.
He sat through his first entire sacrament meeting!!!
He was pretty much a breast milk o holic the whole vacation because he was under the weather.

Nov.28-Dec.4, 2005
His vocabulary continues to explode with new words and this week his interest turned to colors. He can say azul, verde, green, and purple. His new favorite book is “Go dog, go” and his favorite page is the one with the green light. He loves to say “green circle”
He’s also learned the word “owie” recently and will give “owies” kisses if he’s in the right mood.
We got him a shape sorter circle and its his new favorite toy. He still calls all the shapes “circle,” but he has learned the name for “star” now too.
“peces”—he’s caught on to the Spanish name for fish.
More letter names—he’s getting more interested in the alphabet videos, and he can say quite a few letters now. His favorite video is the baby Einstein “Neighborhood Animals” video which he calls the “pato” or duck video because the beginning clip has several ducks in it..
He loves candles, and he’ll say “hi candle” when he sees one in a room.



Dec.5-12, 2005
bubbles, farting in the bathtub
More letter names—T, Q, R, F, V, O, C, etc. Now when he wants to watch his ABC video he says ABCD, ABCD!
During church this week he was very vocal about his desire for “mas pan” y “mas agua” during sacrament.
He made it through an hour of sacrament meeting and then he went to nursery for two hours without a problem—a first!
Handprint Christmas trees in art class and the elephant song.
At his Thursday Smart Start class with “Miss Veverly” Isaac got into the “run, walk, jump” song and did some pretty good bouncing—he almost made it off the ground.
“verde” seems to be his favorite color, and circle was the only shape he knew until he learned “oval”
“Tu Mama, Tu Papa”


20 MONTHS

Dec.13-18, 2005
1st week of phrases: “Como estas?” “I love you”, “Hi Biz.”
Tries to sing along with the alphabet song
Trying to jump, and he was a dance machine at the youth dance
Colors! He’s very excited about colors lately. Verde, green, azul, red, yellow, purple, morado
He learned “perro,” but it came out “pedo.” Good for entertainment value.
At Church James had to pick Isaac up after he’d been crying for a while, and it was heartbreaking when he just kept saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry”
Kisses on the kisser and learning to say “I love you”

Dec. 19-25
This week I was laying on my bed and Isaac came up to me carrying my shoes and said, “vamos, let’s go!” When I put my shoes on, he kept pointing to my feet and saying “owies!”—it was cute because to him having to wear shoes is associated with “owies” and he was concerned about momma’s zapatos giving her owies.
He knows that a dog says “wuf” and a cat says “meow”—he performs his animal sounds very well.
He’s singing even more parts of the alphabet song
We drove to Arizona this week to spend time with my Mom, & Dad and Sheila. We went to Snowflake first with Matt and Lara and then headed to Eagar. Isaac picked up on everyone’s names pretty fast—he has a better knack for relatives names than is dadJ
For Christmas his favorite present was a “peekaboo horse” jack-in-the-box that Grandma Nuttall gave him. We video taped him giving besos to the horse. Pretty darn cute.

Dec.26 2005-Jan.1, 2006
Isaac got really sick this week—New Year’s Eve was pretty much the beginning and it was just the beginning of a rough ride. Vomiting, dirareah, etc.
He learned to say “Corazon” this week and he kept repeating it over and over. I think he just likes the way some words sound and he likes to play around with them.
He also learned “whale” and “ballena” this week—he seems to really dig ocean animals.
Since he’s been sick he’s wanted to nurse a lot and his new way of asking mommy is “come here sweetie” because that’s what he here’s me say to him when I snuggle him.
With the Old McDonald song he’ll fill in the word “horse” almost every time when we get to the animal part.

Jan.2-8, 2006
More bilingual word combos—moon/luna
He reminds us to say the prayer at night by folding his arms and saying “amen”
He definitely misses his San Diego routine and singing Spanish songs at the library. He spent most of the week requesting “San Severino”
Still sick!! He seems to get better during the day, but at night the vomiting and diarreah strike again.
This week I showed him a heart and asked him what’s this? He said, “heart,” and when I asked, “en español?” and he said “Corazon”
He’s starting to fill in more words in his favorite stories (he says “more stories” now). In the “Eye” book he can say “bird” and “bed” and “moon” and “spoon”


Jan 9-15, 2006
Still stick, throwing up and a lot of diarrhea the doctors finally agree that its probably not the flu, and they ask for poop samples to check for parasites. It all comes up negative and Isaac starts to feel better, but not before losing ~6.5 lbs… he’s skin and bone!
Isaac associates pizza and hot dogs with his friends Claudia, Gerald, and Danny, and it shows when he says: DannyGeraldPizzaHotDog… Claudia
Isaac is crazy about the book Go Dog, Go! His favorite is to fill in the colors Red and Green
He has several new words including bathroom/baño, and he no longer asks for “fish” crackers, he calls them “goldfish.”
Isaac can count to 20 in English straight through, but it’s a little spotty in Spanish still


21 MONTHS

Jan. 16-Jan. 22, 2006

Isaac pretty much knows all the major colors in English and Spanish now—his pronunciation isn’t perfect, but its understandable.
New words: Galleta, Ven, snuggles, shopping- his favorite word blend now is pizzahotdog
He’s starting sing along with songs and fill in more gaps in story books.
He blends Buenos Dias and Como estas?, and just says Como Dias.
He’ll point to objects in books when prometed.
Isaac counted to 15 in Spanish during sacrament meeting after yelling for more pan and mas agua.
As he learns some words he still butchers them: he pronounces “pelota” as “popota”
Eating like a maniac to fill back out after having lost weight. Kristy’s using the vitamix to blend/disguise veggies for him to eat on spaghetti noodles.



Jan.23-Jan.29, 2006
He loves his shapes. He can say circle, square, star, heart, diamond, and rectangle pretty well but he likes to call triangles: “circuculs”
We had some friends over on Monday night for noche de hogar and they have a 7 year old boy named Gabriel that Isaac goes bonkers over. Gabriel is pretty hyper and he gets Isaac all wound up too.
His appetite is still pretty huge. James took him to Costco and he pretty much devoured an adult size hotdog
He’s starting to spout out phrases like “vamos a comer” and “let’s go” and “find mama” and “donde esta papa”
For some reason he’s been asking a lot this week to see Aunt Julia and Uncle Joseph (who he calls KoJoJo), and Isaac did get the special treat of seeing Aunt Julia on Saturday night and he showed off his newfound ability to say consonant clusters like the “sp” in spoon.
Shopping and Airplane are two favorite words this week.
He’s a cookie monster but we let him get away with it—we call the oatmeal raisin granola bars cookies or galletas and he goes nuts over them.
He loves the “twinkle star” song and can say “estrella” now too.
He impressed everyone around us at church on Sunday by counting to 15 in Spanish.


Jan.30-Feb.5,. 2006
Isaac is not daunted by the words that sound complicated. This week he’s attempted to say spatchula, trapezoid, pentagon, hexagon, excelente, anaranjado, and columpio.
In addition to “Como dias” he now says “Como noches”
He’s also continuing to develop his talent for learning people’s names especially with people who take the time to talk to him. He’s pretty good at repeating new names that he hears and can even call our bishop “Obispo”
He definitely knows the alphabet really well in English and he totally surprised us this week by singing the end of the alphabet song by himself, “now I know my abc’s next time won’t you sing with me!” pretty dang cute.
We’re getting into discipline: time outs have begun—we’re using the crib or just sitting him in a chair and counting to 30
We’ve also noticed he’s a flirt—he counted to 20 in English in the elevator when a cute college girl stepped in.
Saturday adventure with Uncle JoJo and Aunt Julia—walking along the boardwalk in PB (James and I took turns riding Joseph’s bike) and eating at Soup Plantation
His comprehension in both languages is amazing. He understands if you ask him “What does a cat say?” or “Que dice el gato?” , dog, pig, duck, horse, cow, elephant, lion, bird, fish / perro, cerdo, pato, caballo, vaca, elefante, leon, pajaro, pez, etc.
He loves for his favorite songs to be repeated over and over again. Old MacDonald is at the top of the list and when we pause so he can fill in an animal he almost always says “horse”
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are his new favorite food. He can say “mo’ peanut butter “samich” and is pretty adorable—be he gets pretty messy especially when he decides to open up the sandwich and dive face first into the jelly
He can say cookie monster and he goes bonkers over the small song clip of “twinkle twinkle little star” in the Baby Newton.

Feb.6-Feb.12, 2006
Isaac is obsessed with Baby Neptune this week and dolphins, turtles, fish, and anything in the ocean.
The color pink—he’s been call both pink and purple colors purple and this week he caught on to the idea of pink.
Juggling—James showed Isaac juggling and Isaac tries to copy him and its super adorable. He’ll move both of his arms up and down while holding the balls.
We took Isaac and Lorenzo to Sea World on Saturday morning and Isaac was in heaven with the dolphins, polar bears, penguins, walruses, etc. He wanted to go through the penguin exhibit 3 times. His all time favorite is still the blue mat at the kids play area. Now they have big shapes there for the kids to play with and that adds a whole new element of geometric fun.