Language

Isabel has been quite vocal from a much younger age than Isaac was. She's recently started speaking in toddler sentences and this is great in part but can be a bit confusing all round if we don't understand her words. You would think that putting two or more together would help as you then have some context but it isn't always that simple. She has worked out to put the 'not' before 'yet' and has a good grasp of 'me' and 'mine'.

We have never pushed sex stereotypes with our children and most of the dolls etc in the house belonged to Isaac. There is a noticeable difference in how Isabel plays with them though and she will gravitate to dolls in any place situation. She's much more interactive with them than Isaac was and will happily cook a meal and feed it to her 'baby'. Even if the meal is a calculator and the dog brush is an essential tool...

(oh and she put the hat on herself)

Today she was very pleased with herself as she peeled an orange.

Peel. Orindge. Up. Me. (I peeled an orange and put the peel up on the counter.)

Both children will sit and listen to stories for hours on end - not so easy when I had a sore throat and tickly cough. Isaac is a bundle of energy and raw emotion. He's fantastic with other small children but we're having a few issues with him trying to shut his sister in or out of rooms and other territorial sibling things. It makes it hard for me to do anything as they have chore & toilet radar and the minute I'm busy something happens that I have to immediately stop and intervene. It regularly takes 40 minutes to sort out a load of washing so I can get it dry. They both helped me make cheese scones this morning (which actually went pretty well) but then the play with a bit of flour afterwards got out of hand and everyone got covered - luckily no one was dressed so hey who knew.

He's a lovely boy though and we had some lovely time this afternoon messing about.