Jennifer’s

Dear Isabella:

I love your silly moments, of which there are many, your intelligence, which continues to amaze and frighten me, your utter domination of language, about which you receive numerous compliments and looks of astonishment from people when they find out how young you are, your love of music and Guitar Hero, and your passion for letters, their sounds, and words.

You have quite an unusual taste in music for one so little, Isabella.¬† Your loves range from Veggie Tales to Susan Boyle to KISS to Coldplay to Beatles to Raffi to nearly any song on Guitar Hero.¬†¬†Your wide musical preferences collided,¬†in true Glee form,¬†in your own¬†mashup of “Rock ‘n Roll All Night” and “Goodnight Irene.”¬† You even have your own rock ‘n roll hat that you don whenever you and Daddy play Guitar Hero.¬† I love watching you grab your microphone and listening to your sweet little voice sing or yell out, “I can’t hear you!”¬† You even like to tell me that you, “like to rock and roll all night”!

You often break out into song or sing little tunes as you are busy playing.¬†¬†¬† I, too, am a lover of music so often I will join in or start up another song.¬† You used to be tolerant of this, but as you become more musically savvy I think my days as a songbird are numbered as evidenced by your remarks when I broke out into melody.¬† “Mommy, what’s that noise?”¬† After I said I was singing you told me to stop.¬† Clearly,¬†your ear for music is far more developed than mine and the sound of my voice makes it bleed!

You are fascinated with knowing people’s full names and then love to assign those names to other people than to whom they belong.¬† You also love pretending to be someone else and then forcing the person your playing with to call you that name and take on a new name for themselves. Over the last few months Daddy has been called “Daddy Rae Woolsey”, “Prince Charming Keith Woolsey”, “Shrek”, “Marv”, “Tim”, “Sleeping Beauty”, “Sir”, “Mowgli”, and “Baloo”.¬† I have personally been called “Mommy Rae Woolsey”, every Disney princess under the sun, “Grandma”, “Rhi Rhi”, “Grams”, “Lola”, “Lotta”, and “Princess Fiona”.¬† For better or for worse you were introduced to Shrek while in Indiana and ever since then you have been fascinated with reenacting scenes from the film and calling us by the characters’ names.¬† It’s a little hard to keep up with your imagination sometimes, so we often call you the wrong name, which results in a very bossy, “No, call me…”.¬† The best was when Shrek (aka Daddy) called you Princess Fiona, you glared and demanded, “No, call me donkey!”

Speaking of imagination, they don’t really come much bigger than your’s.¬† You are just as content with no toys around as a room full of them because anything you can grab becomes a useful tool in your mind.¬† I recently bought a new pair of running shoes and as I was replacing the insoles your eye was caught by the factory insoles as they had a pretty pattern in bright vivid colors.¬† You immediately asked if you could have them and over the next few days they became everything from your beach shoes to skates to pencils that we had to cart around everywhere.

Somewhere along the line you’ve learned about ghosts and often come running up to me, grab my legs, and pronounce, “Mommy, I’m scared.¬† See that ghost?”¬† Of course, we tell you that ghosts aren’t real, and you know this, but for some reason you love to pretend to be scared.

You only have to see or hear something once and it is forever etched in your brain.  Thus, you are able to open any of your books, glance at the pictures and can give a near perfect reading of the book.  Many times our play involves acting out some scene from a Charlie and Lola book or a scene from Jungle Book, your absolute favorite movie.

Did I mention that you are quite the talker?¬† The things that come out of your mouth and the level of sophistication of your words and the thoughts behind your sentences is mind blowing sometimes.¬† You are extremely fascinated with stars, the moon, and the sun and where they go during the day or night.¬† On an evening walk you asked me if there was only one moon, so we got into a discussion about planets and moons.¬† You then paused, looked up at the sky and then at me and asked, “Is there only one Venus, Mommy?”¬† On another walk you stopped to admire a neighbor’s Halloween decorations and then commented on their landscaping, ‘There are literally thousands of rocks in their yard, Mommy.”

You have already figured out how to manipulate language in order to get what you want.¬† On the drive back from CO this past Thanksgiving we grabbed a cookie before returning to our hotel for the night.¬† We all had a little bite and then put the bag away for another time.¬† You kept begging for another taste, which was continually denied.¬† You then looked at us and said, “I just need to hold the bag.”¬† The look on your face was priceless; you honestly believed that if you were clever enough to think it we were surely dumb enough to buy it!

You’ve also become very fascinated with the concept of love and figuring out who loves whom.¬† You weren’t satisfied until you’d gone through every person you know and determined who they love: “Mommy loves Daddy and Izzy”, ‘Sir loves Grams”, “Grandma loves Tim”, etc.¬† And to that end you are becoming more expressive about your own affections.¬† You say adorable things like, “Daddy, I’m sure glad you’re my Daddy” or “Daddy, I sure love you” or “Oh baby, I like your eyes.¬† They are beautiful” or “Mommy, I sure like playing with you!” Keep it up kid; you might get that pony after all!

I love when we are playing and all of the sudden you’ll demand we sit Indian style and cross our arms.¬† You then look at me and say one of two things; either, “So…what should we do now” or “I’ve got a good idea, Mommy.” From there you usually try to boss me around into doing whatever you have decided is our next move.¬† Recently, this has involved proceeding to your big kid bed, climbing under the covers, and waiting while you go get presents for me to open.¬† This game is a tad difficult to play well as the presents are always imaginary ones, but my reactions have to be geared toward whatever gift you see in your mind.¬† More than once I’ve been chastised that I am not responding correctly or I’ve named the wrong gift!

We’ve been transitioning from baths to showers of late.¬† This is really a result of your mother’s laziness as it is far easier to throw you in the shower, soap you down and rinse you off.¬† Two minutes and you are clean!¬† You love prancing around in the shower stall, but you are less a fan of me using the hand nozzle to rinse your hair.¬† As the water pours over your head you often yell out, “This is not good for me!”

Isabella, you are turning into quite the helper.¬† I cannot put a pot of water on the stove without you dragging a chair over and asking, ‘I can help too, Mommy.¬† Okay?”¬† You love to stir up ingredients or wash dishes.¬† If only the latter would last into your teen years!¬† When Daddy was disassembling your crib you were right there in his hip pocket helping and supervising the project.¬† Every time he’d carry a piece out of your room you would yell, “I’m right here, Daddy” as if to reassure him that if he needed your help you were just a yell away.

You had your first experiences with snow this winter.¬† Your first encounter was over Thanksgiving break in CO.¬† There was just enough snow for you to walk in, touch it, and taste it, which upon your initial, hesitant taste, “Snow tastes like…food.”

Based on your nonchalant attitude towards snow we figured it wasn’t your thing, but then came our Christmas vacation to IN and a lot of snow (at least by AZ standards) and you suddenly became a much bigger fan because you realized snow meant being pulled around in a sled, snow angels, and snowball fights with Sir!¬† All you could talk about after that second experience with snow, boots, and getting your coat on to go outside!

When you were born I couldn’t imagine loving you anymore than when your eyes first looked into mine; yet, here we are¬†nearly two and half years later and I am completely amazed at how the love I feel for you now completely diminishes that first love.¬† You are my pride and joy, Isabella.

Love,

Mommy and Daddy

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