The Starnes' Saga: Catching Up

It's been months since I've devoted any blog time to Isaiah and his development. There's lots I need to catch up on, but I'm going to start there...

Isaiah is such a fun, handful of a boy! I tell people he is extreme with every emotion, and he can be quite the drama king. I'm sure part of it's his age, but truly I think a lot of it is my sweet Isaiah. He's very outgoing and gregarious; he makes friends wherever we go and he's quite the lady's man already. I'm not really that sure where all of these traits came from, but I like to tease that he channels my diva sister! Here are some of his favorites:
- Favorite pastime: when we get home, he immediately goes to the couch, throws the pillows on the floor, climbs up and rolls around and then often rolls off it purposely onto the pillows. He gets such a kick out of it, and he can be a little too daring for my liking but no serious injury with this activity yet.

- Favorite color: red. His Grandmom (Ginger, Chris' mom) came to help watch Isaiah while I was in Haiti and she worked on teaching him his colors. I came home and was majorly impressed that he correctly told me something was red and then another object was blue when I asked. Then I figured out that no matter what color it actually is, he always guesses red first and his second guess is blue! If you can get him to focus and actually think about it, though, he'll sometimes answer correctly and can also identify yellow and green.

- Favorite character: Elmo. Maybe that's also why he loves red so much. Elmo is on his diapers and there's a picture of Elmo at school that he points out to me everyday. We bought an Elmo video for a long roadtrip recently, and Isaiah was in heaven.

- Favorite person: I think this would have to go to Hallie at the moment. Hallie is a younger cousin (on Chris' side) who just turned one. While Grandmom was visiting here, she watched some videos of Hallie on their blog and Isaiah got to see too. Ever since then, he thinks the one and only purpose of the computer is to watch Hallie. He asks about her multiple times a day, and when we went there to visit last weekend for her birthday, he loved crawling after her.

- Favorite songs: Grandmom taught Isaiah several songs with hand motions, and he'll let you know which one he wants by using the motion. He'll let you get mid-song, and then he'll motion for the next song he wants. "The Wheels on the Bus", "This Little Light of Mine", and "The Itsy Bitsy Spider" are the main ones. He also loves "Old McDonald" and has for some time...he's got the e-i-e-i-o down (see below).

-Favorite object: Just in the past month, Isaiah has shown an attachment to his blanket. It was knit (or knitted?) for him by a church member (Thanks John!) and it's almost always what we use to cover him up at night because it's a good thickness. Now, when we put him in bed, he holds out his arm waiting for us to put the cover down so he can pull it up and snuggle his face in it. It's really sweet and obviously comforting to him. We keep having visions of Linus from Peanuts.

Humor: Isaiah has already learned the art of manipulation. For some time now, he has said "I love you" (sounds like "I duv du") back to us when we say it to him. The other night Isaiah was playing on the couch. He's been punished numerous times for standing on the couch and he was walking a fine line that night. Chris said his name with a scolding tone and was about to correct him, and Isaiah looked right into Chris' eyes and said "I duv du" before Chris could get another word out. We just cracked up laughing. Obviously he knows he's got us wrapped around his finger.

I'm partial, but I think this kid is pretty bright. You only have to tell him what something is once or twice and he's got it down. He can spot an airplane when it's just a speck in the sky, and lately he'll start telling us "airplane" when he just hears one flying over the house. He feeds himself quite well with a spoon or fork, and he drinks out of a big cup without a problem (though we often have to take it away when he starts blowing bubbles). He's gotten to be fairly picky about some foods in the past few months--the only meat he eats is ground beef (mostly in tacos or spaghetti) and he no longer even likes pizza. He still eats most fruits and vegetables really well, so we try to focus on those. In the past couple of months, I've noticed he's able to entertain himself a lot more, and while he likes to play with us, he no longer demands the constant one-on-one attention.

Here's a couple other fun videos. Kara has made a star appearance in a couple. She's the daughter of our friends (and pastor), Travis and Jenna, and we've had the pleasure of keeping Kara a couple of times for them to go on a date night and they've done the same for us. In total, I think Isaiah and Kara have had 4 play dates and they get along quite well..