Thanksgiving

It's been a horrible week for weather here in Scotland. Wind and rain and flooding. The dogs have been cooped up in the house too long and made all kinds of messes. Unfortunately too Isla hasn't gotten her naps and that means she wakes up in the middle of the night. Alisdair is in "holiday mode" so getting up at 4:30 to leave for work at 5. Yesterday was Thanksgiving and once again, as it's not a holiday here, Kenna had a meeting. It was a NCT (National Childbirth Trust) which is a group she volunteered to help and their AGM just happened to be yesterday. Grannie Troup, again stepped in and saved the day by cooking the turkey for our meal and Isla went to her friend Eva's house to play. They had a MARVELOUS time.

Eva is a very serious little girl who is only 2 months older than Isla, but Eva decided that Isla was her "baby" and insisted on feeding her, dressing her and keeping Isla in line. Remarkably enough, Isla let her! They had a fantastic time and I'm told by Eva's mother that it was the first time in months Eva has slept 12 hours without waking up in the night. Nothing like another 21 month old to keep you on your toes. Eva is toilet trained and so Isla is even more motivated to use the "toilet" every 20 minutes. (She mostly just likes toilet paper though!)

Thanksgiving was fun with Grannie, Alisdair and neighbour Anne. Isla kept everyone entertained although she only really ate pumpkin pie and ice cream. She was fascinated by Grannie's candles and spectacular table decorations (including small bags of candy for each of us and pens for the adults but a snazzy crayon with multiple colours for Isla). We suggested Isla sleep at Grannie's as she was getting tired by 7:30--Grannie offered one of her two empty kennels but Isla declined :)

We have made a short video of Isla dancing around our kitchen and saying her newly discovered word...and as soon as I figure out how to post it, I will.

Words

Isla and her "not so willing sidekick."
Who DOESN'T love bubble wrap??? Especially when you can jump on it!
Sometimes Charlie needs a bit of "coaxing" to go along with Isla's plans...
This just says it all...(and thank heavens for heated kitchen floors in November!)
Last week Alisdair shaved Kiwi and gave she and Charlie a bath as mom couldn't have them near as they were too stinky. Kiwi is a bit chilly these days and looks more like a pincher than a terrier. The paper was packing materal too, but has now been used for colouring (hence the crayons)


So on Wednesday our box arrived from the Stateside Candy Company with our latest order of stuff Kenna misses from the US and needs for Thanksgiving: a graham cracker pie crust, Stove Top stuffing mix, a yellow cake mix, canned pumpkin, creamed corn, grape jelly, baked Goldfish, a Reese's cookie, Fluff, root beer, grape soda (for Alisdair) and french fried onions --we realised later we'd forgotten to get Crisco, but that will have to wait for another order. It does make you be more prepared for Thanksgiving as you just can't run to the store and get some of this stuff and you certainly appreciate it when it costs £4 (so about $6.50) for a tub of Fluff and £12 ($20ish) for a 12 pack of soda!

We save up a list and do a box about twice a year Kenna was relieved that it arrived, but much to her amusement, Isla has played with the boxes and packing materials since then. Alisdair said if he'd know they were such great amusement he'd have started bringing home boxes weeks ago with some bubble wrap and foam peanuts.

The other comical thing this week has been Isla's increasing vocabulary. Alisdair was off loading at an estate today and mom and Isla joined Grannie for a coffee morning at the cathedral. On the way to the cathedral, mom and Grannie were talking in the car when Isla pipes in from the back seat "Gannie talk to Isla!"....Grannie kept telling Kenna her story and the calls from the backseat only got more demanding..."GANNIE, talk to ISLA!!!" So "Gannie" had to tell Isla she was telling a story and Isla had to listen...that worked for a little while...

At the coffee morning (to benefit wounded soldiers' care), Isla LOVED the pancakes with butter and scones with jam and the gingerbread cake was a hit too. She was a hit with all the older people. Back at Grannie's we had lunch and Grannie was telling Kenna about some church business, while Isla was dancing around the kitchen floor. Grannie used the word "anecdotal" and all of the sudden, her wee shadow pipes up "Anecdotal!" and proceeded to repeat it....We just chuckled. She really does repeat EVERYTHING.

Thursday Kenna and Isla went swimming at Gleneagles and then had lunch. Isla was fascinated by the pizza ovens and proceeded to shout with great delight "FIREMAN, Fireman!" Then at Toddler's on Friday an older man who walks his giant border collie "Dan" around the village, stopped by to speak to the lady who runs the group. All of the sudden mom saw this small child RUN at top speed across the hall, to Dan....the other mother's panicked....it was just Isla, going to hug Dan. The owner looked slightly concerned as he wasn't sure what this child was going to do to his dog (we meet them every now and then when we walk our dogs), but Isla gave Dan a big hug and had to be forceably removed from "loving" the dog and reminded to go back and play with the toys....

Never a dull moment with her!

Talking

We're trying to balance teaching Isla manners and living our lives. We've had two little incidents this week that make us question our techniques. Kenna has been spending a lot of time head in porcelin. Isla, helpfully, has decided to do things like flush mid sickness and throw dime sized bits of toilet paper through Kenna's hair while she's "busy." The other problem is that Isla has taken to belching and we make her say "pardon" when she does. The problem with this is as mom is being sick, she is constantly chastised with "Mommy....PARDON!" by her little bathroom shadow...NOT VERY HELPFUL!

To top that off, tonight at dinner Isla let out a rip-roaring-chair-rumbling "toot." Mom gave her a dirty look to which she responded that her "bumbum was talking." Kenna made the colossal mistake of saying "what did your bumbum say?" Thinking Isla would realise this was inappropriate and say "pardon"...but instead, on total seriousness she responded with a huge Isla smile and said "bum-bum says HELLL-OO!" Try as we may, neither mom or dad could keep a straight face and both burst out laughing, which slightly concerned her as they were laughing so hard they started crying.

So, any tips on how to deal with this, or her new propensity for taking off her nappy during nap time and yelling "mommy, put it in the bin".....(we now know to run if we hear on the baby monitor this as it means when you get to her room she'll be holding (if you're lucky) a messy diaper....or "toilet paper!" means she'll have a wet one for you...)...a baby straight jacket perhaps???

Exciting News

Isla in her suit, her sheepie wellies and ear defenders.
Isla, Grannie and Breeze coming down the back ride.....Anywhere Grannie goes, you'll find Isla!

Grannie and her little shadow...with their "walking" sticks...

Michael taking a few shots with Alisdair watching and Breeze looking for something to pick up...
The shooting day gang in the bothy after the day--wee Eric, Iain, Iain, Iain, Andrew, Alistair, Paul, Michael, Alisdair, Florence, wee George, Mark


Our biggest news of this week is that in May, Isla will be a big sister! On Thursday Alisdair and Kenna headed up to Perth for a 12 week scan and the first real appointment with the midwives. There is one baby, placenta is to the back,the due date is May 24th, and all looks good. They took some blood from Kenna (and left a VERY impressive bruise) and basically said they'll see us in early January for the next scan. (the UK isn't very "hands on" when it comes to ante-natal care). The new unit in Perth was only opened in May and is nice, clean and new. As long as it is an uncomplicated birth and no doctors or pain medication is needed, we can go there rather than the actual hospital in Dundee. Perth actually has TWO single rooms (that have their own toilet, so you don't have to trek to the communal locker room!), so fingers crossed we'll be lucky enough to deliver there AND have our own room.

In case you'd been reading past posts and shaking your head saying "where was Kenna during all these 'adventures' of Isla's.."....the answer is, with her head in the loo being sick. There are some people obviously made for pregnancy and sail through it, and Kenna is just not one of those. Isla does love to accompany mom to the toilet and state the obvious as she rearranges Kenna's hair ("Mummy sick"), and leave the door open, so Charlie usually joins the party as well...

Unfortunately Isla is also getting potty trained and now goes to her little loo at random times and "spits" into it, because she's "sick" too....We can't very well get too angry at her for it, but we have tried to discourage the behaviour! Hoping that the nauseau will end soon. It was week 17 before it stopped with Isla though, so we could have 4 more weeks to go...:( On the humorous side, Kenna has lost 6 pounds, but Isla has gained 2 as every time mom eats, so does Isla!

On top of all that fun, it's shooting season! Yesterday the Troups had a day at Murthly Estate with Fergus McGregor (the former keeper at Drumdruills who taught Alisdair an awful lot about being on an estate, uncle to quite a few past and present Bushwear employees and son of the famous Grannie Ella who knits all kinds of cardigans and hats for Isla and makes amazing Clootie Dumpling). They invited 7 friends to come shoot partridge and pheasant and despite it being the worst storm the UK has had this year (mostly in southern England but it was pretty nasty in Scotland), the day was very enjoyable. Alisdair had a memorable shot of a woodcock that even Isla got to hear the story of. For the past few weeks, Micheal and Alisdair had been helping some of the other guns with their shooting. Last Sunday they set up the clay pidgeon traps at the farm and had a good couple hours of banging away at clays with their friends Ian and Craig. Isla and mom watched for awhile, but then it was Isla's nap time.

Isla is Grannie's little shadow, especially at the farm, and insisted on going to get the dogs. Dee, is kind of a useless gun dog (as she is scared of guns!) so had to be put back in the kennels once the banging started, but Isla has great fun with Dee and Breeze (and still hasn't figured out that Lucy is gone) for a short walk, a tickle of Dee's stomach, and the compulsory end of walk yell of "kennel up!"

Today was our day of rest! "Uncle" Iain Watson had come down for the shoot and stayed with us on Friday and Saturday nights. He's great fun and always full of entertaining stories from the Outer Hebrides (he lives on the Isle of Lewis and is the postmaster of a very small town). Covert American planes that land at all hours of the night on a runway that supposedly doesn't exist, neighbours who die of drug overdoses, comical shooting parties who are less than highly skilled, crofter life and visitingAfrican tribal chiefs who catch a ride on the postal bus are just some of the fun tales we get with Iain around! Iain was a former social worker and has an amazing theory about men who keep fishtanks in their living rooms---if there was ever a question if someone was a pedophile and Iain showed up and found a fishtank in their living room....the answer was "yes".....(we put ours in the dining room and pointed this out to Iain, who laughed at us)

Kenna had told Isla that Iain was coming, and Isla kept saying "Ian" but pulling at her ears. It was only on Sunday that Alisdair discovered that for some reason Kenna's pronunciation of Iain, Isla took as "ears"...when Alisdair said it "properly" Isla understood completely and repeated it....oh well!

Alisdair washed the little dogs today and shaved Kiwi again. She's looking MUCH better and sleeker...Isla just tries to pet her a lot now as she feels so different. In an attempt to have Isla be more gentle with the dogs we've tried to explain "petting" them to her. She thinks it's a great concept and last week at Grannie's decided that she needed to "pet" Michael. For some reason Grannie called Michael a baby and he became "Baby Michael" for the rest of the day with Grannie and Isla feeding him little bits of food and Isla insisting on "petting" his head. It was very funny.

She's also getting to be a whiz at sentences. She puts together all kinds of words and makes us laugh. She's also sprouted this week and is all of the sudden grown out of all her 12-18 month stuff. Her hair continues to grow too!! (Hoorah!!) :)

The Terrible Twos!

Alisdair's best "cheezy" face...
Love for Charlie...
It's tough to be so cool and popular :)
CANDY!

I know, Isla isn't two yet, but I think the Terrible Twos are upon us. While I might have mentioned last week's phrase "Don't put that in your mouth," it is acutally quite fitting for this week. We had three memorable incidents this week.

1. Isla is starting to use the toilet and as a reward, mom made no bake cookies. Claire was over on Monday (just barely recovered from the flu) and put Isla up for her nap. When she came downstairs she heard Charlie whining...she investigated only to find Kiwi ON TOP of the counters in the butler's pantry (they are over 4 feet high and Charlie was whining because she couldn't get up there) and Kiwi had eaten the ENTIRE plate of cookies....If that wasn't bad enough, Kiwi then proceeded to be sick all over the mudroom...poor Claire!

2. On Wednesday while mom was putting clothes away it was awfully quiet...and when she investigated she found Isla, hiding herself in a corner, eating a tube of toothpaste....nice..(if only it had gone the other way and the dog ate the toothpaste and Isla had the cookies it wouldn't have been so messy!)

3. Saturday, mom and dad were chatting when they realised Isla hadn't come back from the kitchen. Alisdair went to find her, only to discover she had gotten a jar of Mom's Tums (antacid) and was feeding them to Charlie!!! (they were fruit flavoured and it seemed Charlie was quite enjoying them)

So, moral of this week....keep the pantry locked, the dogs in the mud room and Isla on a short leash!

Isla is full of new phrases. She has figured out mom's first name and makes herself laugh by running around yelling it. She insists every night now that you sing "Eitsy Spider" about 900 times. Uncle Michael talked to her tonight on daddys phone in the Blackford Hotel (where we were having dinner) and she started yelling "bo-gies" (Scottish version of the word Boogers). This caused great hilarity, mostly to Uncle Michael who was very proud of himself.

She has moments where we think she's ready for MENSA....for example, she found a picture of Auntie Claire. She stared at it awhile and then said "Gannie's house"...because, oddly enough, she'd figured out the wallpaper in the back was the wallpaper from Grannie's. (pretty impressive for 20 months)...but then she does things like fills her Fisher Price piggy bank with popcorn (she figured out if she puts the tiny bits in, they fit through the top)....so, we'll not be entering her just yet!

A Halloween box arrived from Auntie Tiina and Isla LOVED the frog costume. She likes to wear it around the house and hook her fingers into the little finger grips and say "much betta." She has this odd, New England accent...for example it's "Pooh Beah," no matter how many times we correct her, it's still "pooh beah"--daddy has taught her to WWF wrestle now with the giant Pooh bear she got last year for Christmas. We went to Noah's Ark (an indoor play area) with the other mother's from our NCT last this week (all boys) and it was amazing how rough some of them are, (and also how much better they are at throwing!). The other mothers all said their husbands play quite rough with the boys. Alisdair doesn't wrestle rough with Isla, but cage match wrestling with Pooh Beah might just teach her a thing or two!

There was also candy corn in the package....and Isla loves candy....(but has some trouble distinguishing between the word "candy" and "candle." Tonight at dinner she informed us that the "candy" was off (she'd blown out the candle on the table".) She's getting there and speaks much more than most of her little friends, but it's quite funny some of the things she does repeat and pick up.

She's also been showing "love" to Charlie....but we try to discourage that without a little supervision. Daddy has explained "no mouth kissing" Charlie, but she still tries (again, maybe we should give the toothpaste to Charlie!). The short days, darkness and crappy weather have all meant less walks for the dogs (and us). Kiwi and Cassie are doing alright, but Charlie is in need of more time to run off energy and is very needy these days.

Kenna's job is going fine and will be over in eight weeks, but for now Isla is adjusting well to some time apart.

Halloween Fun

Slippers from Claire
Trick or Treating at Grannie's
The first door!
Our little witch
Daddy and the master pumpkin--notice who has the knife!
Isla and Grannie
New Halloween Slippers from Auntie Claire
Front of the pack at the first house!
Couldn't be bothered going inside. Was more interested in playing with pumpkins and candles on the porch!
Ah, Sunday morning Halloween Cookies for breakfast.

It's the first of November and one of those days that just makes you wonder why ANYONE would choose to live in Scotland. It has been raining since the middle of last night, it's grey, wet, cold and just disgusting out. The dogs haven't been walked as they don't want to go outside. Our front window got egged by "guisers" and although we have the front room fire going, it's still cold.

Ah, winter in Scotland. Halloween did make last night more fun. We took Isla out to Grannie's and then down to Laura's house so Isla could go out with her girls Racheal and Sarah to "trick or treat"...here the holiday is much smaller and few kids go out. Much like I remember mom's stories being about when they went in the 1950s, once you knock a door, you then have to do a talent to get candy. The traditional thing here is to carve a turnip (and destroy multiple spoons in the process as they are rock hard) and you get apples and nuts more than candy (although their is an issue of delinquent kids threatening you for money. Some people do just give money). Isla got two little candy bars, a small bag of candy and a witch cookie from grandma and I think it was just enough. I'm honestly baffled at what kids do with mounds of candy (well, besides eat it and feel sick).

Isla was a little scared by the kids who were really dressed up or who had masks on, but did okay. She loved that the big kids let her be the front of the door and she was fascinated with people's lit jack o lanterns. While the other kids went in the house to do their "routines" she just sat by the pumpkins, trying to get to the candle (she's a bit of a pyro, like her daddy). Being half American, she wasn't into sticking around though and started making a MAD dash (we had no idea she could run so fast!) to the next house (even though in some cases they didn't have their lights on as they weren't participating). She'd run to their steps and yell "trick or treat!" Even this morning when we showed her her candy bars her first comment was "trick or treat!"

Isla cried all the way home as we wouldn't give her her "purse" with her candy in it. Grannie had given her her cookie and by the time we made it, literally, just down the hill, she'd opened the plastic and was trying to eat it. So we decided she couldn't have any candy until Sunday morning. She was pretty excited to be allowed to eat a cookie for breakfast.

This morning Alisdair and his friend Ian and Ian's son Craig all went shooting at Gleneagles and then came over the house for a warm cuppa. Ian (who is a sheep farmer), obviously wasn't very intimidating as Isla just plopped herself between Craig and he on the couch and started talking up a storm. Ian informed her it was "horrible" outside, and that has been her word all day....

We're also trying to potty train her. Yesterday Neighbour Anne, mom and Isla went into Perth while Alisdair was off shooting. We bought all the gubbons needed to hopefully convince Isla to use the potty. She already hates nappies, and is enthralled at the idea of being able to pull down a pull up.....the only issue is she sat on the mini-singing-potty this morning and mom said "go SZzzzzzzzz (as in peeing)" WELL, that to the dogs meant there was a cat nearby and they went mental running around and jumping up and down (the loo we were in is just by the backdoor where the neighbour's cat usually taunts Charlie), which scared isla a little and she decided to get up from the potty, bare bummed, and run around for awhile....maybe we should lock the dogs away when we start this whole process.

SPEAKING of locking the dogs away, while Alisdair was off at Gleneagles, it became obvious that Charlie was missing. Mom looked and looked and asked Isla where Charlie was.....to no avail....but then Charlie appeared...mom went back in the kitchen to see the mudroom door open. Seems Isla got a little tired of Charlie's antics and locked her up so she'd leave her alone! Only when interrogated did Isla go let Charlie out, but never told mom, just acted surprised when Charlie came back....the little turkey...

We had a not-so-nice surprise yesterday too as a very upset neighbour came over and yelled at mom as he'd found Kiwi again in his yard, "terrorising" his cats. I assured him she was in our backyard (which has like 7 foot fences) and apologised, but it seems Kiwi is going to have to be part of some larger "anti-escape" plan from now on.

Oh, and Isla's phrase of this week "Don't put that in your mouth." I wonder where she got that from??? :)