Izzy turns 6 (a month ago!)

 IZZY TURNS 6

Morning birthday balloons

Height: 48”. Surprisingly enough she barely grew between July and her birthday.

Weight: 62 lbs

Physical milestones: Izzy is super strong as evidenced by the fact that she can pick up my mother (who weighs 120 lbs). She continues to be fast and won first place in the Healthy Kids Running Series in the spring (50 yard dash) and placed third this fall in the K & 1st grade division (1/4 mile). She is a better swimmer at this point and didn’t use floaties this summer. She had been doing karate this fall but we found that it is simply not enough exercise for her so we have enrolled her into an obstacle-course class which she is LOVING so far. It’s 45 minutes of climbing walls, monkey bars, pushups, situps, etc. Next month she will also start basketball classes through the park district.

Language/Reading: Izzy has a good number of sight words and likes to try to read things. She is very curious about words so if we use a word that she doesn’t know, she will ask us what that word means. Izzy doesn't quite have the "r" sound, so rabbit sounds like "wabbit." I'm told it's normal and she will grow out of it.

Loves: Unicorns, glitter, sparkly things, soft things, puzzles, art, the Eagles and the Cubs (Woo hoo!)

Personality: Izzy is still super competitive. She is also still fairly emotional and gets upset (cries) quickly. She can be smug at times and often wants to parent Wes and tell him what his punishment should be for doing something wrong. LOL.

Favorite Toy: Izzy has been big into games. She is fairly obsessed with Mancala and every time we pick her up from her after-K program she is playing. She also really enjoys Monopoly Jr, Scrabble Jr, and Ticket to Ride.

Favorite Book: She is making her way through an illustrated version of the first Harry Potter book with CP that she got for her birthday.

Enjoying some pizza before the Chicago Red Stars game

Sleeping Habits: These days she goes to bed around 8-8:30 and wakes up around 6:30-7. There is no more nap and we basically have stopped with required "quiet time" upstairs in her room. Our bedtime routine is to get her upstairs to change into pjs and pullup, brush her teeth, and read her 1-2 books or 1-2 chapters of a book. Generally she is in her room with a flashlight looking at books for a bit before falling asleep.

Eating: Izzy can eat A LOT of food if she is hungry. Her favorite is still mac n cheese.

Teeth: Izzy has lost FOUR teeth so far (all on the bottom).

After her most recent tooth loss two days before Christmas

Potty: At 6 Izzy has no issues during the day, however she still needs a pullup at night. I'm pretty sick of buying pullups so I'm hoping that the chemical in her brain switches "on" soon.

Clothes: Size 7/8 or usually a M. Size 1.5 youth shoe. She loves to wear athletic leggings and continues to wear a lot of dresses with leggings underneath.

Sickness: A few months ago Izzy turned her ankle and got a high ankle sprain. Unfortunately her doctor said that she is likely to have it happen again because of the type of sprain...so I taped her ankle like I remember physical therapists used to tape my ankle when I would sprain it.

Mommy's first tape job

Also, she had lice (that's a story for another post).

Treating Izzy's hair

Media: We have relaxed our tv standards a bit as the kids usually get a show or two each weekend day and sometimes we will do Friday night movie night as well. The kids do not get any iPad time, nor do they get to play with our phones. We'll see how much longer that lasts....

Big sister: At a recent wine night one of my friends was complaining about the fact that she has to "pretend play" with her daughter. All I could think was, man I'm so glad that my kids pretend play together. The only thing the kids ask me to do is be the "mommy monster." DONE.

Pulling Wes

Birthday: As usual, Izzy's birthday turns into at least two weeks of celebrating Izzy. It started with her shared birthday party with her best friend (third year in a row). This year they went to a nearby climbing gym. Then it was Izzy's actual birthday the day after Thanksgiving. All four of us had the day off so we went to the Field Museum in downtown Chicago to check out dinosaurs and finished the day by going to dinner at a spy restaurant with the most ridiculous dessert. Finally, the Sunday after Thanksgiving we had a family birthday for four of us that have November/December birthdays (me, Izzy, my BIL, and my dad).

Family birthday party

Birthday party with friends

Ridiculous dessert at the spy restaurant

We love our energetic, smart, athletic little lady and can't wait to see what she does this year!