I wrap up my second stint of paternity leave today, and go back to work tomorrow. I feel like Izzy has grown so much in just 3 weeks. Joe has basically doubled in size. Izzy is starting to sing songs and talk in sentences. She is also starting to pitch more frequent fits. We spent a lot of time on the coast during my 3 weeks off, and the last week was our annual trip to Holden Beach with my Mom’s family.
Izzy loves the water, and I am so thankful. “Big Waves” are her favorite, and she will stay in the water for hours just floating. We have a crab float that wraps around her and then has the traditional arm floaties that she and we are comfortable with her in, as long as someone can always touch her in the ocean. We also rode her first wave in on a surfboard and boogyboard. She did fall once on the boogyboard, but hopped right up out of the shallow water and sand. Izzy also had her debut trip in a kayak. We were careful and got the kayak out beyond the breakers before putting Izzy in the kayak, but she really liked that as well.
But the water is just one part of the beach, and Izzy loved the sand too. She had her “Sand Toys” that were all “mine”, no matter which ones they were. Her trademark move is to have you build her a castle, just so she can smash it. Anna made a really cool turtle sandcastle (Me and Izzy decorated the face), that Izzy promptly ran over with a car that was her two feet.
Last on the outside front, Izzy loved the pool too. Walking back from the beach to the pool and vice versa we would go over “Big Hills (imagine a 2 year old country accent, because that is what Izzy has when she says hills)”. Her favorite thing in the pool is still to make people “hide”, which basically means you go underwater and hold your breath. She still won’t put her head under by herself quite yet, but we are getting there.
With the family, Izzy gets no shortage of attention. Ava (12) and Christine (20) were 2 of Izzy’s favorites. I think partly because they aren’t adults and Izzy has seen only 3 other children in the last 6 months. But she also really liked my Uncle Jimmy. He had her saying “pizza pizza” Little Ceaser’s style as well as laughing as hard as I’ve ever seen her throwing (and catching) the football with him in the pool.
We are really lucky to have the family we do on both sides, because as soon as we were leaving the beach Izzy was saying – “go Marny and Papa’s house?” She is spoiled rotten! Anna and I are just lucky in general, period.