I was going through some videos on my hard drive when I found this gem.  It was recorded many years ago. I, along with my two of my best friends, drove to Ft. Leonerd Wood to watch her Basic training completion ceremony. After the ceremony, they marched for a bit and finished it up with some team pushups. Ciri is funny in this.  Her goofy glasses for one, but mainly because of the one push up she does that lifts her off the ground a bit.

Is it always this way with youngins’?  Do they just pick up a new task and run with it?  In the past few months, Izzy’s capabilities for learning new things has dramatically increased.  She learned clapping in moments along with what “ouch” means.  Not only does she learn through repetition and teaching, but she now shows that she can absorb via osmosis.

If music is playing in the office, she comes by and turns the volume knob (she won’t do it if music isn’t playing.).  She does the same to my beloved Yamaha Receiver downstairs, she enjoys listening to the music in “Jazz Mode,” I know this because the next time I turn it on it is set to this mode.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, peeps.  The little friggin’ twerp is walking.  Yes.  It’s a brave new world for all that dwell under this roof.  No longer are we in the baby stages (at least until Jonas graces us with his presence) and we are now well into the Toddler era. It wasn’t something that she gradually learned, either.  Two days ago, she decided to take her first four steps from the receiver to the coffee table.  Today, nothing is safe.  She still prefers crawling just because she’s quicker and more experienced at it, but if she’s standing, she’ll walk to her destination without fear or hesitation.

Ciri says this is a good thing. Ha. Ha, I say.  When Jonas is born, Izzy will be able to move on her own without help from Mom.  That’s helpful when you have a little baby blob that needs food every few hours.  But I can see that whole deal getting really old when Izzy demands the attention she feels is deserved.  Hmm.  We’ll see if it’s still a good thing then!

Oh. Hai.

Another great behavior she’s learned in the recent weeks is climbing into things.  Boxes, buckets, drawers, and bins oh my.  Seriously, she climbs into things and sits in them or stands in them or dances in them.  That last one has me a bit worried.  I’m sitting on the couch watching her climb into the drawer and I can’t help but wonder what goes on in that cute little brain of hers.

“Let’s see, if the drawer’s volume is X and my volume is also X, than I should be able to fit in the drawer. Volume is a measurement mainly used for liquids, but for arguments sake, we’ll go with that statement.  Now, if I take into account that my bone structure is mostly comprised of cartilage, then I should… uh oh.  He’s staring at me.  I should do something cute.”

And there she goes dancing again… seriously. Should I be worried?

My sister, Tanya, has been drawing since she was a little kid.  Her and my brother are part of the reason why I didn’t push myself to sketch and draw more when I was younger.  They are much more talented and gifted than I am with the pencil and brush.

Speaking of creativity in the family, many of our uncles and aunts are VERY good artists.  My uncle Miguel has art all over my grandparents house using the Pointillism (or is it Divisionism?) technique.  They’re amazing and beautiful paintings.  On my mom’s side, a few of my uncles used to draw a lot of caricatures and other cartoon stuff.  The creativity genes exist from both sides of our family so it’s no surprise that the four siblings are all creative in one way or another.

Anyway, so, Tanya posted a video on her Facebook profile that I wanted to share just to prove my point and to show off how good she is.

UPDATE: Changed the video. This one has her coloring in the drawing.  Much  more interesting to me since I have trouble with color theory and stuff. You can see the rest on her You Tube page and on the website I set up for her at MoiNoir.com.

She is starting her own web-comic soon and I am sure she will do well with it.  I put a link somewhere around here when she starts posting her comics.

One.  12 months.  Wow.

I’ve watched her grow from a little blob to the crawling, babbling, smiling little kid that she is today.  I’m amazed at how much she grew, mentally and physically, in the last year.  Months ago I was holding a this little infant that really lived only to eat and poop.  No smiles, no giggles, nothing except excrement.  She was still the cutest little baby I ever laid eyes on, but today… wow.  Today she is an energetic little talker.  I gotta say, I am completely taken in by this whole miracle of life thing.

So, we celebrated her birthday last Friday night with dinner and a couple of gifts.  Saturday we had Grandpa and Grandma over to celebrate again.  They also came to build us a vegetable garden in our back yard.  I had plans to build one, but my research wasn’t complete the day Grandpa asked if he could build it for us.  The garden is awesome and I can’t wait to start harvesting some herbs and vegetables from it.

Izzy and Ciri spent some time together in the sun while Grandpa and I built the garden.  It was a real fun day.  Here’s a bunch of photos and a video of the weekend.

Here’s the little monkey trying to eat, destroy, or otherwise disrupt everything in sight – or at least reach.

I was actually trying to get her to talk, but she had other plans.

Destruct-o-baby from Juan O on Vimeo.