More outdoor adventures

The weather here has been so cooperative, and Isaac so much enjoyed our previous outside time, that we had a little family outing around our neighborhood today. Isaac led the way to the playground...


...where Dad helped him ride the bucking playground bronco...


...and then we all went for a swing:


Evidently we had better get our outside time in while the gettin's good, since it's supposed to rain all this week. They don't have rain in Delaware, do they?

Told you there were teeth

I FINALLY took a picture where you can also revel in the insane cuteness that is Isaac's two bottom teeth:


He has one top tooth also, but it is not nearly as prominent yet as these behemoths. But now that he has both top and bottom ones, he likes to amuse himself by grinding them. Not amusing to his mother.

It's official

Thursday or Friday Dad got his official offer letter from the University of Delaware for him to sign and return. They must like him or something, because they are offering him an enormous amount of start-up money for him to buy sophisticated equipment with, and the salary he's getting will be among the top 25% of that paid to assistant professors like himself. Needless to say, he signed it, and here we are at the most momentous occasion of us shipping the letter off:


Now we just have to move all our crap across the entire continent. Anybody wanna help?

Out on the town

Friday night we went out to eat with our friends Jen & Andy, to Zao Noodle Bar in the U-Village. This was the first time in a loooooooooooooong time we had actually had dinner with grown-ups, and it was much-needed. Isaac was thoroughly entertained by the abundance of chopsticks, which he used to practice for his future career as drummer of Metallica:


Our waitress was also kind enough to take a family picture before Jen & Andy arrived, and no, we couldn't get Isaac to put that stinkin' chopstick down:

Birthday bonanza(s)

Weeeeeell, we are approaching the big numero uno for our blog subject here, and the question is...to party or not to party? I've tried making guest lists, but they end up being, like, 20+ people long. Doesn't that seem like it would be overwhelming for baby/adults alike? And should I bake him a special cake? Does he even like cake? What do you get for your son when he turns such a ripe old age?

When I get tired of thinking about planning Isaac's birthday, I turn to a birthday requiring absolutely no planning that looms on the horizon. That's right, only 12 shopping days left till it's MY birthday. I have learned from my ill-conceived Christmas wishlist, where I made the mistake of asking for gift certificates to American Eagle (which I received a TON of, half of which are still sitting upstairs unspent -- how can one possibly go clothes-shopping where trying things on is required when one has a baby in tow?). For my birthday, I want only one thing: gift certificates to InSpa(**Editor's note: fixed link -- hurray for my slapshod HTML skillz**), a day spa 10 minutes away from my house. Do I hear birthday massage? What's that, you think I need a pedicure, too? And various other things waxed and preened and the like? Not only is this particular spa near my house, but it is relatively inexpensive (as spas go), insists on NO TIPPING, and tax is included in their listed prices. The best part of all is that it's in our favorite outdoor shopping mall, the University Village, so Dad and Isaac could drop me off for my girlying-up and go amuse themselves at Starbucks and/or The Apple Store for a hour. Or two.

The Great Outdoors

Today we discovered just how dedicated of an explorer Isaac is -- I took him outside the house, and he immediately started wearing holes in the knees of his corduroys. As he has been gated off from the stairs at home for quite some time now, but gets to practice on a mini-staircase at school, he also wanted to show off for me the alarming speed at which he can now ascend stairs. Here are a few pictures of him zipping around the sidewalks outside of our apartment.






Oh yeah, and he's feeling better. What was the matter? I surely don't know -- maybe teeth? Maybe stomach bug? He's still a little tired, but it's obviously not hampering his desire for physical activity.

Ladykillers

Where do cute babies come from? Why, cute daddies, of course. Who needs mommy DNA?

Who knows

Well, no more fever here, which is good. However, we still have SOMEthing awful going on, and perhaps I might describe it to you in terms of those two functions moms so love to talk about: food going in and food coming out.

1) Going in. The past two days, Isaac has been on a hunger strike of sorts. Forget trying to shove a spoon in his mouth, regardless of how much pureed banana is on there, without a major fight and goofy airplane noises. His beloved finger foods, even ravioli and cheese cubes, are no longer interesting past the first couple bites. The only thing he does seem to be okay with eating is saltines. Can my child subsist on saltines alone? And then don't get me started on the boobie. He has bitten me a couple of times now that he has opposable teeth, and I, of course, scream, the victim of a would-be vampire. My screaming really freaks him out, and he starts crying. I think it might have left him scarred. Now he will nurse just long enough to get the milk flowing, and then once it comes a-spurtin' out he bobs off the boob and decides that, since I'm here, he would much rather chat with me about the weather. My chairs are all covered with boobie juice -- don't come visit me for a bit.

2) Coming out. We have had a few little spit-up/vomiting issues. Nothing major, no projectile stuff, but Isaac never spits up anymore, so it seems quite significant. And then there's the poops. The last two days we have had these voluminous liquidy poops, as if he wasn't on solids anymore. Not diarrhea poops, just not the little rabbit nuggets or banana slugs he usually leaves behind. I know you appreciate this level of detail, dear reader.

On top of all this, Isaac also has not slept well since his fever broke. The night before last he sat bolt upright in bed next to me (yes, we are still doing that while the sleep issue is uncertain) at 3 in the morning, ready to go. After trying every Mom-trick in the book to get him to go back to sleep, I gave up at around 4:30 and let him torture Dad. Last night when he woke up at 3 (and that was not the first time), he screamed and bawled until I doped him up with both Tylenol and Orajel. Of course it is possible that there is another top tooth in our future, but I feel like everyone says that all the time. "Oh, he's not sleeping? Teething! Cranky? Teething!" Teething = catch-all phrase for "I have no idea what is going on with my kid." Anyway, this not sleeping/not eating stuff is driving me STRAIGHT OUT OF MY MIND.

Learning guitar from Dad 2

Learning guitar from Dad

Slowwwwwwwwwwwly crawling out of the sick-hole

Isaac stayed home again from school yesterday with a fever in the high 99's. Better, but not back to his old spunky self, and certainly illegal for the purposes of day-care attendance. Unfortunately, Dad and I both had meetings, but we managed to dance a little working-parent jig where he took the morning shift and I took the rest. Though he was feeling better, 2 days with a fever to me = trip to doctor, so we took Isaac to see Dr. Kira again, mainly to see if he didn't have another ear infection. He doesn't (phew), but she couldn't figure out what was wrong with him. While I was perfectly okay with that (teething! random viruses!), especially since his fever and attitude where both steadily improving, she was not okay with that, and suggested that he *might* have a urinary tract infection. She suggested we test for that. Of course, testing for a UTI in adults is pretty straightforward -- one pees in a cup. "How do you make babies pee in a cup?" I asked. "You don't," she says, "you catheterize them." She wanted to catheterize my poor buddy, who had already been suffering enough under his illness, don't you think? I was a little shocked that she would bring up this kind of thing, especially since it seemed like he was getting better. We talked about it for awhile, and finally I just sighed and said, "Look. If you really think that this is what we need to do, right now, then let's do it. But if you think we could just watchfully wait instead, I would much rather do that." She agreed in the end that maybe we shouldn't shove a tube up my poor baby's pee-er, but sent us home with a verbal list of symptoms to watch for on this three day weekend. Isaac has so far come down with none.

To otherwise keep us sane on these beeyooteeful days we've been having here in Seattle, we've been going on lots of (well-bundled-up) walks.

Poor sickly monkey bug

Isaac and I stayed home from school today. His fever reached a maximum of 101.5F at 1 am last night, but has stayed relatively constant, between 100.5 and 101.0 all day today. Irrepressible Isaac at first tried to shrug it off, "no, really, Mommy, it's cool...look how I can cruise around like nothin' doin'". Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that his illness is affecting his cruise-control mechanism, with the sad result of two enormous purple knobs on his precious little noggin. Perhaps he has another ear infection -- all that goo in Balance Command Center affecting his locomotion. It didn't take much effort to convince him to spend most of the day either in bed with me or laying on the couch watching TV with me, making for a pretty lazy day. We did get unlazy in the following forms: 1) it was unusally warm and sunny here also, so we took a walk with Mindy and Clayton, thinking the fresh air and sunshine would do us both good; and 2) after Dad got home, I left he and the boy to get reacquainted and visited the gym for what I think may have been my first official post-partum workout. And the boy is how old?

The sweetest/saddest thing of it all, and how you can really tell that Isaac is sick, is that he can't stand to be left alone, or even to be left untouched. Whenever I would sit him down somewhere and try to do something, like fix his lunch, without him, he would fuss and cry until I came back. In subsequent iterations, he learned that it's much harder for me to put him down if he wrapped his arms completely around my neck and hung there like a little monkey -- and that is exactly what he did, all day long. Even in his sleep, if I would try to put him in his crib, out shot the arms to encircle my neck. Poor little critter. I hope he feels better tomorrow...and, though I won't hold my breath, that he sleeps better tonight.

Sick. AGAIN. That's right, folks.

Something is wrong with mah boy. At first we thought he was teething. There was the appearance of upper toof #1, and the swelling near said toof that was surely the hallmark of upper toof #2 emerging. There was the pilfering of ice-packs whenever I would open the freezer with him on my hip, and then the shoving of those ice-packs into his mouth for his chewing pleasure. There was the inability for him to sleep more than 2 hours at a time at night. But now we think he might have aNOTHER cold, thanks to our cold barometer, Clayton. Each time we wonder whether or not Isaac might be sick, we need only wait 2-3 days until Clayton comes down with the same symptoms as Isaac. Both of them are now cranky and constantly sleepy, yet unable to stay asleep; incapable of doing anything or being anywhere happily without one hand attached to Mom; and are now running low-grade fevers (Isaac's is 100.5). At this rate, we will be staying home from school tomorrow. PBBBBFlt. This whole "winter" thing is for the birds.

Would you like to see our new house?

To my knowledge, most universities try pretty hard to buy up a bunch of property all around themselves, including houses. These houses are then occasionally made available for rent to people affiliated with the university; I have heard here at the UW that visiting scientists and other professionals in transit can get hooked up with such an abode, if you know the right people. It seems for the most part to be a kind of under-the-table thing -- I would imagine this is because the demand would be unbearable if it were made more public.

Well, they have this at the University of Delaware, too, only even better from our point-of-view. Their rental houses are actually organized into a program that specifically caters to new faculty or staff hires. Dad says that a newer professor in the Geography Department actually lived in one of these places for the past two years while he saved up a down payment to buy his wifey and two babies a place to live. The university, being big and rich and beneficent, can offer these houses to rent apparently way below market value. The coolest of all? They've organized all these houses into a web page that has pictures of them, descriptions of the rooms, and even floorplans for some. And, to my understanding, all of them are within walking distance of the University. How cool is that?

Your moment of swinging zen

It has been warm enough outside to enjoy one of our old favorite pasttimes, swinging. However, swinging is a little more fun/rowdy now that Isaac can hang on by himself. I shot a movie of it...see for yourself. I think he likes it, wouldn't you agree?

What we did for Valentine's Day

The past two years, Dad and I have had a standing Valentine's date with a super-fancy restaurant that requires you dress up and come loving your salmon bathed in creamy sauces. It was exceedingly fun for Dad, being the peacock that he is, because i) he could dress to the nines and not look out of place and ii) he got to eat the only reasonable-tasting steak in the city of Seattle; it was fun for me because i) I got to see how googly Dad gets when I dress like an actual girl and ii) I love me some salmon when I don't have to debone it. Last year when we went I was of course big and preggers, and we agreed that it would be weird in '05 cause we would, like, have a baby.

Well, we still did it up right Claire & Mike style, oh yeah. We both go to work in the a.m., and this is precious time because the clock is ticking until we pick up the Buster. But this morning we shunned responsibility for a half-hour and, in honor of St. Valentine's, met in my building's cafeteria to chat with each other over coffee and donuts. I was feeling so festive that I almost got the donut with sprinkles, but unfortunately that donut did not contain chocolate. Then, despite Dad's insistence yesterday that he would cook us up a fancy-schmancy meal, we caved and went to Whole Foods for some "gourmet" take-out:


Isaac had a great Valentine's Day. He got valentines from some of his buddies at school, and he made us a valentine with a big red Isaac footprint on it. He got a package in the mail from Great-Grandma & -Grandpa Ross (it actually arrived Saturday) with a new book, a basketball and wall-mountable hoop, and the traditional chocolate array (for the big people). He got an adorable velvety card that can prop itself up for his grabbing and chewing pleasure from Grandma & Grandpa O'Neal. Grandma & Grandpa Ross sent an assortment of big-people chocolate things, but also a cute and exceedingly cuddly stuffed kitty for Isaac. But by far the best Valentine's present according to Isaac was the red & white tissue paper Grandma Ross used to line the box she shipped. Isaac spent at least an hour taking the tissue paper out and methodically, delicately julienne-ing it, stacking up the strips he created in a neat little heap. Watching him do this was, by far, the most fantastic way I have ever spent an evening. Note to future box-shippers: please include tissue paper.

Get well; good luck; bon voyage

1) Get-well wishes to Isaac's Great-Grandma Peetz, who was hospitalized this past Friday with an infection. She is okay now, but had to have some crazy IV antibiotics. We love her so much, and wish her a speedy recovery!

2) Good luck to avid reader Jen Horwath, a fellow grad student in Dad's Geo-whoozywhatsit department, who took her General Exam today. For those of you who don't follow the inner workings of academia with rapt attention, one's Ph.D. is generally made from two major exams (though it can be more depending on how obnoxious one's department wants to be) -- the "General" and "Final" exams. The General exam is the insanely evil one, which you usually don't take until your third year. Before this exam, they don't even consider you to be an official Ph.D. student -- passing this exam means that your committee overlords have given you their *permission* to pursue your Ph.D. with reckless abandon. Basically in this exam people can ask you anything they want, and you have to try to answer it as best you can. I spent probably a month solid preparing for mine. Poor Jen even blew off watching the Superbowl with Isaac and I so she could study. But I'm sure she's feelin' no pain now -- best wishes to you, Jen!

3) My college roomie, Liz, moved to Colorado a few years ago to teach special ed, but more recently decided to join the Peace Corps. She shipped out to the Dominican Republic yesterday for her stint, and, because I am incredibly rude and stupid, I forgot to call her and say goodbye. We love our Liz dearly, and she even came out to visit Isaac for a couple of days this past summer. We hope she has a really great time and gets to help a lot of people in need.

I'm sorry, you thought this was a blog about Isaac?

Yeah, yeah, so in all my haste to lay forth my feelings about moving, I forgot to write about my boy. Sue me.

*As if Friday didn't have enough going on, Isaac wanted to add to the mix -- he cut his first top tooth that day. By the looks of it he is working on cutting all of the rest of his teeth, too, since he is plumbing around in there with both his thumb and his tongue now, and is incapable of sleeping at night. At all.

*An unforeseen complication of having a top tooth now -- he keeps biting his tongue, hard. He woke up screaming the other night with little spots of blood on his sheet around his head from his latest tongue-wound, which is now scabbed over and healing nicely. But how scary for everybody, yo? It's not like we as parents can do anything to help him with this one.

*He can stand by himself for an increasing length of time. How long does he need to stand independently before it officially counts for the baby book?

*Now he can get out of his baby rocker even in the inclined position, as he demonstrated to me by nearly strangling his leg in the harness Friday morning in his escape attempt. I am completely at a loss as to how I am supposed to shower in the future.

*He has learned to "pet" Cat-brother, much to Cat-brother's eternal delight. Isaac takes his little hand and swipes at Cat-brother's fur repeatedly, but no longer grabs fistfuls and yanks. Now I'm afraid poor Cat-brother's tail is still in grave danger, but baby-steps is what we're about here.

Okay, feeling better now

After talking with Dad, I realized what was really freaking me out about moving to Delaware is that it is a place totally foreign to me. Choosing between the two schools is kind of a no-brainer -- Murray State is a great school, but U of Delaware is a bit more research-oriented and prestigious, and additionally has faculty members in the department that do the kinds of things that Dad does. But moving to Murray? Not scary. I lived in Kentucky for 5 years as a wee lass; my little bro was born there. It's within easy driving distance of Isaac's great-grandparents, and more determined driving distance of Isaac's grandparents. I've probably driven near Murray on many trips taken with Dad in our pre-baby days between Indiana and Nashville. To summarize: it is familiar. The banjo-picking that goes on in the woods there doesn't even scare me. Much.

I haven't the slightest clue what Delaware is about. I have never been there, never even to Philly or to Baltimore or to D.C. or to New York. Our family trips when I was a kid were mostly to midwestern amusement parks, which I thoroughly enjoyed and which I now get made fun of for by Dad (your parents never took you to D.C./Yosemite National Park/California/any other normal family vacation destination? HAHAHAHAHAH!). I don't know what the climate is like, whether the land is flat or rolly, what it smells like, or even how you could fit so many states in such a small area. I have no idea if the people are nice, if they are left-leaning, if they are environmentally conscious, if they drive or take the bus, if they exercise, if they eat fried stuff, if they visit organic markets. The problem is that I am comfortable with both my Indiana hick heritage and my acquired Seattlite hippie traits -- would this new place be able to respect both? Lord knows Murray might be a little slanted away from anything labeled "organic" or "environmentally-consicous" -- maybe Delaware might be more along the lines of Claire after all.

Once I realized this, my research on the web became much more focused. The start to my newfound emotional acceptance of this move? The discovery that there are 3 IKEAs within ~1 hour's driving distance of Newark, Delaware (oh, and it's "New Ark". Evidently "New-erk" = New Jersey, and that is baaaad). There is also a Bob Evans there, and at least one organic grocery store. I would be absolutely thrilled if there are visitors of this blog who may be able to contribute more info or advice about that region (even if you are not from Delaware) that may be of interest to the young wife of a young smarty-pants with a super-young smart-pants in tow. Ahem. Ahem, Erin, ahem.

Drumroll please...........

I blogged earlier this week that Dad interviewed at Murray State for a professorship job -- that all went very well. Dad said they were very impressed with him (who wouldn't be?), and painted a quaint picture for me of Murray, KY. However, one could clearly tell that his heart was set on those Delaware ho-bags who kept stringing him along. Dad was a bit taken with them when he was out there interviewing, and they said they would call him this week and tell him their answer.

Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. All nothing. Dad was quite convinced that they were calling someone else and giving his beloved dream-job away to someone hotter than him (is it possible?). Then, on Friday afternoon at 4:30 Delaware time, they called and asked Dad if he was still interested in the job, oh he was? that's great -- they would be faxing him an official offer when the job clears Human Resources early next week. Insert simultaneous jump/scream and big sigh here.

This fall, our Dad will be an Assistant Professor at the University of Delaware. Are you intimidated yet? We are so extremely excited. I think Dad actually cried a bit when they told him the big news. We went out yesterday for celebratory Starbucks, and had celebratory Pizza & Buffalo wings for dinner. We spent last night after Isaac had gone to bed looking at real estate listings and what-not online. This is probably the biggest thing to happen to our family since Isaac came along, and something Dad has wanted since he can't remember when. Additionally, it means that I can stay home with my Buster, and possibly pop out another Buster, without worrying about working. We really couldn't be happier.

And yet I am abnormally stressed out, and I don't know why. Well, I could list off several reasons perhaps that may be why: 1) we have to move literally ACROSS THE CONTINENT, from Seattle to the East Coast, in, oh, six months; 2) I have never been to this region where we will be settling, and it really doesn't make much sense for us to visit before we move, so this will all be happening sight-unseen for me; 3) where are we going to live? At first it is likely we will finagle our way into some University-owned rental houses that will be nice and serve as a jump station for us to find a house to buy. But then we have to, oh, BUY A HOUSE. Something we've always dreamed of, but yet a little scary. Especially thinking that we will be committing to a major house payment every month for the next "30 years"; 4) How do you look for a house when you can technically live in any of three states?; 5) I have to really, like, graduate sometime in the next six months; 6) We will officially be real adults (ah, maybe THAT's it...).

Yes, all of these together may seem a little stressful, but I should really get a grip and be super-excited. Dad is especially frustrated that my grumpiness is ruining his buzz. What is wrong with me?

The Precious

Yesterday was just about the biggest day to hit the Ross family in a looooong time. In addition to our exciting news about Dad's dream-career come true, my little brother proposed to his girlfriend of five years, and she said yes. I told her she was required to send me a picture of her beautiful ring, which forced my brother, who is in med school, to eat nothing but peanut butter sandwiches for a sememster:


Congratulations, Chris and Jean! We are so stoked about having Jean as our sister-in-law, and Isaac is also excited for her to be his REAL aunt, since he is crazy about her. Just let us know when & where to show up and we'll bring the mini-monkey suit for our little monkey.

Handsome boys

Snapped this one in front of our house, mainly to show off Isaac's "varsity jacket" before he gets too big for it. Am I a lucky gal or what?

Ravioli

Sorry for all the eating pictures...it's one of the only times now when I can get him to be STILL for a second, so that's what you get. And for some reason I think it's adorable that he smears his food all over his face.

Big shoes to fill

Yep, those are Dad's shoes Isaac is using to help him reach the arm of the couch.

We think Dad may officially count as his first word now. It is kind of difficult to tell, since everything gets addressed with "dadadadadada" now, but whenever he sees Dad, or looks at Dad's picture in Isaac's little picture book, he points and says "Dada!" Now, if we can just get Dad to work with him on "Mama" with the same diligence as I have on this word...

Opening cabinets

I posted a new *movie* (ooooooooh) I took today of Isaac figuring out how to open our kitchen cabinets by himself. Now, when watching this movie, it is important to remember that this is a child who cannot yet stand unsupported. With that, I give you permission to be blown away. Those of you who have the patience and/or bandwidth to download an 8 MB file, that is.

Stupid O'Neal genes

Forgot to mention from his 9-month checkup...the boy has nummular eczema.


Evidently, a propensity for eczema is inherited (thanks, DAD). Isaac has these round, rashy, almost ring-wormy looking items (but not ring worm according to Dr. Kira) on his elbows and knees. Just like Dad! Wow! Why couldn't he get SOME of my genes? Eh?

Job search update

As aforementioned, Dad is in Kentucky living it up with the Murray State Geosciences department. Well, as much as he can "live it" -- he was informed by his professor tour guides that Murray is the county seat of a dry county. To the uninitiated (Claire raises her hand), this means that you cannot buy alcoholic beverages. Very recently, they passed a local bill that allowed restaurants to serve alcohol, so you can now go to Applebee's and drink a beer, but you cannot buy that same beer in bottle-form without crossing the county line. Not that that is a horrible thing, mind you, but I was under the impression that Prohibition was, like, so last century. But anyway, that is just a minor detail that boggled my mind. Dad says that otherwise Murray is exceedingly beautiful and the people are very friendly. We also looked up real estate listings on Saturday before he left, and we can buy a nice-looking 4 bedroom house for about $100K (obviously this won't be happening in Delaware). He gave his talk today for the Geo Deparment and said he blew them away, which is nice. He also said they aren't going to finish their interview process for another two weeks, so he won't know about this job for quite some time.

In the meantime, our cheating girlfriend Delaware said they would call last week to tell Dad about their decision, but then at the last minute e-mailed him and said that they had been held up by that big snowstorm that hit the East Coast of a few weeks ago. Shyure, we said. They said they would let him know for sure this week. Hose-beasts didn't call today though, nope. We have decided this whole interview process is completely for the birds. So much waiting...and emotion-tugging...and then more waiting...and occasionally painful dissing. But this is our time, gol' dern it; this time our prize pig will win us the blue ribbon. Or else I am going out there with my BB gun and bagging me some university bureaucrats.

I swear he climbed up there himself

Isaac amuses himself long enough for me to prepare dinner in peace:

10 months

Happy 10 month-day, Isaac! He now has two teeth and a lot more hair (especially in the back). He waves (sometimes), points, and talks incessantly. His favorite syllable is definitely "da", and we are working to hook that to the identification of a certain person. He has become a cruising expert, and is even experimenting lately with standing unsupported, which completely blows me away. The other night in the most flagrant example, we were playing in the bathroom and he temporarily let go of the toilet lid and stood for a half-second, with his knees bent like a surfer, before falling back onto his little tushy. Along the same vein, he is also working on crawling from an all-fours position (using his feet instead of his knees). Tonight I saw him rock backwards onto his feet for another half-second, pulling his hands away from the floor and supporting his weight entirely with his legs. I think he has been inspired by the walker from Grandma and Grandpa Ross and is totally training himself Rocky-style for bipedalism, no longer limiting himself to using the "official" walker as a walker; anything that can slide is game. This evening alone he used his bedroom door (walking behind it as it swung closed) and our kitchen step-stool (scooting it along the linoleum). It's only a matter of time.

He also loves to read books. He likes flipping through his board books by himself when they are on the floor, but he greatly enjoys being read to from the snuggly comfort of mom's lap, asking for repeats on certain faves. Right now his very favorites are books that do stuff, like Touch and Feel Farm and Morning in the Garden, though he also appreciates books with beautiful illustrations like Owl Babies and I Am a Bunny.

His favorite food, by far, is cheese cubes, which he consumes every night. He eats mostly finger foods, though I am able to sneak some Gerber 3rd Foods dinners in there or some strained veggies and fruits + cereal if his hands are occupied with something tasty. He also likes goldfish (a common theme, I am finding), though he is impatient with them and tries to suck them right down and ends up choking on them more often than not. We don't like that.

A recent and VERY welcome addition to his developmental repertoire is that he is sleeping much better at night. Each night now he goes down for bed with little fussing between 7:30 and 8:30, and wakes up once in the middle of the night, either at midnight or at 2:30. He then wakes up for good brrrrright and early between 5:00 and 6:15. Although I would greatly appreciate changing the whole 5:00 thing, I will not complain since I only have to get up once a night now. It's so rad.

In family news, Dad is working feverishly to find a nice cushy professor job to fulfill our fantasies of Isaac having a full-time mom around. Right now, he is in Murray, Kentucky preparing to interview at Murray State University. We also anticipate that we will hear of a decision from the University of Delaware this week -- an anxious Dad has even given me his voicemail password with instructions to check it frequently for THAT CALL. Of course we here at Isaac's blog will keep you posted, since I am a single mom for the next three nights. Yee-yuck.

Visiting

We visited Isaac's bud, Clayton, tonight, and they had their usual screeching match. "AAAAh-ah!" "Oo-aaaAAAH!" -- you can imagine. Their favorite set-up is with Clayton in his exersaucer, and Isaac dancing around the perimeter:


This way they can accidentally scratch each others' eyes out with their luxurious baby-claws. Why does no one come up with some, like, baby tranquilizer or something to help us poor moms cut these guys' fingernails? Dad is a godsend in this department -- somehow he is magically distracting enough to allow me to clip most everything in one go, but with Dad out of town now, we are screwed. Sorry in advance to my darling son if I start posting pictures up here of him with Edward Scissorhands lacerations all over his precious little face.

Kitchen explorer

I recently took down the baby gate from the entrance to the kitchen. Dad and I had a long talk about how gating off the area where things are heated/boiled/dripping/dirty would probably be wise for our baby's health. However, Dad isn't usually awake in the morning when I'm trying to get breakfast ready for Isaac, cat-brother, and myself -- this task obviously requires several hands and with our gated-off setup, Isaac would only hang on the gate with miserable whining because I was ignoring him. As an aside, we also gated off our dining room, which is before the entrance to the stairs. If you ever feel that your abs aren't quite up to snuff, I highly suggest putting up two baby gates right next to each other, especially if you must often carry your baby over them. I woke up one morning a few weeks ago with my stomach in splitting pain -- I thought I had the flu or something until I completed a circuit over the "hurdles" carrying Isaac and realized that those were *muscles*. So I guess I have those back now, those tummy muscles.

But I digress. Kitchen-gate is down; baby is free to roam in this new baby play-land. He mostly uses this as an opportunity to practice his ability to open things, like cabinets and drawers:




Much fun was had by Isaac dragging out every. single. pot and pan in that cabinet, which was not as hands-off as I had thought since there are two shelves and some heavy stuff in there. But with vigilant mommy supervision, our little Entropy-Bringer helped introduce more disorder into the universe.

Toothers

After many, many takes, here is the best look at Isaac's big ol' toothers I could get:

Breakfast

Here are some pictures from breakfast this morning. I took a play from the day-care book and fixed a tortilla with cream cheese. Mmmm...bland and chewy. But also unexpectedly messy. Observe:


Though it doesn't take long before we get a leetle bored:

Soooooo big

Look how big my baby guy is!

He can use our old TV as his jungle gym! Now if we could just get Dad to, ahem, get RID of the jungle gym. Anybody want a free TV?

I could go to bed, but why?

Everybody knows that Isaac has sleep issues. Most of you probably also know that Dad has some major sleep issues also. Pretty much since I have known Dad, he has been unable to fall asleep unless he is in front of a TV. Before I get called on such a pointed statement, there have been exceptions, yes. But not many. What this has meant for us is a TV in the bedroom, within line-of-sight of the bed.

A few weeks ago, Dad got in a rearranging tizzy and made our bedroom such that there was no more TV. At first this was grrrrrreat [insert purr noise here]. But now that the novelty has worn off, so has Dad's willingness to even try to go to sleep in the bedroom. Every night now, when I am too utterly exhausted to stay up any more, I leave him downstairs and he tells me, without fail, that he will be upstairs to snooze along with me in 15 minutes. What a line. Dad just cozies up with Cat-brother downstairs and sleeps quite well with his girlfriend, TV.

Isaac is also making a slow and steady recovery from his latest cold. Now that he isn't drowning in phlegm, he is also threatening to sleep through the night. Last night he only woke up ONCE the whole time. Unfortunately, I, who have always amazed my husband at my ability to fall asleep at will (in the daylight! after lapping the house to find the baby tylenol!), now find myself so tired, propping my eyelids open with toothpicks, and yet unable to fall asleep. Why? I blame Dad -- it's weird and uncomfortable falling asleep without him in the room.

Right now, both of my insomniac boys are sawing logs, neither in my bedroom. So unfair.