Here are some more recent "Isaiah happenings"--again, in no particular order, and lacking any moral lesson...

Isaiah had his one-year check up last week. He weighed in at 21 lbs 1 oz, was 30.5 inches long, and had a head circumference of 49.5 cm. These measurements were all in the 25th, 75th, and 110th percentile, respectively. As we suspected, he is turning into a nice lollipop-sized little boy.

He is walking more and more now, and is becoming less intentional about it, which means he will walk on his own without us propping him up and making sure he doesn't fall along the way. He will still solicit people for their hands so that he can reach his destination more quickly, but can manage pretty well just by walking now. He won't go more than 5 m on his own yet before plopping down on his rear, but to me, that is a lot given that he just took his first steps last week.

He has lots of toys that are thrown haphazardly into the playpen in our living room so that parental units don't injure themselves stepping on them, but lately, his favorite activity has been playing with the puzzle he got from his Grandma and Grandpa Sharda. It has six pieces, each with a big peg on the front for easy extraction. Isaiah will take the camel, the elephant, and the hippo (he has little interest in the monkey, tiger, and lion most days) and work intensely to hold all three of them in one hand. Because of the pegs, it is difficult to stack the pieces efficiently, but he has accomplished this several times.

He also LOVES to flip through books--big books, little books, picture books, boring books that Mom is translating, and man, would he love to get his hands on those slippery pages of those Bibles which are always confiscated once he shows an interest. (we have to draw the line somewhere). Otherwise, he will sit down and entertain himself by flipping through the books, sometimes even 'reading' to himself. Hopefully the nightly ritualistic reading by Dad has helped him develop a love for books. Thanks to his Grandma Murchie in Japan, we have recently expanded his library with some Japanese fairy tales and other stories in Japanese.

Yesterday we went to Wegman's, our favorite grocery store in the world, to get dinner (14 inch subs for $8, and these are STUFFED) and do our shopping. We were waiting in line for our subs, and Isaiah was just checking out all that was going on around him--people coming and going, talking, all the many details of the store. This is not uncommon (he is very observant), but Dan (who was holding Isaiah) nudged me and pointed out quietly that Isaiah had been subconsciously stroking Dan's beard for a few minutes while he observed all of this. Very cute.

This morning as Dan was getting ready for school, Isaiah came right up to my chair and perfectly and clearly made the sign language sign for 'milk'. We are trying to somewhat move toward weaning, but this is the first time that he made such a clear sign regarding what he wanted without me prompting or suggesting it to him, so I had to comply. I think we will have to learn a few other signs, maybe "up" or "read" or "go outside". I must admit I haven't been doing the best job of introducing him to sign language. I know the benefits are enormous in terms of the kids learning to communicate at an early age (and apparently reduce the number of tantrums they feel they need to throw), but it's hard to get in the habit of speaking another language to your kid, especially when you don't speak it very well anyway. Success this morning has given me a little more inspiration, however, so I will try to do better.

Isaiah met another little playmate yesterday who recently moved to State College. Peter Tyreku Greer was adopted from Ethiopia by some of our friends here in State College. He is a strapping little linebacker-to-be at 14-15 months, and although is the same height as Isaiah, outweighs him by at least 7 lbs. I think they're going to have a blast together.

Here are some random anecdotes from today. There is no lesson to be learned or nice tidy ending, but I thought I'd post anyway.

Isaiah is infatuated with the phone, and as it is on its last legs anyway, we have somewhat become resigned to letting him play with it. Today he was pushing a bunch of buttons, and when Dan rescued the phone, he looked at the numbers Isaiah had entered, and asked, "Isaiah, how the heck did you get "F" in there?" Even though Dan has been known to operate remote controls where all of the buttons are in Japanese, this astonished him.

Dan made a Thai stir-fry for dinner tonight, and we had it over rice. I was taking too long to get to the dinner table, and in the meantime, Dan put several pieces of broccoli on Isaiah's tray for him to start eating. Apparently he didn't want to eat alone at the table, and just fussed until we both sat down. Judging by the fact that he didn't retain any of the Thai stir-fry in his mouth, I figured it was too spicy for him and got out a jar of good-ol' Gerber baby food ("Spring Vegetables and Pasta") and started feeding him. At one point he seemed somewhat distracted, so to test the hypothesis that the stir-fry wasn't in fact too spicy (he's eaten spicier), I tried feeding him some of the stir-fry in between spoonfuls of Spring Vegetables and Pasta. He was not phased at all and ended up eating the whole bowl of stir-fry and the jar of baby food, sometimes mixed together. Can we spell 'omnivore'?

Isaiah inherited Dan's affinity for electronics--anything with buttons on it fascinates him, and we are continuously rescuing the phone, remote controls, and other such items from his fascinated grasp. The one thing that is more intriguing to him than electronics is the cords hooking up the electronic items (laptops, for example). Although our house is pretty sufficiently babyproofed, there is one outlet that is unavoidably exposed and often has two cords hooked up (a lamp and my laptop). Isaiah knows that he is not supposed to touch these, but his curiosity often gets the better of him. Last night we took our first shot at disciplining him so that he would think twice before touching these cords. Both of us would like to avoid spanking and plan to come up with creative, non-violent ways to enforce discipline (so far--ask me again in a year, and I might have an assortment of whips and paddles), but to avoid things like electrocution and getting flattened by cars by running out in the street, we have agreed that immediate physical force enough to make a point is warranted.

So last night Isaiah ventured behind the chair, and as always, we told him (in two languages, no less) to not touch it and come back out. He understood all right, but decided to push his luck. Dan gave him a firm but 'meaningful' slap on his hand, after which Isaiah wanted nothing to do with Dan. Dan, however, started giggling (still not sure why), and it was contagious, for some strange reason. What a disaster. I was trying to comfort Isaiah while repressing my own laughter (thanks, Dan), but at the same time I was thinking, "What does it mean to ISaiah if I comfort him for something that Dan does to him?" Does he think that Dan was just being mean and that he is the victim here? if so, should I wait until he has stopped crying to comfort him to show that I am in agreement with his abuser, er, disciplinarian? That's a lot of moral reasoning for a Sunday night at our place, I'll tell you that much.

Isaiah was certainly not too thrilled with Dan the remainder (30 minutes) of the night, but by this morning, I think he had forgotten all about it. AND he listened to me when I told him not to touch the plug again. :) So maybe it's working. If we can do it without laughing next time we'll be in better shape.

Isaiah started walking this past Monday. He's been moving quite well on his feet for a while, but always needed a hand or two to help him along. In fact, he has become quite assuming of the fact that somebody's hand/s will be available and ready to assist him in any translocation schemes of his. In the rare event that no one is around, he will climb up a leg or two, thereby completely immobilizing you, and grunt his request for assistance.
Anyway, we were at a friend's house, and her son (a month behind Isaiah) had just started walking the previous day. He was showing off how he could do it, and my friend and I decided to see if Isaiah might take the cue as well, and lo and behold, he decided to let go and walk a few steps on his own!

Yes, I know, it's so much more exciting as a parent (and I am assuming that the excitement will decrease exponentially with subsequent kids), but it is still pretty cool. Today he is up to several meters at a time, and managed to keep his balance while standing still for at least 10 seconds--all while chewing on a basketball (miniature foam one). Did I mention the level of talent in this kid?? :)

THe one thing I wonder about is that I have heard that babies start to thin out once they start walking. Despite the fact that the kid eats like a horse and deprives me of half my meals every day, he does not have a lot of fat to lose. With his 110th percentile head and 20th percentile weight, he's going to look like a lollipop soon--hopefully the topheaviness won't deter him from walking. When you think about it, it is pretty remarkable that eventually most people learn to walk, and somehow our bodies kind of subconsciously learn how to adjust balance, weight, muscle control, etc. to the point where we are able to stand on two relatively short pegs called feet, but which hold up the rest of our bodies while we run, jump, bike, do backflips (not all of us), etc. The human body amazes me sometimes, and it's extra special when its coolness is manifest in your own child.

Isaiah usually goes down for a long morning nap (2-3 hours), during which I usually sit down and check my email, do yoga (although not so much recently), and other things that otherwise don't get done. Thursday-Saturdays I usually get the bulk of my editing work done during this morning nap. Last week I sort of took off the week from editing because Dan's family was here, so this week I am making up for it by working Mon-Sat. Anyway, I was about an hour into my work this morning when I heard some happy sounds from upstairs. My hopes that he would fall asleep again were soon dashed to pieces as I started hearing more and more babbling, and banging of the window blinds against the windowsill (that is usually my cue to go rescue the blinds...oh, and Isaiah). He got up and was transiently happy, but after about 10 minutes, I could not please him for the life of me. We tried nursing, we tried story time, we tried making the bed, we tried opening Mom's dresser drawers (that worked for a good 10 minutes, no more), we even tried eating lunch. I finally decided that someone needed to go back to bed. I don't believe that he agreed with me on that assessment, judging by the eardrum-piercing screams of holy terror that ensued after I put him down again, but within a minute or so, all was quiet. Two thoughts on this:

1. Ha! Mom DOES know best!
2. Why can't we put adults down for another nap?