Happy half-birthday to my special little guy

Today Isaac is 30 months old, or, as we say now that he is getting long in the tooth, "two and a half". He is developing into quite the character and, as I am lax on the monthly updates now and seem to blog only about his funny toddler banter, perhaps I should give you some insight as to who he is now.

If you couldn't tell from his exuberance in modeling the Incredibles jammies, Isaac is a bit of a showboat. The other evening, Daddy carried Isaac into the bathroom for his daily scrubbing and, as Isaac's feet touched the floor, he threw his hands into the air. "Ta-DA!" he said. "Just like his mother," said Daddy.



He hangs out with me often enough that I was hoping some things would sink in, and it looks like, at 2-1/2, I'm hitting paydirt. He sings now, all the time. This is not surprising after being bombarded by my constant vocal barrage his entire life. Perhaps what is surprising is that, for a little dude, he is quite good at it. He sings in rhythm and, for the most part, in tune. His favorite songs are those from the "Heroes". Yesterday I had one in my head, from an episode about Earth Day, and (I think) remembered the first two lines of the chorus ("Clean air, endless oceans, mountains to the sky"), but couldn't get the rest. From in his room, he pipes up: "Earth's the big blue ball that we all share". I doubt he made that up.



Isaac is a serious collector. Not in the mint-in-the-box sense, no no. He likes having little figures of characters he knows from TV shows and movies, which he uses to reenact plotlines verbatim. A stereotypical Isaac playtime will include him holding a little Woody figure in one hand and a Buzz figure in the other, while "Woody" shouts at Buzz, "You. Are. A. TOYYYY!"

He also has lots and lots of dinky plastic farm and zoo animals. He is obsessed with zoo animals and likes to pretend to be them. "Mommy, I a rhinoceros! Now I a lion, RRRRROAR! Mommy, a giraffe is stepping on my back. Can you get him off?" With the farm animals, he likes to match up the "mommies" of the species with their "babies" and have them declare their love for each other. This is a recurring theme for him, that of mommies and babies or other familial incarnations coming together. At playgroup last week, I found him playing with three balls, two regulation-sized basketballs and a small squishy stress ball. Whereas perhaps some little boys would be throwing or kicking said balls, my little angel told me, "This [big one] is the Mommy and this [big one] is the Daddy. This [small] one is the baby. They love him!" My Isaac, he saves his kicking and throwing for the out-of-doors. Good man.



Being a big brother has been a mixed bag for him. He has been very tolerant and accepting of Jacob and Jacob's unrelenting needs. Isaac plays well by himself, and hardly ever pitches a fit when I just have to attend to Jacob. To Isaac, Jacob has been occasionally a thing of interest, but for the most part Isaac was content to have Blob-Jacob just lay around over there and not mess with his stuff.

Now that Jakey is a psycho-crawling banshee who insists on getting into everything, things are different, and different is usually bad. Like any good consumer, Jacob only wants what others have, and goes out of his way to get in on whatever action Isaac is up to. At first, Isaac was really ticked about this, and each encounter usually ended in violence and bruises for Jacob without intervention. As time has worn on, I've schooled Isaac in avoidance when I don't or can't rush to help him out. Echoing Mommy, he screams "No, Jakey!" and throws any toy within reach, whether he was engaged with it or not, far out of Jakey's way. Here they are in just such an episode:


But things are getting better. Tonight, for the first time ever, my boys played together. Tonight, Isaac discovered that Jacob can now participate in Isaac's perennial favorite game of "I'm a kitty!". Isaac saw Jacob crawling around the hallway and encouraged him to crawl after him. Isaac would switch direction and Jacob would follow, or Isaac would crawl behind Jacob and urge him on. They both screamed and giggled. Isaac would announce their arrival to me: "Mommy, the two kitties are coming to get you!" I can't tell you how, after watching Isaac beat up on Baby Brother quite a bit, my heart bubbled over to see them together, having the grandest of times cleaning my hallway with their knees.

It was really only a matter of time. He's the sweetest, most caring toddler I've ever met with everyone else -- he's always concerned that everyone, even strangers, "Have a good day!", and, now that his pushing phase is behind us, looks as though his faith in the world is shaken when he gets roughed up by his buddies or kids at playgroup. I realize that Isaac and Jacob are brothers and that they have all kinds of roughhousing to look forward to, but it's so delicious to see that Isaac can enjoy his little brother, even at this age.