Isaiah's panties

This is what our sweet boy looks like first thing int he morning and I love it! Rosy cheeks, hair all crazy, and lots of quiet smiles.

The other day I was at Kohl's shopping for a certain undergarment. Isaiah was riding in the little shopping cart thing playing with his toys. I was browsing through the racks and didn't realize Isaiah could reach as far as he could from the cart. I looked down to check on him and heard myself saying "Isaiah, take those panties out of your mouth!" He'd grabbed a zebra-stripe, hot pink trimmed thong and, like everything, it went straight to his mouth...It was a little awkward.

Yesterday I was feeling all sorry for myself. It's been a busy month--I've been doing lots of taxes, it's my month for Sharing Time (which I spend way too much time and stress on), and to top it off we had to speak in church today. I just haven't had any down time. Then Jerel's dad called and told us two nieces have RSV, a nephew has pneumonia, another nephew was on his way to the hospital with bad stomach pains, and another niece (Isaiah's twin cousin Jocie) was in the hospital with a broken leg! I guess we don't have it so bad after all.

Zay's Many Faces

This one says "Hey, whatever's over there looks way more interesting than what's going on here."

This one is "My hair sticks up in back just like Daddy's."

"Who needs toys when you have such fascinating hands?"

"Just eatin' my carrots"

"This is the first time I've ever seen a black man...I think I'll just stare and stare and stare..."  (It's one of my tax clients, who was very good natured about Isaiah's combination of curiosity and lack of exposure to any sort of diversity.)

"There's those fascinating hands again!"

"Oh no!  I'm gonna roll!"

and finally...

"Enough already with the picure taking!"

Someone's getting wrinkly

And it's not Jerel (even though today is his 37th birthday!). Last night I was feeding Isaiah and he was just not being a cooperator. I got really frustrated with him and Jerel ended up feeding him. Then I felt bad for getting frustrated with a little baby (and such a cute one too) so when I put him in the bathtub I decided I'd let him stay in for as long as he wanted to. Usually Jerel gives him fun baths but when it's my turn he gets a boring 5 or 10 minutes of soaping up, rinsing off, then out. He loves baths so I thought this would be a good way to make up for my earlier impatience.

When we go to the Olive Garden and they offer the freshly-grated parmesan, Jerel always lets them keep going and going. I think he's trying to figure out just how much cheese they will give him if he doesn't tell them to stop. I always sit there watching thinking "this is sure getting long and awkward...I hope the waiter stops soon." That's how it felt watching Isaiah in the bath. It just kept going and going with no sign of stopping. I kept hoping he'd start crying and want to get out. I had to put warm water in 3 times because it kept getting so cold and I didn't think hypothermia would be a good idea. After a while I even took out all of his toys thinking that would make him so bored he'd want to get out, but I forgot that Isaiah's favorite toys are his hands and feet and I couldn't very well take those out of the tub. Well, Isaiah won this one. He stayed in for an hour and eight minutes!

As kids when we visited my grandparents in Arizona we always wanted to stay in the swimming pool for hours on end. But the rule was that once your fingers and toes got wrinkly you had to get out. One time one of us (I'm sure it wasn't me, I'd never be so insensitive) asked my grandma how she knew when she should get out since her fingers started out wrinkly...Anyway, as you can see in the picture Isaiah was well past the beginning stages of wrinkliness...even his pinky toes were wrinkled!

Hooray for no surgery!

Some people say their kids are a pain in the bum.  Our kid has a pain in his bum.  Our pediatrician told us it was an abscess and it quickly healed on its own.  Then it came back, so we took him back to the doctor.  She told us he would most likely need surgery to repair it because it went all the way in to his insides.  She set up an appointment for us with a pediatric surgeon while I was busy panicking.  Today was the Big Day.  On the way to the appointment Isaiah was a bit fussy so I started singing songs to him.  (Actually he was fine, I was the fussy one who needed distraction).  I started singing the "Found a Peanut" song.  It was all great until I got to the verse "had an operation" which is followed by the verse "died anyway."  Wrong song choice.

As it turns out Isaiah doesn't need surgery.  The surgeon said that probably what will happen is that the abscess will come and go but after a year or so it will heal on its own without the need for any intervention.  He said they used to always do surgery on them but have since figured out that it isn't really necessary.  He also mentioned that it is a "neat surgery" that it's "fun to do."  That's good to know...if Isaiah's doesn't resolve itself after a year and he ends up needing surgery, I'm glad to know that at least the surgeons will be enjoying themselves.

I'm so glad he doesn't need surgery!  I have spent the last few days worried, and not my normal overreaction worrying...sometimes a doctor can say something like "yep, it looks like you have a hang nail that's a little inflamed" and I know what he means by "inflamed" is "infected" and the look on his face (regardless of what it is) clearly indicates that it's not just any infection, but rather a serious, severe, and possibly even lethal infection.  I realize, without anyone saying anything, that they will probably have to amputate my finger, and actually most likely they'll take off my whole arm just to be safe...Anyway, this time the worrying was legitimate because the doctor had actually said he would need surgery. 

I was going to find a drawing of what he has and post it but when I did a search for images I got a message saying it had been blocked by my computer's obscene images filter.  You can read a bit about what Isaiah has here if you're really bored. 

Do they come any cuter than this?

We had picture day at our house today. Isaiah was the only participant, which is fine because he's cute enough for all three of us anyway! I got him this outfit the other day. I've been wanting it since the fall when I first saw it, but I waited until it went on sale for 60% off. I love the pants because they remind me of Dr. Seuss (and I have a big crush on Dr. Seuss). When Jerel saw them he said "What are those, like Dr. Seuss pants?" but strangely he didn't seem to think that was a good thing...It gets better though--the pants have a little ducky on the bum! How cute is that!

As you can see, our baby boy's getting the hang of sitting up. I think he'll really like it once he's mastered it because then he can play with toys and such. As it is now he can only play when someone's playing with him and that's never as often as he wants it to be. Don't get me wrong, he gets plenty of attention, but I do have other things to do once in a while and it will only get worse as tax season progresses. Isaiah is going to end up being a tax expert because I usually read all of my work out loud to him. I try to make is sound interesting with my voice but I think he knows it's not really all that exciting.

You can see the rest of the pictures here.

Look who's getting huge!

Here's a side-by-side of Isaiah at 1 month and 6 months. He is getting so big! He had his 6-month checkup last week and he's now 18 pounds 12 ounces (compared to 8 pounds 8 ounces at birth). He's 28 inches long now (compared to 21 inches at birth) and his head is, well, I don't remember, but it's pretty big (compared to not as pretty big at birth). His weight is at the 69th percentile and his height is at the 91st percentile.

Isaiah is a big faker now--if you laugh, even if nothing's funny, he will do this fake little laugh back. It's nice to see that he is already learning to humor me. I mean, I think I'm pretty hilarious, but I understand that other people might not agree...as Jerel reminds me every time I do my gangster voice...it's so funny. I'll use my gangster voice and say to Isaiah "Hey. You...in the onesie." and it will leave you rolling on the floor laughing (or rotfl for those of you younger ones who only speak text). Anyway, when I say it, it totally sounds like I'm in the mafia, wearing a trenchcoat to hide my weapons or something and can you imagine a mafia guy talking about onesies? Jeez, I'm laughing just thinking about it. But truthfully it's not really funny at all so I'm glad Isaiah fakes laughs for me.

He is sort of sitting up now. If you start him out balanced he'll last for maybe a minute or so. Just long enough for me to think he's got it down, so I look away, and that's when he flops over onto his face. Of course it's not really all that surprising that he sits up; all he has to do is lean forward slightly so that his big belly rests on his knees and he's all set! He's a cute boy and we love him lots.

Isaiah and his Great Grandma Greene

Grandma was so excited to meet little "Charley" and I took advantage of it by giving her babysitting duties. They had a good time together, of course. They probably won't get to see each other again until the cruise this summer and by then Isaiah will be walking around and acting all grown-up, so I'm glad Grandma got to see him when he's still a little baby...well, not really little, but sort of.