Special Report: Invasion of Robot Babies
Date: July 27, 2010
Investigator: Isaac Sculimbrene (hence "The I Team")

In the past few weeks I have been noticing a suspicious amount of time my Mommy has spent downstairs. I can hear a humming noise from my crib. Being the curious kid that I am I decided to start an I Team Investigation. Over the past few days I have figured out what is going on. It first started with this reporterly skeptical look from me, Isaac:



My Mommy has another baby. A robot baby. This baby also needs to be breastfed. Here is the evidence:



Further I Team Investigation shows that this baby has an ample back up supply, as you can see here:



That being said, I think robot baby has yet to take a drop away from me. Here is the evidence, one of my chubby drumsticks called a leg:



This concludes the first I Team Investigation.

Actually, Isaac is going to try is first bottle tomorrow and as you know Bianca likes to be prepared. Wish us luck.

I was afraid of having a kid, to be honest. See I love kids, always have. But infants, well, they can be kind of boring--no talking, no walking, no playing. Lots of pooping, crying, and sleeping. Well, that of course changed when it was MY kid. But still a little interactivity would be welcome.

So Isaac responded. He has been smiling on and off for a while, but now he smiles in context appropriate ways multiple times a day. He really likes movement of any kind. He loves bouncing on my knee. He loves pommel horse. He loves when Bianca does dance party with him. And he loves when his Mommy gracefully sways with him in church, as she did yesterday.

About four days ago we found another form of movement that he likes. He and I were playing on Bianca and I's bed, which has a satin-like comforter. He was laying down and scooted him across the surface so that he could feel the texture on his little legs. When he got to the edge of the bed I stopped. And then he smiled and wiggled his little chubby drumsticks. From there it evolved to what we call "Drag Race". Here is a sample of the action:



Speaking of interactive, all three of Isaac's cousins, Little Anthony, Myles, and Colby are interacting with things in entirely different ways. Little Anthony legitimately beat me at Mario Kart. I am not as good as I was in college, where I played enough Mario Kart to qualify as a job, but I am still pretty good. Myles is starting to get to the point where he can play video games, as he assisted with the Mario Kart challenge at Poppy's birthday (HAPPY 94th Birthday!). Though I am sure many people disagree, I think video games are good for kids. Read Everything Bad is Good For You by Stephen Johnson for a cogent argument as to why. And then there was Colby. That kid is just amazing. He is talking, walking, and being perhaps the sweetest kid I have ever seen. There is no more genuine love than his love for his Momma. He loves his Dad too, but as us Dad's know, a boy and his mom have a special kind of relationship. He is so bright-eyed and never really fusses (when we are around). And most of all, he loves to "rough" or wrestle. And boy does he have a frame for doing that. If he stays on this course he will be fighting The Iceman in a decade.

Finally, an unrelated moment. We were singing Happy Birthday to Poppy and I was standing there holding Colby and Domenic was holding Isaac and I looked over and thought: this is what family is about. Being a Dad is awesome. Being a Dad of such a cool and interactive kid is awe-inspirin

Every morning around 10:30 we go for a walk in a small nature preserve/park in Fitchburg called Coggshall Park. It is easily one of the nicest places in Fitchburg to hang out. There is just enough wilderness that you get a sense of being away from things without so much wilderness as to be a pain to get to.

Anyway, Isaac, Bianca and I have been paying close attention to our animal friends during our hikes and we have seen a bunch of different kinds of animals.

On our first day there we saw an Eastern Box Turtle.

Later we saw a Common Snapping Turtle. A few days later we saw a baby Snapper.

We also saw an Eastern Ribbon Snake.

We saw geese, ducks, and four beautiful swans.

We saw a rabbit.

We also saw a tiny, and I mean tiny, toad.

We saw a bunch of fish I can't identify.

We have seen about a million chipmunks, including a pair that chased each other for about twenty minutes while we watched.

We saw an Eastern Gray Squirrel with enough red that I thought it was a Red Squirrel, until I realized they are from Eurasia only.

Last week we saw something pretty amazing. It was a turtle, but unlike the Snapper and the Box Turtle this guy had a blazing red shell. Some internet research found that it was a Northern Red-Bellied Cooter. It was so distinctive that we couldn't forget what it looked like. Further research shows that the Cooter is Endangered in Massachusetts and once lived throughout central Mass, but now is confined entirely to Plymouth County. EXCEPT WE DON'T LIVE IN PLYMOUTH COUNTY! We live in Worcester County. Looks like a comeback, thanks to good preservation efforts in Massachusetts. How cool is it that Isaac saw one of those?

Finally, and most spectacularly (though the Cooter was pretty cool), we saw a Great Blue Heron. While not endangered or even rare, this was AWESOME. It glided across the water, unfurling its 4 foot wingspan, and silently touched down on a log. Everyone was amazed.

Pretty impressive, eh?