Isaac attends the Goddard School. He is in the infant room and close to the median age. He is, however, the most recent addition to the infant room. When he arrived there were some kids that could walk and some that were so little, around 6 weeks, that could do nothing by sit in their little peapod chairs. It was kind of funny. The immobile kids have come to be known as the blobs. It is not meant to be offensive. We called Isaac that when he was immobile. But the mobile kids, they want to play and so to protect the blobs, the mobiles are blocked by vigilant teachers and a series of barriers created by tables, chairs, and gates.

Isaac has always hung with the mobiles, in large part because he has been able to sit up on his own since his arrival. But now he is truly mobile. In fact, one night last week Bianca arrived to find Isaac rolling from one end of the room to the other. He liked it so much that he didn't stop even though his best girl had arrived. Life with the mobiles is a bit more survival of the fittest though. They can steal toys from each other and that has created very powerful hands in Isaac and an equally powerful set of lungs should something be taken away from him.

It is a little like Darwin's finches in preschool: the mobiles rule the roost and reap the bounty of their freedom by pillaging toys from the blobs.

Whew...things move at a brisk pace when your the parent of a nine month old.

One day you have a scraggly haired hippy kid:



And a few hours later you have a little Marine wearing a high and tight:



Isaac did great at the hair cut place, Snip-Its. It was really bright and loud inside, but the lady that cut his hair did an amazing job. The whole thing took mere minutes. Here it is, Isaac Anthony's first hair cut:



Three minutes and fifty eight seconds to be exact. Isaac did great, as you can see. He did not cry once and didn't really move around all that much. I thought Momma Bear would take it hard, but she likes the cleaner cut look better, so she was even happy.

When we got home Isaac wanted to show us his genuine mobility. It is not fast and is primarily based on him using his giant noggin to lean in one direction and then the rest of his body flops over, following the weight of the chrome dome. But he is moving and moving towards things he wants. Here is a sample:



And finally, a behind the scenes video. Just in case you thought it was all shining smiles when we snap pictures, this video shows that there is actually a lot of effort that goes into getting his attention and holding it long enough to snap a few shots:



There could be no clearly look that says: "PFFT! I am bored with you Dad."

There is also a bunch of new pictures including ones in the "messy face" series. Here is one particularly good shot:



And so it goes, constant flux...maybe Heraclitus was writing parenting books.

Today is officially the day we have known Isaac longer than we knew Peanut. Bianca showed up and had something in her hand. I didn't realize what it was at first and I stared at it. And then my face melted from an expression of focused confusion to one of pure joy. It took me a second, as I was decompressing from work. After a minute I realized what it was (a pregnancy test) and what it meant and I went crazy. We ran upstairs and took another test and it was positive as well. And though gestation is 40 weeks, the traditional rule of 9 months means that today, one day after his 9 month birthday, we have known him longer out of the womb than in it. And it is great. For over 18 months the focus of my life has been Bianca and Isaac and I have never been happier.