In the second installment of the Tools series, here is Isaac really getting his hands dirty doing some serious repair work on his digger beep beep:



Its funny how Isaac learned to do this.  Over Christmas break P-Pa showed him how to "work" on his beep beep and Isaac has been copying him ever since.  It started off as this small little ritual where he got the DVDs to use a jack for the beep beep and it has evolved into this elaborate thing with specific tools used for specific things. 

We think he is ready for an Indy pit crew soon. It is his impressive attention to detail that caught us off guard. He really gets in there.

I noticed a few weeks ago that Isaac loves tools.  He loves to pretend like he is sanding things or chopping up veggies.  And then I realized that both Bianca and I are tools people.  She works with tools for a living and just about everyone of my hobbies involves tools.  So when I thought about it, it wasn't too shocking that our son LOVES HIM SOME TOOLS.

In fact, around Christmas time I made him a series of wooden knives for him to use in the kitchen so when Bianca is chopping, he can chop too.  We swing the Winsdor desk chair around and he goes at it, chopping with the best of them.  In this first video in the tools series, here is Isaac showing you his perfected chopping techniques:



Stay tuned for more tools videos.

With a little guy there are lots of firsts and one of my favorite thus far has been going to the Townsend Library with him.  The Fitchburg Library is not quite as nice and has what seem to be totally random hours.  So it was Townsend. 

There is something about libraries, having worked in two over my life, that always makes me feel at home.  They have so many things and in an age when you pay for water, its staggering to realize that so many of them are free.  The folks at the Townsend Library and their endowment have made sure that everything is nice.  They have rows of computers many of them Macs.  They have incredibly deep and comfortable furniture, like a Starbucks without the snootiness.  And the kids section in Townsend is glorious.  There are giant teddy bears and toys and a train table.  There are rows of Macs for kids to use.  There is a quirky table made from a single slab of wood by a local cabinetmaker (it is simply gorgeous, here is his site).  Then there are the books and the librarian.  She unironically loves kids books and not necessarily because she is a parent.  She understood that they are like little windows in worlds. 

Isaac ran through the library being as quiet as a two and half year old can be and he delighted in the books. In the end, we took home a stack of books, including the one I read to him tonight for bedtime--the Library Lion.

It was a great little adventure.