Isaac has been, since his earliest days, a kid that likes to do whatever it is that he is currently doing.  We call him inertia kid, because, like Isaac Newton's First law of motion states, once he is doing something he wants to keep doing that thing.  It has made getting ready for things early in the morning, like school or soccer, very hard to do. 

Recently we were running a few minutes behind schedule and I was cajoling Isaac to go to karate when I told him "Isaac I feel like I spend 20% of my life saying 'Let's Go!'"  Without missing a beat he snapped back at me: "Dad, I feel like I spend 20% of my life rolling my eyes at you!" 

Bam...I lost an argument, in pretty decisive fashion to my quite witty five year old. 

One of my friends, Dotty, told me that when she puts her boys down for the night it is a lot like confession.  Those moments at the end of the day when they are tired and cuddly are so precious.  All of the energy is gone, they are much quieter, and they just say what is on their mind.  As I have taken over Isaac's night time ritual, I have come to love this part of the day, the reward even the worst of days at work. 

On Saturday Isaac asked me a question that really took me back.  I was speechless for a few minutes.  He asked me, with no preface whatsoever:

Is it hard to be a father?

There has never been a question I have been asked that is more difficult to answer than that one.  On one hand I want to convey to him the sheer exhilaration of being a Dad, the thrill of seeing them open up the world and understand things, the delight of watching them discover and figure things out.  But I also want him to know that being a Dad is not easy, that I make mistakes and that I don't always have the answers to important things even I can remember, off the top of my head, what the largest scorpion is.  I want him to know how much we try to get it right for him.

So I told him the truth--that it was my favorite job, but by far the most difficult.  We talked a lot about what it meant, but in the end words falter.  Being a Dad is the most singular experience a man can have and there is no way to convey that to someone until you see the twinkle of recognition that can only come with experience.  P-Pa had it on the day Isaac was born.  I will have it when Isaac's son is born. 

So Ethan's gibber jabbering has gotten more complex and advanced and over break some of us think that he is finally using language (associating a single sound with a single object).  Of course, if you have a big brother as awesome as I-man, the chances are high that his name will be your first real word.  I was able to capture it on video and here is what we have:


What do you think? Word or jibberish or something in between? Bianca, she is a scientist and so she is naturally skeptical. She thinks he is saying (or trying to say) "Isaac" but that he has yet to link that word to I-man. He is probably just repeating a commonly heard word. Or so her "theory" goes. I am more of a believer. This sounds like Isaac and he is using in context appropriate places.