Updates

Here's a random assortment of updates:

• The laptop is still out of order. We just got a new hard drive (more than 150 gigabytes!), but we haven't done anything with it yet -- I promise my blogging and photo-posting will become more frequent once it's installed. And the operating system is re-installed. And the software is re-installed. And so forth.

• The last tooth finally came in. Isaac had been cutting his lower right canine for what seemed like six weeks. Yes, its emergence slightly more than two weeks ago corresponds with his consistently sleeping through the night. Could it really have been something as fundamental as teething that was waking him up at night for the past year? If so, I hope his two-year molars are slow to arrive.

• Declarations of love have been made. "Good dog Walt," Isaac says. "Good boy. Pat him." He pats Walt vigorously. "Love him." He climbs into Walt's bed and lays his head on him. This is sweet (even though Walt doesn't really want to be hugged by Isaac), especially because Isaac came up with it on his own -- I don't think that I've ever said, "I love Walt." Even though Walt gets most of the love, Isaac has also said "Love Mama" and "Love milk," and once I even heard him say "Love books." Craig's time is yet to come.

• Language moves at light speed. It's so fast I can't even hope to keep track. Isaac now uses several verb forms. Take the word drive, for example. When he hears a car going past our house, he says, "Somebody driving by," but when he wants to take an imaginary trip to his grandparents', he says, "Pretend drive Opa-Oma house." He doesn't have a past tense, though -- he'll add the word "yesterday" if something happened in the past.

• Pronouns continue to perplex him. Sometimes he avoids them -- we may not like the action recounted by the statement "Isaac knock book out Mama hand," but at least it's clear who did what to whom. Sometimes his intent is clear anyway -- when Isaac wants Craig to carry him up the hill behind our house, he says, "Daddy take you up big hill." Sometimes his intent is baffling -- especially when he's trying to answer a poorly worded question like "Do you want to close the door, or should I?"

• A potty has been purchased. Or, as Isaac says with dignity, a "little toilet." The first night he peed in it, on purpose. The next day he refused to sit on it, even with his clothes on. How fleeting is success.