Isaac...

...is seven and a half months old.
...has been introduced to solids. They have fallen in love and plan on running away together.

...crosses his legs at his ankles when he is relaxed.
...still loves a bath.

...needs a lot of baths.

...always kicks his legs when riding in his umbrella stroller.
...rarely keeps his shoes on for long. It doesn't stop me from trying.
...has "unacquired" a taste for Enfamil Gentelease formula, switched to regular formula, and now he farts like a Howitzer.
...likes to clap, mostly for himself.
...jabbers, mostly incoherently, although he says "ba-ba", "da-da", and "ma-ma" a lot. He's not referring to me, but I'll take it.

...has a lower voice than his brother. And his dad.
...laughs like Beavis and/or Butthead when he's doing something he's not supposed to.

...almost always has his tongue out.
...chews on stuff.

...loves to sing and dance and play the guitar and the drums.
...is as sweet as he appears in pictures.

...isn't crawling yet, but still gets around.
...is extremely ticklish, especially on his back and under his second chin.
...is very tolerant of his brother's antics.

...is insanely, disgustingly, melt-your-face cute.
...does, in fact, get grumpy on occasion. At least a couple of times a week.

Pre-Christmas '10

Back to Christmas. We went to Peoria for Christmas this year (more on that eventually...) so we had pre-Christmas Christmas at our house with the Evanses the week before Christmas. At Christmas time. Did I mention it was Christmas?

While Isaac had a little breakfast with Poppa, Alex helped Grammy sort out the presents that Santa had left under the tree.

Isaac jumped right into the present-opening, and with a little help from Big Brother, he unwrapped all kinds of fun, new toys.

With a little help from Murphy Pup, Alex also opened lots of fun, new toys.

It appears that both boys avoided the naughty list this year, which doesn't surprise me about Isaac. Alex, on the other hand...looks like Santa let a few things slide. Whatever the case, both boys scored big time.

The grandparents didn't score quite as much, but I did make Grammy a scrapbook of her grandkids, my very first scrapbooking experience, which I enjoyed very much. I think Grammy enjoyed her scrapbook very much, too.

Timothy also got us all tickets to watch the Arkansas game from the TK suite at the American Airlines Center. The boys had a good time watching the game for a while, then found other things to do.

And that pretty much wrapped up our first Christmas celebration of '10. A week later, we packed everybody up and hopped a plane to Peoria, which I hope to post about soon. Ho ho ho!

Po' little ole Evans child

As mentioned, Isaac is now the proud owner and wearer of a fabulously stylish and flattering DOC Band. He has been wearing it for 3 days now and has been doing great.

He got used to it right away and it doesn't seem to bother him at all. In fact, the only time he seems to notice it is when he's tired and tries to rub on his head and finds a big hunk of plastic instead. At that point, he usually tries to tug it down over his face, only to discover that wherever the helmet goes, his head goes, too.

He wears it for 23 hours a day, the one hour break being bath time and helmet-cleaning time. We can only clean it with rubbing alcohol because the inside is porous and will absorb water and soap, which can irritate his baby skin. We also take it off for his neck-stretching exercises throughout the day, but he basically has it on all of the time. He sleeps fine in it, which is a huge relief, and it hasn't bothered his skin at all, aside from making his head sweat profusely.

We had to pick Alex up from school after Isaac got his helmet on Wednesday, and it felt a little weird to take him out in public the first time with his new "accessory". But it turns out that everyone knows someone who's kid had to wear a helmet, so that helped soften the blow to my ego. And the people who weren't familiar with it were nice enough to ask questions, which was much less awkward than if no one had mentioned the big, white elephant in the room. You know, the one on my kid's head?

Speaking of the big, white thing on my kid's head...I plan to do something to make it appear a little less big and a little less white, but I have no idea what. I'm sort of overwhelmed by the possibilities. The frontrunner at this point is to cover it with decals and logos and leave a big space on the back with the words, "Your ad here". Then maybe that sucker can pay for itself.