I know I said I was going to make him a jumpsuit, too, but it just didn’t happen. So, the day before Halloween I spent some time with some foil broiler pans and a pie tin and two sets of LED Christmas lights and some glow sticks and a whole lotta duct tape and made a robot costume.

I worked around Isaac’s quirks – you’ll notice there is no hat at all, and my hope for the tape stripes on his pants was that he would focus his need to pick at things on those and leave the main body of the costume alone. I faux-laminated the pieced paper dial on the front of the costume (yay clear contact paper) so he couldn’t mess with it. Overall, he did great, though; he was delighted with the costume and didn’t start picking bits of it off until the very end of the night.

Isaac loved trick-or-treating, and would have done so all night. He has also discovered that he loves candy with a capital L-O-V-E and would like to eat nothing but candy from now on. That’s not going to happen.

Some things I learned from this project:

1. LED lights are in fact quite bright. There are 40 lights on there and you could see him from down the block. He never tried to bolt, but if he had, at least I would have had no problem finding him.
2. Do. Not. design a costume for Isaac that has to go on over the head. He refused to put it on until I sliced one of the straps and put him on it sideways. Fortunately the straps were made of duct tape so this was no big deal.
3. 6 AA batteries are heavy enough to make the front of the costume pitch forward; I should have shortened the straps to compensate.

In other happy Isaac news, he’s making fantastic progress with his new friend The Potty. He has also just had a growth spurt and can now reach many things he couldn’t reach before, with sometimes hilarious and sometimes frustrating/panic-inducing results. It’s never dull, anyway.

Here’s a brief photo retrospective:

Two days old (mom provided for scale)

Enthroned as bunny overlord, 6 months

One year

2 years

3 years

FOUR!

What follows is a lot of gushing, and the ironic/snarky side of me is crawling into a corner and crying at the sincerity. Because we went to Disneyland and it was, dammit, magical.

The drive down was smooth; this was also the first car trip over two hours for Isaac so we didn’t know what to expect, but he was happy to look out the window and watch the trucks. At one point, we saw three semi trailers each hauling two other brand new trailers piggyback. They were bright and shiny and someone had clearly arranged them for maximum attractiveness; one set was all shades of blue, one was blues and greens, and one was red-orange-yellow. A few hours later, we stopped at a rest stop along I-5 and the trucks were there! I walked Isaac over to get a better look, and one of the drivers offered to let him climb in and honk the horn! He was so excited.

I’m pretty sure we could have just gone home at that point and Isaac would have considered it an excellent trip, but we drove on and got to Disneyland Sunday evening. We were staying at the Disneyland Hotel. The Disneyland Hotel is in the middle of some pretty major renovations, including ripping out one of the pool areas. So the internets are full of terrifying stories about the hell that is the Wonder Tower, with its construction and detours. Guess where our room was.

I figured as long as we were going to be dealing with construction, Isaac might as well get to watch it. So I asked if there were any rooms with a really good view of the action. Some calls were made to a mysterious back room to check on the week’s work, and we got our keys. We didn’t really appreciate the awesomeness until the next morning – we were in a second-floor room overlooking a big field of dirt populated by excavators and front loaders and a thing that ripped rebar out of the ground. They were just getting started when we left for the morning, but when we came back to the room not only were all the machines going, there were GUYS on HARNESSES with POWER TOOLS working on an overhang just under our window. Isaac was beyond thrilled. So that was our daily pattern – parks in the morning, a few hours back at the hotel to recharge and watch The Construction Show and swim in the (other) pool, and then back over to the parks.

We spent five days in the parks, split pretty evenly between the Magic Kingdom and the California Adventure side. He loved the rides, but I think his favorite thing was the Pixar parade, which featured very clever floats and gymnasts and alien cheerleaders and, at the very end, Mater and Lightning McQueen. The last two were also available for photo ops during the day, and Isaac was so excited to go right up to Mater’s teeth. Having so much time meant that we could go at Isaac’s pace and take a lot of breaks without feeling pressured to keep going going going.

The costumed characters were non-thrilling for him; he doesn’t really know Micky and Minnie or the other classic Disney characters. We saw Pluto in ToonTown and Isaac said, “Dog!” but ran right by him to see something more interesting. He was momentarily excited to see Buzz Lightyear later, but was content to view him from a distance. To him, Disney pretty much equals Pixar. Weird. Sorry, Walt.

One of the things we’ve been looking at lately is Isaac’s sensory diet, and how to help him get the sensory input he craves. The good news is, I now know how much sensory input Isaac needs for optimal functioning. The bad news is, it’s Disneyland. Kidding. But almost all of his sensation-seeking behaviors stopped while we were there, which was interesting. He talked a lot, too, and was super-affectionate with us. Some of that was probably just from having time to focus on Isaac Isaac Isaac without all the distractions of normal life, but I think that ramping up his sensory input will do him some good.

So, anyway…amazing trip, and we’ll go back as soon as we can.

Isaac’s vocabulary corner: his favorite phrase is THE END, which not only means the end of a story, it also can be used to comment on or demand the end of any situation. Daddy picks Isaac up at Grandma’s? The End! We check out at Target? The End! Finished the popcorn? The End! Seriously, it’s freaking adorable.

THE END!

I’m starting early because I am making two costumes, one for Dennis and one for Isaac, both Elvis jumpsuits. I made the husband a gold twill and sequin one about six years ago and it has gotten a surprising amount of use. But it is starting to look a little tired.

This one is going to be less tailored/constructed than the gold one, since a) the pattern I used for the last one is out of print and is stupid-expensive on ebay; and b) the gold one is too bulky to go into a carry-on which means it can’t go on away missions, like the cruise he’s going on next year. I have a more quick-sew-ish pattern that will be adequate to the task.

The main fabric is a black microsuede with black foil sequin dots. It’s sparkly but subtle, and it will pack well. I’m thinking of underlining it but probably won’t because I’m lazy. The leg godets and cape lining are that knit foil dot crap that I always regret buying after the fifth or sixth broken needle, in silver. I decided to do black and silver since he already has the gold one.

I’m thinking I’ll use my embroidery machine to make some silver appliques. I’m also getting a crapton of nailheads and hotfix crystals because it’s just not shiny enough yet.

To get ready for this project, I’ve been revamping my bedroom/sewing room, and trying to get all of my creative debris organized. With mixed results, of course; I thought I’d knock the whole thing out in a couple of days and it’s been a week and things are still in the exploded-out stage and not in the packed-in stage. Sigh. I have a lot of craft supplies.

Isaac will be an adorable Mini-Me with his dad in their matching costumes. I suspect he’ll think he’s Vinny from Between the Lions, the guy who sings about upper and lower case letters. I’m cool with that.

Isaac has had a little over a week of school, and it’s great so far. It only took him a few days to stop crying at dropoff; now he runs into the classroom and dives right in. Yesssss!

This is a typical view of Isaac. You can almost hear us yelling, get back here! wait! can't you?

<random cuteness>
Isaac has developed a taste for popcorn, and I think pOPcoor! may be the cutest thing he says right now. He has such a sweet little voice. Part of the appeal of popcorn for him is that preparation includes a thrilling 90-second episode of The Microwave Show. He likes to watch the timer count down. Seriously, using the microwave is an Event at our house.

Six Million Dollar Man: Elves Revolt
Vinyl Record, 1978

According to The Bionic Wiki, who may or may not be the definitive voice on this topic, the plot of Elves’ Revolt is:

Steve discovers that Santa’s elves are in a labor dispute with their boss. Complaining of low wages and bad working condiions, they go on strike. Their “picket line” is literally formed by a terrorist elf named Ramat, whose scheme to bring Santa to the bargaining table involves melting the polar ice cap. Getting a report from the National Weather Service that the ice cap is melting at a rate of 1°/hour, Steve and Oscar rush to the North Pole to see if there’s anything they can do to reverse the process. If not, the majority the northern hemisphere will be covered in water by Christmas. However, they are soon captured by Ramat and can do little more than talk to their fellow captive, Santa Claus, about his union problems. In the end, the foreman of the elves comes to his senses and orders his men to stop Ramat. When they do so, they are able to diffuse all the heating elements Ramat had emplaced, and the two sides of the labor dispute reconcile.

My immediate responses:

1. I vaguely recall rewriting Christmas carols to include references to The Bionic Woman, so if I’d known this record existed in 1978, I would have jumped on it with both feet. In slow motion. While making ch-ch-ch-ch-ch noises.
2. I’m renaming my blog Terrorist Elf. At least in my mind.
3. Wow. This exists.
4. I know the 70s sucked, but were we really so ready to embrace Santa as Shitty Boss? Take this job and shove a candy cane in it.

I have downloaded an mp3 of the record, and will listen to it as soon as I stop being afraid.

Isaac will turn 4 in two months. He knows all of the age-appropriate stuff – numbers, letters, shapes, colors – cold. He can also identify various kinds of trucks. We’re still mostly getting one word at a time, with a few two-word combinations, but the chatter is pretty steady. He loves to sing, too.

Isaac really, really loves his wading pool.

Socially, we’re seeing lots of improvement; he will sometimes acknowledge people who speak to him, and he recently started really noticing other kids. He likes to wave to other children in carts at Target, and will sometimes check out what other kids at the park are doing. The big excitement is that he’s starting to imitate other kids, which is a key social skill. He still has a long way to go, but we’re thrilled with the progress.

He’s over the 10th percentile in both weight and height now, and he has grown a few inches this summer, based on the length of the pants I put on him yesterday. He’s all arms and legs right now, and so busy. Mostly he’s still a very happy little guy, although he gets frustrated more easily and there are fairly frequent meltdowns. It’s hard to be three, and even harder when you can’t always make people understand what you want to say. Yesterday he was pointing at his stack of videos and exclaiming 25! 25! and I was trying to figure out what he wanted to watch. It turned out that his Sesame Street DVD has – wait for it – a small 25th anniversary logo on it. Of course. 25.

The thing about Isaac is, he is FUN. Sure he can be maddening but he’s just so happy to be alive. He’s a verb, an interjection, and a big ball of awesome.

Isaac on the beach in Half Moon Bay. Yes, the leash demeans us both, but he has no concept of danger so on it goes.

NO!
Giiiiit down from there!
Leave it alone!
That’s not for Isaac!
GENTLE with the kitty!
I see you!
STOP!
That’s the kitty’s food!
NO!!
Dude, reaaaaallly?

on some kind of infinite loop. Maybe not replaced. But I could probably get some knitting done while the MomBot3000 handled things.

I hate myself so much for writing that last bit of unoriginal drivel just now.

GAAAAAH momblogging.

A few months after we brought Isaac home I got a snotty email from someone chastising me for only writing about Isaac Isaac Isaac* and I vowed to knock that shit off and find more stuff to write about. Eh fuck it, I’m a mommyblogger. Insert joke about cocktails in sippy cups here.

*which, first off fuck you very much sorry to be all non-entertaining with my preemie baby drama, and also…no, just fuck you very much. really.

Look how far down on the page I got without saying fuck!

Everything else update: still employed, still married to awesome spouse of awesome, still in same house, still got weird cats.