Isaac's Update

Yes, it's been way too long since I wrote Danielle's and Jeremiah's updates.

Here's what Isaac has to say: Hmmm...go to grandma's house or...do something!

That was brief. Isaac turned 5 a few weeks ago, and we had a clown party for him. When his preschool class did the "Jobs" unit, he drew a picture of being a clown when he grows up. Personally I thought it was a better choice than being the president of the United States. So we had clown ice cream cones and a game of pin the nose on the clown and things to dress up as a clown like face paint and big bow ties...and I didn't take into account that these are Isaac's friends who are very shy. One of his friends participated in the games...nobody wanted to dress up like a clown...only one of his friends didn't want ice cream (how is this possible!?!). It was a fun party and Isaac enjoyed having all his friends and family there. When I asked him which of his friends he wanted to invite, he started naming them: "My friend Hannah, and my friend Mary, and my friend Daniel and my other friend James," until he named all of his aunts and uncles nearby and a few friends from school (with prompting). So that's who he invited. (His aunts and uncles participated in the clown games, just not his friends from school. In case I needed to clarify.)

Isaac currently likes to sing. He carries a melody pretty well. Sometimes he'll sing the real words to a song. When he gets to choose a "bedtime song," he's invariably chosen "Thomas the tank engine loves his friends," which the makers of Thomas the Tank Engine certainly don't know, and the words change periodically, with the same theme line of "Thomas the Tank Engine loves his friends" and then some hard thing that Thoms has to do because of his friends... I guess it may be genetic... One of his grandpas always sings wonderfully made up songs as well. :)

Isaac likes to read, and reads himself books. He memorizes them, and recites them to himself, with wonderful inflection and voices for characters. He also likes to play the piano (sort of like he sings "Thomas the Tank Engine loves his Friends") and write letters to people. He continues to amaze and frustrate us with his computer literacy, and often shows me how to play complicated video games at grandma's house. He laughs and laughs and laughs, and everyone around him must laugh when he does. It really isn't optional--his laugh is so infectious! He has a wonderful imagination and is extremely creative. We signed him up for art classes this summer, and last time he was given three long strips of paper...he pasted them together and scrounged for some strips of cardboard and made a dragon, complete with a whale in it's stomach.

John took Isaac to see WALL-E last week, and since they went, almost every day Isaac's wanted to see a movie at 4. We haven't gone back yet. Isaac's almost finished with his 20 hours of summer reading, and I'm trying to figure out if we can do it again. He has had so much fun with the reading and with the prizes--we went bowling (he was sad because he didn't win--Mary did, and she really used the bumpers to figure out the best angle to throw the ball down...literally...seriously...not by accident), had a scoop of ice cream, a personal size pizza, a lunch buffet. Isaac is always very sad when he doesn't win or get his way (we're working on that one). He's very sweet. His teachers in Primary and preschool just say that he's the sweetest boy and always kind to the other children, and chooses the "good kids" for his friends.