Introducing...

So the biggest piece of news since this blog was last alive in 2008 is that we now have another Dalton with us.  Isaac En-Lin Dalton, born December 26, 2009 at 2:26 a.m.  He missed Christmas Day by a few hours; nevertheless, the specter of Christmas and all its outlandish commercialism and uninhibited present-giving will remain over his little head for the rest of his life.


And little is no joke.  Our little buddy was born at 6 lbs, 9 oz., and 20 inches long.  Compared to Evie who was 8 lbs and 5 oz., he was like a little peanut when he was born.  No worries, Isaac has caught up.  It's astounding how quickly he is growing.

Here are some choice pics of his journey of living through these past 3 months.

Evie adores Isaac, and I think the feeling is mutual.  Here they are together when he was around 3 weeks old.  She is great as a big sister--very helpful and wonderful at distracting him when he is all-out wailing and I have to do the last-minute xyz thing to help us get out of the house.  He likes her, too.  She barely has to do anything to elicit grins and laughter out of him.

When he was six weeks, we had to take him to Children's Hospital to get checked out.  Turned out he had bronchiolitis and it hit the poor baby pretty hard.  Here he is in his baby-sized hospital gown.  He was never admitted, but we had to stay there for a few hours just for observation and lots of good advice.  When we got out of the hospital, there was already 3 inches of snow on the ground.  The next day we were buried in snow, marking the first of many major snowstorms to hit Philly.

Despite being housebound for two and a half months due to all the sicknesses that kept inflicting our household (via Evie's daycare and who knows where else) and being snowed in, he was a trooper and such a happy baby.  Here is waking up and cooing for Tim.

And he has grown a LOT.  He eats well and so much, and is an EXCELLENT sleeper (God, you heard my prayer.  THANK YOU.).  He is also a content baby, and this probably has to do with the fact that he already knows how to self-soothe by sucking on anything and everything.  He likes to suck on his hands, and found them rather quickly.  He will suck on your shirt, your fingers, his fingers, his shirt, anything he can get his hands on.  But a pacifier?  No way.  If you try to stick one in his mouth, he gets upset, as if you offended him by offering him breast-shaped plastic that is supposed to fake him out.  Maybe that is also why he is not such a fan of the bottle at the present moment.

Whenever anyone asks me who I think Isaac looks like--me or Tim--I will jokingly respond, "He looks like Evie."  Because he sooooo does look like Evie's baby twin!  I need to dig up Evie's baby pics to compare, but it is really amazing.  However, he is also really different than Evie as well.  Evie has a constantly moving mind, and you can practically see the wheels of her mind turning at high speed, all the time.  Even when she is not talking and staring off into space, you can still hear her little mental motors humming.  However, this boy has a spirit of an old soul.  You can already tell he is contemplative, and he flows like slow water--smoothly moving, absorbing every little thing.

When he was first born and I received him in my arms, he was crying in distress, as all babies are distressed after such a traumatic experience.  However, I was so struck by him because he only cried for a minute, and then stopped.  I watched him looking over my shoulder, slowly looking around him, then looking at me, and you could see the expression on his face was one of wonder and contemplation as he took all of us in.

I really cannot wait to discover more about this baby boy as his personality continues to be come out.  God, you truly do create miracles.  Thank you for the gift of Isaac.