More Santa + More bigger

For those of you who enjoyed Jonathan's Santa post, here's our other attempt, from my office Christmas party.Better luck next year, I guess. Nina tells me there's a whole book of these.

Speaking of Christmas, we also hit the Dickens Christmas Fair last weekend, for the first time since, I believe, 2004. Between the low light ambiance and the high speed toddler, we didn't get many pictures, but there are a couple at Flickr, and you can always look at other peoples'. Finn loved watching the dancing and poking a (not really) 19th century French guy's (real) hermit crab in the eye. The grownups enjoyed pumpkin pie, warm mulled beverages, and people watching. Seriously, you would not believe what kind of attire comes to mind for some people when you say "19th century Dickens' London." Many were great, but a few... well, one looked more like Strawberry Shortcake.

Anybody remember way back in February when I posted a couple photos of Finn in a chair to show how much he'd grown? Apparently I didn't either, because I haven't updated it since then. But here you go:Isn't he huge, and grown up, and cute? Similarly poor posture, though. Anyone who's math inclined and bored is welcome to figure out when I should take the next one on whatever crazy log scale my brain seems to be operating on.
More at Flickr. Probably no more videos until after our trip (which starts in less than 48 hours - yipes!)

Chicken!

Jonathan returned from the grocery store earlier this fall with a whole chicken, prompting a conversation that went something like:
Me: Uh, what's this?
Him: It's a chicken. Didn't you say you'd really like to know how to roast a chicken?
Me: Uh-huh. I'd also really like to lose 20 pounds, learn Spanish, and visit the Galapagos Islands, but I don't think any of that's going to happen this semester. [Stares.]
Him: [Puts chicken in freezer.]

The semester ended last week, and this weekend I roasted the chicken, which has been glaring accusingly at me every time I opened the freezer ever since. After a brief consultation with the internet, it wasn't that tough, and the results were mighty tasty. ARE mighty tasty, I should say - we're still working on the leftovers. And I was just so inordinately pleased with myself that I had to post a photo, so here you are.

Come visit! I'll roast you a chicken! Um. If I'm not taking nine credits at the time.

Scary (not really) Santa

If you're a naughty baby, when Santa holds you, your skin burns!

A touch of the cold

Finn's been pretty sick this week with some kind of chest cold. We decided not to bring him to daycare, so I stayed home with him Tuesday, Katie took Wednesday, and then today Katie had her usual Thursday at home. As you can see below, the illness hasn't effected his mood. We were moving too fast for the camera to know what to do!

Friday he goes back to daycare. :)

He's been talking a bit more lately. "Bow" (ball) is pretty common, and today, out of the blue, he said "nana" twice when it was banana time at breakfast. And "dada" when I was coming in to put him to bed. So maybe he's been saving this up! He still says "mamamama" sometimes, but kind of randomly. On the food front, he's been enamored with graham crackers lately. He can't get enough! We think he likes the he can hold the whole cracker in his hand and decide how big of bites to take. Plus, they're real tasty.

Who's not excited to bring their 13-month-old baby on a 4-hour plane ride? We're not! He can't sit still for 2 minutes. Ug. It looks like a totally full flight, and we don't yet have an aisle seat.

Holy crap, it's December

Where to start? Well, here are a few more things Finn can do:

• stand up in the middle of the room
• point to the right picture in a book when you ask him where the ball is. Or the banana. Or the kitty. (This is SO awesome and exciting.)
• say ball. Kind of ("baaow"). Often about a ball.
• break bottles of vanilla. Oops.

Toddlers are so much more fun and interesting than babies. They'rea also crazier, sneakier, more opinionated, and have longer memories.

I am officially done with two of my three classes, and just have mostly housekeeping-type stuff left for the third. To celebrate we went to the Los Gatos Holiday Parade. Apparently our town is quite the local Christmas destination. There's the parade, carriage rides, shopping, and Santa in the plaza - Saturdays for pets, Sundays for kids. No, seriously. The parade was NUTS. Very long, very crowded, mostly pedestrians, but also a giant meat smoker on wheels. Here's Finn when we got home.

Last night we went to Aimee Mann's 3rd Annual Christmas show, which was lovely, and at times strange and hilarious. For instance...


Voices Carry from Katie on Vimeo.

We went two years ago, and it was nice to go back, post-baby, and sit with friends this time instead of strangers.

I'm also hoping to celebrate my new freedom by watching some movies before we head back to the midwest for the holidays. In the spirit of "Holy crap, it's December" (Christmas shopping! Christmas cards! Boy needs mittens!), here is a list, not exactly in order, of my ten favorite Christmas movies.

1. Scrooged, with Bill Murray. Carol Kane is the best Ghost of Christmas Present ever. Except maybe John Krasinski in the short at the Christmas show last night.
2. Meet Me in St. Louis. Not entirely a Christmas movie, but Judy Garland singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is just so lovely.
3. Miracle on 34th Street. I know, I know, but come on! It's Christmas!
4. It's a Wonderful Life. Ditto.
5. Nightmare Before Christmas. Of course.
6. Love Actually. I am SUCH a sucker for this movie, the Colin Firth and Hugh Grant storylines in particular. And the Keira Knightley one. Okay, the whole thing.
7. Gremlins. But don't tell Jonathan; he has traumatic childhood memories of it.
8. The Bishop's Wife. Cary Grant. What else do you need to know?
9. Saturday Night Live: Christmas. Not technically a movie, but you can get it from Netflix, so I'm counting it. It's got Alec Baldwin in the Schweddy balls sketch, Eddie Murphy with Christmas in Mr. Robinson's neighborhood, and Adam Sandler singing The Hanukkah Song.
10. Die Hard. Or Lethal Weapon. Whichever one is on at the time.

And speaking of movies, here a couple quick Finn shorts, first on a slide, then on a random stage they had set up at the park, where all the kids were having a blast running all around.

Sliding from Katie on Vimeo.


There's a stage! In the park! from Katie on Vimeo.

This concludes the longest blog post ever. More photos at Flickr.

Happy Thanksgiving

Just a day late. Here's Finn in his fancy Thanksgiving duds, giving thanks for our finally completed new driveway.

As of this week, Finn can:

• clap
• walk backwards (and pull doors shut behind him - watch those fingers!)
• dance at least 3 different ways
• sleep over 10 hours at a stretch (he's done this twice)
• make us think he's saying things like "ball" and "okay" when he apparently isn't really

Also, tooth #6 has officially arrived, and he seems to be working on #7.  I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted!

Sleeping through the night?

I don't believe it! I don't be-lieve it! He made it through the night! First time ever, at age 54 weeks. We only even heard a little peep from him at 10 pm, and then at 5:40 a.m. the whining started, but since we get up at 6, this counts as making it! It'd be pretty sweet if we could assume that he'll stay asleep, so that we could go to bed at 10 often, instead of, say, 9. Also, at daycare today he napped for 1:45. Only my Mom has ever got him to sleep longer than that. He apparently wakes up calmly and looks around, rather than screaming bloody murder. Strange. So maybe we need a napping mat at home, too.

Finn was in good shape for his 1-year checkup with Dr. Lee. Finn was a little afraid of him, though. 65% weight, 55% height, and 84% head. So, he's slimming down a bit, and the height and large head are tracking about the same. Seems good to me.

When my parents were out for his birthday we made a little trek out to a neighborhood park that has swings on a couple of slides. He'd never done either one. Both were fun, but his favorite was the slide. We'd just set him up there, and he'd decide when he wanted to go down--he did the slight inching forward by himself. It was really interesting to see him make the decision (time and time again) to throw caution to the wind to throw himself down the slide. He LOVED it. It strikes me as a very different decision than, "I want to eat this," or "I'm going to walk over there." It was very cool to see.

One more photo link

Jon & Mary's pictures from their visit, including Finn's first time on a swing.

More birthday footage

#1 Thomas has posted his photos from last Saturday, like this one showcasing Finn's criminal mastermind face. There are some real winners in that set. Thanks, Thomas!#2 I may have taken the liberty of putting the rest of Laura's up over at Shutterfly so you could see them. Ahem.

#3 Here's Finn dancing to the musical birthday card he got from his Aunt Keisha, Uncle Allen, and cousins Brandon and Jacob. He's more or less demolished the card since then, but it had a good run.

Boogie wonderland from Katie on Vimeo.
I would like to point out that this isn't his usual dancing; we've never seen this Flashdance stuff before. Normally he just sits on the floor and bounces to something resembling a beat.

Birthday recap

I'm all scrambly and incoherent as the end of the semester draws near (threeweeksthreeweeksthreeweeks), so I'm mostly going to just throw some photos and videos at you. Less than ideal for those of you who like to skim this at work, but trust me, the grandmas eat it up.

Birthday (for realz)
On Thursday Finn opened some presents (video camera battery died - sorry, no video), went out for a pancake birthday lunch, and then played in the fountains in the park. Pancake photo:
Fountain video (hooray for Thomas and Amy loaning us their camera!):

Walking in the fountains from Katie on Vimeo.
He eventually went right through the middle, got thoroughly soaked, was knocked over several times, and had his diaper hanging practically around his knees. I let him go until his was clammy and starting to turn the corner from pink to purple, then dragged him off screaming to change to clean dry clothes.
More photos, of course, at Flickr.

Birthday (observed)
On Saturday we threw Finn a little party. At least, it sounded little when we planned it. But it was big enough to be one of those things where I tried to talk to everyone at least a little and ended up feeling like I hadn't gotten to talk to anybody - don' t you hate when that happens? Maybe it's just a function of our house being a succession of small cells and focusing my energies on trying to keep Finn from eating shoes. Anyway, Finn had a pretty good time once he got over the strangeness of actually having a bigger audience than he required, and, surprise surprise, he loves cake. He also likes new toys, but still requires a designated unwrapper (thank you, Helen) to get at them.

We didn't take any photos, but Thomas and Laura both did, and they have fancier cameras and better skillz than us anyway. I'll put up a link if they post them, and here's one of Laura's to tide you over. We also didn't take any video, but luckily Jonathan's cousin Colin spied our lonely video camera on the table and took some for us - yay Colin! I promised him extra cake to thank him for rendering that valuable service, but Jonathan keeps forgetting to take it to work, so... sorry, Colin. We ate all the banana by Sunday night anyway.
This means you can watch up to ten minutes of cake time - just like being there, only harder to tune out our rambling and peer around us at the cute baby. It's not really HD, but it is suitable for full-screen viewing, so it may take a bit to load.
Cake part 1 from Katie on Vimeo.

Cake part 2 from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.
I also have videos of dancing and his new monkey face, but uploading video from the video camera actually has, like, steps, so that may not happen for a few more days. Bear with us.

Oh, and we had his 1-year checkup today! So pester Jonathan to post about that. Must sleep now.

Gulp, gulp. Air? Gulp?

Oh my. Well, things have been happening. I turned 32 today. Not a particularly interesting number. Finn turned 1. Yay! He's very good at using his pointer finger to show you what he wants you to do, but he won't hold it up to indicate his age. He won't copy me when I do it, either. He continues to be a maniac. I wonder how he'll do on the plane home for Christmas. Best not think about that yet. How about Halloween? Yes! Finn and I got all the guts out of our Half Moon Bay pumpkin.

Murray was at the vet for 3 DAYS after suffering a urinary blockage. He seems to be moving things well now, but he'll likely be on prescription food forever. Which means that Mona gets to be, too. So far they hate the food, so hopefully they'll lose a few pounds. Both of them have bulked up a bit since Finn was born--they just don't get played with as much.

It was great that my parents came to town over the weekend for Finn's birthday. We had a fun party! More details on that later. Here are the oldest Fortney men across 3 generations. Only one of us has a Mr. Silly t-shirt, but I'm still looking around. I can fit into a size 4T, right? Speaking of silly, in the past day Finn has started sticking his lips way out in some sort of Mick Jagger monkey face. And he can now "dance." Katie got a short video that she'll likely post.


Word to the wise: teaching a graduate course on a subject in which you are NOT an expert is quite difficult. I think by the 4th time I teach it, it'll be good. But it's not there yet and I doubt it will be next time. I can only learn the material so fast. And when the students decide to ask questions, then it's really hit and miss. Only a few more weeks til finals.... If only Mr. Finn could learn to sleep all through the night. I mean, it's been a year, kid!

Happy Birthday, little boy

Finn is one today. A year ago we had no idea what to expect, and now we have this little guy with Jonathan's eyebrows, my cheeks, and more silliness than both of us combined. Squared. He walks. He feeds himself. He dances. He squinches up his eyes when he grins hello. And sometimes it's hard to remember what life was like before he was here. Happy birthday, Finn! We love you.

It's strange to me that things like going over to Grandma's on the weekend aren't a part of Finn's life like they were mine (at least not right now), and this one-way communication is a poor substitute for seeing family and friends that we wish we could spend more time with. But with as hectic as our lives are these days, this blog has been a way to make ourselves slow down and be in the moment during times when it would be all too easy to just focus on getting through the week. So thank you all for reading it.

My camera is broken and it's his BIRTHDAY Thursday!

Sad, sad times. For instance, Thursday we were at the park and he was running all in and out of the fountains, inching at them with his little index finger fully extended, hoping that pointing would eventually equal contact, simultaneously drawn to and afraid of the spray, freezing his little butt off, and then screaming his head off when I grabbed him to dry off and change clothes. But do you get to see that? No, you have to use your imagination, because my camera is in a box on its way to New Jersey, where they will hopefully tell me it is cheaper to repair than replace. But! before I shipped it off, Tuesday night we took thisat Alex & Laura's election night party, and a few others that are over at Flickr. Finn was excited with the rest of us when the Ohio results came in, but then he went to bed... only to be rudely awakened an hour later by the mad screams, jumping, clapping, and all around hell-breaking-looseness that occurred when CNN called the election at 8.

Also, we still have the video camera (still working on how to export as the proper aspect ratio, though). So here's a little 13-second clip from yesterday showing how matter of fact he is about walking now. Apparently he rarely sits down at school anymore.

More walking from Katie on Vimeo.
He just has so much PERSONALITY these days. I wish you all could come see. "But Katie," you say, "hasn't he always been full of personality?" Well yes. But check out what he's up to lately:

• When he gets bored in his high chair (before he reaches the stage of brushing everything onto the floor), he tries to feed us his dinner. And then giggles when we eat the piece of tomato/grape/macaroni from his grubby little hand. "For Finn," we tell him. "Daddy has his own dinner." "Whatever, eat this," he gestures.
• He walks behind the corner of his dresser, watching us slyly, and waits for us to ask "Where's Finn?" Then he'll peek around and smile, and we say "boo!" or "there he is!" and he goes back and does it again. And again. And again.
• He likes photos, and has favorites. For instance, in the Trick or Treat photo, he'll point repeatedly (and forcefully) at the smiley Finn, but never at the grumpy Finn. In our living room is a picture of me & my brother Allen from Allen's wedding, and he LOVES it. "Look, it's like Mama, but thinner and wearing makeup - pretty!"

Grandma and Grandpa Fortney are coming this weekend, and Finn gets cake - woohoo! We'll take video, and probably some stills with - gasp - Jonathan's old camera that served us perfectly adequately for Finn's first month. Anybody wanna place bets on the ratio of cake that ends up on the floor vs. in his mouth?

A few pleas

1. Finn and the cats, please get on board with daylight savings time. I realize I may have been getting spoiled lately, but the other drivers on my commute would really appreciate it if I got more than 5-6 hours of sleep a night.

2. Please go out and vote today if you haven't already.

• On the off chance that you're both a) persuadable and b) reading this while you still have time to go vote, I urge you to vote for Obama. The Economist and Colin Powell say it more calmly, thoroughly, and persuasively than I could. If you're already an Obama supporter, don't get lazy. Get your butt out there. Lines may be long - take a book or a video game or some knitting or something.
  
• If you live in California, please vote no on Proposition 8. Voting yes writes discrimination into our state constitution. Voting no does absolutely nothing - the law tomorrow will be the same as it was yesterday. It does not tax churches. It does not make schools teach kids about marriage.

3. Send your thoughts, hopes, prayers - whatever you've got - to my little nephew Jacob. He's not having a good week. Please get well soon, buddy. [UPDATE - Allen called me this morning. Jacob started eating during the night and will likely be discharged today. Yay!]

Finn's a dinosaur!

Maybe Yoshi. Maybe Godzilla.He seemed to like the costume, at least this part. The giant dino-feet slippers were a big no since he learned to walk, and the hat is EVIL GET IT OFF. We were going to get some full-outfit pics anyway, but it was pretty grey out this weekend, and my camera is... ill. No flash photos for us for a while. If you don't mind turning your head sideways, here's a movie. I know we have software to rotate it somewhere, but I figured you'd rather watch it this year.

Sideways Finnzilla from Katie on Vimeo.

And here's me and Jonathan as Mario and Luigi on Friday night. Yay babysitters!

We saw 3 other Marios at the party, but no other Luigis. Did you know that when you buy overalls on Amazon (at least in late September), it helpfully tells you that other customers purchasing overalls also bought red newsboy caps, white gloves, and fake mustaches? So we weren't too surprised that there were others.
I showed up at day care in the costume and Finn was absolutely terrified. Then I took off the mustache, and he looked at his teacher, and back at me, and grinned. "That's my mama! Did you know she was here? What a clever ruse." He also consented to wear my hat for nearly five minutes.
HIS hat, not so much, and now he's thinking about declaring war on his hair. It just will not come off, but he hasn't gotten too upset about it yet, and only yanks at it a couple times a day when he re-discovers that it's up there.

More at Flickr.

Happy Halloween!

No costume pictures yet, but these should tide you over. Not a bad likeness, I think.

Also, this is post #100! Woohoo!

Walking is old hat now

Here's a video of Finn walking last night. And then falling. As you can see, he's SO much better than he was a week and a half ago. Yesterday when I went to day care to pick him up, he was outside in the yard with the big kids!

Walking's so easy. Until you fall. from Katie on Vimeo.

Note: we don't usually laugh when he falls. I think. He was fine, at least once we gave him his pot-banging spoon.

Then he went and looked at his books and ignored us for a while.

Also, he's decided he really likes pasta with carmelized onions and gorgonzola, among other things (oatmeal. grapes. bread bread pancakes bread.). And we're getting a new dishwasher this week (Finn broke the door off of the old one), and a new drier (not his fault), and just got a new kitchen faucet (ditto). AND they claim the driveway will be finished this week.

It's been a big week for videos. Below is Finn eating bread (and trying to eat leaves) in the park. I've also got him tormenting Murray and eating a lemon (not sour, apparently - disappointingly anticlimactic).

Eating bread and leaves from Katie on Vimeo.

The next post should be Halloween photos, but since he hates hats so much, I'm not sure how that'll go. Stay tuned!

All grown up, with someplace to go

Well, Katie brought home the forms from daycare on Friday. What forms? The transitioning from the infant room to the toddler room forms! My baby, a toddler? I think not! We just had him! I guess 1-year is the standard transition time, but since he's walking around a bit, and could potentially step on (or has stepped on) the other babies, he's gotta go!

This means: He has to be able to feed all of his food to himself. For Finn, this means 100% finger foods and no spoons. So, goodbye baby food. Also, no more sleeping in the crib at daycare! AND, only 1 nap per day, instead of two. There is a 90 minute block of "quiet time" for napping, on a mat, with a blanket. I have a feeling that this will be comical. He often naps for only 30 minutes, and I can't see him being quiet on a mat for the other 60. Especially because he starts yelling early in the wake up process and takes quite a while to calm down. There is a month of transition time; at first he'll only spend 1/4 of the day with the toddlers, then 1/2, etc. It's a brave new world.

In other news, he's still a maniac. He likes he new pumpkin and enjoys (occasionally) chewing on the stem. I cut the gross parts off the stem. Since the weather is getting marginally colder, he's wearing cutie long-sleeve shirts, and now he's also got several pairs of pants. The diaper changes are a bit more challenging.

His new-found walking ability has coincided with better sleeping at night. He's been waking up only once, between 3 and 5 a.m. I think a no-waking night is certainly possible.

I really missed him when I was out of town a couple weeks back, practically for the whole week. It's much better to be home.

Walking! Well, some steps. Steps!

It's been a big week around here, kids. I think this calls for subheadings.

The Walking
Finn's been more and more excited about being vertical lately - to the detriment of his health, even. The boy looks like we carry him around in a sack full of bricks, and they had to call me twice from day care Wednesday with "ouch reports." But he's making progress, and here he is yesterday shortly after he apparently took about 7 steps before falling over. I say "apparently" because I didn't witness it myself, but Jonathan was there, and Grandma and Grandpa Fortney were watching via Skype.

Steps! from Katie on Vimeo.

The Insanity
Jonathan is back in town to stay, as of Friday night. Until November 6. And except for spending the night at work tomorrow night for remote observing. Sigh. Here's a sampling of some of what we've had going on while he was away and since he's been back.

1. Finn may have had pink eye. (He's fine.)
2. Murray got an emergency middle-of-the-night trip to the vet. (He's also fine. And expensive.)
3. I had a paper due yesterday. (I'm fine.)
4. We think the house we're renting has termites.
5. Finn now has long sleeved shirts AND pants, which is good, since it's October.
6. We still have no driveway, although there are some paving stones out there in spots. The guys working on the driveway are very nice, and Finn likes the boss's dog.

Here's what hasn't been going on: laundry, cleaning generally, seeing and talking to most of our family and friends (Hi! We're still here! Somewhere. I think.), and just about everything else that doesn't kind of make itself obnoxiously necessary. And yet, we still made time for the pumpkin festival.

The Pumpkin Festival
We've gone to the Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival for the past 3 or 4 years now, and we weren't going to let a little thing like our LIVES get in the way of that. So Saturday morning we threw Finn in the car when he was ready for his morning nap and headed over the mountains. First stop, Arata Pumpkin Farm and their awesome straw maze. Here's Finn, resting his weary head near the end of the maze.

After that we let him play in the pumpkins, corn, and straw, and pick one out to take home. He's a pumpkin fan.

Then we headed to the pumpkin fest. Better than last year: we did manage to meet up with the Smiths. Not better than last year: Jonathan was unable to get in on the pie eating contest! It's a great deal, because slices of pie are $5, but you get a whole one for $1 if you stick your face in it for the contest. Alas, it was too crowded this year and Jonathan didn't get a spot. Or any pie. He says he can make it until Thanksgiving, or until I have time to make one, whichever comes first. I'm betting on Thanksgiving.

MANY, many pumpkin photos at Flickr.
Oh god, I almost forgot. Watch this, from Thursday:


Finn LOVES the fountain! from Katie on Vimeo.
Sorry about the sideways-ness at the beginning. Jonathan likes to shoot in portrait. But check out the facial expression at about 0:10.

Surviving the weekend alone with our Destructo

Have we mentioned lately that Finn's a maniac? He is. We've officially upgraded him from "imp" to "fiend."So I was a little worried when Jonathan left for his most recent trip. When he was in Berne I usually ended up eating dinner around 9, about 2 hours after Finn went to bed, and it was always cold because I kept thinking of One More Thing I had to do, urgently, before I could eat it. That was back when you could still turn your back on him. Now his playpen is apparently cruel and unusual punishment, and if you set him down in the middle of the floor he will pick the one thing in the room that, if you had half an hour to think about, you would least want him to touch, and go stick that in his mouth (we've been doing a lot of trash can relocation lately).

The upshot: I haven't been getting any dishes washed or food cooked while he's awake, so I decided I just wasn't going to do any at all while Jonathan was gone. Poof! Frozen burritos, takeout Chinese (thanks, Margaret!), here we go. I was much more pleased with myself last time, and I do feel guilty about the leeks and peppers languishing in the fridge, but my feet, back, and blood pressure are thanking me, and I've been getting some homework done.

Also for Jonathan-less sanity, this weekend we just focused on playing rather than on getting things done. We checked out the Children's Discovery Museum in San Jose on Saturday. They have an area that's just for kids under 4, and within that, a room for "infants and crawlers." There are carpeted ramps and stairs, a fake fish tank, and a little cube with a cushion floor and mirror walls. It was definitely worth the price of my admission - Finn's was free! Here he is digging the mirror box:

More photos from our weekend at Flickr. Videos of squirting Finn in the face are on Jonathan's computer and will hopefully be posted later in the week.

Out to Brunch

Since Finn's bedtime routine starts at 6:30, and he can be a little cranky starting at 5:30 or 6, it is pretty difficult for the three of us to go out to dinner. But he's quite good in the mornings, so last weekend we went out to brunch at the "original" Pancake House in Los Altos. I got a giant apple pancake while Katie got coconut. Finn enjoyed both, as you can see:

Brunch! from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.
Don't worry--we'd cleaned the table thoroughly. His general method to ensure the food goes from his hand to his mouth is to make sure 2-4 fingers get shoved into his gaping mouth along with the food. It usually works.

Finn likes to get around the house and get into stuff. His favorite is the broiler in the kitchen. I kid you not. He loves doors, and the metal, creaking, broiler door is fun to pull open, and then it pulls itself shut! He's never pinched his fingers (in the broiler, at least!) so as long as the oven's not on.... He also will help in opening boxes, etc. Basically, he's in the "destructo" phase, as defined by the Sports Gal here. See 2/3 of the way down on that page. Here is a nice picture of Finn looking grown up, while getting into something.

I'm sorry my post frequency has dropped off. It is all I can do to keep up with teaching this quarter. It is a LOT of work.

Ummm....

Just happened upon the upper photo at Brett Marty's awesome gallery of photos from the campaign trail. Is our boy destined for greatness?

We were sick; he's taking over

Last Monday night Jonathan had a wicked vomity stomach thing. Tuesday night I got it. Wednesday night he left town for two days. And this weekend I had things due in all three (yes, three. yes, that's too many) of my classes. So last week was a tiny slice of hell in some ways. Fortunately, Finn is generally good for a bit of distraction. You can really see the wheels turning in his chubby little brain these days.

• We are currently without a driveway. There have been jackhammers outside our house on and off for a while now (did I mention about the hell?). Friday morning we left the house to go to work and day care and there was some kind of compact excavator in our car's usual spot in the driveway. Finn looks at me. Looks at the machine. Looks at me. "No, Finn, we're not taking that to school." Then he cried when I put him in his car seat, but when I said "Don't you want to go to school and see Ms. Carly? and Ms. Lourdes? and Ms. Graciela?" he started smiling. He likes the ladies.
  
• You cannot eat bread in his presence unless you're going to give him half. He will scream. He will attack, and topple you, and claim the bounty for his own. See?
• He likes to lay on things that are soft and squishy, like our mattress. He rolls around on 'em and giggles. Last weekend he pulled his fluffy blanket off of his toy chest, threw it on the ground, and flopped down on it face first, making a noise like "hmmmmm." Then he did it about six more times. By the time I went and got the camera, he was getting kind of bored, but you get the idea.

Soft! from Katie on Vimeo.

I have high hopes that Flickr will be updated this week, and that Jonathan will post soon about Sunday's brunch and/or other things. Keep your fingers crossed for us.

BratWest photo

Jonathan went to his first Bratfest nine (eight?) years ago; Finn went to his yesterday. He seemed to enjoy his brat bits, and cheese bits, and kraut bits (no beer for him!). I was a slacker and failed to take any photos, but Jonathan took this one:
I thought I'd throw it up here 'cause his post looks kinda sparse. I'm having another of my JustABitOverwhelmedThanks weeks, so that's all you get from me today. That and that I just ordered Finn's Halloween costume today...

Blerg

I've given two lectures for my graduate stellar evolution class. The first one went pretty well, but I think I blew them away on day two. Too much material, and too much math, in a short time. Back to the drawing board!

Finn is very much how Katie described in the last post. Crawling like a madman, cruising from chair to couch to wall. Yesterday we went over to Ross and Rachel's for BratWest, and Finn couldn't get enough of Helen, who is almost 4. He doesn't know how to "play" with her, but he smiles and squeaks and crawls after her. He tries to grab her and succeeded in nomming on her leg. Helen, in return, did not step on him, although there were a few close calls. :)

OK, time to plan Wednesday's lecture!

Talking?

This week we think Finn's finally starting to get the whole sounds-have-meaning thing. He's definitely referring to me sometimes when he says "mama" (or more often, "mamamamama"). Of course sometimes he's talking to/about me when he says "ahbama" (maybe he knows how I'm planning on voting in November) or growls, and sometimes he says "mama" about cheese. But SOMETIMES, "mama" = me. And "kitty" is something like "dih," which is a different vowel sound than he uses for most of his babbling, and last night he was working on something like "daddy."

So that's super awesome and fun. No footage yet, but I'm sure it'll happen. In the meantime, here's a crawling video and one from the SUPER fun time he had in the pool on Saturday when we went to celebrate Caitlin getting her cast off. BONUS VIDEO: dim footage of gross spit up, using Murray as a crutch, and the always fun sport of door-swinging. Woo!

Now we're in trouble from Katie on Vimeo.


Splish splash from Katie on Vimeo.

For those of you who aren't into the video thing or can't watch them at work, here are some stills. More at Flickr.

Crawling, for realz

Just a quick one: Finn's officially ten months old now; he has five teeth; and he can crawl on his hands and knees. Like a real baby. Last night he went about 15 feet that way before deciding to flip over and park on his butt.

We went to a midwestern-hot-dish themed party this weekend. I failed to take any pictures, but Dave took a bunch. My favorite is this one, where Finn looks like he's about to impart some very sobering life lessons to Jonathan.

Here he is in a less serious mood:

Videos of standing and making noises

For those of you who wanted more than percentiles, Finn's stats from his last checkup, when he was 9 1/2 months old, are: weight, 21 lbs 11.8 oz; height, 28.5 inches; head circumference, 47 cm. Why that last one's in metric, I have no idea.

Our doctor asked whether Finn was pulling himself up to stand yet, and I said "yeeees, he HAS pulled himself up." He'd first done it nearly a month earlier, but now, as Jonathan mentioned, he does it constantly. He's also good at sitting himself up from a lying down position, and spinning around, and scooting, and standing on his hands and knees, and cruising. Last week he'd been standing, sitting, standing, sitting, standing, over and over again, so I went to get the camera, and got this instead:


Standing and being goofy from Katie on Vimeo.

It's a good example of his "omygod this is the coolest thing ever" face that usually accompanies the Darth Vader breathing that he does about light bulb packaging, pieces of bread, and other extraordinary objects. I've watched it about a hundred times so far. This one, from a few minutes later, actually shows him pulling himself up:

Standing, squeaking, and growling from Katie on Vimeo.

It's also got him shrieking and a bit of him making his weird growly noise. He growls A LOT. We're always expecting him to bust out with "THERE IS NO BABY ONLY ZUUL." Is this normal?

Bonus video - putting the balls in the ball drop toy:

Showing off for Mama from Katie on Vimeo.
I don't really have any new photos - just some cabbage and my cubicle at my internship. Maybe next week?

Back from Bern, See More Chubs

Apparently Finn sleeps better when I'm home. Why that might be is not clear. Maybe I wear him out more, and he enjoys the peace of mind (not piece of mind) of having daddy at home. We're still not at "no wakeups," but a few nights recently his only wakeup was at 3 to 4 a.m. Of course, he woke up for the day at 5:45.

Bern, Switzerland, was . . . pleasant. A nice and pretty town, but not one of the jewels of Europe. It is on a river. It's old town is famously nearly unchanged since the 1300s. Below is the tallest building in town--a church. I went up about 2/3 of the way and got some nice shots.

The best part of the church were the fantastic stained glass windows. The sun came out when I was inside, and I got some great shots. This one below is my favorite.

Finn is pretty much a little maniac now. He can pull himself up on anything, sit back down, and do it again and again. He can move from chair to chair, and move across small gaps. A chubby little Spiderman? His excited noises range from loud squeals to loud Darth Vader breathing. He's trying to give up the army crawl for real crawling now, too. Also, his 5th tooth is coming in, so drooling is at its highest levels in 6 months. Katie brought him to his 9 month checkup recently. 48% height, 62% weight, 84% head circumference. Big noggin!

Is it Friday yet?

Yes, we’re still here. How’s it going, you ask? Well, here’s a snapshot from last night:

6:15 pm: Finn has finished the sweet potatoes he refused to eat at school (yay!) and is cheerfully dissolving a teething biscuit and spreading it around his high chair and his face while I wash dishes so he has clean bottles for day care the next day. We laugh and sing songs.

6:30 pm: I’m in the bathroom, cleaning up a puddle of cat pee (the first in weeks! argh!) that I discovered while I went to run Finn’s bath, and he’s screaming his head off in his room because I’m not there, and I realize I’ve forgotten to give him fluoride drops AGAIN, because that’s something Jonathan usually does.

6:45 pm: Finn’s in his bath, splashing ecstatically, and I pour another cup of water over his head. He splutters and giggles.

It’s like that, multiplied by all the hours and all the days of the week. We have our ups and downs. Our days are full. I’m a walking advertisement for Multitasking Gone Wrong – I can always think of at least 6 things I need to be doing, and am never able finish any one thing before getting distracted by another. I’ve discovered that although he’s in this phase right now where he cries if there’s not a parent in the room, Mona is apparently an acceptable substitute. So that’s nice.

But all the absolutely necessary things are getting done, and a few not-so-necessary ones (I made ice cream!). Saturday we went to the park; Sunday we went to Ross and Rachel’s, where Finn had a blast in Helen’s kiddie pool; and Monday we went to Jessica and Daren’s to eat tasty food and play with Caitlin’s toys, and I took my only picture of the week.

We had Finn’s 9-month checkup yesterday, but that’ll have to be another post. Like, after Jonathan gets back, which happens … the day after tomorrow!

Week in Bern, Switzerland

Hi, I'm in Bern! I'm here for a small meeting on planetary magnetism. Bern is the administrative home of Switzerland, which I think is the same as the capital. :) It is a very pretty town--the "old city" is basically unchanged since the 1300s, or so. Here is its famous clock:

photo by Márcio Cabral de Moura via Flickr
I haven't seen the moving puppets and stuff at the top of the hour. I'll keep looking.

The most amusing thing that has happened to me so far is when I hopped off the plane in Zurich. I hadn't actually realized that Switzerland does NOT use the Euro, but uses Swiss Francs. Long story short, I converted from dollars to francs to euros to francs, which means I lost about 30% of the value in fees. Ouch!

It's been hard to be away from Finn--this is my longest time away from home. But we Skyped yesterday, and we'll do it again tomorrow. He definitely got excited seeing my face on the monitor, and he liked it when I talked to him and made funny faces.

Back home backlog and privacy "issues"

Another good thing about being home is that I got see some of the old gang, or at least those that are left in town. We had a little get-together at my parents' house the night before we left town. Dave and Aleta's daughter Clara was there, who is now just past a year old. So was Zoe Schnell, but Sarah and Evan (her parents) weren't there. Anne and Dan brought her, but it was never properly explained to me where Evan was, while Zoe said that Sarah was in Kansas(!).



My brother Justin and his wife Becky live on 5 acres in western Wisconsin. I won't even tell you how many bedrooms the place has. Many. They have cute little Jamie, Finn's cousin, who is 2 (and sassy). Oh and they also have chickens.



One of the most fun, and surely the most annoying, events was when Finn, my mom, and I went to the YMCA outdoor swimming pool! Finn had never been in a pool. After some initial hesitation (too hungry to swim) he loved loved loved it, and splashed all around, and he liked looking at all the other kids. Certainly sounds like an afternoon that you'd like to catch on film, right? WRONG! Cameras and video recorders are not allowed at the YMCA pool. Why would that possibly be? As explained to us by our young lifeguard, there are "privacy issues" involving those that may not want to get their picture taken. Probably worries about who is taking pictures of kids is wrapped up in that.

Another issue tied to paranoia is that the kiddie pool has "safety breaks" every 30 minutes (maybe?) where everyone has to get out of the pool and sit and do nothing for 5-10 minutes. Wha? Another lifeguard told us that this gives the kids a chance to take a break if they need it, to make sure no one gets exhausted and into a dangerous situation. My mom and I have never rolled our eyes harder. It also encourages you to get bored and go home. Together with Finn not having the "proper" swimming diaper cover, the annoyances left a really bad taste in my mouth, from a place that I loved growing up and have probably visited 500 times. And then later in the week Katie and I read an article about "free play." Apparently it is not possible for kids to go out and play anymore. Who knows what might happen!? Activities are structured or parent supervised. Nor can kids walk to school by themselves anymore. Every day on my way to campus I see armies of parents walking their perfectly capable kids to school. Is this a trap that Katie and I will fall into? My God, I hope not. Will we be parental outcasts if we don't know where Finn is every second of every day? Maybe all kids will be under constant GPS parental monitoring by the time Finn starts school. At the pool, my mom did manage to get this picture, once we got inside. Amazing how privacy issues can change so dramatically on either side of a glass door.

We're back!

Finn starts his first week of four-days-a-week daycare this week, instead of two. He doesn't know yet, and I'm curious to see how much he notices the change. I just started my new semester, had a one-hour online class session tonight, have my internship all day tomorrow, and have a four-hour in-person session once a month. It's going to be an interesting fall, and Jonathan leaves for Switzerland Saturday morning. Whee!

Hey, anybody have Labor Day plans? 'Cause Finn and I don't.

Here's my new favorite picture of Finn, who decided the other day that the spray bottle I use for cat discipline and pie-crust-making is the awesomest thing ever. He thought it was hilarious when Jonathan squirted him in the tummy and hair. He also seems to think it's delicious. He drinks out of his sippy cup much better if there's a little juice in the water, but apparently high velocity also improves the water's flavor.
He's gotten much faster at scooting than he was pre-vacation, so we're finally doing that whole baby-proofing thing, starting with Finn's room. Yes, it took us this long. We needed the storage space, I guess.

He's also getting reasonably good at cruising, and I wouldn't be shocked if he was walking by 10 months. I also wouldn't be shocked if he wasn't. He's getting more adept at pushing himself up on short objects, like suitcases. Tonight he tried to use his high chair, but we didn't have the brakes on at first. Ooops. He likes to lean against the glass sliding door in his room, too - and lick it while he stands there. Good times.

Favorite new toy: the music/motor piece of his mobile, which hasn't been on the crib in months. It looks more or less like a hockey puck with a little knob and small plastic hook, and when I wind it up to the play the Winnie the Pooh song, he holds on to it with both hands like it's a little treasure, and shakes it and smiles at the music.

Favorite new habit: when he's nursing, especially if he's tired, he's taken to either stroking his luxurious locks or pulling on his ear. This is both cuter and less painful than the old practice of digging his tiny little thumbnail into the space between wrist tendons and wiggling it, so I'm a fan.

More pictures at Flickr, and Jonathan should have some up sometime this week, too.

Family Ties

As you might imagine, Finn was a big hit all across the midwest. Below is Finn with my mom's mom, great grandma Dolores. We only had a few hours together because she flew to CA for a family wedding.

I like this pic below of Finn on the farm. One thing that I really wish we had at our place is a yard! (We have a little yard, but it is all our landlord's plants--no grass--so it doesn't really count.)


Now we're working towards getting back to real life, which is pretty difficult. It's tough to go from being with family and the back-home friends to getting back into life in far off California. Don't get me wrong--we like it out here a lot--but being so far away from "home" is the toughest part.

Katie is at the first day of her fall internship at the Stanford law library. Finn's daycare is closed for training today and tomorrow, so I'll be home with the little man back-to-back days! So I guess Daddy Fridays aren't over just yet. I have a TON to do before I leave for Switzerland a week from Saturday (for a conference) so next week I'll be working nearly round-the-clock, maybe. I'll try to get a few things done this week too, but the house is, ah, messy, so that needs my immediate attention.

Flying monkeys

Some highlights of the trip so far:

Last Friday: Flying with 9-month-old Finn is both better and worse than flying with 6-month-old Finn. He's more alert, so he's easier to distract and entertain, but our plan of taking off shortly before his bedtime so he'd sleep on the plane was kind of a washout. Anytime he was close to falling asleep the captain would come blaring over the intercom with something helpful like "Look, Montana." Finn squirmed all over the place and spent most of the flight watching Drillbit Taylor on 15A's laptop while peeking his head in between 15A and 15B. This activity was curtailed once he decided he wanted to check out what 15A's hair felt like and the guy noticed he was there.

Last Saturday: Breakfast with Finn's Great Grandma Dolores, followed by a 3-hour drive down to Iowa.  Everything was green and gorgeous, but it got kind of hard to enjoy it once Finn woke up and wanted OUT.  Saturday night - BBQ at the farm!  I had rhubarb custard pie.  Best line of the night award goes to two-year-old Wesley K., whose middle name is apparently Fearless: "I'm gonna pet a cow."  1300 lb animals, not exactly cuddly looking, but pet one he did.  

Last Sunday: Iowa State Fair!  I forgot to eat anything on a stick, but we did have cinnamon rolls, cheese curds, smoothies, and a bite of my uncle Kevin's deep fried Snickers.  We got up at about 5:30 to make the 3-hour drive, thinking that since Finn wouldn't get up until about 8:00 under normal circumstances, he'd sleep the whole way down.  So much for that plan.  He did sleep the whole way home after what was apparently the funnest bath ever.  Playing with super-entertaining cousins (once removed) Ashley and Haley really wore him out. 

Monday: Mom watched Finn in the afternoon and Jonathan and I went to see Wall-E.  Whee!  Finn got to play with some of my old toys, go for rides on the Gator and apparently ate some pie, so he had fun too.

Tuesday: Lunch at Waterloo's premiere destination eatery (featuring a spray-painted tribute to the Sistine Chapel ceiling), followed by visits from Ben (who drove over from Waverly) and Nick and Kory (who drove up from Des Moines).  This was not Finn's favorite day since there were no cousins to watch or Gators to ride, and he got a little whiny, but Jonathan and I had a good time.

Wednesday: We spent the afternoon with my brother Allen and his wife Keisha and their boys, then went out to dinner with more Bennett family.  We tried to get a nice picture of Allen with his cousins Brandon and Jacob, but... well... they're little.  Later, back at the farm, my mom's cat made the last of her several dozen attempts to whap me in the head with her paw from the landing as I made my way up the stairs to bed.  She missed again, but it was unsettling every time.

Thursday: Drove back up to Minnesota.  Still pretty, still harder to enjoy once Mr. Finn woke up and started yelling about wanting out of the car.  After we put Finn to bed Thursday night, we went to ANOTHER movie (Tropic Thunder, FYI, which was Totally. Freaking. Hilarious.).  Yay us!

Friday: Jonathan's brother Justin, his wife Becky, and their daughter Jamie came over to Jonathan's parents' and we all had a nice dinner, featuring steaks Mom and Dan sent up with us from the farm.  Finn got to play outside on the swing set and loved watching Jamie run around.  Then during Finn's bath Jonathan decided he needed to get a better angle for trying to wash Finn's face by swinging his foot over to the other side of the tub and KICKED ME IN THE HEAD hard enough to break teeth off of my hair clip.  Good times.

Saturday: Wait, that's yesterday, right?  What did we do yesterday? Justin, Becky, and Jamie came over again.  There was lasagna.  Somehow the more recent days are the most fuzzy.  I think we ran some errands.  Finn stood for something like 10 seconds unassisted.  Also, he had a teething biscuit.

Sunday, today: We went over to Justin and Becky's place for dinner - chickens they raised themselves, which Becky can't bring herself to eat, but the rest of us enjoyed immensely.  

Two days from now we'll be home.  Huh.

Oodles of pictures on Flickr, with more to come, like the ones featuring Miss Jamie Lou.

Two Top Tooths

On the top of Finn's mouth he's got some big teeth dropping in. One is a little ahead of the other, but you can already tell that, um, he's going to have a pretty big gap between them.

The picture above we took last night while Katie was nomming on his tummy. The soft underbaby (2nd chin) is in full view, too. I had thought for awhile that it was shrinking, but now I'm not so sure.

We're leaving for Minnesota and Iowa in a few short hours. I think we're packed, but I have to load up all the bags, Finn, and his Finn's various goodies before we drive to Katie's work to pick her up on the way to the airport. We're flying at night, so hopefully Finn will want to sleep a lot on the plane. He're hoping! To those in the midwest, see you soon!


I thought that this was a fun one from Ikea. One thing about babies is that you can make them do silly things, cuz they're just little. Finn's amount of "stuff" is expanding so we got him shelves and bins for all of it.

We have forward motion!

I wouldn't call it crawling, more like scooting. But it works. When he remembers he can do it. Footage:

Scooting from Katie on Vimeo.

At first he mostly just seemed to think of it as an extra stretch, and was just as likely to give up as he was to scoot. But apparently this morning he crossed six feet of rug to go for Jonathan's shoes, so there you go. The house will never be the same again. First order of business after we get back from vacation is child-proofing, or else we're going to be wrestling a lot of dusty old Nintendo controllers out of his hands.

I was going to get this up on Thursday, when it happened, but I think our craziness level is slightly higher than usual right now. We leave for 10 days in Minnesota and Iowa on Friday (here we come, family, friends, and Iowa State Fair!). Friends are moving out of town. Out-of-town friends are visiting. Finals have arrived for the summer class that I'm taking. And I'm worried about Murray.

You may already have heard or gathered that although Finn loves the cats, it's not exactly mutual. Recently I've had to start facing the fact that although Murray's been part of our family for four years, he really hasn't been very happy since we brought Finn home, and that he might actually be better off without us. We've tried extra affection, drugs, sprays, diffusers... everything we can think of. If you know of any childless homes that might need a really loving, snuggly kitty, let me know, and we'll talk. When Jonathan took him to the vet recently, he jumped right up on the table in the exam room to meet her and give her a sniff, and she said that had never happened in all her years of practicing; he's a special guy. [okay, stopping the crying now].

In happier news, Finn continues to excel at standing up, loves his new xylophone, babbles more (and more strangely) all the time, and ate Cheerios yesterday for the first time. Eating Cheerios is really hard work if the look on his face was any indication. He wouldn't put any in his own mouth, but kept opening up for Jonathan to give him another. It was very "I have people for that."

I'm overdue for updating Flickr, and will try to get it done before we leave town. Did I mention the crazy?