Look, he got bigger!

A friend recently recommended the practice of taking regular pictures next to the same giant stuffed animal. Then she added "I should have told you that a couple months ago, huh?" Never fear, we may not have giant stuffed animals, but we have a big chair. And a medium sized stuffed animal for future scale reference.

Look how chubby he is now! Doesn't he look so different?! I wish you could see his skinny little legs in the first picture. You can see his hair, though, and that's falling out.


On the subject of growth and change, I've recently admitted I made a judgment error on the diaper front. We're giving up on the Happy Heinys - we realized we were using them last, and basically planning on a change of clothes after putting him one, due to the inevitable moisture wicking. So now we have a ton of Bum Geniuses, and all is well. We'll pull the HHs out again when he's bigger and give them another try, but right now with them folded down to be the smaller size, the fleece sticks out a LOT, and we blame that for the wicking. Or maybe not. But we LOVE the Bum Geniuses, and have picked up quite a few on sale, and think they're going to see us through. No leaking, even overnight, and they're holding up great after the first couple months with washing every couple days.

Everyone keep your fingers crossed for me - Jonathan's leaving town for two nights starting tomorrow, and Finn and I will be on our own for our longest stretch yet. I don't know how single parents, or friends of ours in couples where one spouse leaves town a lot, do it. I've already talked Gwen into coming over to keep us company Thursday night when I have an online class meeting. Partly I'm nervous, mostly I'm jealous of how he's going to get an uninterrupted night's sleep. And then another one. And then another one next week when he goes to New Mexico. And then Hawaii.
Did I mention I'm jealous?

Daddy Day

A good thing about Finn getting older is that you can start to play games with him now. His favorite is of course having a blanket thrown over him so that he can kick his way out. Another is "dress up like Mother Teresa time." I'm kidding of course, but I like this pic.


Finn has been spending more and more time in his high chair, which he likes because then he's not nearly as close to the ground as usual. We got it from a big bunch of my high school friends. Thanks! (That will serve as your thank you note, because I'm not sending out 10 for one present. I'm a bad person.) Today Finn was good, and we used the high chair, the bouncy chair, and the swing. I bet I got 3 hours of work done, which ties a record.

His hair is starting to fall out a bit now, which means he's looking more like me, even if his face is starting to look more like Katie's.

Finn has a cold, but he doesn't let that keep him from having a good time.

Finn's caught his first cold. It's mostly just a throat/sinusy-sounding-thing- no fever, hardly any runny nose, and it doesn't seem to bother him too much most of the time. He has been sleeping more (though not as soundly) and eating well. He just gets cranky a little more often, for which I can't blame him, since it must suck to not be able to control when you cough or sneeze, and then to add insult to injury we keep sticking stuff up his nose.
It was officially more than normal baby snortiness as of about Saturday, so we started running the humidifier and having him sleep at an incline then (well, actually, he sleeps in an inclined position most of the time, so we were a step ahead on that one). The cough and congestion got a little bit worse every day over Presidents' Day weekend, and we weren't sure how long these things were supposed to last, so we called the doctors' office yesterday. They said that it sounded like a basic cold, but since he was so little, we could go ahead and come in and they'd squeeze him in to check on things. Dr. Lee confirmed that his lungs sounded fine, much to our relief, and there really wasn't anything to do but keep an eye on him and wait it out. So that's what we're doing.
But - as a bonus of making the trip to the office, we have more official weight data: 15 pounds, 13.something ounces. Big Finn!
In other news, Finn is officially ticklish. Here's proof:


The best and biggest giggles, of course, we never have the camera handy for. For instance, just now he was getting cranky while I was writing this, so I danced and sang a bit to the Cake song that's playing on the stereo, and he thought that was hilarious.
To be fair, it probably was.

Three Months Old

Hi everybody, and happy Valentine's Day!
Finn turned 3 months old yesterday. He celebrated by going through all the bottles he took to daycare by ONE IN THE AFTERNOON, so I had to leave work early to go get him. We send him with four, and for the first month he would go through 3 of them by the time I picked him up at 4:15. I'm hoping this is just a temporary thing, because if he keeps eating more in a day than I can pump while I'm away from him, we're going to have to start supplementing with formula or something, which would be a pain.
Today Finn went to his first movie. It was *not* good, but we weren't expecting it to be, and the walk downtown was nice. Finn wore his Cyclones cap to keep the sun out of his eyes while he rode in the carrier, and as usual, stared wide-eyed at everything we walked by. He still hasn't figured out that he should turn his head when the sun's in his eyes, so the hat's very handy.
I don't have any new pictures today, but if you like cute babies, new arrival Colden has a blog with tons of photos that you can check out instead.

Finn's house & kitty

Hey! You should come visit!

But if you can't, you can pretend, and tour the house via this little video. Well, kind of little. We kept it to about 2 minutes. Please feel free to turn down (or preferably, off) my rambling audio commentary.

And for our Flickr photo for today, here's Finn considering his plan to someday make the cats his minions:

Skype + "We're buddies"

One of the things that we like to do to keep in contact with the Midwest families is to video chat on Skype. Then Finn's grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins can see how he's doing, and vice versa. Last weekend we chatted mostly with Grandma Sheryl and Cousin Brandon. Something about Brandon's giant head looming over Finn makes me think of Bladerunner.



This video shows how fun and interactive Finn is getting!

Super baby!

We Fortneys had a Super Sunday! First, we cleaned, which always makes it feel like a weekend. Then we took some pictures of Finn in his shiny new super suit (Thanks Teri!). Then I hit Safeway for snacks. Man, it was a mob scene. We'd talked about just going ahead and doing our grocery shopping, which would have been... a mistake. I left the boys at home and ran to Safeway by myself instead, carefully keeping my snack items and guacamole ingredients to under 10 for express lane access. The tortilla chip and taquito sections were totally decimated, and they were having a "buy 2 get 3 free" special on 12 packs of Coke and Pepsi that was surprisingly popular. It reminded me of the day back in high school when I worked at County Market on the day before Thanksgiving. But a different sort of national holiday.

Then Josh, Jason and Gwen came over bearing pie, ribs, and cookies, respectively, and we all gorged ourselves and watched some football. I missed the exciting bits of the fourth quarter for a diaper change, but that's okay. A good time was had by all, including Finn, who kept his eyes glued to the screen when he wasn't out cold or playing in his bouncy chair. Speaking of the bouncy chair, here he is in it last night, having a grand old time:


Today we're home for Finn-and-Mommy Tuesdays. So far we've voted, washed dishes, done laundry, and updated Flickr, and it's only 11:30! Hopefully we'll also get some homework done, but with the rain finally letting up, we may be naughty and go for another walk instead.

Tummy Times!

Tonight Katie has been working hard on her homework for a class for her Masters of Library and Information Science. Finn and I have been playing, bouncing, and "talking." We're trying to give him a good amount of tummy time so that his neck gets stronger. It helps if he gets propped up a little bit. If he's right on the ground he often ends up face down squealing for help. So he liked this pillow. Sometimes it helps if he can see the TV. Pretty moving light box!



I got a few pics of him smiling, but they turned out blurry, as he was bobbing around a bit. Notice the extra pillows around for when he rolls off.... "Daddy Friday" yesterday went very well. I think it was his best day ever! I even put him into the Ergo baby carrier and we took a half-hour walk in the woodsy park near our house. Yay Finn!