Standing and smashing and reading and sleeping

Hey, look at Finn!
Tuesday (and part of today) the only way he was happy was standing, so the only way I could get anything done was to get out his play pen and prop him up. Then he stood while I did dishes, until he fell over, and then he'd play for a while, until he got bored, and then I'd have to stand him up again.

Speaking of playing, for the most part Finn interacts with his toys one way: smashing! Smashing them into the floor, his lap, or his favorite, another toy. It's best if this makes a good noise, like smashing a maraca into a tambourine, or a rattle into ... something hard. Like my head.

There's also chewing, but mostly it's all smash around here these days. A few things escape the smash. First there's a balloon Jonathan bought him a few days ago ("he promised me he'd be really good all week if I bought it for him") - too floaty. But he did do the smashing motion with the balloon string, and there's a two-minute video of that and him demonstrating how he doesn't know how to crawl yet at Vimeo if you want to watch it.

The other non-smasher (usually) is his books. He LOVES fun textures, like the thick corduroy of our couch or the fuzzy throw pillow that's on it, so he loves his That's Not My Monster book (thanks Jessica, Daren, and Caitlin!). He'll paw studiously at its pages ("Its paws are too bumpy" "Its eyebrows are too hairy") for surprisingly long stretches of time. So of course we bought him That's Not My Dragon, but so far have resisted the temptation to get That's Not My Robot, That's Not My Monkey, or any of the other Touchy Feely titles. Now he feels the pages of all his books, and seems mildly confused and disappointed when they're just flat.

You may have already noticed, but the crib cam linked over on the right is now the living room rug cam. Finn's usually there at least a little while every morning and evening, and doing more interesting things than sleeping. If we forget to turn it off, you may see Murray or Mona wander by. Did I mention they both may have urinary tract infections? Yeah, so that's fun.

Oooh, and our other exciting news: we managed to go to the Beyer/Mastrapas' last night for dinner and a gathering of out-of-town friends and put Finn to bed in his play pen. This was a first for us (the previous attempt was a giant FAIL), and may open up all sorts of exciting possibilities. Not that I mind staying home for dinner usually - I'm actually kind of a decent cook these days. You should stop by sometime. :)