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.