Over the past week or so, Finn has decided that if he is standing somewhere, and feels something behind him, that he can just go ahead and sit on it without looking. Sometimes it is a lap, if we're sitting behind him. Great! Sometimes it is a pile of folded laundry. OK. And one time it was his friend Arthur Beyer, who is big for a 9-month-old, but still. Arthur got sat on, but he's so good-natured I'm not sure it made an impression.
Also, Finn's sleeping has been very strange the last few days. Very short naps in the daytime (45 min or less, total), and then last night he was awake most of the time between 2:30-6 a.m. Yep.
I feel like I haven't been posting as much this month, and I was trying to think of what you guys needed to know - like what Finn's doing now that he wasn't doing a month ago. The answer is, not much. He's been walking for ages, he's eating the same things, playing with most of the same toys, and still doesn't say much (lately we get a lot of "dah!" (dog!) when we're out on walks).
But I don't think we've mentioned how much better he's sleeping than he did 2 or 3 months ago. Generally we put him down at 7 don't go back in there until 6, and often don't hear more than the occasional short whine in between. Last night's another story, but we'll ignore that for now. Fortunately, those nights are the exception rather than the rule now, so if we have a bad night, we have sleep reserves to fall back on and aren't zombies the next day. The next projects are to get him to sleep (or at least play quietly) until 6:30 instead of 5:30, and to improve his terrible napping skills.
The other change I've noticed lately is that he's started to test some limits, try to figure out what he can get away with, and how often we really mean "no." He'll pause in the middle of doing something he's not supposed to and give us a look, kinda like this one:
Then he throws the toy, or steps on the broiler, or whatever he's thinking about doing, and waits to see what we're going to do about it. Fun times, and just a taste of what's to come, I'm sure.
Finn is a big boy now, 14 months. Almost ready to leave for college. He likes to do his own thing. Like last week, when I decided that I would check my email and let him amuse himself without my watchful eye. After perhaps a few minutes too long, I realized that things were a little too quiet. I found him in the kitchen. He'd opened a drawer and checked its contents. It happened to be the plastic bags/foil/wax paper drawer. Apparently most of these things were not interesting enough, and he'd carefully (maybe) put them into a little pile, until he found the box of sandwich bags. Much like a pop-up Kleenex box, removing a baggie only led to another! I walked in to find him grabbing the 2nd-to-last bag, and grabbed the camera. His face shows that this was just a normal day at the office.
He likes to make loud noises. This video is great. He also really likes to look at LCD screens.
Apparently blogging, like flossing, is a habit I've lost. I'll try to regain both of them. For now, here are some videos, and a quick story from the "we're such great parents" chronicles. Finn sometimes will go to his high chair to let us know he's hungry, especially when we ask him if he wants something to eat. Apparently that wasn't getting our attention last night (I think we were reading about US Airways 1549), so he went to the kitchen, got into the cupboard, found some old baby food, and came into the living room and handed it to me. Pureed green beans, which I swear he's refused for months, so I didn't even know we had them. He ended up finishing that container and getting halfway through another. He's been sick this week, but I guess his appetite is officially back now.
And now the videos, from oldest to newest. They span a whole month, and I think you can see a big difference in his walking. The second and fifth ones are the giggliest. Dancing to Christmas music I'm sure everyone who has a child and a video camera is familiar with this problem, but we usually remember to get the camera out after he's been doing something for a while, right before he gets bored. Then the movie tends to be more of us trying to convince him to do it again. This is us trying to capture some of him rocking out to Christmas music last month.
Feliz Navidad from Katie on Vimeo. Just Before Bedtime Punchiness Finn and Jonathan being silly, with a sample at the end of his scary old man cough.
Back and forth, with giggling from Katie on Vimeo. Christmasy Hijinks Here's Finn playing with his cousin Jamie's tunnel, after we all attacked our presents, with a bonus shot of Deja at the beginning.
Tunnel from Katie on Vimeo. I Have Serious Popping Responsibilities Here, People This is towards the end of his solid half hour of popping last week.
Popping from Katie on Vimeo. Where's Finn? Here he is playing in his curtains, an almost daily occurrence, with a bit of investigating the video camera (with its flip around viewing screen) at the end.
Playing in the curtains from Katie on Vimeo. Belly! One night he got so filthy during dinner, in spite of his bib, that we just stripped him when we took him out of his high chair. I think soup was involved. It was reasonably warm, and bath time wasn't too far off. Lately when his shirt gets hiked up or taken off, he likes to play with his belly, but this is another one where we should have gotten the camera out a few minutes earlier. In the beginning when Jonathan's laughing at him, apparently he was investigating and pinching his belly button very thoroughly.
Hi all. I haven't posted for over THREE WEEKS. Sorry about that. Remember how we were out of town? Yeah, and then we had visitors, and had to run all around with them (had to. Uh huh.), and play board games and stuff. So... hi!
Visitors - Ben & Martha came to visit us for New Year's, and then stayed to help us do the first week of the year in style. We don't see them nearly enough, and having them puttering around the house and the kitchen long enough that we actually kinda got used to having them around was really nice. Mostly we cooked and ate and played board games (wow, do we ever need some new Cranium clay) and watched football, but we also took a few short trips.
Saturday we went to Santa Cruz, to Natural Bridges, checked out some tide pools, and saw a bonus gopher.
Sunday was the farmers market. And football. Monday we sent them off to the wilds of the East Bay alone while we went to work. I think Thursday we ran a few errands. But before all that there was Friday.
Friday we went to one of Finn's favorite places in the universe - the Monterey Bay Aquarium. If you've been there, you're familiar with their Outer Bay tank. It's huge - a million gallons, in fact. It's where they keep their big sharks, tunas, sea turtles, and the oceansunfish. So Finn's standing with his face right up against the glass (a coveted position, let me tell you) and the ocean sunfish, which everyone is excited to see, starts to float up RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM. It's bigger than him, pretty wonky looking, and has this Giant. Creepy. Eyeball.
Finn lets out with this scream of utter terror which I can only approximate as "ooaaaAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!," clearly convinced that this monster was going to eat him, and whirls around to throw himself into Jonathan's arms. Man, I wish I had video. You'll have to settle for this version, and take my word for it that everyone around us thought it was hilarious. And if you call us, we can do the scream for you.
More on Flickr, as usual. And somewhere I have a video of Finn busily pushing the popcorn popper all around the kitchen... I'll try to unearth it this weekend.
When we were home for the Holidays, Finn got to spend a lot of time with Jamie, my brother Justin's daughter. He is a big Jamie fan, and the feeling is mutual. I like how in both of these videos he keeps his eyes on her as much as possible, and does whatever she does. He doesn't mimic Katie and me too much, but I think he'd do anything that Jamie would do.
Jamie and Finn, jumping from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo. This one should be viewed while singing about no more monkeys jumping on the bed. At left is Becky, Jamie's mom. Jamie is famous for her one-handed arm pump while grooving on the dance floor.
Merry Santa-type and other-type holidays to all, and a happy new year! We have just returned from 10 days in Iowa and Minnesota. The trip "benefited" from some real winter weather, with winter snows causing us to alter our plans for a few days. You can't really decide to drive 25 mph down to Iowa when Finn is in the car---any trip more than 2 hours (the standard IA/MN drive at 70 mph is nearly 4 hours) is not acceptable to him!
As some of you know, Finn was under the weather for about half of the trip. He was slow and a bit glassy-eyed on Xmas eve day, and he started feeling hot. He temperature started to creep up to 103 on Xmas afternoon, and Tylenol wouldn't stop it. So we went to the Oelwein, IA, emergency room, where his temperature topped out at 103.3. But a mix of Motrin and Tylenol finally won out, and his temperature dropped. His heart rate was quite fast too, like 180 bpm, but then it dropped down to 150 bpm, which is closer to "normal," but still seems really fast to me. I guess littler people have faster heart rates. Like hummingbirds. He also had a touch of pneumonia. But just a touch! So we also did a round of antibiotics. It took him a few days to to get back to normal, but I think by the afternoon of the 28th he was back at 100%.
We saw all manner of grandparents, cousins, aunts, uncles, first-cousins-once-removed, cousins- and uncles-to-be. It was GREAT to be back and see so much family. And we also got over to the Asch's to see high school friends and their various crazy little ones (mostly boys) under age 5. 10 kids, I think?
Here is Finn with his cousin Jamie, from our short (not planned) first stint in Minnesota:
It's important to dress warmly when out in the cold Minnesota weather. The keys to getting him to wear hats were 1) with mittens on, he can't use his hands, because he doesn't use the thumb holes, 2) it was COLD.
Oh, and did I mention that Finn will be showing his works at fine finger painting galleries around the country? A special thanks to Aunt Becky to being in charge!
Sunday was the farmers market. And football. Monday we sent them off to the wilds of the East Bay alone while we went to work. I think Thursday we ran a few errands. But before all that there was Friday.
Finn lets out with this scream of utter terror which I can only approximate as "ooaaaAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!," clearly convinced that this monster was going to eat him, and whirls around to throw himself into Jonathan's arms. Man, I wish I had video. You'll have to settle for this version, and take my word for it that everyone around us thought it was hilarious. And if you call us, we can do the scream for you. 
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