Cats, carousels, and whiny NOs

We are officially a one cat household. Murray lives here now. It's not ideal, but it's the best we could do after more than a year of trying to deal with his issues. I hope he likes it. I know Mona enjoys having access to the whole house again.

For those of you who wondered what Finn's whiny little "noooo" sounds like, we now have video, although I'll warn you that it's usually a longer and whinier syllable. It may be hard to tell here, but he also tends to squeeze his head over onto his left shoulder when he says it - nobody knows why. Lately we ask him questions we know he'll answer no to just to get him to say it so we can laugh it him. Yes, I realize we will pay for this later.

Naaaooooo. from Katie on Vimeo.

Last Sunday we went to Vasona/Oak Meadow Park here in Los Gatos, and Finn rode the carousel (built for the 1915 Panama Pacific Exhibition!). Three times in a row. We put him on the outermost ring, since that's the fastest. He likes to pat the horse.

Carousel from Katie on Vimeo.

And here he is marching over the hill afterwards. This is my new desktop photo.Bonus video! Going down the slide, without help.

Slide Skillz from Katie on Vimeo.

I have an internship interview today - wish me luck!
More photos at Flickr.

First Real Haircut!

Well, Katie has finished her 3 classes for the semester and is transitioning to a saner life. I am in the home stretch of my quarter of classes--just 5 lectures left. Finn is growing up quickly, saying many words, like "towel, squirrel, and Obama." Actually squirrel is really "squee" and Obama is "Bama." We have a poster of him in the kitchen. When things aren't going his way, he will freely let out a very whiny kind of "Noooooooh."

Finn's hair has been growing longer, and Katie has twice cut the longest stuff in the back. But we decided today that he needed his first real haircut. Looks pretty rough around the edges, huh?

Finn sat on my lap and did pretty well. There was another young boy who was a screaming mess just 10 feet from us, but Finn kept his cool. He wanted no part of plastic bib, but only once did he reach his hand up to feel what was going on up there. Perhaps they key was the LCD screen showing the movie Mulan. Here is a good video of the operation.

First haircut from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

Here he is sans shirt after he finished up. Doesn't he look all grown up?! Like a real little boy.

It looks like summer is officially here. A few days have hit over 90, which is quite a bit higher than the background low 70s. Since the pool party at the Kearney Heidgerken's last weekend, he's been splashing all over in the bathtub, so we decided to get him his own little outside plastic tub. You'd be amazed how hard it is to find one of those, but finally Toys 'R Us came through for us. Tomorrow we'll put the water in! He's ready.

The pool: a dry run from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

This kid goes to eleven

Finn: My craziness levels all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Me: Oh, I see. And most kids go up to ten?
Finn: Exactly.
Me: Does that mean you're crazier? Are you any louder?
Finn: Well, I'm one louder, aren't I? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten then, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your craziness. Where can you go from there? Where?
Me: I don't know.
Finn: Nowhere. Exactly. What I do is, if I need that extra push over the cliff, you know what I do?
Me: Put it up to eleven.
Finn: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Me: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Finn: [pause] I go to eleven.

Today we had quite a day. Farmer's market, with about a dozen dogs to poke/yell/growl at, then the grocery store, then a pool party at the Kearney Heidgerken's. Whatever level of rambunctiousness that had been attained at previous ages was surpassed today at the swimming pool. It was a grand time. You know, it is not possible to tell your son not to run around the edges of the pool when he doesn't (probably) understand the words "walk, run, fast," or "slow." You just hope for the best.

There was a strange, oh, inversion of sorts. He wouldn't get down off the top pool step (4 inches of water) for 20 minutes, but he thought it was the greatest to dunk his face into the water. I think for many kids, putting their face in is a hard step. For Finn, it was the first thing he did. Only later on did we actually go "swimming" which involved lots of kicking, splashing, and being tossed into the air, with maniacal laughter. He was on full display. He only went all the way under by accident twice, and only once was my fault. It was such a fun time that we didn't take any pictures. How could I when I was in the pool?

Katie is out of town for a few days, so it is just me and the little man. Yesterday and today it was HOT. 90+ degrees. We went to a park in San Jose yesterday at about 2 p.m. (smart), and the first thing Finn said when we got out of the car was "Hot-teh. hot-teh." And it WAS hot-teh. But the farm animals and decent playground equipment made up for it. Here we are cooling off in the car before going home. He enjoys the blinker stick.

Finn really likes black beans, which I think is maybe a little unusual. They are a good source of protein. But they really are a mess. But that is half the fun.

Today was yogurt in the hair, which yielded a bit of a "There's Something About Mary" effect until we washed it away in the pool. I has been interesting being fully in charge for 4 straight days. I actually think it will make it a bit easier for me the next time I have to leave for a conference. When it is just you taking care of him, it is just MORE of everything. Harder, but more fun, since you're his world, not just half of it. But now I don't feel like I'm leaving Katie will an impossible task when I leave. But at the same time, you really miss out on some cool stuff. So maybe it will be harder after all . . . .

He's fine! Just growly. Still.

Here's a video from this morning, so you can see how well his black eye's fading, and how it doesn't seem to phase him a bit. It's also a nice example of his growly voice, which we told the doctor about yesterday, and is apparently unusual. As you can see, he switches back and forth at will and mostly growls at toys (and animals). He also doesn't growl words, which would be kinda unsettling.

Growling about a pitcher from Katie on Vimeo.

Oh hey! We went to Finn's 18-month checkup yesterday. He's at the 50th percentile for height and 75th for weight. I forget how tall that is (32-ish inches, Jonathan thinks), but he's 27 lbs and change. He did not appreciate being made to lay down to get measured or being given a shot, and was very shy around Dr. Lee. He did run around a bit at the end so Dr. Lee could see his walk, but he wouldn't say a thing while he was in the room. Apparently 5-10 words is average at this age, so his 30-ish is just peachy, even if we're the only ones who can understand most of them.

I handed in my last final last night. I guess. It hasn't sunk in yet. It's like I've been on a roller coaster or knitting or something for a long time and I'm done and keep reminding my hands that they can LET GO already, but they just can't seem to relax. I leave tomorrow for a 3-day solo trip to Chicago (gotta burn up those frequent flyer miles before they expire!), which should help. I'll miss the boys TERRIBLY, and may have to try to catch them on Skype, but I know I'll have a great time w/ the Cieslas and that the packing/flying/sleeping/sitting-still aspects of the trip will be a lot easier this way.

Cat & black eye update

The cats are fully indoor/outdoor now. The good part of this is that they love it. The weird part is that the other night I went to the kitchen for a glass of water, heard a noise, and looked up to see Mona looking down at me through the skylight.

The absolutely disgusting part is that yesterday Murray brought me a lizard tail so freshly removed from the lizard that it was still... squiggling. I wasn't in any hurry to get rid of it because that would require picking it up, so I took a short movie for you.

I'm trying to look on the bright side: at least he didn't put it in my purse, which is where he was initially headed.

Here's your chaser photo:

The bruise is really dark in person, but he doesn't seem to notice. 2 more black eye pics at Flickr. Speaking of Finn & surprises, I told someone the other day I thought Finn said about a dozen words. Jonathan told someone else the same day he said probably 20 or 30. So we sat down and counted, and so far we're at 31. I'm a terrible mother and/or estimator. His current favorites are "berry" and "help." "Berry" because we keep getting strawberries from our CSA and he wants them ALL, and "help" because it gets him handy big-people assistance, especially used in conjunction with the sign for please, which for most people is patting your chest, but for Finn means patting your belly. It's too cute to say no to.
2 finals down, one to go...

Nice shiner, kid!

So....you know how Finn is rough and tumble? And how I was just blogging about how I think it's good to let Finn have some space on the playground, and take some bumps and bruises? Well, on Sunday night he was right in front of me, in the kitchen, crawling out (vertically) of a plastic tub, when he slipped over and fell out face-first onto a wooden ring stacker. Yeah. The vertical wooden stick part hit him about a half inch below his eye. Yeah. It was really frickin' scary. There was a tiny amount of blood and fair amount of swelling. And much crying. Here he is about 20 minutes after the incident though, chilling on Katie's lap, while watching internet movies of cute animals, which he found pretty soothing. Like this slow loris getting tickled.

I was kind of a mess for the next hour, since I'd seen it happen, and knew how close he came to maybe losing an eye. The next morning I went to work and before my class I was still pretty shaky. Now I'm a bit more calmed down. Here is a pic of Finn from this morning:

The nurse hot-line that we phoned said that the bruise would probably stick around for about 2 weeks. The swelling went down pretty well, which is good, considering he did NOT allow any ice to be placed on his cheek.
And on to another adventurous day in the world....

Funn Finn times with daddy

Katie is finishing her grueling 9 credit semester in the next two weeks. Right now she's sitting next to me trying to polish off a 20-page paper, so that she can get to the work that is actually due in the last week of class. This of course means that Finn is more my responsibility than usual. Yesterday went fine, and was fun. Today Finn broke his record for lateness before finally succumbing to his nap, at 1:45. His usual is around 11:30. My original try for a nap led to him yelling for 10 minutes, then quietly playing in his crib for another 25, before he decided that he was done. Part of our fun times yesterday was Finn eating an apple all by himself, like a big boy. Apple is also one of his favorite words.


Last Friday when he was kinda sick, but not really (the fever had broken earlier that day), we went to Vasona County Park, in our town of Los Gatos. It was our first time in this part of the park. What a good time! There is a rather famous "real" small-size train to ride around on, which probably holds around 100 people. Finn really only got excited enough to make some noise when the train whistle went off. Here is a pic of us on the train---note Finn's two-tone Twins hat.

In addition to normal playground equipment, they had an airplane that was there specifically for clambering on. There were a lot of bigger kids on it, but Finn held his own! When we're at the playground I try not follow him too closely, so that he can make his own way, meet some kids, etc. The pull is always there to keep him "safe" and follow 3 feet behind him the whole time, but I think the minuses way outweigh the pluses.

Oh, and one more thing. The cats have learned (or at least Mona has learned) how to get on the roof. Mona looked down at Katie 2 nights ago through the kitchen skylight. :)