Photo comparisons part 2

Hey, who's that kid?
That would be me on the left, in one of the great photos my mom just sent me, circa-I'm-not-sure-when. Photographic evidence that I probably deserve whatever's coming.
Second, here's a series we took of Finn back when he was about four months old.
As an experiment, we put Graham in the same outfit at about four and a half months.
The results speak for themselves, and do not surprise any of us. And just for fun, here's a short movie of Graham the other day, being his cheerful self.

Typical Graham from Katie on Vimeo.
For those of you who can't get enough, we also have recent videos of butterfly watching and of Finn checking out the baby chickens at the hardware store, and a few new photos over at Flickr.

A messy month ahead

It is never easy to take care of both boys all by yourself. This is course falls upon Katie much more often than me. Part of my job involves travel from time to time, like going to give talks at other universities, or to exoplanet conferences. Since Finn was born I've definitely cut back on the conferences generally, but at the same time the number of invited talks I get is something that I'm judged on at tenure time, so I pretty much accept every direct invitation I get. Katie's job has no such requirements, so the travel is very one-sided. This month I had two 3-day trips to Boston and Tucson, and next month it is Minneapolis and Phoenix, with two five-day trips to Santa Barbara at the end of the month. Thankfully Katie's Mom is coming to town! It is hard to be away because my boys grow up so much in just a few days! And I know that they miss me so much. Katie is certainly building up a massive reserve of goodwill points.

One of the fun things about clothes recycling is that we can see all of our fun baby clothes again! Like this classic dress shirt onesie that Finn grew out of way too fast. Apparently your baby can't help but look like a suave man-about-town in it!

Last week, to celebrate a big award that I won, we went out for sushi. Finn was very well behaved and enjoyed several things. He wasn't a fan of tuna or salmon, but he did eat most all of a piece of unagi. (Which is eel.) He also liked the miso soup and they made him a special soup of rice and tofu. He used the chopsticks with limited success. Graham, mister happy, was a big hit with the staff as well.

Me and My Boys

Finn is getting more grown up every day! Even messier temper tantrums count as growing up, I guess. You gotta go through that before you can grow even more and never have temper tantrums. Right? Right?!

He is also really fun because he's a pretty good talker. Last weekend we went down to Santa Cruz to visit my office and to see the last of the monarch butterflies, down by the beach, on their migration. Finn: "Go see butterflies in Daddy's office." While at my office he got to see my 2-foot animatronic "Dancin' Shoutin' James Brown." Scary. Finn: "I don't like him." Finn a week later: "Daddy's office. I don't like him." Here is the crew on my office couch.

I have no reason to post this next picture, except for its extreme awesomeness. Pirates love spoons! Arg!

Graham has been testing our patience with his poor sleeping habits the past few weeks. But in the daytime he is irresistible.

Finn has been slowly mastering riding his Strider bike. He has not gone down to the farmers' market again, but he does like going on the driveway, and sometimes into the neighborhood. What a goof!

Bike riding with Daddy from Katie on Vimeo.

Happy Valentine's Day from the Fortneys

Brotherly love!

The Dude abides

Or in this case, the Fortneys abide - Jonathan abides missing us while he's out of town again, and the boys and I abide a non-standard kid-to-grownup ratio. He's only gone two and a half days this time. Between that and the fact that you can only be so freaked out so much of the time, it's not too stressful. I told Finn Jonathan was going on an "airplane trip." He calmly absorbed the information, then knowingly responded "iPod," because that is what one does on an airplane trip. Conversation over.
Graham's ever-increasing ability to be entertained while I'm not holding him also makes things easier to handle when it's just me. Exhibit one: Bumbo.

Exhibit two: exersaucer. He's not tall enough for it yet, so we put books under his feet.

And now, random videos. First, a bit of one of our days last week, when I noticed that Graham was about the same age as Finn was when Finn first (accidentally) rolled over, a feat he didn't repeat until he was about 6 months old. Graham did not have a similar accident, despite my prompting, but we'll keep you posted.

Graham not rolling over from Katie on Vimeo.
Second, here's Finn instructing me in the use of my camera. This one has better dialogue and better lighting.

Finn, co-director from Katie on Vimeo.

Mmm, chubba

Those of you who knew me in elementary school, or high school, or college, or grad school, or after that....(hm) may know that I had somewhat of a thing for chubby babies. I didn't really dawn on me til last year that not every 21-year-old college student has not one but TWO posters of chubby babies on their wall. Indeed, this Anne Geddes poster was featured prominently in my dorm room for years:

It made sense at the time. I still love chubby babies, but I keep it a bit more under wraps, I guess. Here is Graham! What a chunker!

Well, do they look alike?

Some people have asked what I'm doing with all my spare time now that I'm not in school. Well, for the most part it seems my things-to-do are like a gas: they expand to fill the space available. But I have been branching out a bit - in January I did a bunch of MCLE (mandatory continuing legal education) so the state of California still thinks I should be able to practice law, just in case that comes in handy. I've been making lists - things to do, places to go, people to call and mail things to, and all the great real and potential band/album names in Dr. Seuss (Wumbus, Too Many Daves, Kid Sneelock, and Midwinter Jicker, to name a few). Last week I picked up a knitting project I started in 2007. I've been to the dentist 3 times in about as many weeks. And today while the boys napped, I played around in Photoshop, and here are the results.

Finn and Graham at 1 Month

2 Months

3 Months

4 Months

4 Months

I don't know which is more fun - seeing how much Finn has changed, or trying to figure out what Graham's going to look like as he gets bigger. Cute stuff, either way.
I've also been cooking more. I used to maintain a sidebar on this blog of what we were making each week, but it was too much to keep up with, plus so many people read this through Facebook or a blog reader I don't know if anyone even noticed. If you're still curious, I do bookmark recipes at del.icio.us. Things there generally fall into two categories: a) things we've tried and liked, and probably make a lot and b) decadent, complicated things that I would love to make someday if I ever have the time and someone to help eat them. Anybody else have your own recipe file I should bookmark?