As We Like It

Summertime! Tomorrow is the 4th of July, which may end up being Graham's favorite holiday after Christmas. He is quite adept at spotting American flags, telling us he sees them, and that they are there "Because our country is America!!" Yes, I used two exclamation points on purpose. He's really into it. In our neighborhood there is a July 4th bike parade, which Finn had a blast at last year, so we'll doing that again.

In other news, while Katie was in Anaheim at a library conference, I potty trained Graham in 2 days. Yes, I'm that good! OK, in reality Graham just finally decided that he wanted to wear underwear, and that was that. It's been 10 days now, with very few accidents, and even nice work in the #2 department. It's really quite amazing compared to his brother, who wasn't quite doing this well at age three, as you might recall. Graham, at various times this week after doing his business: "Are you so proud daddy?" "FANNN-TASTIC" "Do I get a fruit snack?" "Are you so happy?" Then later: "What does proud mean?" This no diapers thing is all I hoped for and more.

Graham is also growing out of being a fantastic sleeper. (Not as we like it.) Usually both boys go to bed at 7:30 pm, and wake up at 6:15, which has worked fine because Finn doesn't take a nap but Graham still does. He's of course always needed more sleep since he's younger. Finn is still on this schedule, but as Graham gets older, he apparently is needing less sleep. He hasn't been falling asleep until probably 8:30 pm lately which has necessitated moving him and his bed into the playroom. There he can kick around and play after Finn has gone to sleep. This really isn't ideal for anyone, but as long as he keeps napping, I don't see any way around it. Sigh... It was such a perfect system, people! I don't have any pictures to correspond to these stories, so here are some other photos:

Dressing up "like daddy"

Finn IS growing up, isn't he!!!

Superheroes enjoy watermelon

Thanks daddy for finding my fishing pole, buying some worms, and taking us down to Westlake Park (down the street)... Finn hasn't asked to go since, so it may not have been all that he'd hoped for.

Next Venus Transit is in 2117!

Our Eclipse Vacation went so well that we decided to view the transit of Venus. This time there was an excellent view right in town, so we headed to the west side of campus to take in the multi-hour event. Venus transits were first predicted by Kepler (the man) and viewed in 1639.  Here is the best pic that I got through a telescope using only my camera phone.  The white balance appeared to be confused.

Here are Graham and Katie.  This was Graham's first time looking through a telescope.  I'm not sure he could really see, but people had some nice projections onto paper, so he knew what was going on.

Finn looked through 3 different telescopes. He was quite excited.

Still very excited. This was after he got to look at the generator that was powering one of the telescopes.

I also drove up the coast 20 miles to see if I could view the transit at sunset, but there was mild cloud cover. It was still nice to be at a large windswept beach, nearly empty, as the Sun set over the Pacific.

Let's go fly a kite

It's really a testament to the awesomeness of our backyard that I don't think I've been to this park in months. I mean, it's on our BLOCK. There are DUCKS.

Jonathan's at some all day meeting today. About planets or something. So the boys and I came over to fly kites, which we cannot do in our backyard. And yes, I'm writing this blog post from the park. But I'll have to wait until later to embed the video. (I don't know who's screaming in the background. I didn't notice it at the time.)

This was Graham's first kite-flying expedition. (He's quite small and distant in this photo, but I promise he and the kite are both there.)

I think it was Finn's second time out with a kite. He's a pro, as you can see.

And then we went home and made cookies.

Our house

For Christmas we turned our office into a playroom, because we never actually used it as an office, and we figured our house was too small to have a whole room we never used. Then I was going to post some before and after pictures, and I realized I didn't HAVE any before pictures. Oops. So then I was just going to refer back to the old video walkthrough of the house, but after searching back through the blog, I realized that only existed in my mind. Huh. So then I made a NEW (first, only) video of the house, and even edited a little. But when I uploaded it to Vimeo, it got all squishified because Vimeo didn't understand the aspect ratio even though the dang thing looked fine on our computers. So then I gave up.

But then! Then Jonathan was out of town again this week and I reformatted/exported/something the video, and now you can view it non-squished. Pretty boring if you've been to our house; less so if you haven't and have been wondering what it's like here.


So now it exists, in case we ever do a big remodeling project, or find a way to lead a clutter-free existence (ha).
Also, have some photos.
1: The Ultimate Winter Couscous from Plenty, which I highly recommend. Even if you don't want to cook from it, just look at the pictures.

2: Remember when Finn melted down at his birthday party? Some classmates had a party at the same place recently, and he had a much better time. Here he is on the zipline.

3: Sometimes when you turn your back they DON'T destroy everything in sight. Sometimes you go to answer the phone, and when you come back the Lego wall is twice as tall as when you left the room. And it has eyes.

4: Finn and Graham's first time bowling. They loved it. And I got my first (and likely last) turkey.

5: Graham's 3rd haircut, and his first one not sitting in my lap.

6: I went to a conference in Dallas in January and got to meet Jeanette Winterson, who's only, oh, I don't know, probably my FAVORITE AUTHOR EVER. I was so sure I was going to miss her that when I saw she was still there I cried. It was pretty embarrassing, but I got a signed advance copy of her new memoir. Best. Conference. Ever.

Finn's First Baseball Game

I like baseball, and I've been to many games in my life. Probably between 100 and 200 games, but that is as close as I can estimate it. Out here the San Francisco Giants stadium (AT&T Park) is outstanding, but the Oakland A's stadium (something something Colosseum) isn't so great. But there is also the San Jose Giants Class A minor league team, which is the closest to our house. They play in a small 1940s stadium that seats probably 5000. And the tickets are cheap!

I decided it was time to take Finn to his first game, to see how he liked it. I'm not yet decided on whether or not Finn "has to" like baseball, but I think it would be fun if he did. We went to a 4 p.m. game, which was the first of a double-header. Here we are just before we left to go home, after the 3rd inning of the 2nd game. (It was bedtime.)

So, the story: After downing a frozen lemonade during the first two innings, he was getting pretty bored, but I still managed to point out the dugouts (below ground level!) and Gigante, the gorilla mascot (amazing!). Given his restlessness, I was thinking the trip maybe wasn't the best idea. We left to go check out the bounce-house area (yes, there was an entire are) and we spent about an hour down there before returning to our seats with nachos and a brat (the sausage, not the boy).

We saw a 7-run inning with a lot of action, and he liked the home run and the guys throwing the ball around the field, and into the outfield. It was pretty hard for him to follow the ball off of the bat, but seemed to have an OK idea of what was going on. After that long inning we headed back to the bounce-house area for another 90 minutes (at least!). Oh, he and I also managed to "blow it up" with Gigante, when we walked by his seat. That was a big deal. Here is what Gigante looks like:


They had all manner of bouncy things. The standard bounce-house (what I call a jumpy-jumpy), the bounce slide (see above), a few others, and the interesting bounce-vacuum t-ball set. Below is a video of Finn hitting. It took him awhile but his last few swings were quite good. His mom taught him everything he knows. On the last one he hit the ball into a small target and won us two free tickets to a future game!

A Swing and a ...? from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

After getting all the crazies out, we made it back to some seats for another 2 innings, where Finn had his *first ever* cotton candy and downed a giant bottle of apple juice. The cotton candy was another highlight.

It was a fun and very memorable trip. Maybe we can do it again before the season is up. He picked up a lot about the game, but I'm a little worried he thinks that inflatables are a big part of any professional baseball game....

A Gentle Soul

For those of you who don't know Graham very well, I think it is fair to say that he is a quite a bit different than Finn. Maybe not as different as my brother and I (Hi Justin!) but they are very distinct. Graham is a sensitive little guy who wants to make you happy. He takes slights very personally. He will give you as many hugs and kisses as you need, and will ask you for them. He dances. This is one of the cutest movies ever.

Dancing to Ella from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

Actually Finn is a lot more sensitive in some particular ways. If Finn hurts himself he will wail and let you know about it for 20 minutes. And many band-aids will be required. Graham will forget that a bump or accident ever happened in about 20 seconds, and just go on his merry way. The children-addled brain I have makes it hard to sensibly compare the two, mostly because it is hard for me (already) to remember what Finn was like 2 years ago. But that's the beauty of the blog! :)

The most important news of the week is that we got Graham a big boy bed, very much like Finn's, from IKEA. The two boys are back in the same bedroom, probably for many years to come! He had been sleeping in the pack-and-play in the office for the past several months, because that was easy, and the boys would never wake each other up. He's now slept in his bed back-to-back nights, and he loves it. Finn has been showing him the ropes, including the VERY KEY rule that you can't get out of bed to come wake up mommy and daddy until the moon light comes on at 6:15. That is the key to everyone's sanity. When we're in the Midwest in August, Graham will be too big for the pack-and-plays there, so we had to get him trained sleeping on a bed before then. Finn likes having his brother in their room, but he needs to stop piling so many stuffed animals on Graham when Graham is trying to go to sleep.

For comparison, here is Finn sleeping in his bed from the same time of year in 2009, but he was about 6 weeks younger.

Below is one of my favorites from two week ago---Graham sitting with Cato, our neighbors' cat. Cato looks just like Mona, but likes attention from small people more than Mona does. Just a very peaceful scene.

Here are brothers being brothers:

We visited Alex and Laura up in San Francisco a couple weeks ago, and during brunch the boys each got balloon creations. Graham got a flower, but the balloon artist suggested it could also be a hat. I think he was right.

Graham's first hair cut!

Graham's hair has grown in a lot more slowly than Finn's. But finally, here at 20 months, we decided it was time for him to get his first trim. We found a 1-chair Dr. Seuss-themed place that is a ways down towards Monterey. Finn went first and showed Graham how it was done, and then Graham took his turn, sitting on Katie's lap. He was a real pro!


For a comparison, here is Finn's first haircut, when he was 18 months old. He was much shaggier, and apparently we'd already done two little trims at home when he was a bit younger.
In other news, summer is taking its time in arriving. 63 is a nice temperature for January, I will admit, but in June....not so much.

The Theater Experience, + Eating

Finn is a big fan of Toy Story, and Toy Story *2*! (He strongly emphasizes the two.) He has two Toy Story hats (one for home, one for school) and recently got Toy Story Crocs. Oh, and the pajamas. In the runup to TS3, there was clearly much more TS gear at Target, which he asked about. While Daddy was watching basketball briefly on TV, there were two TS3 commercials, which he asked about. I broke down and explain that people were making a NEW TS movie, but it wasn't finished yet. So it seemed like a good time to try the theater. We prepped him by talking about the huge screen, the lots of seats, and the popcorn. We didn't prep him for the loudness, which kept him with his hands over his hears for the many advertisements and 5 ponderous previews. I think he used up a good half-hour of his movie attention span before TS3 even started.

He liked the show, it thankfully wasn't too loud, and it held his attention for probably the first half. After that he did pretty well, but preferred to stand, sit on the floor and peek between the seats at the screen, or move from lap to lap asking questions. Sitting on either side of him kept him from crawling down the isle. So it was pretty successful, and we had a great time! Thanks to Rebecca watching Graham for us!


Speaking of Graham, we've previously told you that he is quite skilled in the consumption arts. He's quickly ascended the food ladder from milk to chunky baby food, to bread rolls, and to cheerios, not necessarily in that order. I'm pretty sure that he can drink out of a straw. Let's just say that he is advanced for his age. Buying Finn a muffin and Graham a roll to suck on is now a standard part of our Sunday morning farmers' market routine. Here is a picture of Graham with his two favorite things.

Lastly but not leastly, we all managed to more or less swing simultaneously in four swings this weekend, and I managed to get some video. Since Graham likes swings so much, Finn is starting to come around.

Family Swing from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

Oh, and here is Graham sucking down a root beer at that same park:

Graham is HUNGRY. Finn is hungry for consumer goods.

We were going to wait until closer to the six month mark to start Graham on solids because honestly, we just don't need any more moving pieces in our dinner routine. But I'd noticed him staring at Jonathan's pizza the other night, and then this happened:

Mmm, naan. from Katie on Vimeo.
Note how he grabs my hand to help guide it back to his mouth. Since then he's sampled some of the traditional first foods - rice cereal, mashed bananas. Jonathan also slipped him a bit of strawberry at the farmers market this morning. The rice cereal was not his favorite, possibly just because it does not go from bowl to belly FAST enough, but here he is giving it a shot:
And I've been meaning to mention that Finn has has become a big fan of online shopping. We let him pick out his next pair of shoes, and from hundreds of possibilities including fire trucks and muppets he was adamant in his selection of "the green scary ones." Thank you, Zappos, for your super speedy shipping.
Since then he has also selected a hat online, and thank goodness we had that option, because it was apparently very important that his new hat have "Buzz AND Woody" on it; one or the other simply would not do. His Uncle Allen and Aunt Keisha got him some Toy Story PJs for Christmas, and even though he hadn't seen the movie yet, they were an instant favorite. Now that he's seen Toy Story and Toy Story 2, he's become a pro at spotting the merchandise. And so it begins.

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.

Four month checkup!

Graham had his four-month checkup last Monday. He's about a pound lighter at 18 weeks than Finn was at 19 weeks; we think Finn's gigantic head is responsible for most of the difference. 16 lbs 8 oz., 25 inches tall, head 42.5 centimeters around. Other than his current cold, everything looks great. Look, new chart!

And Graham has a a new hobby: blowing raspberries. He mostly does it when bored or frustrated. It seems to be his way of saying "I tire of you. Something else, please." Other times he does it just for fun while sitting in his chair riding his invisible bike. Here's a movie:

Graham says ppbbblllt. from Katie on Vimeo.
Finn had his first parent teacher conference on Friday. Well, I suppose Jonathan and I did, since Finn wasn't there. We learned all sorts of interesting things - did you know Finn can count to ten? We didn't. Apparently we had never asked right. It seems like every week he's doing something new - this week he suddenly seemed to get the hang of first person pronouns ("I like Liam." "I would like some more water." So much better than "more water! more water!") and this morning he rode his bike all the way to and from the farmers market instead of riding in the stroller. That's a little over a mile and a half total, hills and all - a long ride for someone who'd never really made it off the block before. On the way there the pace was pretty slow, but on the way home he really kept us moving, especially on the hills. I left my camera at home so I could carry more goodies, but here's a shot of the kind of attitude that got him there.
More at Flickr.
One more thing, speaking of the conference - I mentioned earlier how Finn has a giant head? We heard from his teacher that he likes to follow some of the 3 and 4 year old boys around to try and play like/with them. They wear buckets on their heads to be "soldiers," but Finn's head is too big for the bucket to fit. Poor Finn!

Halloween, revisited

We've been going through some life the past couple of weeks, so sorry for not getting around to posting. Katie is working on finishing her Master's degree portfolio and I'm writing up a proposal to the National Science Foundation. (I need to convince them to give me $300K of your money. No, it doesn't go into my pocket.) Both are due on Monday. So there has been a lot of Graham juggling during the days, and non-stop work after both boys go to bed. It has been a team effort!

I thought that I'd give a summary rundown of trick or treating back a few weeks ago. Firstly, Finn would only say "Tricker," and that was just at home. The thing he said best out on the streets was "Next house!" I was interesting to see what was going on through his eyes. Very bewildering but not too frightening. For instance there was the 5-foot giant chicken that stopped him dead in his tracks:

Sometimes Finn would try to reach in and give candy to people who were giving him candy, like a trade. The neighborhood that we visited was a few streets down from us. They go ALL OUT. Pretty much every house had substantial decorations, and there were kids and parents everywhere. The road was closed off to traffic.

It had always annoyed me that in E.T. the kids went out trick or treating BEFORE it was dark out. Who does that?! Well, it is interesting that Finn is basically never outside when it is dark. He goes to bed and 7 p.m. and by the time he goes outside in the morning, it is light out. He just doesn't do darkness. So of course we had to get an early start on trick or treating, since he goes to bed so early. Even so, at 5:45, when we started, there were a fair number of kids. It was definitely more crowded at dusk at 6:45, which was a good sign for non-lameness of California children and parents. As he gets older, I'm firmly committed to him actually going trick or treating when it is dark out. Because to do otherwise (except when you're not even 2, is well, lame.)

My lasting memory of our outing was the large amounts of alcohol consumed by the adults. We saw parents leading their kids while drinking bottles of beer and to-go cups of wine. Many people answered their door holding glasses of wine. One woman in front of us in line for candy said, "I brought the cosmos!" to her neighbor. Another house had the grill going and a keg. So the adults succeeding in having a good time as well. We didn't partake....but there is always next year. :)

Code Yellow

Hi all! We'll start out with an short movie of Graham, featuring some incredible cinematography on my part. I'm an ace with that camera. Graham is doing well, but last night was terrible, as he woke up about 7 times, for no reason. Earlier in the week he had two 6-hour stretches, so we'll see. He's getting cuter as he fattens himself up.

Head Bob from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

For Finn, this is a time of big changes. In addition to gaining a brother, and starting to use two- and three-word phrases, he's moved from the toddler room to the youngest preschool room, the "yellow room," at daycare. (He's there MWF, and Graham starts in 3 weeks.) He likes it a lot, and likes being an older kid. He's even been sitting on the potty at school, and occasionally at home, with some promising results. It is mostly on his own initiative.

For Halloween this year Finn will be a Space Man. I got him the costume at Kennedy Space Center in March. We went to his daycare today (Peppertree Schools of Los Gatos) for the costume parade and lunch. He bolted the walking parade after 30 seconds and just went around on a trike, which he propels by walking. The third photo down is his class eating lunch. So cute!



We also carved our pumpkin! He even helped swiffer up the mess. Look at how little he was last year! Tonight we were going through a book about the alphabet, and we were discussing O vs. Q. The Q is like the O, but with a tail, I told him. His reply: "Neighbors." (Did what?) "Took it." (Took what?) "Tail." So now we know why the O is not a Q. Those neighbors! For whatever reason, he talks about NEIGHBORS all the time.

And YES, we will go trick or treating!

Firsts and Photos

I don't have anything really profound to say about how things are going around here. Things are going well. We have a pretty good routine at night since Graham tends to wake up after 3 hours for more eats. Between 9/10 p.m. and 6 a.m. we sleep 7-8 hours, so we're doing pretty well. It'll be nice when he sleeps longer, but this is very doable. Finn woke up early last night yelling "Linon! Linon! Linon!" It appears that he dropped his little plastic lion while sleeping, which woke him up. We've learned to NOT go in there, almost no matter what, because it just make things worse. After 5-10 minutes of yelling for Linon, Mommy, and Daddy, he went back to bed. If you go in there, he can keep you up for an hour for stories and milk.

Finn got a fantastic rain outfit that I'm sure we'll show off at a later date. Here he is showing off his frog boots (with frog eyes) and his space pajamas from Grandma Mary and Grandpa John.

Here is the first bath that I gave Graham. It was maybe his third overall. It was successful, in that he got clean. He eventually settled down when I let him lean over forward, on my arm. Speaking of leaning over on my arm, see the next pic:

Graham is a good eater and is chubbing out nicely.

This is Graham's first bottle! He did OK, but bottle #2 was very successful. I'm VERY glad that both our boys have been so good at bottles. Makes life for Katie easier.

That picture above almost makes it look like I'm losing my hair. Good thing I know better.
It's fun to lay on the mat with your brother.