Graham is nine months old. (And I got a new job and we're moving.)

We had Graham's nine month appointment yesterday. As expected, he's still chub-o-licious.
22 lbs., 11 oz. (81st percentile), 28 1/4 inches tall (50th).
And for those of you who read the blog but aren't on Facebook, I got a new job! In August I will be starting as an Assistant Librarian at UC Santa Cruz, where Jonathan is a professor. Sometime around then we will also be moving, hopefully into the house that we had a bid accepted for on Monday. It's been a pretty exciting week! We'll provide full details on the house once it's closer to actually being ours, but it's 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, about 1300 square feet, huge great backyard, hardwood floors, built around 1950, and we love it. Especially because it's conveniently near a pond, a great elementary school, and the university. So that's awesome.

Cool things about Santa Cruz include being able to have your first kite-flying experience happen to be next to the ocean.


Not cool things about Santa Cruz are that it is farther from Helen and Happy Hollow.

Also farther from our pediatrician, Dr. Lee, who was already a bit of a drive north. Fortunately, he's recommended a couple folks in Santa Cruz. Now I just need a dentist, optometrist, primary care doctor for grownups, and a stylist. Bakeries appear to be covered, so that's good. Here are the boys with Dr. Lee yesterday. He's been absolutely great, and Finn is always excited to go see him. Yesterday he insisted Dr. Lee listen to his chest as well as Graham's, but didn't seem to mind skipping the ear light.

Still not home

This is week #2 in Santa Barbara. Now I'm here for a big exoplanets conference. Last week was just part of a longer-term workshop, but that's not important. What is important is that Graham is a cute baby and is 6 months old now. Look at that kid!

I've taken to calling him "portly," which is a word you don't hear enough of any more. Another phrase no one says anymore, which I like, is "by and by," as in "by and by, daddy finally came home from Santa Barbara." You can find it in a few Little Golden Books from the 1940s. Finn has a few in his ever increasing collection.

In preparation for Easter, the Los Gatos Bunny Fun Hunt was last Saturday, and Arthur (almost 2) and his mom Rachel came down. There was a big egg hunt, and best of all, a big inflatable jumpy castle. Finn LOVED it. We should get one permanently. You know, for Finn. And me. Here are Finn and Arthur after the hunt. Note the new Toy Story hat for Finn. He's got two now---one for home and one for school.

I'm excited to come back and see my boys in 2 days!

Boys will be Boys

Last Sunday we went to Ross and Rachel's to hang out, since some of the old Mountain View crew was back together. Their son Arthur is getting older now--he's 15 months, only 5 behind Finn. Finn has recently started to pay more attention to him, now that Arthur that he can walk around well. No longer will Finn just sit on him like a chair.... I think we have a lot of playtime with Arthur to look forward to in the future.

Here they are playing with Helen's play tent, which I think barely managed to survive the onslaught of these two. Apparently it was only $5, so that was a relief. At the end you can here Finn telling Josh about a monkey.

Untitled from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

Here we are sitting in their kitchen on the floor. Finn and Arthur were playing by the fridge with some magnets, and eventually things took a turn for the tumbly. Finn started hugging Arthur, while at the same time falling down...on purpose, I think. It was too close and exciting for me to really get them into the shot. Arthur is apparently "used to" Helen mangling him up pretty good, so he was no worse for wear.

Untitled from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

Learning more words, including friends' names

If you could only pronounce 10 or 20 words so that people besides your parents could understand them, do you think "buckle" would make the list? I don't think it'd make mine, but it's on Finn's, along with "monkey."
Here's a clip of some of his other linguistic idiosyncrasies; "car" and "truck" are pronounced the same, and until recently off and on were both pronounced "on." Let me tell you, I'm glad we got that one sorted out.

Finn's unique vocabulary from Katie on Vimeo.

We're up to about 70 or 80 words that Jonathan and I can understand, and adding more every week. It's both amazing and entertaining to watch. It's also scary to think that in less than three months we'll be back to "You're crying! Why are you crying?" "Waaaaaah" territory with Finn's little brother. Said little brother is getting bigger, stronger, and pointier all the time. We are so, so, officially in the third trimester. Get ready, ribs!
This afternoon we went to Ross and Rachel's to visit and to see Jason, who's in town for a few days from Idaho. Finn got to play with Helen ("Hehn") and Arthur ("Ahtter"), and had an absolute blast. He and Arthur are only 5 months apart, getting more and more fun to watch in action together, and already look like trouble. Watch out world! Jonathan has a movie or two I'll let him post, but here's a still that should give you the general idea.

We're the best parents ever

Zoo, zoo, zoo
Lest you worry that Finn gets all his fun from chores and unsupervised swimming, we should also mention that we took him to the zoo last weekend. He loved it. I think it was at least 50% "running around! outside! and Caitlin and Liam are here!" but he also liked the animals. The monkeys and flamingos were particular favorites. Here he is acting like a monkey with Caitlin, though not near any actual monkeys. There are more on Flickr, including one with some giraffes, and more pool party shots from Saturday.Fun with Grandma
We also host special extra-entertaining guests, like my mom. She visited for four days last week, and it was wonderful. It's hard to say who had the most fun: us, her, or Finn. Grandma, he discovered, will read you as many stories as you want, and doesn't ignore you to do boring things like work on dinner or check her e-mail. Alas, she is no more likely to give you her laptop than Mama or Daddy. We got him a pony
Well, not really. It's an inflatable horse that he's been loving at our local toy store. We were going to wait until his birthday, but that's in NOVEMBER, and then I found a good deal on a secondhand one on Craigslist. When I brought it home he spent 10 or 20 minutes just patting it and screaming at it like a rabid monkey, and then carried it around until we had to take it away because he was just too worked up - couldn't stop crying. Then we brought it out a day or two later with a little less air in it so he could carry it around better, and he told us it was in fact a donkey ("gah-key. gah-key gah-key gah-key!") and played with it without melting down at all. It seems to be here to stay now, meltdown free.

Happy Birthday To Me

I turned 31 yesterday. Woo.
Finn and I celebrated by going over to Jessica's to see Caitlin and Liam and eat cake, and by just generally taking it easy. Taking it easy meant that I arranged it so I didn't have to cook, wash dishes, or do laundry while Jonathan was out of town. It did not mean Finn was any less of a maniac. I didn't take any pictures there (part of "taking it easy," maybe), but here's one Jessica took last week of Finn telling Liam... something very important.


Here's one of our walk yesterday. Finn decided to walk half of the way to downtown instead of riding in the stroller. He looks kind of like a muppet when he runs - arms extended and bobbing randomly. But with more wandering. See where the sidewalk disappears in the background? He covered all that ground and then some.


And I don't have any of him eating cake yesterday, but here's a video from a week or two ago where Finn demonstrates his newly discovered love of rhubarb cake. He wouldn't even try the rhubarb custard pie I made, possibly because I was eating it for breakfast and I usually eat things like oatmeal for breakfast, which he won't touch. He did yell "cakaaaay" again yesterday in pretty much the same voice.

Cake from Katie on Vimeo.

Completing the video backlog (you can probably stop reading now if you're not a grandparent), here's a couple of Finn reading his favorite books. Normally everything else gets ignored when these come out, but apparently not even Head to Toe is a match for the video camera. As you can see, though, even with that on, he cannot resist the compulsion to do the required actions or animal noises. Eric Carle rocks his world.

Head to Toe from Katie on Vimeo.

The Very Busy Spider from Katie on Vimeo.

And the sweetest thing ever, from Mother's Day last month.

Happy. Mama. Day. from Katie on Vimeo.
Thanks boys!

Sittin'

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.

And we're back!

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!

Is it Friday yet?

Yes, we’re still here. How’s it going, you ask? Well, here’s a snapshot from last night:

6:15 pm: Finn has finished the sweet potatoes he refused to eat at school (yay!) and is cheerfully dissolving a teething biscuit and spreading it around his high chair and his face while I wash dishes so he has clean bottles for day care the next day. We laugh and sing songs.

6:30 pm: I’m in the bathroom, cleaning up a puddle of cat pee (the first in weeks! argh!) that I discovered while I went to run Finn’s bath, and he’s screaming his head off in his room because I’m not there, and I realize I’ve forgotten to give him fluoride drops AGAIN, because that’s something Jonathan usually does.

6:45 pm: Finn’s in his bath, splashing ecstatically, and I pour another cup of water over his head. He splutters and giggles.

It’s like that, multiplied by all the hours and all the days of the week. We have our ups and downs. Our days are full. I’m a walking advertisement for Multitasking Gone Wrong – I can always think of at least 6 things I need to be doing, and am never able finish any one thing before getting distracted by another. I’ve discovered that although he’s in this phase right now where he cries if there’s not a parent in the room, Mona is apparently an acceptable substitute. So that’s nice.

But all the absolutely necessary things are getting done, and a few not-so-necessary ones (I made ice cream!). Saturday we went to the park; Sunday we went to Ross and Rachel’s, where Finn had a blast in Helen’s kiddie pool; and Monday we went to Jessica and Daren’s to eat tasty food and play with Caitlin’s toys, and I took my only picture of the week.

We had Finn’s 9-month checkup yesterday, but that’ll have to be another post. Like, after Jonathan gets back, which happens … the day after tomorrow!

Growing up

Our friends Ross and Rachel have two kids, Helen (age 3 1/2 years) and Arthur (age 3 1/2 months). We stopped by on Saturday to drop off a few baby things that they had loaned us. Arthur is a large boy and nearly as big as Finn! Arthur enjoyed the exersaucer that Finn had been using for several months--which is rightfully Arthur's. Finn kept playing with his favorite toy, the spinning clear plastic globe. (He enjoys all clear plastic things with smaller plastic things inside that roll around or rattle.) Unfortunately he got a bit too into it and smacked his two new top teeth. But on the way back down from daddy he saw his friend Arthur and said hi one of the only ways he knows how.


Making Friends from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

Lately Finn has been most happy when he's standing up. Especially today. The only problem is that he CAN'T stand up, at least not by himself. He has terrible balance, but he can hold himself up on the couch or the pack 'n' play. But he still can't pull himself up on anything, and I think crawling is still a few weeks away. He's just now starting to get up on all fours, rather than just doing baby push-ups. Loyal reader, in the picture below he's subtlety leaning against the mattress to give you the impression that he can stand. But we know better.

Wow does he have a big head!