The weather has been quite pleasant here lately (well, I guess that isn't such a surprise, sorry) and the boys have been wearing a fair amount of shorts and t-shirts. Scrapes and scabs aplenty! This is actually less "costly" for Finn than wearing pants, since he tends to rip holes in the knees with regularity, which costs us money and time for patches or new pants. That or he can look like a little hobo who wears rags for clothes. It happens.
Finn is now 4 1/2 years old, as of the 13th. We're now getting him a little involved in organized activities, which has its pluses and minuses. The minuses are that things cost money and we have to drive him there! But so far he's done a version of soccer with strong parent participation, and tonight was his first swimming lesson in a long time. (We'd done some water-babies type stuff in the past, but it had been a LONG time.) He did great! The only problem from his perspective was that it was only 30 minutes.
He's very proud of his new swimsuit that says "Totally Jawsome" with a shark's mouth.
Graham and Finn are really getting along pretty well these days, and while they do play pretty rough, they make each other laugh a lot. Graham can apparently laugh even while getting manhandled as I tell Finn to leave his brother alone. At some point the laughter turns to tears, of course! In this orange (the official color of Fortney Boys, LLC) photo, I think they are both being mice. Graham is "Super Mouse" while Finn is "Flash Mouse."
Obviously here they are "Batman" and "Tiny Batman." The warm weather has brought out the backyard hammock as well. While last year they were good about not playing on it, this year, not so much. If you turn the volume up to 11 you can hear them giggling. I took the movie from our bedroom window.
Why is this here? We have a lot of snails and slugs in our yard. This one is only about 2 inches. The much rarer banana slugs (never seen in our yard, yet) are more like 6-8 inches.
Yesterday marked our fourth visit to Happy Hollow, and our third in as many weeks. As far as Finn's concerned, it's the happiest place on earth: animals, rides, animals, playgrounds, animals, theoretically a dragon, and animals, all only about 15 minutes from our front door. (I say "theoretically" because Danny the Dragon is currently closed for repairs, so all we're hearing about lately, at the park or at home, is about how Finn wants to see him.) Finn's other intense focus lately is hermit crabs. They have two in the older kids' room at school, and he is always excited to see them when he's there, and always asking about them or asking to "go to the crabby store," aka PetCo, when he's home. We may end up getting some if they're still this exciting in August or so. They have rabbits at school, too, but that's not even on the table. Except when we order in especially fancy take out. Badum-ching!
Graham's interests these days, besides me and food, include baths, going outside, and toys. One of his absolute favorites is a drum that lights up and plays a noise when you hit it - perfect for a baby this age! (Thanks, Kim!) Another is this rattle, which was a prop for a shower game at Finn's baby shower way back in 2007. It makes noise, you can bite on it, and it's so low-tech your brother never steals it. Both boys are pretty enamored of each other, and as of Saturday are going to bed in the same room at night. I think we're at a little over 50% success rate for Graham actually staying in there all night because he's been under the weather, but they both seem to like it. Finn especially enjoys when he wakes up and Graham is still there. Unfortunately, the height we initially had Graham's mattress at made a handy ladder for Mr. Finn, and when we went in there the first morning we found Finn in the crib squishing his brother. So changing the mattress height was the first order of business Sunday morning. Then there was more playing, like this, possibly one of my favorite videos ever.
Some days are giggly from Katie on Vimeo. Also, Graham really REALLY likes bread. He's still too little to really be trusted with a teething biscuit, but with good supervision he's become very adept at rendering a nice crusty roll into a baby-friendly paste. Yum.
Happy MLK Day, everybody. This is one of those rare days when both my and Jonathan's offices are closed, but the boys' day care is open. We usually start out by doing productive things around the house and then gradually work our way up to a nice lunch and a movie, feeling deliciously like we're getting away with something and playing hooky. This time we were going to finally see Avatar. Alas, it was not to be. Saturday Finn had a fever of 102-ish, and he's still kinda gross. Also... ***Please skip this paragraph if you're not a parent, TMI ahead.*** Finn is really constipated. Normally the kid poops twice a day, and while it's gross and stinky, it doesn't seem to bother him. He's hardly pooped at all since Friday, or possibly Thursday, and has spent much of the weekend piteously wailing "hurting, hurting," every 5-30 minutes. We're trying everything we can think of, and have a call in to our pediatrician, but so far we're having limited success. ***Okay, done talking about poop.*** So Graham went to day care today, both to get him further from Finn's germs and to reduce craziness around here a bit, but the rest of us are finishing up the longest three day weekend ever. Most of the day he's been watching movies, because he's a pile of mush when he's not yelling, and it's the easiest way to distract him, at least when he can decide what to watch. I think it took him half an hour this morning, as Jonathan repeatedly offered him things and a shrill, distressed Finn kept insisting "different show! different show!" For the first time in nearly a year, Finn wouldn't nap on his bed, and instead fell asleep on Jonathan, waking up periodically with the "hurting." I think it'd do him good to get outside and run around a bit, because we're all getting a bit stir crazy, but it's been raining and gross all weekend, and now I'm hearing "severe thunderstorm warnings." Graham has been extra fussy on and off as well, either in sympathy or for his own obscure reasons, but at least he's healthy. And last night he slept reasonably well again, which was nice. He's a big giggler now. The best ways to get him going are to tickle him, or to wave your hands around like you're a second grader doing fake karate. Since it's hard to hold a camera while doing the latter, here's a video of him being tickled.
I think we're finally settled in from our ten days away from home, just in time for Jonathan to leave again - DC this time. If you'd asked me a week ago when we were still in Iowa, I might have been afraid there was no way I was going to survive this trip, but since coming back home and settling back into our regular routines, things have been going pretty well. For instance, yesterday I was home with the boys all day and didn't once have the urge to strangle Finn, or find myself trying to remember why it was we thought we wanted to have kids. We even had a very fun trip to the library and an afternoon play dough session. So then I took cute pictures of them while they were napping. Don't they look peaceful? (Lies, all lies.) We're so much busier now that we have two kids that we're not chronicling Graham's babyhood as obsessively as we did Finn's. That's probably unavoidable to some extent, but I can at least give you an update on how he's doing these days: first, he's started laughing, in case you missed Jonathan's last post. Second, he vocalizes a LOT. And often loudly. I guess he has to if he wants to get a word in edgewise in this house. Third, he can grab things sometimes, and will often put them in his mouth. And finally, he's working on sitting up. So he's busy! He's also hilarious and adorable and huge (busting out of the 3 month clothes, and with a neck too chubby for some of the 6 month outfits), but I don't know if those are new developments. Here's a video of him yesterday morning that includes him being delighted to see a cute baby in the mirror, chatting with that baby a bit, and grabbing a toy.
I just updated Flickr with a hefty helping of our Christmas photos. Annoyingly, they uploaded all out of order, but they're there, and I'll fix them if I have a reeeally slow day at work on Friday. But you should check them out in any case, because they include stuff like this:
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.
Better late than never, here are some real giggly videos of Finn in Boston, first with Dave and a shark puppet, then with Jonathan. The shark one is something like a minute and a half long, but I didn't know where to cut it - so many giggles! The other one is only about 10 seconds. They're from the camera because we didn't take the camcorder on the trip, but at this size, the quality is pretty similar.
We've been plenty busy, still. I started my summer class last week, and it should be a relatively easy one, I hope - legal research for librarians, basically. Thanks to everyone who inquired after my (obviously precarious) mental health after spring's finals; I'm feeling much better and got As in both my classes.
Finn and I have enjoyed getting back into our usual groove (rut?) this week - we took nice long walks downtown both Tuesday and Thursday. Thursday we mixed it up and spent the afternoon with Jessica and Caitlin, where Finn spilled (iced) coffee all over himself, and my lap, and their carpet. Good times.
Yesterday Finn had his first trip to IKEA, which he enjoyed, and then this afternoon the three of us ran a few errands and then went for a picnic & nap in the park. We had people over both last night and Friday night, and ate tasty, leisurely, wine-soaked dinners with excellent desserts while Finn slept in his room. All in all, one of the most relaxing and most fun weekends I've had in a long time - happy birthday to me! Friday night he slept for a SEVEN HOUR stretch and a four and a half hour one. Here's hoping for a repeat of that.
In case we hadn't made this clear yet, Finn is HUGE! I think "what a big baby" is the comment we get most these days. Comments from Finn himself are mostly limited to squeaks and "gaaahhhh." He is "talking" more and more, and sometimes looks like he's trying intently to get something really important across, so we do our best to listen. We just got back from Easter down in Salinas with the Reeves-Fortney clan, and I'll try to get some of those pictures up this week, but I thought I'd throw down some videos I've been sitting on before I headed for bed. First up is a record I made for Jonathan while he was out of town of how Finn is now much more interested in sticking things in his mouth than he is in standing. He's still not great at managing the coordination to stick things (like toys) in his mouth, but he is excellent at putting his mouth on things. Heads are easier to steer than hands, I guess.
Second, an extended and more recent giggling/tickling video. Sorry I couldn't get my big head out of the light more. His giggle sounds completely unlike any other noise he makes. Isn't it awesome?
Also from the category of "been meaning to put these on the internets," the St. Patrick's Day photo posted last Monday was one of a couple dozen we took last Sunday, and some of my other favorites from that morning in the park are now up on Flickr. Happy Easter, everybody! Hope yours was as nice as ours. Did anybody else get rhubarb custard pie?
Finn is pretty big, as babies go. We already knew that, but his 4-month-old appointment confirmed it. He is 17 1/4 pounds, which is 86th percentile. Doctor Timmy even asked us what we were feeding him. Big, but not nearly as big as me; I was 20 pounds at his age. He's also 68th percentile in height.
Since he's got such a prominent 2nd chin, it is necessary to clean the crud out of there pretty frequently. We've taken to calling it the soft underbaby. He's usually pretty good about it, and he'll even giggle because he's pretty ticklish.
It's been a big week. After feeling kind of like we were treading water for a while, suddenly it seems like so much has changed. First, the exciting audio-visual material:
Sunday afternoon I was awakened from my nap by the sound of Jonathan giggling like a little girl. So I came out to the living room to see what was going on, and this is what I found. We kept putting him back on his tummy, and he kept rolling/falling over, I think about ten times. Then he forgot how to do it and put his head down and cried. But he enjoyed it while it worked, although I don't think he knew exactly what was going on, and he hasn't repeated it since. Very exciting stuff for the kid who wouldn't put up with tummy time flat on the floor just two weeks ago.
Also, we're making progress in the sleep department. The bouncy chair has been out of the picture for weeks, but I didn't want to jinx it by saying anything. I think I can honestly say now that he's outgrown it, and prefers sleeping flat on the mattress now. Again, like all our great parenting accomplishments, this was basically an accidental discovery. We're making progress on the napping front, too. Naps are starting to occur unwrapped, flat on back in crib. If you don't understand why this is a big deal, then ... well, I'm very happy for you. I keep seeing pictures of our friends' babies sleeping in these relaxed, accidental looking poses. That is not our kid. Other than putting him back after a middle-of-the-night feeding, Finn sleeping is almost never accidental. It is a deliberate multi-step process. At night it involves multiple layers of very specific, very tight swaddling. But he's outgrowing our swaddling materials, so now that he's getting a little older we're trying to help him form some new habits. The main obstacle is that he startles anywhere from one to three times a minute and keeps waking himself up. But we've had multiple unswaddled crib naps every day this week, so there's hope.
What else? He's spitting up less. He's better with his hands. He's drooling a lot and may be starting to think about getting some teeth. The combined result of these last two is a lot of wet fingers (his) and a number of (mostly failed) attempts to get other things in his mouth - my fingers, his toys, whatever happens to be in reach. And he continues to giggle more and more - he's ticklish in the neck as well as the armpits now - and make more and more funny faces. I think I call him "goofball" now more than anything else. For instance, the other morning we put him in what we decided to call his "interview clothes" - a button down shirt and some baby khakis - and take a nice picture. These are the five shots we got: Seriously, with those last two he has a career in front of him playing maître d's on sitcoms, right? We're going to try to take him for portraits next weekend. Wish us luck.
Finn's caught his first cold. It's mostly just a throat/sinusy-sounding-thing- no fever, hardly any runny nose, and it doesn't seem to bother him too much most of the time. He has been sleeping more (though not as soundly) and eating well. He just gets cranky a little more often, for which I can't blame him, since it must suck to not be able to control when you cough or sneeze, and then to add insult to injury we keep sticking stuff up his nose. It was officially more than normal baby snortiness as of about Saturday, so we started running the humidifier and having him sleep at an incline then (well, actually, he sleeps in an inclined position most of the time, so we were a step ahead on that one). The cough and congestion got a little bit worse every day over Presidents' Day weekend, and we weren't sure how long these things were supposed to last, so we called the doctors' office yesterday. They said that it sounded like a basic cold, but since he was so little, we could go ahead and come in and they'd squeeze him in to check on things. Dr. Lee confirmed that his lungs sounded fine, much to our relief, and there really wasn't anything to do but keep an eye on him and wait it out. So that's what we're doing. But - as a bonus of making the trip to the office, we have more official weight data: 15 pounds, 13.something ounces. Big Finn! In other news, Finn is officially ticklish. Here's proof:
The best and biggest giggles, of course, we never have the camera handy for. For instance, just now he was getting cranky while I was writing this, so I danced and sang a bit to the Cake song that's playing on the stereo, and he thought that was hilarious. To be fair, it probably was.
The warm weather has brought out the backyard hammock as well. While last year they were good about not playing on it, this year, not so much. If you turn the volume up to 11 you can hear them giggling. I took the movie from our bedroom window.
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