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.

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.

Two grown-up boys

Finn of course has his own wants and needs. (yogurt, The Incredibles movie, bike riding, Gorilla Munch cereal). But Graham, little chubba jolly Graham, alas, also has wants, besides just being squeezed and tickled by his parents. The cutest is his sassy "Nooooooo!" in his little squeaky voice, if he disagrees with you. He's remarkably good at making animal noises, and has a few actual human words he can pull out as needed. But yeah, he's starting to have his opinions. He also is quite willing to "attack" Finn if he wants to have some fun, but that basically never goes his way in the end, since Finn is big and not afraid to be the victor.

Lately we've been to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Happy Hollow zoo in San Jose, and to the beaches in Santa Cruz and in Pismo Beach, which is 3 hours south down the coast. (Hi to Sarah and Joel!) Being outside is certainly great for family sanity.

Finn is full of questions, as always. Lots about Mr. Incredible and the Incredible Hulk, which he certainly now knows are different people. We spent a considerable amount of time at the dinner table last night discussing how, often, big things can be faster than smaller things (horse vs. cat, say) but then something can be so big, that it can be slower than small thing (elephant vs. horse, say). I'm not sure that he bought it. Anyway, lots of active discussions, which can be repetitive, because he just won't care that we had the very same discussion the day (or minute) before.

Here is Graham at the aquarium last month. Both boys had a great time, although the Outer Bay tank is closed for refurbishment.

This is one from bath time just last night! Maybe a haircut for Finn this weekend? One thing that Graham can ask for (and does) is a bubble bath. "Bubbo!"

These last two are from on the beach in Santa Cruz. Finn spent most of his time under the boardwalk, while Graham preferred the open sand, after he finally woke up from his nap. It is about a 30-40 minute walk from our house to the beach, so that is a good weekend activity when the weather in nice. Finn even rides his bike all the way there. Coming back home uphill is a different story!

2 year & 2 month doctor visit

It was a full day here yesterday: the boys had back to back doctor's appointments for their 2 year and 2 month checkups. Both are doing fine, and I finally had enough stats to make a cool chart (Graham is red/orange/yellow, Finn is green/blue/purple):

It's a little misleading because Finn was 10 weeks old at his 2 month appointment, and Graham was only 8.5, but you get the general idea. The most interesting tidbit is that while Finn's head size was always in the 70-85th percentile, Graham's is more like 30. So no giant noggin for him, although he is trying to make up for it in overall head mass by adding on the chins.
After seeing Dr. Lee we checked out the new Sunnyvale Target, where they have carts that seat 3 kids. Finn was very excited to ride in the "trailer," as he called it.

And then before Jonathan headed in to work we squeezed in a pre-Thanksgiving haircut for Finn. This was the first time he sat on one of the chairs (well, horse) by himself rather than in his Daddy's lap, so that was exciting.

And here's a video of Graham from about 10 days ago in what seems to be his favorite spot in the universe: his changing pad. Last week I just left him there while I went and showered and got dressed, and he was still having a great time when I came back.

Graham on the changing pad from Katie on Vimeo.
Monday Graham started at day care, and seemed to enjoy it - he was grinning and watching a mobile when we came to pick him up. We thought Finn would be super excited to have Graham come to "school" with him, but so far it hasn't made much of an impression.
Things are almost kinda sorta starting to calm down around here (I still need to log 50 or so internship hours by the end of the semester), so hopefully I'll get Flickr updated soon. Happy Thanksgiving!

We have matching shoes.

Today Finn and I took our first decent walk since I sprained my ankle. We hit the bakery (fresh bread, yay!), the park, the library (three books, yay!) the hardware store (stepstool that allows Finn to use the kitchen sink - so far, a mixed blessing). We were hindered by the fact that my hips and back have fully caught on that I am REALLY REALLY pregnant, but helped by the fact that we now have matching shoes, which makes us super awesome.
Saturday night we went to Alan and Margaret's wedding celebration. Finn got a haircut and some new duds for the occasion, so he looked pretty snazzy, and he had an absolutely wonderful time. Haircuts always make him look so much older.
He loved having Grandpa Jon here for the weekend, too, but apparently we didn't get any pictures of them together. He says "Grandpa" something like "Banta," and was very confused to see Banta at our house at first, and was NOT happy a couple days later when Banta got out of the car to go get on the plane.

That's about all our news, except that Jonathan had a pretty horrible flu on Sunday, and we've pretty much settled on a name for Finn's little brother. Any guesses? More pictures 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.

Big week, featuring: TEETH!

The chaos continues here at Casa Fortney. I have one project left, and it's about half done. Hopefully in another day or two I'll be turning it in, and then I can return to being a reasonably stable, functioning person who responds to e-mails, reads books, and goes outside. In the meantime, the breaks to feed Finn and play with him and hang out with him and Jonathan help me stay slightly sane.

This week marked the appearance of Finn's first tooth, followed closely by his second:
I think the new weird face he makes is tooth related... it's this weird wide mouthed smiling-grimace-with-chomping-motion. We'll try to get a picture. Also growing: the hair! Not going to be long any time soon, but definitely getting fuller and fluffier.

Another first this week: solids! Well, semi-solids. It's just about the six month mark, so we've tried a couple rounds of rice cereal. Finn's a big fan.Then we got too busy, and too grossed out by the diapers, so we might not try again until after Boston. We'll see.
Because they feed him so much more at day care than I can pump when I'm away from him, he's also had formula for the first time this week. I know lots of wonderful mothers who've fed their babies formula for one reason or another, so I'm not guilty about it (not really), but I AM annoyed that we've had to introduce this complication into our routine. Formula requires mixing, and has its own set of rules, and costs money (theoretically - our free samples should last us quite a while at this rate). Also, since formula is either milk or soy based, this really isn't helpful as we try to figure out if Finn has milk or soy intolerance issues.

Wanna see how well he sits up now (and how little he cares when he falls over)? Watch this movie of him playing with Murray:

Tummy time is pretty infrequent and short-lived these days, though, because he's gotten so good at the front-to-back rolling over. No interest in the back-to-front, though. He's generally either perfectly content to stay exactly where he is, or completely sick of the entire house/room/state and DEMANDS IMMEDIATE AND EXTREME RELOCATION.

Did Jonathan mentioned the mucous is back? It's some completely different snot sickness this time - he had a fever on Friday and I had to go pick him up from day care early. But the bedtime routine is going great, and we're getting more sleep than we were three or four weeks ago.

I've had a good first Mothers Day. Mostly it's been homework, but I did make some cookies, and Jonathan and Finn ran a TON of errands that were stressing me out. I got some kitchen stuff (and LASIK) and later this week I'm getting a trip to Boston. :) Keep your fingers crossed for me and I may just make it through these next few days...

Look, he got bigger!

A friend recently recommended the practice of taking regular pictures next to the same giant stuffed animal. Then she added "I should have told you that a couple months ago, huh?" Never fear, we may not have giant stuffed animals, but we have a big chair. And a medium sized stuffed animal for future scale reference.

Look how chubby he is now! Doesn't he look so different?! I wish you could see his skinny little legs in the first picture. You can see his hair, though, and that's falling out.


On the subject of growth and change, I've recently admitted I made a judgment error on the diaper front. We're giving up on the Happy Heinys - we realized we were using them last, and basically planning on a change of clothes after putting him one, due to the inevitable moisture wicking. So now we have a ton of Bum Geniuses, and all is well. We'll pull the HHs out again when he's bigger and give them another try, but right now with them folded down to be the smaller size, the fleece sticks out a LOT, and we blame that for the wicking. Or maybe not. But we LOVE the Bum Geniuses, and have picked up quite a few on sale, and think they're going to see us through. No leaking, even overnight, and they're holding up great after the first couple months with washing every couple days.

Everyone keep your fingers crossed for me - Jonathan's leaving town for two nights starting tomorrow, and Finn and I will be on our own for our longest stretch yet. I don't know how single parents, or friends of ours in couples where one spouse leaves town a lot, do it. I've already talked Gwen into coming over to keep us company Thursday night when I have an online class meeting. Partly I'm nervous, mostly I'm jealous of how he's going to get an uninterrupted night's sleep. And then another one. And then another one next week when he goes to New Mexico. And then Hawaii.
Did I mention I'm jealous?

Daddy Day

A good thing about Finn getting older is that you can start to play games with him now. His favorite is of course having a blanket thrown over him so that he can kick his way out. Another is "dress up like Mother Teresa time." I'm kidding of course, but I like this pic.


Finn has been spending more and more time in his high chair, which he likes because then he's not nearly as close to the ground as usual. We got it from a big bunch of my high school friends. Thanks! (That will serve as your thank you note, because I'm not sending out 10 for one present. I'm a bad person.) Today Finn was good, and we used the high chair, the bouncy chair, and the swing. I bet I got 3 hours of work done, which ties a record.

His hair is starting to fall out a bit now, which means he's looking more like me, even if his face is starting to look more like Katie's.

One month!

Finn is one month old today. I can honestly say much of it has passed in a blur, thanks largely to the whole finals thing. A quick bit of advice: if you're returning to school after a few years off, and working while you're doing it, probably you shouldn't take three classes your first semester. And if you're having a baby that semester, DO NOT take three classes, particularly if they involve group work. And if you're dumb enough to do all of this, please, for the love o' Pete, don't move in the middle of all this or plan on getting any homemade Christmas presents done. Or, you know, anything else.

Anyway, we've survived and are having a great time, and to celebrate, here are some up close and personal photos. First, the parts of Finn that I see the most of, his cute little ears:
Yes, I can tell them apart, even if you tried to fool me with a mirror or something. And after I get to look at his ears, usually while I burp him I get to look at his super soft hair, which it appears he's going to keep:
He's got a cowlick. It goes counter-clockwise. And finally, as a special treat for you blog readers, something we almost never get to see, the palms of his hands:He usually keeps them clenched pretty well, which is why you can see our fingers prying them open, and why, if you look closely, you can see the lint he stores between his thumb and forefinger in one of the shots. At least once a day I take a wet washcloth while he's semi-distracted by eating and say, "Finn! Give me that hand cheese!"