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:

We have forward motion!

I wouldn't call it crawling, more like scooting. But it works. When he remembers he can do it. Footage:

Scooting from Katie on Vimeo.

At first he mostly just seemed to think of it as an extra stretch, and was just as likely to give up as he was to scoot. But apparently this morning he crossed six feet of rug to go for Jonathan's shoes, so there you go. The house will never be the same again. First order of business after we get back from vacation is child-proofing, or else we're going to be wrestling a lot of dusty old Nintendo controllers out of his hands.

I was going to get this up on Thursday, when it happened, but I think our craziness level is slightly higher than usual right now. We leave for 10 days in Minnesota and Iowa on Friday (here we come, family, friends, and Iowa State Fair!). Friends are moving out of town. Out-of-town friends are visiting. Finals have arrived for the summer class that I'm taking. And I'm worried about Murray.

You may already have heard or gathered that although Finn loves the cats, it's not exactly mutual. Recently I've had to start facing the fact that although Murray's been part of our family for four years, he really hasn't been very happy since we brought Finn home, and that he might actually be better off without us. We've tried extra affection, drugs, sprays, diffusers... everything we can think of. If you know of any childless homes that might need a really loving, snuggly kitty, let me know, and we'll talk. When Jonathan took him to the vet recently, he jumped right up on the table in the exam room to meet her and give her a sniff, and she said that had never happened in all her years of practicing; he's a special guy. [okay, stopping the crying now].

In happier news, Finn continues to excel at standing up, loves his new xylophone, babbles more (and more strangely) all the time, and ate Cheerios yesterday for the first time. Eating Cheerios is really hard work if the look on his face was any indication. He wouldn't put any in his own mouth, but kept opening up for Jonathan to give him another. It was very "I have people for that."

I'm overdue for updating Flickr, and will try to get it done before we leave town. Did I mention the crazy?

Cousins and peaches are both awesome, says Finn.

My cousin Mariah came to visit us last week from Iowa. She braved her first plane trip, scary San Francisco hills, 100+ temps, and a heart-breaking lack of Mountain Dew with considerable fortitude. We took her to the city, the forest, the beach, the movies, the mall, the theatre, and the mystery spot, and took lots of pictures of our adventures. Finn was surprised and delighted to see her each and every morning, and stared at her more or less nonstop. Perhaps he meant it to be welcoming. Kid really needs to learn how to blink. Unfortunately, we spent a little too much time in the car for Finn's liking, so he's now doing the thing where he arches his back and goes stiff as a board when we try to put him in his car seat. But he's always happy about 2 seconds after we take him out. See?

This week we're back on our normal routine for a while, which is actually kind of nice. Yesterday we took a nice long walk to run some errands, and then stopped in the park downtown to watch kids play in the fountain and eat some peaches. The peaches were apparently both delicious and hilarious.

Finn likes peaches from Katie on Vimeo.

Tooth count is now more or less officially up to four.

Acceptable foods are up to about a dozen.

Wakings at night were reliably down to one, but have been back up to two or three the past couple nights - but he's been sleeping later, and has finally figured out where the button is on his crib aquarium. Yay!

In other news, I made spanakopita the other night, Jonathan and Finn went to an Oakland A's game on Sunday, and Mona's claws have reached an all-time length record.

Mama's home... and Happy 4th of July!

I made it to and from Anaheim safe and sound. It was a great trip - I met some neat people, saw some interesting talks, got some free books, and had a wonderful time with Nina, my Mom, and Teri (yay Disneyland!). By Monday I was really looking forward to going home, though, and on Tuesday I ended up flying standby and getting a much earlier flight so I could be home before Finn's bedtime.

Here's my mom at the conference trying out the Wii Fit, getting hit on the head with a soccer cleat. Good times. Yes, this was part of the conference.

Mom on the Wii Fit from Katie on Vimeo.
And here's Finn's reaction to seeing me at the airport. He may have thought I was never coming back.

Reunion from Katie on Vimeo.

Finn got a crazy cold while I was gone, and has basically been a big snot ball for days. I don't know how we'd survive without our Nosefrida, or how that much snot comes out of that little nose. Eeew. He even finally got so sick it affected his moods; Christine and Dereck were visiting from New Jersey the other day and got to meet Finn for the first time, and I don't know if they believe that he smiles. But we turned a corner yesterday, and despite the snot and the new teeth and the weather, he's our little grinner again.

Oh! And yesterday while sitting in a little wagon at Jason & Gwen's 4th of July barbeque, he pulled himself up to standing, and then sat back down. I missed it, but Jonathan was there. Soon he'll be running all over, I'm sure, but in the meantime he can still only crawl in his head.
Also, he LOVES plums - thanks Jason & Gwen!

Happy 4th from Finn! More at my and Jonathan's Flickr sites.

Trains & Fathers Day

We've been spending a LOT of time outdoors lately. Finn has a pretty short attention span indoors, but outside he's happy as a clam. Plus, it's been really hot out (no rain here!), and we don't have AC. Saturday we went up to Roaring Camp Railroads with Ross, Rachel, Helen, and Arthur. It was much cooler up in the mountains, and Finn had his first train ride (if you don't count the T in Boston) on a narrow gauge steam train. He loves trees, and apparently they're just as good speeding by a train as they are rolling past a stroller or waving overhead in the park. He did give them a few dirty looks, as if wondering what they were in such a hurry for, but mostly he was pleased. Helen's a big fan of trains, too, so a good time was had by all.Last night we had Thomas (who's promised to post new Finn photos soon) and Amy over for dinner, and this new "pretend we're people who have free time after Finn goes to bed" seems to be working pretty well. I'm currently caught up with all my homework, and may even resume knitting this week, assuming I can handle having a giant pile of afghan on my lap in this weather.

We had a pretty mellow Fathers Day. I had some school-related stuff to do, so Jonathan had volunteered for primary Finn duty. Finn was the fussiest and neediest I've seen him in ages, so we decided to ditch our stay-indoors-and-be-studious plans and head for the park - where I was still kinda studious. The photo on the right is Jonathan and Finn at the park this afternoon, with Finn doing his new goofy grimacing face. You can see that his teeth are full-fledged biters now - not that he uses them. The road back to solids is bumpy. We got him to take milk from a spoon yesterday, but once we started mixing in cereal he stopped opening his mouth. We had a little better luck with some cooked egg yolks today, especially when we let him "drink" (read "backwash") from a glass of water in between bites. We've got some bananas ripening in the kitchen and hopefully we can re-introduce those later in the week.

Sleep habits are still... kind of okay. We've had a couple nights where he only got up once, but usually it's 3 times. We're trying to gradually move his bedtime closer to 7 to stop this whole getting up for the day at 5:30 thing that seems to happen a couple times a week. And my favorite: Jonathan's taking one of the feedings all by himself, so that I'm more likely to be able to stay in my own lane on the way to work in the mornings.

Back from Massachusetts!

There's going to be some overlap with Jonathan here, because I see he just posted as I was writing, but I'll put in more pictures. :D

Boston, Part 2

Because I can't have a post called "Boston part 1" and then never have a part 2. It'd be weird. Friday we went to the zoo. Finn liked it pretty well (particularly the gorillas, the leopard, and THE FISH), but not as much as the aquarium. The animals were farther away and often not moving, so he didn't really notice them. He did get very excited about the enclosure railings, though. Whee.

Saturday we left Boston to go spend Memorial Day weekend with Ben and Martha. They have a labradoodle, Barcelona, and Finn wasn't quite sure to make of her - definitely interesting, but bigger than the cats and a much faster mover. He seemed to enjoy getting his hands licked, but not so much on the face. Saturday night I caught an awful cold - a send-Jonathan-to-the-drugstore-at-2am-for-cough-drops-and-Nyquil cold. Suddenly all the fun stuff we had planned for Sunday seemed (like "leaving the house" and "walking around") seemed way too ambitious, so everybody else went for a picnic while I napped. The worst of it was over within 24 hours and it was nice to just hang out with them and catch up for a while.

Monday we headed back to Boston and spent another night with Anne and Troy, who grilled us another lovely dinner. We were all set to leave for the airport the next morning (almost half an hour ahead of schedule!) when I picked Finn up and noticed that there was Poop Everywhere. Ugh. That was the third blowout of the trip, I think, and definitely the worst. We just took him to Anne & Troy's tub and hosed him down. He thought it was all great fun. We caught our plane with some time to spare, and Anne and Troy can probably enter their bathroom without a hazmat suit by now (thanks guys!).

Lots of people have asked how Finn is at traveling; it's a mixed bag.

• Finn has the opposite of stranger anxiety. He gets bored of being in the same place with the same people for too long, but if someone at the next table, or in the next row of the plane, starts making faces at him, he'll sometimes snap out of a bad mood. He loves making new friends. He had a pretty good time at the airport.
• Six hours is a LONG flight. Finn did pretty well. We entertainted him as best we could (yay free magazines for ripping!). I nursed him a lot and was very careful to keep him sleeping once he got that way. Jonathan kept him for most of the time he was awake, and did all the diaper changes (with no changing table. yikes.).
• Hotel cribs are not cool. Finn needs his own room. More sleep would have been better. On the bright side, we did keep him more or less on Pacific time, so we were able to go out to dinner and sleep in some.
• Hotel rooms get very boring very fast. But walks are always good.

So that's our trip. Many many photos on Flickr, plus ones from yesterday's trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium with Bridget, Keith, Tanya, Kiley, Sasha, and Tanya's parents.

Sleeping

Finn goes to bed these days around 6:30 and sleeps until 6 or 7 (or 8 on Saturday, or 4:30 Sunday - we're still working out the kinks). He's been getting up about 3 times, usually once before we go to bed and twice after. It's not ideal, but it's pretty workable, especially the long stretch at the beginning of the evening. We have nice, baby-scream-free dinners now, and Saturday night Gwen came over for dinner & the first stretch of sleep and Jonathan and I went to a movie. Like real people. This makes Gwen just about the awesomest person ever.

Getting older

The teeth are bigger. The sleep is better. The sitting and rolling skills continue to improve. He's a VERY strong lurcher. And he's getting more self-entertaining. I can definitely get more dishes washed/laundry folded/showers taken than I used to, which is nice. He's "talking" more, although instead of the "ba" or "da" type of sounds that books and websites claim are typical, his two favorite words seem to be "bvvvvvv" and "ghkehhhhhhhi." Jonathan's been standing him at the coffee table, which is pretty cool to see. He LOVES eating, not that that's new, but the cereal and bananas both are, and both have been a big hit. He only had half as much milk as usual at day care last Wednesday, and Ms. Lourdes said she fed him a whole bowl of rice cereal and he wanted MORE, and was not really interested in his bottle. This week we're trying avocados and sweet potatoes. His hair is getting thicker and darker.

Also? Cuter every day. I think that's mostly it for now.

Boston, Part 1

It's been a super busy week here for Finn. We're paying by the minute, so he's going to just give you a quick summary.

First (and second) hotel crib: Could have been better. [our son's very diplomatic, and much more polite than his parents]

First New Yorkers: Way fun! Received many tips from seven-month-old Casey on how to drive the parents nuts in the coming weeks. Also, traded pokes to the face.

First banana: Yum! More! [but mama wasn't so excited about the diaper]

First aquarium: OMG! @#$%#$^@!!!!!!!!! IT WAS TEH AWESOME!!!! [Yeah, we've got to start restricting his internet time. He was totally entranced by the fish, though.]

First baseball game - Red Sox v. Royals: Pretty cool, but kinda loud. It was a no-hitter, but Mama made us leave after just four innings. Something about "bedtime" and "baby self-destruct sequence."

First brewery tour: I slept through most of it, but mama seemed like she was having a really good time.

That's all for now! Thanks to Jessamy, Dave, & Casey; Anne & Troy; Shar & Gordon; and everyone who's been making this such a fun trip. Tomorrow, the zoo, and this weekend, western Massachusetts to see Ben, Martha, and Barcelona.

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...

New stroller, and other excitement

New Gear
You know how we keep saying how huge he's getting? It finally hit us a week or two ago that that meant more than outgrowing his clothes - he's approaching the weight limit on his car seat! Convertible car seats researched; car seat ordered; arriving today. Check!

Up to now, our car seat (+ a handy frame) has also been our stroller, so we had to get a new stroller, too. Again with the research, again with the shopping, and we're now the proud owners of two shockingly neon colored baby transport devices. There's a bright orange very basic folding one we're keeping in the car for short walks on smooth surfaces like the floor of Target until he gets big enough to sit up well in the cart, and then there's this awesome monster:

It's not the clearest photo, but it seems to be the best wide-angle shot I have so far. More glamour shots of the new ride, including one where you can see how much Finn likes it, at Flickr.

I love it. Since we go for multiple-hour-long walks 2 to 5 days a week over bumpy urban terrain, we (I?) decided we needed something a little more robust than little plastic wheels, and these 12" inflated ones make for a much smoother ride than the old stroller. It's like going over sidewalk cracks on a bike instead of roller skates. The only drawbacks are that this has a smaller storage bin (how am I supposed to go grocery shopping?) and not-too-great sun protection, so the first accessory we purchased was the sun cover. Also, it makes me wish we had a garage to stick it in. But you know what's cool? You can stick a second seat on the back. Or the front, actually.

New Skills
We're getting closer and closer to sitting up. He does great at it, actually, as long as I put toys by his feet so he leans forward instead of back, and sit behind him to serve as a bumper for the inevitable falling over.

Not that he minds the falling over. Apparently it's hilarious to suddenly find yourself lying back on the Boppy. But then, so many things are hilarious when you're Finn.

Finn also thinks he's ready to branch out from breastmilk. He's been eyeing our food pretty intently, especially my morning oatmeal, and likes to try and grab for my glass when I get a drink of water. I've let him try to drink from the glass a couple times, but that just gets drool in my water and water on his clothes. So actually this is more of an "interest" than a "skill" at this point. We're waiting for the six month mark to officially start on other foods, which is just a few short weeks away. Should be interesting.

Same Old Cough

Dr. Lee finally resorted to antibiotics to try and help Finn get rid of his... whatever it is that is/was causing his coughing and mucus issues (cold? sinus infection? asthma?). The primary and immediate result of this was diarrhea (silly antibiotics, killing off good bacteria with the bad), which led to the worst diaper rash EVER, which led to our first disposable diaper purchase in months because you're not supposed to get creams all over the wicking layer of our cloth ones. Happy Earth Day!

I'm not sure about the cough. He's definitely less mucus-y, but he still coughs more and sounds kinda thicker than I think he ought to, or than I remember from what he was like when this started two months ago. So we'll see.

More Grandma Visits

My mom gets here Thursday afternoon and will be here for nearly a week. I'm looking forward to getting caught up on homework and taking some serious naps. And guess what? I'm getting LASIK on Friday. Whee!