Quick post about our quick vacation

Presidents' Day Weekend! You have to celebrate that, right? And if you find yourself halfway through Saturday and realize you have no reason to be home before Monday night, shouldn't you celebrate that with an impromptu vacation? Isn't that what our founding fathers would have wanted? Staycations? I thought so.
First up, we met up with some friends and their new baby in Oakland to visit the Chabot Space & Science Center, and a good time was had by all. You would not believe how long a toddler can flip switches in an old space capsule and be thoroughly entertained. Also, grownups have fun. (Hey Fortney, nice job with the extra hand. No, I'm not going to Photoshop it out.)

On the way I downloaded a new app to play with photos on my phone. Aviary is not sponsoring this post, but you can send them hate mail if you're annoyed. Anyway, after the space fun we headed up to a hotel in Fairfield, and everyone had a pizza night out. At a table right next to all the video games.

The next morning brought swimming in the hotel pool (later deemed by Finn to be the best part of the trip), followed by TV while the parents showered. The boys are now familiar with commercial interruptions, and are justly angry at how unfair they are.

Once we were all dressed, we hit the Jelly Belly visitor center for the factory tour, and everyone ate as much candy as they wanted -- frankly, not much. We haven't even finished the free samples we got from the tour. But we are all stocked up on their new cocktail flavors if you want to come try them. Mojito jelly beans! Pomegranate cosmo jelly beans! What could be better? Well, lots of things. But we did have fun. See?

And now here's a video of Graham talking, because it's been sitting in the queue waiting for your enjoyment.

Graham, growing up

Yes yes, Graham is two! He can't hold up two fingers to show you how old he is, but he can hold up his entire hand, with his pointer and middle fingers purposefully touching each other, and then use his other hand to point to those two fingers, to indicate that yes, he is two.

He can do a lot of stuff. You want to see him climb up the ladder at the back of our swing set? [The camera work isn't great because I kept almost deciding to grab him.]


You want to see him run around the house with his shirt off, while squeezing his nipples? We see that every single night, but here he is:

We will *CERTAINLY* use that for our own purposes when he is in high school and college.

You want to see him sleeping with his new tiger that is even bigger than him? We got that too:


Graham is getting bigger and is making his opinions known at every opportunity. His number of go-to phrases is growing at a fast rate. Some of the new classics are:

"Oh Pete Sake!" (he says this all the time)
"Too Much Meat" (when really, really full)
"I need it" (when he wants/needs something)
"Hello Daddy" (only when I unbuckle him at home after school)
"MY DO IT!" (when you try to help him. Always a bad idea)
"My turn!" (when it is actually someone else's turn)

Here he is kind of singing. We'll try to get a better movie of this before he gets too old:


And lastly, here are the Fortney boys at the beach at sunset, from just last Friday. It was a nice time.

Conversations: Speed

F: Graham, are you the fastest baby in the world?
G: Yep.*
F: Graham, are you the fastest baby in the whole school?
G: Yep.*

Please, someone arrange the tournament to determine the world's fastest under-twos. I would pay to watch that.

*Somehwere during vacation, all of Graham's "Ya"s and "No"s turned into "Yep"s and "Nope"s.

Waterlogged boys

Summer, or what passes for summer, is in full swing! Highs of 67! Lows of 52! What?! Anyway, at least it is sunny in the afternoons when the fog burns off. A few days ago when Katie was in New Orleans the Fortney boys went with some friends to a fun neighborhood pool in Sunnyvale, on the warm side of the Santa Cruz mountains. Both boys enjoyed the 1-foot-deep kiddy pool and the main pool (with parental assistance--thanks Rachel!). Here is Graham getting warm and dry after a fun afternoon. In other news, they inhaled paella on trips out of the pool.

The boys were supposed to fall asleep in the car, since we left at 7:40, just before their bedtime. Graham held on for 25 minutes, and Finn made it all the way home, plus another 45 minutes. He was rattling around his room til 9:15, probably the latest he's even stayed up. He was on a swimming high.

As for more local water, I put a little too much bubble liquid in a few nights back, but of course that just made bath time even more fun.

Finn was unable to attend school yesterday due to a fever (which had already broken), so the two of us went to see Cars 2. It was Finn's 2nd movie, after Toy Story 3 from last summer. He did pretty well, and only moved seats or rows a few times.

In other boy news, Graham has been stringing 2-word phrases together, like "Up high," "my turn," "bye cows," and "mean daddy." The last one was from when I changed his diaper without his permission! I'll remember that one forever.

Oh, and here is Graham dancing with Elmo at Toys 'R Us. :)

Elmo and Graham, Buddies from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

Boys being boys

Wow, that month got away from us pretty fast here on the blog. But now I'm at 30,000 feet, and have some free time. (This is also my last science trip for the next few months!) Katie will be be posting about some new very tiny animals that live in our house, so I'll leave that to her...

Graham is growing up fast and likes to do what his brother does. He wants the toys Finn is playing with and sometimes the books Finn is looking at. ...and the cereal he is eating.... He has been nabbing various books around the house as "mine" and he carries them around. His favorites are a dinosaur book (that is mine!) and a bird book (that is Katie's). He likes to hold them in the car too.

Graham has a reasonable array of all of his teeth, and is talking up a storm---mostly one-word phrases. But he can sneak in the occasional two-worder, like "mine book!" He certainly can follow a wide array of complex multi-part instructions. And he is STILL a really snuggly little guy!

We have two musical instruments, as far as I know. A kazoo and a harmonica. Both are orange (like Finn's bike) since that is his favorite color.

The Fortney Band from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

Here are two pics from the boys at various parks. The top one is from Los Gatos, where they have a giant model airplane. We visited there right after we got some family portraits taken in and around the forest in the park.

Here is Finn trying out a new tree at Westlake Park, which is just down the street from us.

For a friend's 2-year-old birthday party, we make the hour-drive up to Redwood City, to Ryan and Sally's house. They have this fun little horse that I think Finn sat on the last time we were over there. Sadly, I think that our boys' room is pretty much at toy capacity, at least until they get bunk beds in the year 201X. We'll see!

Dad, why don't we have one of these? from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

Graham says "meat" and "beach" and other things

You know how it had been about ten months since I updated the height/weight chart? Yeah, it's been about a year since I updated my Flickr photos. So today I picked two photos a month and caught that sucker up. Restricting myself to two a month was tough, but made it a manageable process. And also means it's really easy for you to scroll through and see how much the boys have changed in the past year. Really. Look, go try it.

We are not the obsessive documenters of our family that we used to be. You, the blog audience, are woefully behind on Graham's progress on learning to talk, for instance. He says TONS of words now. I don't know, maybe a hundred? My favorites range from necklace ("nechiss") to couch ("shote"), both of which I need to capture on film. I totally missed my chance to capture how he used to pronounce zebra as "bizzahbizzah." Now it sounds more like zebra, and isn't nearly as cute. What *is* cute is when he demands, out of nowhere, that you "STOP!", complete with raised hand a la traffic cop or the Supremes. We don't know where he picked it up (teachers think maybe "Frosty the Snowman"?) or, often, what he's talking about. Usually nothing. There's a little bit of that one in the clips below.

He's big, huh? He is also snuggly, and fun, and a favorite at school, and a person of increasingly strong opinions.

Daylight Savings?

Daylight savings always seemed really fun when I was a kid. It stays light later--what more could you ask for? Frankly they should have it year-round and for 2 extra hours in the summer! That's what I thought. But when you actually have little ones, you gotta keep them on the family's schedule, and that is tough to do when everything changes by an hour. But I think we've been doing pretty well by making manageable increments.

In other news, Graham likes bread. And he can say a few words. And he can dance a little bit. And he's REALLY cute.

Open the bread from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

My Mom, Grandma Mary, came to town to visit us for 5 days. We had a great time in every way except that our little winery tour was ruined by every place we tried to visit being closed on Tuesdays, even though their web sites said they were open. :( The boys love their Grandparents and love to see them whenever they can, either in-person or via skype. My mom managed to push both boys around in the stroller, including up steep hills, even though their combined weight is now 70 pounds!

The rainy season is not over. Not even close. And I had such high hopes.... Not a problem for these two, of course.

Our table is one Finn unit in length. Finn is strangely fascinated with how tall people are, and how tall he and Graham will be. He has decided he will be as tall as me, but that Graham will only be as tall as Katie. He does remind me often that I'm not as tall is my Dad, though. And that Mona is the fastest in the family even though she is the smallest. And that racecars are faster than people. And that airplanes have tires. Actually, there are far more questions than definitive statements, but those are for another day.

Graham likes elephants, too

In the summer of 2009, when Finn was around the age Graham is right now, we went to the Oakland zoo. Mostly to see the elephants. Last weekend we went back, to see the elephants and to see our friends Bridget and Keith, who now live in Oakland. Keith took this picture for us.

Graham & elephants from Katie on Vimeo.
Graham's about as good at making elephant noises as Finn was. Still is for that matter. The main differences are that we were all more bundled up this trip, and I was decidedly less pregnant. Oh, also Graham breathes air now.

Jonathan is out of town for most of this week, returning tomorrow. We're getting along fine, especially now that Graham runs and says words and eats people food, but we all miss him. He's more fun than me - see?

P.S. More on Graham talking

Here's a short movie I took the other night of trying to get Graham to say some stuff. He was giving very decisive (and false!) "No!"s just before I turned the camera on. I'm sure all the parents are familiar with this - both the Nos and the camera effect.

Graham says some words from Katie on Vimeo.
Graham's other favorite word is "Boo." Sometimes as in "boots," but usually as in "Boo!", which he'll yell at you from under a blanket, around a corner, or when taking a stuffed animal out from hiding. It's a good word.
My two cents on Finn's talking - my favorite sentences this past week have been "My friends didn't seem to like it very much," and "Why you don't want Daddy to be fancy?" The first was about a book that he brought to share day, and I just like the phrasing. The second was when he and Graham were papering Jonathan's pants in Valentine's stickers the other night, and I attempted to intervene. He was both indignant and puzzled. Sorry, no photo of the fanciness.
But because I hate to do a post without a photo, here's a random one from a recent hike, back when we had nice weather. You know, in January. Not like today, when I foolishly decided to walk to work, and now my pants may not be dry before lunch. Anyway, that's the Pogonip, just a hop skip and a jump from our house. Neat, huh?

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!

The world according to Finn

Finn has taken to long monologues in the backseat, covering anything from Spiderman to friends at school to... well, here's part of one. I questioned him from time to time for your benefit, but rest assured he can go on for quite a while without prompting. If you click through to Vimeo there's a transcript for those of you who don't speak three-year-old. It's a quality video, in content if not cinematography.

Deer, shark, etc. from Katie on Vimeo.
After the move I found an old digital camera that we no longer need, and that I don't think I could convince anyone to buy on eBay. It's tiny, bright blue, and looks like it really ought to belong to a kid, so we gave it to Finn. 95% of his shots are his fingers, the floor, or in one charming instance, his thighs and the toilet seat as he sat on the potty. Here's a selection from the other 5%.



In this last one he's captured Graham's cheeser face, which he will make if he senses a camera nearby, or he's just happy to see you and feeling hammy. Often the eyes get completely squeezed shut.

These boys, they are goofy.

Graham is getting big!

Yes, he's just now past 11 months. He's a machine when crawling across the floor, and has been for weeks now. He can walk with the aid of parental fingers. He can cruise from chair to couch and back again with the best of them.

What, you want more? Well, he can already kinda say a few words: Daddy (daddada...), kitty (keih!), and Finn (Fh!). He usually won't do them on command. I would say that "Fh" is the clearest, because that is a pretty unusual noise for a baby to make. Usually he just babbles in stuff with "a" as the vowel. I think that daddy is now less clear than it was last week.

As he's eating more and more solids, he's liking finger foods more and more. O's, goldfish, raspberries, graham crackers, saltines, teething biscuits... He's becoming more annoyed with being spoon-fed baby food, since then he's not in control. Sometimes at dinner he'll flatly refuse the spoon! But I'm not giving up because we've got about 15 more jars to get through. And what is better for eating than *finally* getting those two top teeth that you've always wanted? He just had those bottom two for many months, which just wasn't cutting it for the big-time eating.

After some initial troubles in sleeping through the night at our new house, we eventually realized he was probably getting a little cold at 3 a.m., after he kicked off his blanket and before the heat came on. (Yes, in summer here you need the pilot light lit.) Now with a bigger blanket that we put on him right before we go to bed, we are all sleeping better. Since he's been sleeping through the night pretty well since he was 8-9 months, he's 5 months ahead of Finn!

Graham's officially big now

Graham had his six-month checkup Monday. He weighed 19 lbs., 4.5 oz, measured 26.5 inches tall, and had a head circumference of 44 cm. This puts him ahead of Finn, who was 18 lbs. 11.1 oz at his six-month checkup. Hooray charts!

Dr. Lee was impressed with how well he sits, unconcerned about his complete lack of interest in rolling over, and predicted the arrival of the second tooth any day now. And the day after his appointment, there was the second tooth. More will be coming soon, I'm sure. This week he's going to try avocados and carrots, and last week he added sweet potatoes to the list. We have yet to find anything he doesn't like. This includes paper. Mmmmm, paper.

Finn just came in soaking wet from playing in the "raindrops," which he enjoys immensely. I dumped about half a cup of water out of each rain boot - very effective accessory, obviously. He seems very glad to have both of us around so much (Jonathan even stayed home most of Tuesday and Thursday), and is back to his standard hijinx. Current favorite phrases include "Ready to play ball," "Sock it to me," "Don't play with me Graham!" (when Finn's upset and Graham smiles at him) and "What are you talking about, Mama?" (when I've been discussing things like smartphones or carseat specs with Jonathan).

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!

Are we back now?

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.

Graham grabbing from Katie on Vimeo.
Bonus video: Finn tearing into a Christmas present at my mom's place. I also uploaded a 5-second one of him testing out his new light-up slippers from that same evening.

Opening prenents from Katie on Vimeo.

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:

Graham smiles, and Finn talks A LOT.

Hey everybody!
My portfolio is due in less than two weeks, so I've been a bit too panicky to blog. I'm getting close, though, so I thought I'd take a moment to post a couple videos.
First, here's proof that Graham can smile, a movie taken about a week after the first smile, which was at about the 4 week mark.

First (week of) smiles from Katie on Vimeo.
And some photos Jonathan took at dinner tonight - looks like we may have another goofball in the family. (FYI, pumpkin bibs are still totally appropriate until at least Thanksgiving.)
And finally, a video of some of the other stuff he's up to these days - waving his limbs around, turning his head to look at sounds, and following objects around with his eyes. Also, being cute.

Graham kickin' around from Katie on Vimeo.
In Finn news, trick-or-treating was a good time (more photos soon, hopefully), and he's better at talking every day. The words are clearer, there's an astounding number of them, and the other night he busted out with a real sentence: "Read it again please," (or "Read it. Gen. Please." if you want to be picky) rather than his usual "READit! READit! READit!"
Tonight he helped me make pumpkin cookies. I measured out ingredients and he was in charge of "dumpin" them into the mixing bowl. Also slamming down the top part of the stand mixer, and occasionally turning it on. He later ate half a cookie, which I suppose means I'm responsible for the other two dozen. Here he is in the Safeway parking lot on Sunday, excited to be posing with the moon.

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!

The Cascade of "No"

Finn now has a default response to any question that we ask him. "No." You name it, the answer is no. Even if it is something he will want, like milk, the knee-jerk is no until he SEES the cup in your hand, then he gladly takes the milk. Apparently whatever your parents say must clearly be wrong and unimportant, but I thought he wouldn't start that until he was maybe 7, or 13. We need to stop phrasing things as questions.

As Katie just reminded me, another favorite word is "people." At Target, Katie asked Finn who all the clothes are for: "People." If he sees something he wants, but it is not for Finn, it is instead for "People." A bus goes by: "People." One of his favorite books recently: In a "People" House. He really says it a lot.

We haven't played many video game once since Finn was born, but Finn found our copy of Katamari Damacy for the PS2, and we put it on for him. He liked pushing all the buttons and making things happen on the screen.

No word yet on baby boy #2. We'll keep you posted. During the event, updates will on Katie's twitter feed. We are now officially past the due date! I think that Katie must have a cozy womb.

Talking and Trains

Finn's vocabulary continues to grow, and he's taken some tentative steps at putting two words together. Well, beside "horsey down," the others aren't quite as clear cut, but he said horsey down as clear as day when he was getting off the horsey (my foot). We get these babycenter.com emails every week about what your child might be doing, and how to parent your little kid. It seems that the average 22-month old is by now saying short sentences, but we're not there yet. I think I said "Where dog go?" when I was 13 months, but, you know, I'm special.

I'm not particularly worried by this, though, as Finn is quite advanced in the "monkey arts." He's a great runner and climber, and has been able to jump (an advanced maneuver) for about 2 months. (His vertical is a centimeter, at best.) So his large motor skills are quite well developed, as my mom would say. Thankfully our crib is so well designed that I don't see him being able to get out of it anytime soon, but we'll see. And he's only mastered a few door knobs, but none in our house.

As we've mentioned before, Finn prizes novelty above all else. (Of course that doesn't hold when it comes to books or movies, as he'll gladly read or watch the same thing over and over again.) The train ride to Santa Cruz didn't quite reach the heights of goat farm day, but he really had a great time. Here is my favorite picture from the day. Only Finn would run at top speed down a narrow 1800's train aisle on a rickety mountain track.


Unsurprisingly, you don't have to show Finn how to stick his head into a hole. He'll do it for fun.

No news yet

In case you were curious, I'm still pregnant. Other than being tired and generally uncomfortable, I'm fine. Well, my brain's not working quite normally, either, but I try to chalk that up to the tiredness. I think I can manage to post a few photos, though.
First, here's a recent family photo from Alex & Laura's wedding.

Then here's Finn showing off his ISU-Cyclone-inspired bathtub art.

In Finn-language, colors are "red," "orna," "lellow," "geen," and "blue." Or maybe "bue." And then there's "back." I forget exactly how he says brown, but it's pretty close, and brown and "orna" are his current favorite colors. He has one shirt that's both orange AND brown, and wearing it with his orange shoes makes him very happy. He seems to be suffering from red-lellow color-blindness for the time being, but those are the only two he really mixes up. And as I think Jonathan noted before, he LOVES to point out "GEEN!" lights as we drive around town. Apparently that's hilarious. It certainly keeps me entertained while I'm driving.

P.S. I guess we don't have anything purple in the house, because it never comes up...