Walking around

Graham has been mastering the art of the continued forward stumble. Known by many as "walking." He really is pretty good at it now and likes to walk around just for fun. He can easily end up in the other side of the house if you're not paying close enough attention.

Walking around from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

Finn is in the neighborhood of being potty trained. At home or at school he is usually at around 1 accident per day, but some days are zero. When we're other places, like museums or restaurants, the failure rate is higher. Also, bowel movements are always a disaster. But there is a good progress. His excitement to wear underwear has been a positive driving force, as well as the teachers at Happy Days, the boys new daycare. We HOPE that the boys will be there for a long time.

The pic below doesn't need any further comments. The cuteness is evident. Graham is enjoying car-life more since we turned him around last month.

A real post about the boys and stuff

We've got lots going on, in non-daycare-related areas. We made our (nearly) annual trek up Hwy 1 to the giant Arata pumpkin farm. This year we went with Francis and Emily, and their daughter Mae. Arata has a "river" of pumpkins, and more importantly, a giant hay maze that changes from year to year. Katie in particular is a huge fan. She has here own method for getting through the maze. Finn and I are good at finding dead ends. Here are Katie and boys, deep, deep in the maze.

We got three pumpkins, one for me, Katie+Graham, and Finn. Finn's only metric for choosing was that the pumpkin was "BIG." Katie and chose two with fun stems.

Here is a post from two years ago, at Finn's previous visit to Arata. It's fun that Graham is getting to wear all the same cute clothes that Finn wore when he was 1.

Our neighbors across the street have some elementary-school age kids, and they've given us a few of their old little-kids stuff, like these two folding chairs, which the boys love.

I think that Katie already posted about this, but we managed to make it to the last beach train of the year, which winds starts up in Felton, and winds down through the redwoods down to the beach boardwalk in Santa Cruz. I snapped this cute pic that I like a lot. Sometimes Graham seems pretty big, but he is really just a little guy compared to his brother. Oh, and he's walking more now. Although he CAN do it, more often he has chosen to crawl instead.

Happy birthday baby!

It's been a big day for Graham. It's his birthday, and he started walking! (His first steps were yesterday, but he refused to attempt more than one at a time. He's progressing rapidly.) Footage:

Graham walks! from Katie on Vimeo.

Note in the video that we are all wiped out by our record 100+ temps today, and Finn's ever-increasing interest in imaginary play. Two months ago if you'd have told him that ball was a fish he'd have said "no, it's a ball," and looked at you like you were crazy. Now he tells *us* it's a fish, and that we should pet it.

Yesterday we had a lovely small party for Graham, with family, close friends, cake, and cupcakes, but the presents and cake footage were taken with the actual video camera, not my phone, and needs to be converted and edited. Hopefully we'll get that up before his next birthday.

This was the last weekend for the train that goes from the mountains clear down to the beach, so that's what we did Saturday. Here's a shot of the boys enjoying the ride.

An hour each way where both boys were entranced, and we mostly got to sit still in a cool redwood forest. Can't recommend it highly enough.

So Happy Together...

Why bother doing a blog post if I can't get a song stuck in your head, right? But then I reward you with a video, fresh from this morning. This airplane was Finn's present for his first birthday. Graham has been using it for a walker/push toy lately, and that has renewed Finn's interest in it. Here they are sharing nicely. Mostly.

Walking together from Katie on Vimeo.
And in case that weren't enough, now I will explode your head with more brothers-together cuteness.

Yes sir, good times around the Fortney house lately. Graham turns ONE on MONDAY! He'll be walking soon, he's moving closer to an all people-food diet, and he understands a TON of what we say to him. Finn, who has always been fond of songs but not so much singing, now sings all the time - random lines from everything from "Wheels on the Bus" to "Eight Days a Week" to "Lisztomania." But he would like someone to explain to the Beatles that babies cannot, in fact, drive your car.
I'm doing great. My job is simply wonderful. If you are a library geek I would be happy to explain to you all the reasons why. On top of that I get to walk to my office through a redwood forest and drive home with a vista of Monterey Bay. You may know I have a yard 5 houses from a duck pond, that it backs onto a creek and is popular with local deer, skunks, and the like, but did you know that my house is within a few miles of:

• beaches (with sea lions. And surfers.)
  
• mountains
  
• book and record stores (new and used)
  
• a ROLLER COASTER
  
• a butterfly migration hot spot
  
• an annual aquatic parade
  
• a steam train
  
• at least 3 wine bars and innumerable wineries
  
• 2 or 3 breweries
  
• restaurants from Afghan and Brazilian to ... Thai and vegan? What's a cuisine that starts with Z?
  
• TWO weekly farmers markets
• gourmet chocolates
  
• three completely unrelated independent local grocery stores/small chains
  
• so many great bakeries I sometimes think my head will explode

There's more, I'm sure, but that gives you a picture. You'd never guess that I like food, huh? Life is good. Come visit.

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 is gargantuan. And growing.

Graham is ten months old now. He wears 18 month clothes, and is as big as a number of two-year-olds we've met. He crawls with is belly raised off of the floor (sometimes). He cruises (a bit). He steals Goldfish crackers from his brother. He just cut his third tooth on Monday. Yesterday I stuck my hand out and asked him to give me five, and he refused, shaking his head and grinning. What a joker! Not that you'd know it from this recent photo session (courtesy of my mom. Thanks, Mom!).


If you like that, there's more. Note that that link is not the "cute ones" that we got prints of. It's the blooper reel.

And here's "that huge baby" (per Finn) in the infant room at the Children's Discovery Museum yesterday. He had a blast.

Graham at the CDM from Katie on Vimeo.

Tomorrow is MOVING DAY. Stay tuned.

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!

Raai-aai-aai-aai-aainn, I don't mind

Of course that's a lyric from The Beatles "Rain," the B-side to 1966's "Paperback Writer" single. But I'm not telling you anything that you didn't already know. (What a great song, by the way.)

It's supposed to rain here all week. I guess that's what we get for not having to shovel any snow. We decided that Finn needed some proper gear for the season, so we got him a raincoat and some hard-soled shoes. The raincoat is pretty much just a windbreaker, but it does the job. He is enjoying the shoes--they're good for stomping. Here we are before we ventured out to go to the farmer's market today:

He was the only little maniac kid there, as the market was a bit of a wet ghost town. But he had a great time running around and jumping in puddles. He also got mud all over his face, hands, and pants. I like to let him explore. I should have brought his boots, though. He was popular with the vendors, which garnered us a lot of free samples. He was furious when it was time to leave.

He is really is growning up fast. 15 months! What has surprised me the most lately is how aware he is of stuff he isn't supposed to do, and how fun it apparently is to try and get a rise out of us. Finn doesn't just bang on the window blinds. No, he'll touch them with one finger, and quickly look at us. Then he'll touch them with his whole hand, and look at us. Then he'll bang them really hard, and then look at us with a big smile! (He isn't supposed to touch them because they can detach and fall down on him.) If you just ignore him, then things escalate to banging more quickly! There are many examples involving the trash, the bookshelf, you name it. I guess I had thought this wasn't something that he would master til he was 2 or 3. I was wrong!

Also, we gave him his first hair cut last weekend, on the front steps. He was getting pretty shaggy along the sides and in back. I think that Katie did a nice job.

A month's worth of videos

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.

Belly from Katie on Vimeo.

Holy crap, it's December

Where to start? Well, here are a few more things Finn can do:

• stand up in the middle of the room
• point to the right picture in a book when you ask him where the ball is. Or the banana. Or the kitty. (This is SO awesome and exciting.)
• say ball. Kind of ("baaow"). Often about a ball.
• break bottles of vanilla. Oops.

Toddlers are so much more fun and interesting than babies. They'rea also crazier, sneakier, more opinionated, and have longer memories.

I am officially done with two of my three classes, and just have mostly housekeeping-type stuff left for the third. To celebrate we went to the Los Gatos Holiday Parade. Apparently our town is quite the local Christmas destination. There's the parade, carriage rides, shopping, and Santa in the plaza - Saturdays for pets, Sundays for kids. No, seriously. The parade was NUTS. Very long, very crowded, mostly pedestrians, but also a giant meat smoker on wheels. Here's Finn when we got home.

Last night we went to Aimee Mann's 3rd Annual Christmas show, which was lovely, and at times strange and hilarious. For instance...


Voices Carry from Katie on Vimeo.

We went two years ago, and it was nice to go back, post-baby, and sit with friends this time instead of strangers.

I'm also hoping to celebrate my new freedom by watching some movies before we head back to the midwest for the holidays. In the spirit of "Holy crap, it's December" (Christmas shopping! Christmas cards! Boy needs mittens!), here is a list, not exactly in order, of my ten favorite Christmas movies.

1. Scrooged, with Bill Murray. Carol Kane is the best Ghost of Christmas Present ever. Except maybe John Krasinski in the short at the Christmas show last night.
2. Meet Me in St. Louis. Not entirely a Christmas movie, but Judy Garland singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" is just so lovely.
3. Miracle on 34th Street. I know, I know, but come on! It's Christmas!
4. It's a Wonderful Life. Ditto.
5. Nightmare Before Christmas. Of course.
6. Love Actually. I am SUCH a sucker for this movie, the Colin Firth and Hugh Grant storylines in particular. And the Keira Knightley one. Okay, the whole thing.
7. Gremlins. But don't tell Jonathan; he has traumatic childhood memories of it.
8. The Bishop's Wife. Cary Grant. What else do you need to know?
9. Saturday Night Live: Christmas. Not technically a movie, but you can get it from Netflix, so I'm counting it. It's got Alec Baldwin in the Schweddy balls sketch, Eddie Murphy with Christmas in Mr. Robinson's neighborhood, and Adam Sandler singing The Hanukkah Song.
10. Die Hard. Or Lethal Weapon. Whichever one is on at the time.

And speaking of movies, here a couple quick Finn shorts, first on a slide, then on a random stage they had set up at the park, where all the kids were having a blast running all around.

Sliding from Katie on Vimeo.


There's a stage! In the park! from Katie on Vimeo.

This concludes the longest blog post ever. More photos at Flickr.

Happy Thanksgiving

Just a day late. Here's Finn in his fancy Thanksgiving duds, giving thanks for our finally completed new driveway.

As of this week, Finn can:

• clap
• walk backwards (and pull doors shut behind him - watch those fingers!)
• dance at least 3 different ways
• sleep over 10 hours at a stretch (he's done this twice)
• make us think he's saying things like "ball" and "okay" when he apparently isn't really

Also, tooth #6 has officially arrived, and he seems to be working on #7.  I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted!

Birthday recap

I'm all scrambly and incoherent as the end of the semester draws near (threeweeksthreeweeksthreeweeks), so I'm mostly going to just throw some photos and videos at you. Less than ideal for those of you who like to skim this at work, but trust me, the grandmas eat it up.

Birthday (for realz)
On Thursday Finn opened some presents (video camera battery died - sorry, no video), went out for a pancake birthday lunch, and then played in the fountains in the park. Pancake photo:
Fountain video (hooray for Thomas and Amy loaning us their camera!):

Walking in the fountains from Katie on Vimeo.
He eventually went right through the middle, got thoroughly soaked, was knocked over several times, and had his diaper hanging practically around his knees. I let him go until his was clammy and starting to turn the corner from pink to purple, then dragged him off screaming to change to clean dry clothes.
More photos, of course, at Flickr.

Birthday (observed)
On Saturday we threw Finn a little party. At least, it sounded little when we planned it. But it was big enough to be one of those things where I tried to talk to everyone at least a little and ended up feeling like I hadn't gotten to talk to anybody - don' t you hate when that happens? Maybe it's just a function of our house being a succession of small cells and focusing my energies on trying to keep Finn from eating shoes. Anyway, Finn had a pretty good time once he got over the strangeness of actually having a bigger audience than he required, and, surprise surprise, he loves cake. He also likes new toys, but still requires a designated unwrapper (thank you, Helen) to get at them.

We didn't take any photos, but Thomas and Laura both did, and they have fancier cameras and better skillz than us anyway. I'll put up a link if they post them, and here's one of Laura's to tide you over. We also didn't take any video, but luckily Jonathan's cousin Colin spied our lonely video camera on the table and took some for us - yay Colin! I promised him extra cake to thank him for rendering that valuable service, but Jonathan keeps forgetting to take it to work, so... sorry, Colin. We ate all the banana by Sunday night anyway.
This means you can watch up to ten minutes of cake time - just like being there, only harder to tune out our rambling and peer around us at the cute baby. It's not really HD, but it is suitable for full-screen viewing, so it may take a bit to load.
Cake part 1 from Katie on Vimeo.

Cake part 2 from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.
I also have videos of dancing and his new monkey face, but uploading video from the video camera actually has, like, steps, so that may not happen for a few more days. Bear with us.

Oh, and we had his 1-year checkup today! So pester Jonathan to post about that. Must sleep now.

My camera is broken and it's his BIRTHDAY Thursday!

Sad, sad times. For instance, Thursday we were at the park and he was running all in and out of the fountains, inching at them with his little index finger fully extended, hoping that pointing would eventually equal contact, simultaneously drawn to and afraid of the spray, freezing his little butt off, and then screaming his head off when I grabbed him to dry off and change clothes. But do you get to see that? No, you have to use your imagination, because my camera is in a box on its way to New Jersey, where they will hopefully tell me it is cheaper to repair than replace. But! before I shipped it off, Tuesday night we took thisat Alex & Laura's election night party, and a few others that are over at Flickr. Finn was excited with the rest of us when the Ohio results came in, but then he went to bed... only to be rudely awakened an hour later by the mad screams, jumping, clapping, and all around hell-breaking-looseness that occurred when CNN called the election at 8.

Also, we still have the video camera (still working on how to export as the proper aspect ratio, though). So here's a little 13-second clip from yesterday showing how matter of fact he is about walking now. Apparently he rarely sits down at school anymore.

More walking from Katie on Vimeo.
He just has so much PERSONALITY these days. I wish you all could come see. "But Katie," you say, "hasn't he always been full of personality?" Well yes. But check out what he's up to lately:

• When he gets bored in his high chair (before he reaches the stage of brushing everything onto the floor), he tries to feed us his dinner. And then giggles when we eat the piece of tomato/grape/macaroni from his grubby little hand. "For Finn," we tell him. "Daddy has his own dinner." "Whatever, eat this," he gestures.
• He walks behind the corner of his dresser, watching us slyly, and waits for us to ask "Where's Finn?" Then he'll peek around and smile, and we say "boo!" or "there he is!" and he goes back and does it again. And again. And again.
• He likes photos, and has favorites. For instance, in the Trick or Treat photo, he'll point repeatedly (and forcefully) at the smiley Finn, but never at the grumpy Finn. In our living room is a picture of me & my brother Allen from Allen's wedding, and he LOVES it. "Look, it's like Mama, but thinner and wearing makeup - pretty!"

Grandma and Grandpa Fortney are coming this weekend, and Finn gets cake - woohoo! We'll take video, and probably some stills with - gasp - Jonathan's old camera that served us perfectly adequately for Finn's first month. Anybody wanna place bets on the ratio of cake that ends up on the floor vs. in his mouth?

Finn's a dinosaur!

Maybe Yoshi. Maybe Godzilla.He seemed to like the costume, at least this part. The giant dino-feet slippers were a big no since he learned to walk, and the hat is EVIL GET IT OFF. We were going to get some full-outfit pics anyway, but it was pretty grey out this weekend, and my camera is... ill. No flash photos for us for a while. If you don't mind turning your head sideways, here's a movie. I know we have software to rotate it somewhere, but I figured you'd rather watch it this year.

Sideways Finnzilla from Katie on Vimeo.

And here's me and Jonathan as Mario and Luigi on Friday night. Yay babysitters!

We saw 3 other Marios at the party, but no other Luigis. Did you know that when you buy overalls on Amazon (at least in late September), it helpfully tells you that other customers purchasing overalls also bought red newsboy caps, white gloves, and fake mustaches? So we weren't too surprised that there were others.
I showed up at day care in the costume and Finn was absolutely terrified. Then I took off the mustache, and he looked at his teacher, and back at me, and grinned. "That's my mama! Did you know she was here? What a clever ruse." He also consented to wear my hat for nearly five minutes.
HIS hat, not so much, and now he's thinking about declaring war on his hair. It just will not come off, but he hasn't gotten too upset about it yet, and only yanks at it a couple times a day when he re-discovers that it's up there.

More at Flickr.

Walking is old hat now

Here's a video of Finn walking last night. And then falling. As you can see, he's SO much better than he was a week and a half ago. Yesterday when I went to day care to pick him up, he was outside in the yard with the big kids!

Walking's so easy. Until you fall. from Katie on Vimeo.

Note: we don't usually laugh when he falls. I think. He was fine, at least once we gave him his pot-banging spoon.

Then he went and looked at his books and ignored us for a while.

Also, he's decided he really likes pasta with carmelized onions and gorgonzola, among other things (oatmeal. grapes. bread bread pancakes bread.). And we're getting a new dishwasher this week (Finn broke the door off of the old one), and a new drier (not his fault), and just got a new kitchen faucet (ditto). AND they claim the driveway will be finished this week.

It's been a big week for videos. Below is Finn eating bread (and trying to eat leaves) in the park. I've also got him tormenting Murray and eating a lemon (not sour, apparently - disappointingly anticlimactic).

Eating bread and leaves from Katie on Vimeo.

The next post should be Halloween photos, but since he hates hats so much, I'm not sure how that'll go. Stay tuned!

All grown up, with someplace to go

Well, Katie brought home the forms from daycare on Friday. What forms? The transitioning from the infant room to the toddler room forms! My baby, a toddler? I think not! We just had him! I guess 1-year is the standard transition time, but since he's walking around a bit, and could potentially step on (or has stepped on) the other babies, he's gotta go!

This means: He has to be able to feed all of his food to himself. For Finn, this means 100% finger foods and no spoons. So, goodbye baby food. Also, no more sleeping in the crib at daycare! AND, only 1 nap per day, instead of two. There is a 90 minute block of "quiet time" for napping, on a mat, with a blanket. I have a feeling that this will be comical. He often naps for only 30 minutes, and I can't see him being quiet on a mat for the other 60. Especially because he starts yelling early in the wake up process and takes quite a while to calm down. There is a month of transition time; at first he'll only spend 1/4 of the day with the toddlers, then 1/2, etc. It's a brave new world.

In other news, he's still a maniac. He likes he new pumpkin and enjoys (occasionally) chewing on the stem. I cut the gross parts off the stem. Since the weather is getting marginally colder, he's wearing cutie long-sleeve shirts, and now he's also got several pairs of pants. The diaper changes are a bit more challenging.

His new-found walking ability has coincided with better sleeping at night. He's been waking up only once, between 3 and 5 a.m. I think a no-waking night is certainly possible.

I really missed him when I was out of town a couple weeks back, practically for the whole week. It's much better to be home.

Walking! Well, some steps. Steps!

It's been a big week around here, kids. I think this calls for subheadings.

The Walking
Finn's been more and more excited about being vertical lately - to the detriment of his health, even. The boy looks like we carry him around in a sack full of bricks, and they had to call me twice from day care Wednesday with "ouch reports." But he's making progress, and here he is yesterday shortly after he apparently took about 7 steps before falling over. I say "apparently" because I didn't witness it myself, but Jonathan was there, and Grandma and Grandpa Fortney were watching via Skype.

Steps! from Katie on Vimeo.

The Insanity
Jonathan is back in town to stay, as of Friday night. Until November 6. And except for spending the night at work tomorrow night for remote observing. Sigh. Here's a sampling of some of what we've had going on while he was away and since he's been back.

1. Finn may have had pink eye. (He's fine.)
2. Murray got an emergency middle-of-the-night trip to the vet. (He's also fine. And expensive.)
3. I had a paper due yesterday. (I'm fine.)
4. We think the house we're renting has termites.
5. Finn now has long sleeved shirts AND pants, which is good, since it's October.
6. We still have no driveway, although there are some paving stones out there in spots. The guys working on the driveway are very nice, and Finn likes the boss's dog.

Here's what hasn't been going on: laundry, cleaning generally, seeing and talking to most of our family and friends (Hi! We're still here! Somewhere. I think.), and just about everything else that doesn't kind of make itself obnoxiously necessary. And yet, we still made time for the pumpkin festival.

The Pumpkin Festival
We've gone to the Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival for the past 3 or 4 years now, and we weren't going to let a little thing like our LIVES get in the way of that. So Saturday morning we threw Finn in the car when he was ready for his morning nap and headed over the mountains. First stop, Arata Pumpkin Farm and their awesome straw maze. Here's Finn, resting his weary head near the end of the maze.

After that we let him play in the pumpkins, corn, and straw, and pick one out to take home. He's a pumpkin fan.

Then we headed to the pumpkin fest. Better than last year: we did manage to meet up with the Smiths. Not better than last year: Jonathan was unable to get in on the pie eating contest! It's a great deal, because slices of pie are $5, but you get a whole one for $1 if you stick your face in it for the contest. Alas, it was too crowded this year and Jonathan didn't get a spot. Or any pie. He says he can make it until Thanksgiving, or until I have time to make one, whichever comes first. I'm betting on Thanksgiving.

MANY, many pumpkin photos at Flickr.
Oh god, I almost forgot. Watch this, from Thursday:


Finn LOVES the fountain! from Katie on Vimeo.
Sorry about the sideways-ness at the beginning. Jonathan likes to shoot in portrait. But check out the facial expression at about 0:10.

Back from Bern, See More Chubs

Apparently Finn sleeps better when I'm home. Why that might be is not clear. Maybe I wear him out more, and he enjoys the peace of mind (not piece of mind) of having daddy at home. We're still not at "no wakeups," but a few nights recently his only wakeup was at 3 to 4 a.m. Of course, he woke up for the day at 5:45.

Bern, Switzerland, was . . . pleasant. A nice and pretty town, but not one of the jewels of Europe. It is on a river. It's old town is famously nearly unchanged since the 1300s. Below is the tallest building in town--a church. I went up about 2/3 of the way and got some nice shots.

The best part of the church were the fantastic stained glass windows. The sun came out when I was inside, and I got some great shots. This one below is my favorite.

Finn is pretty much a little maniac now. He can pull himself up on anything, sit back down, and do it again and again. He can move from chair to chair, and move across small gaps. A chubby little Spiderman? His excited noises range from loud squeals to loud Darth Vader breathing. He's trying to give up the army crawl for real crawling now, too. Also, his 5th tooth is coming in, so drooling is at its highest levels in 6 months. Katie brought him to his 9 month checkup recently. 48% height, 62% weight, 84% head circumference. Big noggin!

We're back!

Finn starts his first week of four-days-a-week daycare this week, instead of two. He doesn't know yet, and I'm curious to see how much he notices the change. I just started my new semester, had a one-hour online class session tonight, have my internship all day tomorrow, and have a four-hour in-person session once a month. It's going to be an interesting fall, and Jonathan leaves for Switzerland Saturday morning. Whee!

Hey, anybody have Labor Day plans? 'Cause Finn and I don't.

Here's my new favorite picture of Finn, who decided the other day that the spray bottle I use for cat discipline and pie-crust-making is the awesomest thing ever. He thought it was hilarious when Jonathan squirted him in the tummy and hair. He also seems to think it's delicious. He drinks out of his sippy cup much better if there's a little juice in the water, but apparently high velocity also improves the water's flavor.
He's gotten much faster at scooting than he was pre-vacation, so we're finally doing that whole baby-proofing thing, starting with Finn's room. Yes, it took us this long. We needed the storage space, I guess.

He's also getting reasonably good at cruising, and I wouldn't be shocked if he was walking by 10 months. I also wouldn't be shocked if he wasn't. He's getting more adept at pushing himself up on short objects, like suitcases. Tonight he tried to use his high chair, but we didn't have the brakes on at first. Ooops. He likes to lean against the glass sliding door in his room, too - and lick it while he stands there. Good times.

Favorite new toy: the music/motor piece of his mobile, which hasn't been on the crib in months. It looks more or less like a hockey puck with a little knob and small plastic hook, and when I wind it up to the play the Winnie the Pooh song, he holds on to it with both hands like it's a little treasure, and shakes it and smiles at the music.

Favorite new habit: when he's nursing, especially if he's tired, he's taken to either stroking his luxurious locks or pulling on his ear. This is both cuter and less painful than the old practice of digging his tiny little thumbnail into the space between wrist tendons and wiggling it, so I'm a fan.

More pictures at Flickr, and Jonathan should have some up sometime this week, too.