(Second) Longest. Night. Ever.*

Jonathan out of town + unseasonably warm weather + baby who won't sleep unless swaddled (and has a cold)
=
1 very tired Katie

If you see my husband, please send him home. I'm so bleary-eyed I may not recognize him, but if some guy shows up to watch the baby and tells me to sleep, I'll assume that's him.

Finn and I did have a lot of fun during daylight hours, out shopping, at the park, and making cookies. Today my goals are simpler: bath; making it to bedtime.

*the longest night ever was the first night home from the hospital.

Interaction & Distraction

I'm often asked how I manage school, work, and a baby. The answer is that sometimes I don't, which is how Jonathan got in two posts since my last one. I realize that's hardly the end of the world, but I try do to make this a priority since our loved ones are so spread out. It's been a full couple weeks around here, and things are only going to get busier.

Finn turns 5 months old in a week, and he's definitely growing more interested and knowledgeable about the world around him. Whereas before his reactions seemed mostly categorizable into "pretty!" "bright!" and "face!" he's become much more discerning. Some objects (like brightly colored toys) are more interesting than others; people are generally more interesting than objects; and cats are more interesting than people. He's differentiating among different people more, too: he can be in a perfectly good, smiley mood with Jonathan or Mary while I'm off getting homework done, and then I walk in the room and he sees me and just overloads, at least smiling, but several times smiling briefly and then dissolving into tears - often tears mixed with laughter. Fortunately the tears can usually be stemmed by feeding him or taking him to wherever Mona is. Murray just sits around sometimes and is apparently boring, but Mona is rarely still, and has even let Finn grab her ears. It was a big hit.
Here's a video of Finn playing, taking a break to admire Mona across the room, and then going back to what he was doing. It's a little hard to see his face at this size, so I tried uploading it to Google Video as well, where it appears to be pretty pixelated, and therefore not much better. Obviously this is something I need to look into a little more. Anyway, there you go.
"Toys... kitty!... hey, look, a star thing... kitty!... yawn...kitty!..."


Mostly his increased interest in the world around him is a good thing, but there is at least one drawback. My boy, who has always been a champion eater, now usually has to have something draped over his head to nurse. Otherwise Jonathan's or my voice, the sound of my spoon against my oatmeal bowl, or nothing at all, can cause him to pop off and turn to see what's going on. Sometimes he'll take a long break to tell me what's on his mind before he resumes his meal. It's adorable, but can be a bit frustrating. Here he is on one of his meal breaks.
He's got really good torso strength these days, and I feel like it won't be too long before he's sitting up. He hasn't yet repeated his rolling over feat, but he's getting closer. He also still has the cough that started in mid-February, which means none of us are getting a ton of sleep; some nights I don't get more than 90 minutes at a stretch. Before the cough I think 3 or 4 hours at a time was not unusual. We've been to see Dr. Lee a few times, and we're sure eventually he'll kick it. In the meantime, the Children's Benadryl got us a couple nights with five or six hour stretches (now he's apparently Benadryl-resistant), and now we're trying a special baby inhaler three times a day which he just LOVES, as I'm sure you can imagine.

More photos, including some cute Bumbo shots, at Flickr.

Yay Grandma!

Grandma Mary (my mom) was in town for 5 days to soak up the love and affection from our little man! Finn enjoyed the nonstop kisses and attention. He also got to see much of town, as grandma took him on two walks a day. One thing that grandma does not lack is energy.

Katie and I took *2* opportunities to leave Finn with his loving grandma so that we could take some time for ourselves, like the real couple that we are. Night one we hit an upscale lounge and a downscale pub. Night two we have a nice meal at Nick's on Main, which just opened up. The place it so tiny, you'd think you were in Manhattan. Chef Nick was a nice guy. He even took over being our server after she imploded due to an embarrassing broken cork, which then led to two table water miscues, and then she disappeared for the rest of the night.

It's sad that Finn isn't going to see grandma and grandpa again til (likely) sometime this summer. The difficulty of being far from family increases quite a bit when little ones get born into the family. One positive is that we've been doing well at keeping up our Skype dates to see the family back in Minnesota, especially Finn's cousin Jamie. We miss you grandma!

He's a big boy

He looks like he should be able to stand up and walk around, right? No luck. He can't even crawl. His head is so big that he isn't even all that good at tummy time, either. He needs a stronger neck. But we're working on it. He *STILL* hasn't remembered how to roll over onto his back again yet, so we're lucky we got video of it a few weeks ago. Silly baby!

Easter at the Reeves-Fortney's down in Salinas was fun. Finn was enjoyed by all, especially by my uncle Gregory. Finn liked to be outside on his blanket in the grass. Although we have a little yard, it is entirely taken up by shrubs and such--no grass!

Grandma Mary comes tomorrow! Yay my mom! We're all excited.

Giggly multimedia blitz

In case we hadn't made this clear yet, Finn is HUGE! I think "what a big baby" is the comment we get most these days. Comments from Finn himself are mostly limited to squeaks and "gaaahhhh." He is "talking" more and more, and sometimes looks like he's trying intently to get something really important across, so we do our best to listen.
We just got back from Easter down in Salinas with the Reeves-Fortney clan, and I'll try to get some of those pictures up this week, but I thought I'd throw down some videos I've been sitting on before I headed for bed. First up is a record I made for Jonathan while he was out of town of how Finn is now much more interested in sticking things in his mouth than he is in standing. He's still not great at managing the coordination to stick things (like toys) in his mouth, but he is excellent at putting his mouth on things. Heads are easier to steer than hands, I guess.

Second, an extended and more recent giggling/tickling video. Sorry I couldn't get my big head out of the light more. His giggle sounds completely unlike any other noise he makes. Isn't it awesome?

Also from the category of "been meaning to put these on the internets," the St. Patrick's Day photo posted last Monday was one of a couple dozen we took last Sunday, and some of my other favorites from that morning in the park are now up on Flickr.
Happy Easter, everybody! Hope yours was as nice as ours. Did anybody else get rhubarb custard pie?

The Soft Underbaby

Finn is pretty big, as babies go. We already knew that, but his 4-month-old appointment confirmed it. He is 17 1/4 pounds, which is 86th percentile. Doctor Timmy even asked us what we were feeding him. Big, but not nearly as big as me; I was 20 pounds at his age. He's also 68th percentile in height.



Since he's got such a prominent 2nd chin, it is necessary to clean the crud out of there pretty frequently. We've taken to calling it the soft underbaby. He's usually pretty good about it, and he'll even giggle because he's pretty ticklish.

Finn says...

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Roll over!

It's been a big week. After feeling kind of like we were treading water for a while, suddenly it seems like so much has changed. First, the exciting audio-visual material:

Sunday afternoon I was awakened from my nap by the sound of Jonathan giggling like a little girl. So I came out to the living room to see what was going on, and this is what I found. We kept putting him back on his tummy, and he kept rolling/falling over, I think about ten times. Then he forgot how to do it and put his head down and cried. But he enjoyed it while it worked, although I don't think he knew exactly what was going on, and he hasn't repeated it since. Very exciting stuff for the kid who wouldn't put up with tummy time flat on the floor just two weeks ago.

Also, we're making progress in the sleep department. The bouncy chair has been out of the picture for weeks, but I didn't want to jinx it by saying anything. I think I can honestly say now that he's outgrown it, and prefers sleeping flat on the mattress now. Again, like all our great parenting accomplishments, this was basically an accidental discovery. We're making progress on the napping front, too. Naps are starting to occur unwrapped, flat on back in crib. If you don't understand why this is a big deal, then ... well, I'm very happy for you. I keep seeing pictures of our friends' babies sleeping in these relaxed, accidental looking poses. That is not our kid. Other than putting him back after a middle-of-the-night feeding, Finn sleeping is almost never accidental. It is a deliberate multi-step process. At night it involves multiple layers of very specific, very tight swaddling. But he's outgrowing our swaddling materials, so now that he's getting a little older we're trying to help him form some new habits. The main obstacle is that he startles anywhere from one to three times a minute and keeps waking himself up. But we've had multiple unswaddled crib naps every day this week, so there's hope.

What else? He's spitting up less. He's better with his hands. He's drooling a lot and may be starting to think about getting some teeth. The combined result of these last two is a lot of wet fingers (his) and a number of (mostly failed) attempts to get other things in his mouth - my fingers, his toys, whatever happens to be in reach. And he continues to giggle more and more - he's ticklish in the neck as well as the armpits now - and make more and more funny faces. I think I call him "goofball" now more than anything else. For instance, the other morning we put him in what we decided to call his "interview clothes" - a button down shirt and some baby khakis - and take a nice picture. These are the five shots we got:
Seriously, with those last two he has a career in front of him playing maître d's on sitcoms, right? We're going to try to take him for portraits next weekend. Wish us luck.

More pictures on Flickr.

Missing Finn and Katie

As a professional scientist, I travel a lot. Over the past 3 years I bet I was out of town once a month, on average. Will that continue now that Finn is born? Partially. I just got back from the University of Virginia (2 1/2 days away last week) and Los Alamos National Laboratory (2 1/2 days this week) where I gave talks on my current research. Also there are a number of national and international conferences to go to, where I interact with other scientists, make research plans, and give talks. Occasionally they are in exotic locales, like Santorini. :)

But it was hard just being gone for these short trips. Finn changed in 2 days! He really did! When I left for UVa, he didn't really stick out his tongue, and when I came back he was doing it all the time! So that part is hard. I think I'm definitely going to be cutting out some conference travel. But times when I'm specifically invited to give talks are important, as that is something that will be looked at when I come up for tenure, so some travel is going to be inevitable. This May there is a big conference in Boston, for over an entire week, but Katie and Finn are going to come with me!

Tuesdays with baby

Saying Finn and I have a schedule for our days at home would be stretching it, but we do have kind of a routine at this point. First, we sleep as late as we can, which is usually between 6 and 7, although now that I'm letting him sleep on my chest once 6 rolls around, we get closer to 8. Then we use the first awake period for me to get dressed, brush my teeth, maybe start some laundry. Then there's a short nap. I used to use this to shower, but now I nap along with him and shower in the evenings, thus avoiding going to work with wet hair and claiming a few minutes extra sleep on Mondays and Wednesdays.

Then there's the second awake period, where Finn finds it entertaining to watch me to dishes or fold laundry, so we do that. If I try to do homework or check my e-mail during this time, that's not so well received, but dishes, that's a good time. So the dishes get washed more often than they used to around here, which is good, since we're cooking more.

Then sometimes there's another nap in there, but usually not, and we both have lunch and he gets a fresh diaper, and then we hit the town. I've found that he tends to be cranky in the afternoons, but going outside is always an effective distraction, so we're really glad the weather's warming up. Thursday it was sunny and got clear up to 72, which was awesome. Tuesday it wasn't quite as warm, but we went late enough that he was overdue for his nap and I got to sit on park benches and read. Thursday no nap was forthcoming, but we had a good time at the hardware store buying a new handle for the shower faucet and checking out the baby chickens:and in the park looking up at the trees:
I also got to read about 3 pages of my book. Then Friday Jonathan got back from Virginia (yay!) and yesterday I did most of my homework for the week, which involved playing with Photoshop, so now Finn's available on a postcard and stamps. Today he leaves again for New Mexico (boo!), and gets back again late Tuesday night. I don't have class during this trip (thanks Gwen!) so we should be all right. I'm still jealous of the extra sleep he's getting, though...