2 boys who are silly

Well, there haven't been many posts in awhile. A terrible cold has ravaged the Fortney family for much of the past two weeks. Finn brought it home from school, but he is very much on the mend, and his constipation is all gone. Yay! The worst has also just passed for Katie and me, although we're not out of the woods yet. Graham, who is small, will probably have the longest path back to wellness, since his immune system is also little and new at this. He's gone from being a great sleeper to a poor one, waking up many times a night, because he coughs and is also not breathing well. But in the daytime he is fun and jolly, with a runny nose. Here is Graham prepping for his nap a few days back. What a cute baby! Swaddling for Graham, as with Finn at the same age, has been essential. And he doesn't seem to mind.

Finn is growing up and looking like a little boy now. He's moving from 2T to 3T clothes. He can say some two sentence combinations when needed. And he can be polite. He's becoming a pickier eater. Lots of yogurt. We took him to the dentist and his teeth are looking good. We're starting with the fluoride toothpaste now. He picked out his own toothpaste at Target: Pixar "Cars" themed---not that he has seen the movie.

Too wet to go out and too cold to play ball

Happy MLK Day, everybody. This is one of those rare days when both my and Jonathan's offices are closed, but the boys' day care is open. We usually start out by doing productive things around the house and then gradually work our way up to a nice lunch and a movie, feeling deliciously like we're getting away with something and playing hooky. This time we were going to finally see Avatar. Alas, it was not to be. Saturday Finn had a fever of 102-ish, and he's still kinda gross. Also...
***Please skip this paragraph if you're not a parent, TMI ahead.***
Finn is really constipated. Normally the kid poops twice a day, and while it's gross and stinky, it doesn't seem to bother him. He's hardly pooped at all since Friday, or possibly Thursday, and has spent much of the weekend piteously wailing "hurting, hurting," every 5-30 minutes. We're trying everything we can think of, and have a call in to our pediatrician, but so far we're having limited success.
***Okay, done talking about poop.***
So Graham went to day care today, both to get him further from Finn's germs and to reduce craziness around here a bit, but the rest of us are finishing up the longest three day weekend ever. Most of the day he's been watching movies, because he's a pile of mush when he's not yelling, and it's the easiest way to distract him, at least when he can decide what to watch. I think it took him half an hour this morning, as Jonathan repeatedly offered him things and a shrill, distressed Finn kept insisting "different show! different show!" For the first time in nearly a year, Finn wouldn't nap on his bed, and instead fell asleep on Jonathan, waking up periodically with the "hurting."

I think it'd do him good to get outside and run around a bit, because we're all getting a bit stir crazy, but it's been raining and gross all weekend, and now I'm hearing "severe thunderstorm warnings."
Graham has been extra fussy on and off as well, either in sympathy or for his own obscure reasons, but at least he's healthy. And last night he slept reasonably well again, which was nice. He's a big giggler now. The best ways to get him going are to tickle him, or to wave your hands around like you're a second grader doing fake karate. Since it's hard to hold a camera while doing the latter, here's a video of him being tickled.

Tickling Graham from Katie on Vimeo.

200th post!

Hi everyone. Yes, we're still alive and kicking out here. I'm teaching a big introductory astronomy class for the first time, so that has been taking up a lot of my time, which means less time for stuff like science and blogging. I'm enjoying it so far. I think it better suits my talents than highly technical graduate classes. I'd rather just stand up and talk about planets than spend an hour at the whiteboard doing math. Also, I have a fantastic TA, so I don't have to grade, and she runs two recitation sections per week. It's win win for me!

Sadly, we don't have any fresh pictures of the boys from this past week, but Katie will post a movie soon. I *do* have a new picture of Mona though. She's a good cat. Over seven years old now. It is nearly time to start her on senior-cat food apparently. She's adjusted well to the even less attention that she gets since Graham was born. It helped that she is indoor/outdoor now, which helps make her life a little more exiting. Although now that it is cooler and wetter, she mostly just stays inside.

Since Finn is Finn, she gives him a WIDE birth. And she has no interest in Graham, from what I can tell. She'd never snuggle up against him for warmth, that much is clear.

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:

A quick post while she's away

Katie is asleep while I'm watching the boys this a.m., at Grandma Sheryl's. I decided to post 2 quick movies while breakfast is going on around me. The first is from last week in Minnesota, where we got a visit from the Nowatzkis: Paul, Courtney, Victor (age 4) and Henry (age 2). Finn and Henry really enjoyed my parents' pinball machine. Although Finn was quite good at shooting the ball out with the plunger, the finer points of using the flippers was of course lost on him. Note the unusual location of the ball at the very end. :)

Pinball Wizards from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

As we've discussed, Graham is a pretty happy baby. He is prone to fun little giggles and shrieks of amusement. Yesterday when Josh, Amy, and Greta (age 1) Raulerson came by, there was something about Josh that finally made Graham go into full-on laughing! It was sooo cute, and we got some on video. Also, he is 3 months old now.

Laughing Graham from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

I like when Greta (and especially Finn) came by to insert themselves into the action.

Let it snow!

Ohmygosh, where to start! Well, we spent the 20-26th in Minnesota, visiting my family. My parents were glad to see our little boys, and my sister Jeanna, brother Justin (and his family) were all there. Yay! Finn had a fantastic blast of a time, and everyone marveled, as they should, at what a good baby Graham is. He goes to sleep easy. He's a good eater. He's generally just very jolly.

Finn did not mind the cold (which was not at all severe by non-wimp standards: highs in the low 30s). If you consider that "really cold," please don't tell me. Here is Finn out helping grandpa shovel the driveway. This picture gives the impression that he is actually doing a good job, but that can't possibly be the case. Maybe I did that and handed him the shovel. Hm.

Here he is on the deck, which he liked because the snow was much less deep than in the yard. On day-one, deep snow meant "Uppa! Uppa! Uppa!"

Finn and his 3-year-old cousin Jamie had a fantastic time playing together. This trunk was great for sitting in, once one got the pesky linens out of it.

Finn was a BIG BIG fan of opening "preh-nents" and fell down the stairs into grandma Mary's arms on Christmas day, when it finally was time to open the presents under the tree.

Graham was quite jolly during the proceedings and liked his presents, which Finn was glad to open for him.

The big outdoor event on Christmas day was the making of a snowman. I noticed that the temperature had jumped up to 34 degrees, meaning it was perfect snowman weather. The bottom was the biggest snowball I could push. The middle was the biggest I could lift, and the head was roughly proportional. Finn found the last part we put on top. It almost looks like a feather. The eyes are little rotten tree fruit. The nose is a venison meat stick that Justin made at his house. The mouth is evergreens from a bush. It think it turned out pretty well! And what did Finn name the snowman? Leather. Yes, Leather. Why not?

On to Iowa!

The thing about Los Gatos...

...is that it is fancy. Can you find what is unusual about our local supermarket ad?

Oh right! It's the $85 bottle of wine next to the $1.79 bottle of apple juice!

Another great thing around here is the Christmas lights in Vasona County Park. They are lit up every night for 5-6 weeks. It is a mile or two of lights, so you drive along very slowly in your car. Although much of it is Christmas themed, the highlight I think is the dinosaurs, complete with sound effects. Finn was a big fan. Katie captured them on video.

Dino Xmas from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

This morning we opened presents, since tomorrow REALLY early we'll be heading back to the Midwest. From Santa, Finn got exactly what he'd been asking for: "Own screwdriver." Actually, he got two and a bunch of other fairly realistic tools and a toolbox.

Finn also got push-broom sweeper and the boys got a big wooden train set, to "share." Here is a photo from the morning that Finn took after I aimed the camera for him.

O Father, Where Art Thou?

Jonathan is in Texas - Texas! This is his first trip since Graham was born, and I've been pretty afraid of it, but I got the boys to school this morning more or less on time, and got both of them through their bath and bed routine two nights in a row, so the hard parts are over. I even did a load of diaper laundry and a load of dishes.

On the other hand, I got less than 6 hours sleep last night (thanks, Graham, for choosing that night to decide to get up twice as often). The baths weren't much more than a quick rinse. Finn has only asked for Daddy once, but has been extra whiny and clingy, and today we got our first ever report of hitting at school. And last night Finn pretended to pee on the kitchen floor on his way from his bath to his bedroom, and tonight he actually did. ("pee! pee!") So there we go. Hurry home, Jonathan! Tomorrow afternoon can't get here fast enough.



As with every time Jonathan travels, I'm in awe of those of you who do this solo parenting thing for more than a few days a year. Yikes.

The 2X issue

One of the things I was worried about before Graham was born was how insane our life would get with two kids instead of one. I'd heard that life gets 2^2 times harder (i.e., 4 times) with two kids. That didn't seem to make any sense to me, because we had already greatly adjusted of life when Finn came along, and I couldn't see how we would have to make as dramatic a change (or more) for kid #2.

Well, at this point, I would say it is not nearly 4 times as hard. I think it isn't even 2 times (2^1) as hard. I'd say it's somewhere in between 2^(1/2) and 2^(1/sqrt(2)), which is 1.4 and 1.6, as you know. [I had to work twos in there somehow.] I mean, yeah, we have to get up a little earlier in the morning, and yeah, he wakes up at night 1-2 (sometimes 3) times, so we're getting a bit less sleep (especially Katie). But I think life is pretty similar to before. There is a certain amount of interference to run on Finn to make sure he doesn't lay on top of Graham, but if Graham wasn't there we'd still have to keep him from breaking something else.

I think it probably makes a difference as to when the "hard" kid comes. Graham is pretty laid back and jolly, so it doesn't take an incredible amount of effort to keep him happy. Also, Finn was sick from ages 3-6 months, which kept him from sleeping well, so hopefully that will not hit Graham.

Onto the cuteness: I'm blatantly stealing this pic from Katie. It shows Finn's incredibly cute frog rain gear. The photo somehow gives the feeling of ultra-preparedness. Like Finn is ready to take on anything, plus protect his little brother.

Both boys like the bed in Finn's room. Soon we'll have to start calling it Finn and Graham's room. I wonder how that will go over....

Merry Chrippett!

We got our Christmas tree last Saturday. We went to the tree lot that's a fundraiser for the boys' day care, and picked out the shortest one they had, about five feet tall. Here's Finn checking out some of its bigger brothers. He was a big help with the decorating, as you might imagine.
Finn is very excited about all things Christmas - Rudolph, both the show and the song, Christmas trees, Santa (at least in theory, see below), and even his advent calendar. It's a paper one that matches an Eric Carle book we have. I wasn't sure if he'd find it interesting, but he's very excited to open a new door every morning, and will sometimes stand and look at it for ages, theorizing about what might be behind the different doors. The 25th, he has decided, is a pig.
My office's children's holiday party was Friday night, and Finn got to see Santa. He was very excited about it, so long as Santa kept his distance. Trying to put him on Santa's lap was met with terrified screaming, just like last year. We didn't get pictures of that this year - I forgot to charge the camera battery, and the light was kind of dim in there anyway, but I might score some from someone else at the office later. In the meantime, here's one of Graham's turn with Santa, with Finn edging as close as he dared.

Next up, for you grandparents and other Fortney-boy-antic-addicts, are two videos, both taken the other night while Finn ate dinner and we waited for Jonathan to get home from work. First is Graham playing his favorite game: kick off the blanket. Finn was also a fan at this age.

Graham kicks off the blanket from Katie on Vimeo.
Next up, here I am making Finn giggle, just because I can.

Making Finn giggle from Katie on Vimeo.
And finally, here's the "classic Finn" imp look, finally captured on film.
I'm updating Flickr tonight with October and November. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get the rest of the way caught up.