Paula!

When Finn was a small proto-toddler, I wondered if he'd grow attached to blankets or things, and drag them all over the house. Well, he's over 20 months old now, and he has become really attached to probably 2 things, besides his parents. They are a green blanket (blankey!) and his hippopotamus stuffed animal, Paula. Or, rather, "PAUUULA!"

I wouldn't say that Paula is her name, exactly. It seems to be his word for hippopotamus, which is much too hard to say. He'll call hippos in books "Paula" as well. Last night he slept in his new bed again, after a week off, and his ideal sleeping position was on top of Paula. She's definitely getting squished and warped due to frequent use. Another favorite activity is 1-on-1-on-1 wresting between Finn, Paula, and "Gonkey," his inflatable bouncy...donkey. (NOT a horse. NOT.a.horse.) He also likes us to place blankets over Paula or Gonkey, and talks to them about going ni-night.

Finn got Paula from our friend Dave (Rolo) who picked Paula up at IKEA a few months back. Great job Dave! Here are some of Finn and Paula's greatest hits from earlier today. Katie kept asking Finn about her to finally get the "Pauuula!!!" wail that we've been wanting to record for weeks.

Paula from Katie on Vimeo.

Big boy bed and random videos

Milestone #1 for this month - Finn slept in his big boy bed for the first time Saturday night, and then did it again on Sunday. Then the past few nights he's decided it's more important to sleep on Paula, his hippopotamus (which is another story for another post), and has been in his crib instead. The important thing is, he's in favor of the idea generally, and we think we'll have him more or less settled in by the time we travel back to the midwest in August, which is good since he's probably too big for the pack and play now. Here's a picture we snuck in and took while he was sleeping on the first night.

Milestone #2 - we have had pee in the potty! It wasn't exactly intentional - we make him sit on his potty while he brushes his teeth after bathtime (so he doesn't pee on the floor), and the other night he made a deposit. He does like to sit on the potty (usually fully clothed) and say "Pee! Pee!" so that's fun. (We'll spare you the photo of that.)

Random movie #1 - Finn at the fountains downtown on Sunday. Hard to believe it was just about 8 months ago he could barely stumble around in them. The best part is right at the beginning.

In the fountains again from Katie on Vimeo.

Random movie #2 - Finn likes to ask if he can watch Sesame Street, and he does it by asking about various Muppets. Usually he'll go through a stream of 5 or 6, but when I tried to take a movie he decided it'd be more fun to jump on my stomach and get a close up look at the camera.

Asking about Sesame Street from Katie on Vimeo.

And here's me in San Francisco last Sunday, getting a couple things signed by Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite authors.

Jonathan gets back from Pasadena in less than 48 hours. Think I can make it?

A day at the beach

On Thursday I stayed home so that Katie could get some serious work done for a scholarly article that she is trying to get published. Also, the dentist filled my 3 cavities that morning. Don't get me started on that. I made it 32 years without a cavity, and that will have to suffice.

It has been hot lately, so Finn and I headed to the beach after his nap. We live about 35-40 minutes from the Santa Cruz beach. It can be 90 here and 75 there. Also, if it is windy, it can FEEL like 50 there, which is what happened Thursday. COLD! But Finn and I made the best of it. It took him about a half hour to get off of my lap and even run around in the sand, but he got the hang of it. He stayed warm by clutching the small towel that I'd brought for myself. I don't think he ever even dropped it, so you can tell that he is growing up.

Note that it wasn't all fun and games. There was time for quiet reflection while staring at the open ocean.

So, yeah, it was a good day! :)

Boys will be Boys

Last Sunday we went to Ross and Rachel's to hang out, since some of the old Mountain View crew was back together. Their son Arthur is getting older now--he's 15 months, only 5 behind Finn. Finn has recently started to pay more attention to him, now that Arthur that he can walk around well. No longer will Finn just sit on him like a chair.... I think we have a lot of playtime with Arthur to look forward to in the future.

Here they are playing with Helen's play tent, which I think barely managed to survive the onslaught of these two. Apparently it was only $5, so that was a relief. At the end you can here Finn telling Josh about a monkey.

Untitled from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

Here we are sitting in their kitchen on the floor. Finn and Arthur were playing by the fridge with some magnets, and eventually things took a turn for the tumbly. Finn started hugging Arthur, while at the same time falling down...on purpose, I think. It was too close and exciting for me to really get them into the shot. Arthur is apparently "used to" Helen mangling him up pretty good, so he was no worse for wear.

Untitled from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

Learning more words, including friends' names

If you could only pronounce 10 or 20 words so that people besides your parents could understand them, do you think "buckle" would make the list? I don't think it'd make mine, but it's on Finn's, along with "monkey."
Here's a clip of some of his other linguistic idiosyncrasies; "car" and "truck" are pronounced the same, and until recently off and on were both pronounced "on." Let me tell you, I'm glad we got that one sorted out.

Finn's unique vocabulary from Katie on Vimeo.

We're up to about 70 or 80 words that Jonathan and I can understand, and adding more every week. It's both amazing and entertaining to watch. It's also scary to think that in less than three months we'll be back to "You're crying! Why are you crying?" "Waaaaaah" territory with Finn's little brother. Said little brother is getting bigger, stronger, and pointier all the time. We are so, so, officially in the third trimester. Get ready, ribs!
This afternoon we went to Ross and Rachel's to visit and to see Jason, who's in town for a few days from Idaho. Finn got to play with Helen ("Hehn") and Arthur ("Ahtter"), and had an absolute blast. He and Arthur are only 5 months apart, getting more and more fun to watch in action together, and already look like trouble. Watch out world! Jonathan has a movie or two I'll let him post, but here's a still that should give you the general idea.

Zoo, part 2

Although the San Francisco Zoo is quite nice, it lacks elephants. If you want see elephants, then you go to Oakland. That's just the deal. Finn really likes elephants, so to Oakland we went. They also have a nice zoo, but it is hillier and tougher getting around. We didn't get to see all of it, really, so we'll be going back again someday.

Finn doesn't say the word elephant, but instead he makes a special noise, taking after Katie. She makes really good elephant noise by forcing air out between her lips. Finn's rendition is a little more like "raspberries." You can almost get a feel for it from the video, even though I don't think it was even audible. I also note a small sigh at the end... I guess that it was time to move on.

Checking out the Elephants from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

I bet you never knew that toddlers could be messy eaters. Here he is eating frozen blueberries on a hot hot hot day. Smile goofball! We'll have to keep more of those on hand in the freezer.

We had a nice 4th of July. We had friends over and enjoyed the free Los Gatos festivities. Finn and I sat and listed to the Peninsula Banjo Band for over an hour. He sat on my lap and bopped his little legs to the music.

Our growing family

Remember how we're having another baby? That's only about three months away now (late-September-ish), which suddenly seems REALLY SOON in lots of ways. I can definitely tell that my innards are not all where they are supposed to be, and that I'm warmer than usual (I'm not even cold at work), and that I have a little more trouble catching my breath. The last two are great, by the way, when it's already 95 degrees out and you've had a cold (or sinus infection, or something) for about 4 weeks (last Thursday and 3 weeks ago were the low points; I'm breathing better this week and can once again climb stairs, and hope I'll be 100% soon). I also get kicked a lot, which is still fun and not painful, and we're going to start thinking about names any day now. Maybe next week.
Since someone else will eventually be using Finn's crib, we got him a big boy bed last weekend, hopefully early enough that we'll have plenty of time for him to make the transition. We put it up in his room yesterday, and so far he's a BIG fan. He likes to climb on it, and lie down and pretend snore, and point out all the animals on the blanket: monkey! fish! elephant! unintelligible jabbering! (In the photos, please also note his new dinosaur pajama shirt, which he would wear all day every day, if allowed.)
Generally speaking, Finn's a great napper these days. He goes down reliably, at a predictable time, sleeps for 1-2 hours, and is pretty okay when he wakes up, especially if you have a glass of milk waiting. And maybe a graham cracker. And a dinosaur book. And patience for dirty looks. But he's still more likely to sleep longer if he sees someone in the room with him when he comes half awake, so the best thing for now about the new bed in his room is that I get to take naps when he does now, instead of just hanging out in there and reading. I'm psyched.

Up the Creek

Yesterday it was painfully hot here. Today it is too. 100 or something, with no air conditioning. Katie was out of commission with overheating/sleepiness/terrible cold. Finn and I decided to head for the beach, so we left for Santa Cruz after his nap. The road was packed, because it was a popular destination. We came to standstill about 7 miles from the beach, and I guessed we had another hour ahead of us. Finn was already yelling "ou-side! ou-side!" so I had to think quickly to avoid a disaster. We made a quick exit out to the redwooded hills of Felton, just off of Hwy 17. I hadn't yet figured out what we were going to do, but there is a state park there. Maybe we could hike? As luck would have it, we noticed a little stream where others were playing, and we made our way down.
Activities included:
--walking in the water
--playing in the wet sand with our new beach toys
--throwing rocks
--sitting on logs
--more throwing of rocks
It was a good time, and we nearly had the river to ourselves. Some dogs and owners came by to catch and throw sticks. I don't think that Finn knew that dogs could swim, so that was cool. I didn't take many pictures, because I was in the water most of the time. At first he really liked just watching water ripples.

Some other hi/low-lights:
--Getting hit in arm with a rock. This 12-year-old who showed up was a BAD rock skipper. Ouch!
--After 2 hours down in the river, it was time to go home. I carried Finn and 3 bags up 40 feet of river bank, up to the bridge, to walk back to the car. I put Finn down to let him walk on the bridge. He peered between the bars to look down at the river. He then took off his Twins hat and sent it down into the water below. That boy! Sigh.... After thinking for a bit, I put down all of the bags, grabbed him again, and we made our way back down to fish out the hat. Ah, toddlers. The whole way down he repeated "hat" and "naughty."

Here he is on his new Rody. This is about 5 minutes after he got it. Note the strange monkey shrieks. He's taken to calling it his "gonkey."

A Rody for Finn! from Jonathan Fortney on Vimeo.

We're the best parents ever

Zoo, zoo, zoo
Lest you worry that Finn gets all his fun from chores and unsupervised swimming, we should also mention that we took him to the zoo last weekend. He loved it. I think it was at least 50% "running around! outside! and Caitlin and Liam are here!" but he also liked the animals. The monkeys and flamingos were particular favorites. Here he is acting like a monkey with Caitlin, though not near any actual monkeys. There are more on Flickr, including one with some giraffes, and more pool party shots from Saturday.Fun with Grandma
We also host special extra-entertaining guests, like my mom. She visited for four days last week, and it was wonderful. It's hard to say who had the most fun: us, her, or Finn. Grandma, he discovered, will read you as many stories as you want, and doesn't ignore you to do boring things like work on dinner or check her e-mail. Alas, she is no more likely to give you her laptop than Mama or Daddy. We got him a pony
Well, not really. It's an inflatable horse that he's been loving at our local toy store. We were going to wait until his birthday, but that's in NOVEMBER, and then I found a good deal on a secondhand one on Craigslist. When I brought it home he spent 10 or 20 minutes just patting it and screaming at it like a rabid monkey, and then carried it around until we had to take it away because he was just too worked up - couldn't stop crying. Then we brought it out a day or two later with a little less air in it so he could carry it around better, and he told us it was in fact a donkey ("gah-key. gah-key gah-key gah-key!") and played with it without melting down at all. It seems to be here to stay now, meltdown free.

Always a good time

Finn really seems to enjoy putting things where they belong (when we ask him to do so). And he likes to help clean around the house, when he sees us doing it. In preparation for Katie's mom coming to town last week swept and swiffered the floors. Gotta make ourselves look like reasonable parents. Finn loved the swiffer and Katie noticed that one can rather easily take out the middle portion of the handle to make it Finn-sized. Action photo!

Now he uses it every day. Note that there is no swiffer towel on it. He totally flipped out into hysterics when we put the swiffer towel on. Screams, shrieks, the whole deal. It is unclear why. I'm sure we'll never know.
Just wait buddy, in anther year you'll also be on dishes, trash duty, bathrooms, you name it... Katie tells me that guys take up too much space by sitting with their legs far apart. It's true. I try to not do this on my vanpool to work every day. But it is just Finn in the back seat, so he is free to, ah, spread out.

Saturday was the 3rd birthday, observed, of Caitlin, and Jessica and Daren had another pool party. Finn was the life of the pool, as expected. Of the two hours we were there, I bet he was in the pool for 1:45. I was only in the pool for 1:44:55. How can that be? Shouldn't an adult be with Finn for every second, since he can't swim? Yeah, you'd think so. But a certain someone likes the pool so much that he climbed into the deep end by himself when I'd turned around to talk to Katie near the snack table!! He was actually fine. He was smiling at me, holding himself up with the pool ledge (doing a little pullup, of sorts), waiting for me to get back in. As near as we can figure, he must have got on all fours and moved his legs over the side while holding on. That kid! Here he is, Baywatch style, before getting in for the first time. Look out ladies!