Heh–seeing this little cartoon, I had to think of G-Man:
The boy gets an endless kick out of putting progressively more enormous things (e.g. a new panda pillow that’s bigger than his torso) upon his head, looking at us with a smile, and proudly declaring simply, “Hat!” 🙂
Detecting “the Fruit of the Tollhouse” on my breath this AM, a bear-laden Henry started saying, “Cookie, cookie!!” As Margot says, “Double-fisting with bears, eating a cookie, and being held by Dad-O: it’s like a little guy delight sandwich!”
Here’s our happy fella moments ago:
With rainy weather setting in, we’re spending a lot more time in our semi-finished basement. Gazing up at various pipes yesterday, Finn asked, “Did Jason the Mason [a bricklaying pig from Richard Scarry’s world] build this house?”
“No,” I told him, “I think it was a bunch of Nicaraguan dudes.”
Finn paused for a second to think. “Did they drink the agua out of jars–pickle jars?”
“Uh, what do you mean, buddy?” I asked. “What jars?”
“Pickle-agua jars!”
I laughed my head off. Now Nicaragua will forever be the land of pickle agua, full of thirsty workmen slugging back jars of briny water. Maybe they’re big fans of “Delicious Pocket,” Finn’s phonetic rendering of neighborhood restaurant “Tlaquepaque.” And now that Henry has started imitating Finn & refers to his own Leo-style blankie as “Leo,” the Pickleaguans might with the boys a hearty “Vaya con Leos!” 😉
Both Finn and Henry are big fans of the iPhone/iPad app BeBot–a simple little synthesizer that shows a little robot pitching back and forth as you drag your finger around, causing him to “sing.” Henry has taken to carrying me the iPad while saying, “Bebop, Bebop!!” Anyway, this morning Finn decided to be the BeBot, requesting that we play his cheeks to make him whistle:
[Hat tip to fellow dad Matt Strauss for turning us on to BeBot in the first place]
Apropos of nothing, our boys decided to experiment with a little techno-body modification on Saturday morning. (This is why Mom-O shouldn’t leave us alone together. :-))
Want to get a team of toddlers eating out of the palm of your hand? (Figuratively, I mean; they’re all too willing to do it literally.) Get ’em some Mardi Gras beads!
Finn, and Henry in particular, were so enamored of little Harper Hogarty’s bead collection that I started calling him “Jacob Marley” after the chain-dragging ghost in A Christmas Carol. Check it out:
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to capture shots of the three tots running a racetrack pattern, with Finn popping out to startle the little ones (“Surprise!”) and Henry trying to keep up (“Prise!”). It was high-speed hilarity. [Photo courtesy of Harper’s dad, “Papa Hog” Tom]
Later today we’re off to see our friends Tom and Sarah, their daughter Harper (a few months older than Henry), and their own little “El Segundo” who remains in utero. Wanting to jog Finn’s memory about Tom, I said, “You know, he’s the guy with that big beard” (see below). Finny replied, “Is the baby gonna pop out with a little beard?” We shall see, buddy! 🙂
Yesterday morning, the boys were enjoying some sliced banana when Finn grabbed a little toy construction cone, flipped it over, and inserted a banana wedge. “Now it’s an ice cream cone!” he proudly declared. He even made one for his little bro. 🙂
It was great to reintroduce Finn to his big Uncle Ted (given that I doubt he remembers their first meeting), and Ted had good fun playing the role of “Uncle Troll.” Check out a few pics (HTML) and a video:
Breaker breaker, 1-9… we got us a CONVOY…
Okay, not quite, but we did get a fun ride with Uncle Ted in his bobtail rig, heading from “Big G” through Scales Mound, on our way up to the truck lot in Shullsburg. We all had a great time, and maybe in the future we can get Ted a bumper sticker that says, “LEO is My Co-Pilot.”
Heh heh–perhaps, according to the NY Times, Henry’s perpetual brow-knitting is just a sign that he’s interested in things:
“‘When babies are interested in something, they tend to do a furrowed brow,’ he continued; parents should understand that babble may be ‘an acoustic version of furrowing one’s brow.'”
Laughing grandmas + babies = Instant good times. 🙂
It’s really cool to see the Finnster start interacting more with other kids, and during our time in Galena, he had a ball racing cars with little neighbor girl Isabella. Packing his lion-buddy into the back of a truck, he proudly (and sort of inexplicably) declared, “This is called, ‘Leo the M&M’!” From there they were off to the races:
(Click any of the images for a larger version.)
Oh boy:
In one of my favorite early memories, I’m alternately astride a huge grown-up, trying to pummel him into submission, and then running like mad as he chased me around the house. Said grown-up is my cousin John “The Doctor of Doom and Destruction” Huber, and at our family brunch on Sunday, he introduce young Finn to the power of “The Claw”! Check it out (HTML). 🙂
Okay, I know it’s like pitching one scoreless inning & then claiming a perfect game, but our little compadres have been great travelers so far. We’re in Big G. & the dudes are napping nicely after some walnut gathering (“Grandpa’s got a robot arm!”), golf cart driving, and snack ingesting. Yesterday we stopped by Margot’s Uncle Lyman & Aunt Brenda’s house in Rock Falls, getting to see them and their daughter Kristan. It was great seeing everyone, and later we made it to Galena just in time to see a steamroller & paver (driven by my sister-in-law-to-be’s aunt) resurfacing Grandma & Grandpa’s street; score!
I’m typing fast before the guys wake up, but for now here’s a video of Uncle Ted, a volunteer ambulance driver, rolling up in his big rig. I just regret that I stopped recording before driver Finn explained that “Goonie’s leg is all goofed up. It broke off, and now we have to take him to the doctor!”
Later at the ambulance garage, he was *fascinated* by the fact that when the ambulance is plugged into the wall, turning the key causes the plug to go shooting off lest one drive away with it still attached.
“Hey Dad-O, are you ready to get into me?”
“Uhh… ‘Get into you’? What do you mean?”
“Get in and push my buttons!”
“Uh… what are you talking about, buddy?”
“I’m an elevator!!”
That was the scene outside a Cannery Row gift shop today as Finn & munched corndogs while Henry napped on Mom-O’s chest. Finn & I had just been riding the elevator up and down a bit, and once I figured out his new game, I’d “walk” my fingers into the chest pocket of his overalls, then press the button (a snap) so that he’d rise up or sink down. It was a great way to burn some energy before our car ride home, and I’m happy to help develop those 2-year-old quads. 😉
At risk of over-reporting this G-Man/sugar thing, I have a little addendum.
Today the guys and I went for haircuts, and I rolled them home while Margot headed to Pilates. Finn always celebrates a good trim with a sucker, and today I figured I’d let Henry try one. I popped a sucker into each boy, and each boy into the stroller.
When we got home ten minutes later, I pulled out Finn & his lightly worn sucker (looking just like you’d expect). When I reached for Henry, my eyes widened: the stick in his hand was empty! I was able to fish just the sucker’s chewy core out of the cheek where it was rapidly disintegrating. This kid is The Natural of sweets consumption!
If Henry & I were lost in some parallel-universe desert, where we could survive only by locating underground sources of sugar, I wouldn’t break a sweat: I’d merely hold him in front of me so that he could stretch out, divining rod-style, and vibrate in the direction of the sweet stuff.
This kid has an unbelievable knack for sussing out the presence of M&Ms, Gummi bears, chocolate–you name it. With the M’s in particular, he’s got bat-like hearing for the rustle of the big bag. He starts pointing his whole bod in that direction, whining to be taken up to the shelf & saying “Emmin! Emmin!” Thinking I was clever, I’d started popping a few into my mouth while he’s out of earshot. No joy, though: He immediately smells them on my breath & starts wiggling towards the bag. And the other day I saw him diligently rifling around in a big shopping bag full of paper & empty boxes. It took me a while to realize that Margot had carried home some chocolate in the bag days earlier.
Henry Nack: Cocoa Whisperer. 🙂
It’s a leaf… it’s a bug… it’s a leaf-bug! (plus one skeptical-looking engineer) 🙂
