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) 🙂
It bears repeating: Man, how great is the Internet? Mom-O is off in Hamburg, Germany, this week, and I woke this morning to a little travelogue she’d written to share with our guys:
After arriving at work, the entire team took a tour of the Hamburg harbor by boat. I think I might’ve seen Captain Salty [A Richard Scarry character –J.] on the dock getting ready to get on board and steer us around. We got to see bridges, huge cargo ships, cranes, and other vehicles moving cargo around. We also got to see several tugboats and barges making their way towards various piers. There was a huge cruise ship in drydock being repaired, and lots of little passenger ferry boats going back and forth across the harbor.
Best part: After the cruise, we walked over to a big round building with a dome that is the entrance to a car & pedestrian tunnel that goes under the harbor! The cars drive onto a special elevator that takes them down to the tunnel entrance, and then they drive through to the other side, onto another elevator that takes them back up to the surface. Pedestrians/bicyclists take a smaller elevator and walk on the sidewalk alongside the cars going through. It was very very cool.
Finn was enthralled, wanting me to repeat the story. Then he asked, “Can we see the tunnel?” I had no idea, as Margot hadn’t been carrying a camera, but after about 30 seconds searching YouTube, we got our own little tour:
How cool, right? When Finn sees the lady walk by, he says, “There goes Mom-O! I see some curly hair!”
Ooh–maybe I can use Google Earth to give the guys a tour of the Port of Hamburg. And a-Googling I go… [Update: Here it is!]
Over the last few months, we’ve been charmed that Tyler (our little Tuesday-Thursday babysitting pal) has been calling everything “Bus!!” Living in San Francisco, he’s quite taken with the big busses that rumble past, and he calls anything vehicular (little toy shopping carts, garbage trucks, walkers, whatever) “Bus!”
Little Henry’s become quite the impressionable little myna bird, so now he goes around saying, “Bus, bus!!” If I’m holding him and he catches sight of our Richard Scarry Cars & Trucks book, he lunges sideways and paddles the air like Michael Phelps until I let him down to paw the pages. “Bus, bus!!” Good times all around. 🙂
Cable TV is stuffed (pardon the pun) with shows about people who cram their homes with more & more stuff. Our cheeky guys have a similar, albeit much cuter & less debilitating, tendency. Here we see Henry at the sushi joint, packing his jowls with tofu for winter:
And then of course there’s The Original Squirrel (he of the airbag cheeks), seen here going college-kids-in-a-phone-booth with a faceful of grapes:
Photo for future reference, just in case it’s needed. 😉
I know, I know: Soon enough, the lads will be really independent, to the point of wanting nothing to do with their lame parents. In the meantime, though, boy can they be clingy. Now when either of us (but particularly Dad-O) leaves the room, the dudes start wigging out a bit. If I even go around the corner for a moment, Finn starts asking “Where is Dad-O? Dad-O, where are you??”–while Henry starts yowling. This pair of photos puts the experience into a nutshell. First, here we have Henry:
Aaaand, here we are a moment later:
As Finny (and now Henry!) would say, “Oh Jeez!” ;-P
A somewhat encouraging little postscript, though: I took the guys out to eat at Aqui last night as Mom-O was out of town, and they actually stayed put (without fussing!) as I had to disappear around the corner a couple of times to grab our food, utensils, etc. Not bad in a crowded, noisy restaurant!
Finn popped up from his nap on Saturday saying, “Let’s! Go! See! Those! Ponies!!” And so we did, heading down to Gilroy (south of SJ) to meet up with a whole herd of playgroup pals & their parents. We joked about meeting up with “Dr. Ponyowner” and getting to ride his ponies. We grabbed a picnic lunch (Finn’s *way* into cornbread–who knew?), and short order our big cowpoke was astride pony Tux, circling the corral. Afterwards we introduced “little billy goat” Henry to some actual billy goats, plus at 25lb. “Flemish Giant” bunny. Here’s our little gallery (HTML) plus a short vid: