I received an excited email dispatch from our kitchen yesterday: “We are having a Play-Doh fiesta right now! :-). I bought a little kit with 4 Play-Doh cans & a bunch of cookie cutters and squishers, and Finn is just having a field day! The combo of tools and squishy ‘Doh is a winning one for our little guy.”
Check out the gallery (HTML) of doughy good times!
PS–Margot says that Finn’s expression in the pic above reminds her of Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein.
I’m terribly behind in posting the photo & videos we captured during Grandma & Grandpa Nack’s visit six weeks (!) ago, but I’m going to take a run at sharing more soon. Here’s a clip of Der Finnster grooving on some play equipment (“Kinda steep!!”), joined eventually by Grandpa Nack:
Recently Mom-O introduced Finny to a flashlight, and boy, you’d think it was Obi-Wan Kenobi giving Luke a new lightsaber: that kid was off to the races! A whole new “KindaDEEP” was born, and soon we were having fun putting the light under our chins and saying “Spooky Dad-O! Spooky Binny!!”
Pretty soon we were doing “Spooky Leo,” and then Finn jabbed the flashlight into my throat and said, “(s)pooky neck!” From there it was game on, with Finn marching around and labeling everything the light touched as “‘pooky!” (“‘pooky ceiling! ‘pooky floor! ‘pooky baño!”) When I asked about “Spooky Goonie,” he smiled and said, “Nooo… too tiny!”
Here’s a little gallery (HTML) of our luminous antics. Oh, and by the way, a little “PigCup” makes an awesome saber-enhancer!
Margot and Finn were chatting at lunch the other day (“a real conversation as he’s now starting to master verbs,” she says) when the subject of Hoot (Hughes) came up. She writes:
We were talking about Hoot, and pickles (of course), and then Finn launches into his standard routine of “is the buckle poopy?” Anyway, the “buckle poopy?” bit morphed into my asking, “Who wears dipes?”
M: “Does Finny wear dipes?”
F: “Uh huh”
M: “Does Goonie wear dipes?”
F: “Uh huh”
M: “Does Dad-O wear dipes?”
F: “No!” (smiling) “Grown-up!”
M: “Does Milos wear dipes?”
F: “Uh huh”
and then
F: “Hoot…dipe!!!”
M: “Does Hoot wear dipes?”
F: “Uh huh!!” (big smile)
Sorry Hoot…the cat’s outta the bag 😀
In other dipe-related news (you were dying for more, weren’t you?), Finn has now dubbed Henry’s new little Op-Art waste-catchers “PolkaDIPE!”
Apropos of nothing, happy Tuesday. 🙂
(Click the image for a slightly larger version.)
Playing on our love of/terminology for slides (“Kinda STEEP!”), Finn has lately been asking to go “Kinda DEEP!” in the bed-cave we make upstairs. First we see the big guy & Dad-O go to town:
And next, Mom-O joins in the action!
I think Henry might be the reincarnation of a Peanuts character. Note the facial expression and forearms! There’s a definite resemblance, no?
Our neighbor Richard is kind of a folk hero to Finn–big, barrel-chested, and always operating some kind of cool vehicle (Corvette, vintage Beetle, old truck, Lexus, etc.) or implement (weed whacker, hose, pickaxe, etc.). His gato-poop-blasting technique is a particular hit & explains why Finn would look at the sprayer in the tub and exclaim “Poop!”
Lately Finn has been taken with watching Richard push leaves with his leaf blower, and he now loves to grab tubes of all sort and go “WHEEoooWHEEoooWHEEooo… leaf blowa!” As it happens, despite our having lived here for nearly three years, it’s only in the last couple of weeks that Richard has learned my name. Prior to that he’d guess things like “Mike.” Therefore Finn’s imitation sounds like, “WHEEoooWHEEooo… Hey Mike, Hey Mike!” ;-D
Here’s a tiny gallery (HTML) of our tube-wielding amigo.
Stay tuned for word from the Delmas Nack-Intelligencer 😉
During my parents’ visit, “GrammaNACK” brought Finn & Henry two great matching outfits apiece–blue & yellow onesies featuring little lions. The last time we tried to photograph them together, however, we unfortunately experienced Operation Nuclear Trainwreck (thanks to some bad napping).
This time, however, things went much better, as you can see in this little gallery (HTML). Margot was also able to catch Henry eyeing (and starting to swat at) some little felt birds, as well as Finn modeling some crazy-big sunglasses.
I snapped a few shots of the lads looking cute this weekend, including:
Here are the photos (HTML)!
When I was a very little kid (3-5, let’s say), I overheard my mom talking on the phone about how a nice older lady named Kay had gotten bumped in a fender-bender. At some point later (in mixed company, I’m guessing), I loudly announced, “KAY GOT BOMBED!” (that is, drunk). For years this poor innocent lady was then known as “Kay-got-bombed.”
I mention this because on Saturday, as I was giving Finn his morning milk on my lap, his overnight diaper leaked through onto my shorts. Getting up and seeing the spot, he said, “Dad-O peed!!” I protested that noooo Dad-O didn’t pee, but my & Margot’s laughter sealed the deal: Every time he’s repeat his claim, we’d laugh, and now it’s become established fact that, yep, Dad-O peed & had to change into the space monkey shorts.
It may take a while, but what goes around does, in fact, eventually come around. 🙂
Okay, I know it’s a totally invented milestone, but our littlest guy has officially done a “half century” in terms of days on earth. In recognition, here’s a little gallery (HTML) of the two boys this past weekend. The bats are gifts from our baseball-loving pal Ginna. (Thanks again, Ginna!) The Cheerios holding them in place are functioning as chocks. 🙂
Recently Finn got a ringside seat to Henry’s bath, and another day his little friend Esther Williams–er, Anja!–popped into the tub with him for some spontaneous bathing fun. Here’s a micro gallery (HTML) of the aqueous stylings.
Henry is starting to develop in earnest, offering up some new non-cry squeaks & even favoring us with a few proto-smiles! Just as Finny had his “invisible shows,” the G-Man is starting to stare with rapt attention. In this tiny gallery (HTML) you can see him contemplating (and spazzing out to!) one of those simple black-and-white picture books. Margot reports that he got mad today when she turned the page. Hey, don’t mess with a man’s literature!
Our pal Eileen Whitson, better known around here as “MrsW,” reported recently that she learned of her son Bryan’s toe-breaking via Finn (“Hoot! Doh-Mahn! Crack! Bro-kun! Gato. Dumpling”). “I think getting the news from Finn,” she says, “may be even hipper than getting the news from Jon Stewart.” Hah–that’s some high praise indeed!
Here’s Finn talking excitedly of Mrs. W. coming to visit, followed by a version of his toe story (with an intermission for “Broken Ham”):
Finn has lately taken a big shine to identifying pairs of things. For example, he’ll point at one faucet, then another, and say “Two faucet!” Charmingly, on the way back from dropping off my folks at the airport, he volunteered, “Grampa Nack… Grampa LEE-gett… Two grampa!” And as noted at right, Finn thinks that he & Henry are both “(H)appy kid.”
He’s also started saying deliberately crazy things for the sake of getting a laugh. After he tried to orally decapitate an apple the other day, we told him not to eat the stem. “Eat the stem, eat the stem!!” he shouted, and we’ve made it a little game: “Should Hoot eat the stem?” “Nooo!” (big smile) “Should *Milos* eat the stem?” “Nooo!””
Even better, while sitting on the dipetorium the other day, he grabbed the little safety buckle and announced “Buckle poopy!” The buckle is, mind you, one of the few things that hasn’t actually gotten poopy while up there (unlike Leo, Finn’s hammer, his hands, etc…). I was kind of shocked. “Did the buckle get poopy?” I asked, genuinely curious. “Nooo!” he replied, breaking into a mischievous smile. As you’d guess, our lives now involve hearing many claims about innocent things getting poopy.
And on that note, hats off to our boy for officially discovering that adding the suffix “poopy” makes just about anything funnier. May this knowledge serve you well for years to come, son. 🙂
The Finnfatha & I had a ball visiting multiple parks multiple times with the Nack GP’s. Look for photos soon; in the meantime, here’s some quality three-generational swinging action:
As mentioned the other day, Finny took a real shine to Grandma’s “Surprise Lap” routine, and we frequently hear him running around singing the little tune. Here’s our pair in action:
