The time has come, the time is now…Henry’s on the cusp of turning 6 months old, so now’s the time to start him on solid food. Today he dined on the always popular but not very delicious rice cereal. He’s definitely interested in getting it into his mouth, but not yet very good at keeping it there. Here’s a little
gallery (HTML) of his epicurean antics.
And just for old times sake, here’s Finny’s foray into solids from August ’08.
We’ve had a ball this Christmas having Margot’s folks in town. We’re still busy chasing the lads & fighting the flu (as Finn would say, “Byyuck!”), so I’ll keep things brief for now. Here’s a little gallery (HTML). In it you can see the terrific Thomas the Tank Engine play hut & monkey slippers that Grandma & Grandpa Liggett got for the Finnster; some balls & “Luchador keys” from MrsW; and the righteous “SQRL POD” license plate Mom-O got for the bike trailer!
Look at this little package I found under the tree. 🙂
Our man Finny is fascinated with the National Geographic Desert Pop-up book that Dad-o got him in Death Valley. A particular favorite is a jumping coyote who is pursuing a “fat squirrel”. Soon Dad-o and Finny were making up all kinds of coyote attack scenarios using Dad-o’s pinched thumb and forefinger as the coyote (or “guy-o-dee” as pronounced by Finn). The “coyote” sneaks through cracks between the mattress and crib bumper, appears below small holes where a young lad’s finger might wiggle through, and nibbles on various toddler appendages like earlobes and exposed toes. And since Dad-o likes to greet Finny each morning with a new kooky gimmick, the coyote makes lots of early morning appearances.
So, as I was out Christmas shopping the other night at Target, when I saw a rack of coyote-print flannel PJ pants out of the corner of my eye, I literally did a double-take and shouted “OH MY GOD! COYOTE PANTS! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!”. At least several dozen shoppers must’ve thought I had just escaped from the local nuthatch as I pawed through the pants, looking for the right size. That particular store did *not* have the right size, so I hopped in the car and drove to a different Target, where I successfully found my prey and took it home with me.
John then became the immediate recipient of the “Best Pre-Christmas, Could Not Have Planned Something This Great Gift”. Here is a larger version of the photo featuring the pants. Needless to say, John was as excited about them as I was, and could not *wait* to wear them in to greet Finn in the morning. And happily, Finn’s response was just what we expected. When Dad-o walked in, the first thing he shouted was “COYOTE PANTS!!!”
As I mentioned the other day, getting our little guys to sit still for a family Christmas photo has been no easy deal! Fortunately, however, Margot’s fellow Madre Veronica was able to catch the dudes at a peaceful moment:
Finn has become intimately familiar with Cookie Monster and the “C is for Cookie” song, thanks to YouTube’s vast collection of Sesame Street clips. He is also very adept with the Play-Doh these days, and really digs rolling out the Doh and using the little plastic “cookie cutters” that came in the Play-Doh kit. So imagine his delight when I told him we were going to roll out, cut, and decorate Christmas cookies today!
Here are a few pics (HTML) from our adventure, plus some other recent goings-on. Needless to say, Finn enjoyed the raw dough, the cooked dough, watching me put the food coloring into the icing, and shaking on the sprinkles and colored sugar. Against my better judgement, but in the spirit of not being a Grinch, I let him eat far too many cookies. All evening he was requesting “mo’ cookies!”.
In other news, Henry’s turning a corner on napping and is becoming more alert, smiley, and active each day. We’ve included a few recent pics of our little big man in action. We got him a little sleep sack, which is like a blanket he can wear. He’s moving around a lot in the crib so using a regular blanket is now out of the question, but he sure likes feeling warm and snuggly. John likes to call it the “sleep bag”, and I like to call it the nap extender. I have no idea if it actually contributed to his much improved napping over the last few days, but I’m not going to stop using it to find out if there’s a difference!
We’ve been struggling to get a decent family photo that we can send around for Christmas. Our boys lull us into complacency, getting all dolled up & sitting cheerfully until the moment of truth. Then, wham, it’s been American Meltdown Theater.
Fortunately our photographer-friend Maria had the inspired idea of wrapping Finny in some Christmas tree lights during her brief visit. “Tree dude!! Binny the tree dude!!” he declared, and magic ensued (HTML) :-).
Maybe now we just need to wrap the G-Man in some strands (“Shrub dude,” perhaps?) and snap away.
Well, we all made it through Henry’s test, and although it was no fun, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, and it’s over now. Henry was remarkably calm. The waiting was the hardest part. He had only 30 minutes of morning nap under his belt, and was not to eat for an hour before the test, which was scheduled at 1:00. So he ate at 11:30, just before we left for the hospital for a 12:30 check-in. Of course they were running late and the stupid test didn’t even start until 1:30, so he was getting more tired and more hungry by the second.
We all hung in there, and the test itself took only about 20 minutes total. They had to catheterize him and flood his bladder with x-ray visible dye, then wait to see where the dye went as his bladder filled up. He cried and squirmed but not nearly as much as I would have expected, and he was actually quite calm for a large part of the test. We got to watch the whole thing on a video monitor. John, who had to stand behind a protective screen, took a handful of photos (HTML) with his camera phone.
The radiologist said he did not see what they were looking for, which he took to be a good sign. He was expecting to see the dye go up into the ureter between Henry’s kidney and bladder, but it didn’t, even when his bladder was full and as it was squeezing. So that might mean he does not have reflux after all. Too early to say for sure, we’ll have to wait to hear what the pediatrician says once she reviews the images with the radiologist.
Thanks for keeping him in your thoughts and prayers, we’ll keep you posted when we know more.
Ah, we’ve finally had a chance to take a few snapshots of our lads. In this little gallery (HTML), you can see our fellas…
The owl has landed!
Inspired by the great success we’ve had with Finn’s “lovie” Leo, Margot got Henry one of Leo’s stablemates, a little owl* we’ve dubbed Ollie. The friendly strigiforme is already well-slobbered, both by Henry & by Finn’s “(s)mooching.” Zipping Ollie into Mom-O’s jacket, then extracting him and saying, “Hi, owl-buddy!” is a particular hit.
Here’s a little gallery (HTML) in which you can see the goings-on, as well as Finn’s antics with raccoon-buddy Duke. Duke likes to say (in Finn’s words) “‘ow’sitgoing!,” then crawl down the big guy’s shirt. “Tummy full of Duke!!,” shouts the delighted boy. 🙂
*Aesthetic/unhygienic bonus: Ollie is brown, the better to hide the disgusting impact of living in a lad’s mouth. We’ve learned from Leo!
Believe it or not, Margot and I have been hanging out with Actual Grown-Ups this week, having a pair of couples over for dinner, and thus we’ve been a bit behind in posting photos. Without further ado, here’s a little gallery (HTML) of recent stylings, featuring:
We’ve had a great time celebrating Halloween with the boys this year. On Friday, we met up with a bunch of the parents and tots in my mom’s group for a group photo/costume appreciation party, and then we all headed up to Lincoln Ave. for the yearly costume parade and trick-or-treats at the local shops. Dad-o joined in the fun this year, and escorted San Jose’s smallest but most earnest luchador while I carried our little lion Henry around in the sling.
This evening Dad-o took Finny around to the neighbors’ houses for some trick-or-treating while Henry and I stayed home and started doling out candy to the early bird ghosts and goblins. Then John and Finny manned the front steps to hand out candy to the hordes of kids coming down our block while I got Henry to sleep. Then we swapped and I doled out candy in my Lucy Ricardo costume while a super-pooped Finny chose to bypass his nightly bath and bottle in favor of just getting quickly into bed. Once both guys were down, we handed out the rest of our candy, ordered a pizza, and collapsed on the couch! We counted over 300 trick-or-treaters, and only have about 3 pieces of candy left in the cauldron.
Here’s a little gallery (HTML) of Halloween pics and a few other assorted shots from recent days, including a visit from MrsW (“Hoot’s mama!”), provider of quality luchador-wear.
[Super Mega Bonus Edition: It’s fun to see pix of Finn at Halloween just a year ago (HTML), as well as to see a clip of his penguin-clad toddling! –J.]
When it rains, it pours… gourds, that is.
Margot learned of another great pumpkin patch in our vicinity, so yesterday we packed up the Ocho & headed south. Finn, who’s now officially a huge fan of Thomas the Tank Engine, got a kick out of the “leetle train!!” (particularly the water tower) and the random forklift that kept passing by. Henry was resplendent in pumpkin paraphernalia (check out the stem!), and Finn loved his “Boo shirt.” Here’s our gallery (HTML).
As I mentioned in a previous post, Auntie Laura was here for a visit last week while John was off to the dusty desert with the guys (Hoot! Matt! as Finn would say.)
Since John, our resident photographer and blog-post illustrator/gallery maker was away, my post did not have any of the photos or video footage from her visit. So I’m pleased to announce that at long last, we have photographic proof of her visit, and here is the gallery (HTML) to prove it :D.
And here’s a fun little video of Finny and Auntie Laura singing the “Banana” song. Finn is obviously very pro-banana unification!
During my mom’s little visit this past week, we enjoyed introducing Finn to Hershey’s Kisses (“Choco-boca dudes!”), playing with Doh, scrubbing down Henry, whipping up cookies (which now dominate Finn’s consciousness–“Mo’ cookie jar!”), and reading a new book from Grandma. Here’s the gallery (HTML).
While Grandma Nack was here this week, we visited a local pumpkin patch with the boys. Henry was asleep for most of it, but at least he was dressed festively in his orange hat :D. Finn, on the other hand, was quite alert, and really enjoyed the small petting zoo that was set up at the patch. He was pretty taken with the turkeys, goats, piglets, and bunny rabbits. Here is a little gallery (HTML) of the afternoon’s proceedings. We ended up with four pumpkins, two large and two tiny, to be our family doppel-gourds on the front porch.
[Just for fun, here’s the gallery from last year’s visit. What a tiny Finnster we had! –J.]
Henry really knows how to turn on the charm. After a long, tiring day, I was somberly changing him into his PJ’s, and when I looked at him, he cracked his biggest, sweetest grin at me. How could I not melt?
He’s really perking up these days while he’s awake, and we’ve recently captured a handful of fun pictures of him in action. A little tummy time with Dad-o, some “singing” with Mom-o, and some smiles from his big bro. Here’s the gallery (HTML).
Our pal Maria from Kansas City (last seen at Chez Nack making a very young Finn squeal for his supper) just sent us a super fun Tickle Monster book–complete with ticklin’ gloves! Check out this little gallery (HTML) of shots I snagged with my phone camera. You can see Finn having a go at Dad-O’s “sweet, bony knee” (“BonyNEE!”), elbow, and more.
Henry’s been working out a lot these days, mostly doing what Finn calls “Goonie push-ups”. (The pediatrician calls it “tummy time”. How dull.) He spends some designated time each day on his tummy in order to strengthen his neck muscles and improve his head control and upper body strength. (He hasn’t started working on his sexy core yet!) Here’s a little gallery (HTML) of his efforts, as well as some candid pics of him enjoying his little swinging chair. Apparently he’s working on his facial expressions, too!
P.S. Finny took his mom’s old baby doll, put her face-down on the rug, and said “baby, push-ups,” then later referred to the baby doll as Goonie. Pretty great.