Category: Miscellaneous

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! 🙂

The constant brotherly grappling over toys has officially begun. Now that Henry’s mobile, more coordinated, and can talk a little bit, he is making the most of these new skills by trying to wrestle toys away from his big bro, or destroying Finny’s works-in-progress. To wit, every time Finny’s building something with his legos, or putting together a puzzle, Henry’s right there in Demolition Man mode, doing his best to tear everything apart. To his credit, Finny gives as good as he gets. Clearly Finny’s far too old for Henry’s “baby” toys, and tends to take over the button-pressing, horn honking, shaking, and stacking that G-Man’s still trying to coordinate.

So we’ve got big bro steamrolling little bro, and little bro destroying big bro’s creations. Then the whining and grabbing kick in. But not for long–luckily they’re both fairly receptive to parental intervention and the idea of waiting turns and/or sharing. The one thing they both agree on is looking at books together and watching Wallace and Gromit shorts on the iPad. Honestly, though, the boys tend to play very well together, and usually Henry’s off doing something on his own without a lot of pestering from Finny. We both enjoy watching them hang out and enjoy each other’s company.

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.'”

Henry hit the 15-month mark on Saturday, which he celebrated by smearing chocolate chip cookies all over his face. Not to worry, though, he ingested plenty of chocolate, too. (Like father like son :D)

We went to visit Dr. S. this morning for his 15-month checkup, and here are the stats: 26 lbs. 3 oz, 31.5 inches tall, 49 cm. head circumference. In a nutshell, he’s a bit on the short side, but he’s holding his own when it comes to his weight (to wit, the aforementioned cookies) and cranium size! The doc was impressed with both his mobility and his chattiness. We estimate that the G-man’s got about 50 words under his belt, which wowed the doctor. I think she may have forgotten how many words Finny had at the same age! She got to hear him talking about his two favorite things: buses (a toy we brought) and doggies, which is what Henry was calling the dinosaur wall decals.

He was a total champ when it came to his vaccinations and only squawked for a couple seconds afterwards. He’s not a huge fan of being poked and prodded by the doc, but cooled out once I held him in my lap so while she listened with the stethoscope and looked into his ears.

Oh boy:

• Finn, shaking his head at Margot’s crooning: “That’s not a great song, Mom-O…”
• And later, critiquing my Magnadoodle skills, right after summarily wiping out my elaborate Wallace & Gromit homage: “Now will you draw me a rocket with some dudes that I don’t want to erase?”

Our little Henry is growing and changing so fast these days! John and I have been talking about how he’s entering the “Henry 2.0” phase–walking, talking, playing independently, goofing around with his brother, and sporting quite a little personality. He’s really coming into his own, and we couldn’t be more thrilled.

Verbally, G-man is learning to say a few new words a day. Recently he’s added the following to his growing vocabulary: cheese, gato, milk, agua, “do that”, this, brother, shoes, nose, toes, doggie, block, and  “toot toot”. He’s also getting quite comfortable ambling about the house on his own, and we often find him busying himself with his toys, or tours of the pantry, or a quick stroll behind the living room bookshelf. He’s working on his fork- and spoon-handling skills, too. These days we need a fork for Henry to wield and “practice” with while one of us feeds him with another fork.

He loves to do “turtleando” with his brother on the big bed. (This entails pointing to the turtle on the wall hanging and then getting tossed around on the bed by Dad-o while laughing hysterically.) He’s also started taking to several of his books and pays rapt attention while we read, especially if there are sound effects involved! He’s a big fan of fire engines and trains, and loves to say “oo oo ooh!” when he sees the monkey in his peek-a-boo book.  All in all he’s becoming lots more fun and interesting to be around, and Finny seems to be enjoying his little bro a lot more now that he’s more interactive.

[As Henry’s mind develops, Finn is starting to discover the fun of messing with it. He gets a kick out of Henry calling any & every vehicle “bus,” so yesterday he started pointing at various cars and saying absurd things like, “That’s a yellow bus, Goonie! That one’s a green teddy bear!” My boy. 🙂 –J.]

“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. 🙂

…thank God A’mighty our lower backs are free at last! Henry Seamus Nack broke free last Friday and started walking around on his own! No more (ok, well, significantly less) stooping over and trailing him while he pulls us along. In prior weeks he’d been taking a few steps at a time, but nothing worth calling walking.

We are thrilled that he’s finally independently mobile, but our little G-Man doesn’t fully trust it yet. He still spends quite a bit of time grasping one of our fingers for assurance while he tools around. Here’s a little shot of our littlest man-on-the-go!

Edgar and Victor were brothers who grew up on Bear Island, which was in the middle of the sea. Bears like to eat fish, and their island was surrounded by delicious fish, which they would eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  One day, while they were out fishing in their little boat, pulling in one fish after another, they both looked up and noticed a big ship on the horizon. “Wow!” said Edgar, “I’ve never seen a boat that big before. And look, it has a big black flag flying from the top of the mast.” “I think that means it’s a pirate ship, Edgar,” said Victor. “We ought to be careful.” But Edgar was such a nice bear, he thought that if the big ship was full of other bears they hadn’t met, they should row their boat over, say hello, and tell the bears where to find the best fishing. Victor agreed, because all bears were friends, and they wouldn’t want a big ship full of bears going hungry if they didn’t help them out.

So, they rowed their little boat over to the big ship. They looked up, and they looked down, and when they looked up again, they saw Pirates(!) on the deck of the ship! The pirates said “Why hello little bears! What fine fish you have. We’re going to steal your boat and your fish, and you’re going to tell us where to find more of them so we can sell the fish for lots of money!”

“Oh no!” cried Victor and Edgar, as two big hooks were lowered from the pirate ship and hooked onto their boat, which was then lifted up up up and over onto the deck of the ship. Edgar and Victor wouldn’t tell the pirates where they found the fish, and that made the pirates mad. They said “we’re going to lock you up in a little room until you tell us where we can find more fish!” But the brothers still wouldn’t tell, and were locked away. Meanwhile, the ship was pulling into the Hamburg harbor because the pirates needed to sell the stolen fish. The bears saw that the ship was pulling into a pier, and slowing down, so they decided to escape. They found a black pirate shirt and used it as a disguise. They hid under the shirt and snuck off the ship unnoticed, because no one would expect to see a pirate shirt escaping from a big ship.

Once they reached the pier and peeked out from their disguise, they noticed that they were standing right next to Mom-o! She looked down and said “Hey, guys, what are you doing?” They told her their story, and said they had no idea how to get back to Bear Island since they were so far from home. They said they were looking for a nice family to take care of them and be their friends. Mom-o was so thrilled, she told them that she had two boys, Henry and Finny, who would love to be their friends and feed them as much fish as they liked. She carefully put them (and the pirate shirt) into two nice, big, comfy cardboard boxes so they could travel safely back with her on the plane.

Author’s note: The dark brown bear is Edgar, and the lighter one is Victor. The pirate shirt is the symbol of one of Hamburg’s football (soccer) teams, St. Pauli. On the flight home from Germany I worked long and hard to come up with a good story about how the Steiff bears and the shirt made their way  home with me, and when I presented the boys with their presents, I spun the tale of the bears to a rapt Finny, who has made me recount it over and over to him while he clutches Edgar.

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!]

A couple weeks ago, John stumbled upon a really great find for the boys–a set of black and yellow construction vehicle-shaped utensils: spoon, fork, and bulldozer/pusher. They’re from a company called “Constructive Eating” (hah hah), and were so cute in the pictures, we knew we had to order some for our truck-crazy tykes.

I surprised The Dudes with them at breakfast this morning, and they both went completely bananas over them. Finny has not had them out of his possession except to allow us to wash them off after eating. In fact, they accompanied him into the bath, to take in the garbage cans, and now he is sleeping with them clutched to his chest.  Here are some shots of the guys enjoying their new tools:

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!

Hmm… it’s getting harder to pull the wool over Finn’s eyes. Last night he was poking at a little plastic locomotive he’d dug out of his closet–one that I predicted (correctly, it turns out) would make a horrible racket if armed with batteries. He’s been asking about the train for a few days (“Check out the little speaker, Dad-O! How does it work?”), and last night I tried to give him more run-around:

Dad-O: “Well, we’d need some batteries.”
Finn: “They’re in the drawer over there!”
D: “Oh, okay. Well, it looks like we also need a screwdriver…”
F: “There’s one in the closet in the kitchen!”
D: “Yeah, but I need a tiny one…”
F: “It is a tiny one!” [proceeds to prove it]
D: “Oh, uh… really?”
F: “I knew that! I know everything!”

…and modest, too! ;->

“Buffer ’em, Bert!”

Finn’s evidently been listening closely to his Thomas videos. According to Margot,

The other day he rolled Henry’s little shopping cart over to the wall and parked it, then rolled the little walking wagon over towards the shopping cart and said “I’m going to buffer up the wagon to the cart”, which he then proceeded to do. Once the cart and wagon were “buffered up” nicely, he started pushing the conjoined cart and wagon backwards towards the couch so they’d remain buffered until he was done moving them. Cute, huh?

I’m inclined to agree. 🙂

Finny has recently become obsessed with Raggs, a big blue dog with his own song and dance show on PBS. He insists on being called a dog, not a boy, and he won’t answer to Finny–only Raggs*! Thank goodness we already have a pair of blue doggy-themed PJ’s, which have become the ensemble of choice for our young canine amigo.

In other animal news, Raggs has decided that his little brother is a billy goat. We’re not exactly sure why he decided to classify his brother as a goat, but it was prescient, given Henry’s proclivity to try and climb anything and everything he can get tiny feet (hooves?) on.

If anyone had told me a few years back that I’d now be coming home to a big blue dog and a billy goat, I never would have believed them. But, you know, they make cute pets!

[* She’s not kidding! The other day at Aqui, I was trying to order us dinner with Finn on my arm. It went something like this:

And so on. 🙂 –Dad-O]

We’ve been having some really fun times with “the Dudes” lately. So much to report, and not sure where to start, so I’ll just start here:

Dad-o was out of town on Friday and Saturday for a business trip, so I got to spend lots of solo time with the guys. I decided it would be fun to fill up the wading pool on Saturday morning since the weather promised to be sweltering. I figured we’d fill it up but wait to dive in until lunchtime when the sun had warmed up the water. Well, the Dudes did not want to wait, so it was clothes off, dipes off, and into the pool! Finn was busy dropping all kinds of toys and other items into the pool, including a pinecone he picked up out of the mud by the gazebo. As the pinecone went in and the mud bits sank down towards the bottom, Finny mumbled something that I didn’t quite hear. I asked him what he said, and he said “Pinecone Jam.” It took me a second, but then I said, “Oh, like toe jam?” And he nodded and smiled.

In Henry news, our little guy had his 1-year checkup, and clocked in at 24 1/2 pounds, 29 inches long, and 48cm. head circumference. He’s only in the 25th percentile for height, but 75th for weight, so we’re expecting a growth spurt soon that should stretch out that spare tire! He’s got a total of 13 teeth, 4 of which have arrived in the past week or so, and he is crawling like he’s trying to set land speed records. Tonight I walked to the kitchen to get him a pre-bedtime bottle of milk, and I heard him crawling toward me saying “mama mama mama” over and over. My heart melted. He continues to be fascinated with his brother’s toes, utensils, and sippy cups, to which Finn usually responds “no Goonie, don’t touch my (insert posession/body part here).”