Our big guy now explores the Wild Blue Yonder. 🙂
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Low-Speed Chase: Toddler vs. Hat!
Who loves giant multimillion-dollar “toys”? We do!!
During our long journey home from Oklahoma, it was marvelous to find the big people-movers in the Phoenix airport. Newly fueled up on French fries, Finny was ready to blow off some serious steam, and the long moving sidewalks were just the ticket. I thought of one of our favorite Babar stories, in which the clown monkey Zephir performs “Chase of the Magic Hat.” Check it out!
PS–Perhaps someday he can apply these skills on a Japanese game show.
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Subterranean Homesick Dad-O
Gutentag from below the Elbe!
Ever since Margot visited Hamburg last fall, we’ve been talking with Finn about the tunnel under the harbor (see previous). Last night my colleague Jan was kind enough to take me for a visit, and I recorded a little travelogue for the guys. Fair warning: The video may be crushingly dull for anyone over the age of 3, though I’m told it’s been a hit with the target demographic. 🙂
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Firing for Effect!
Tonight it was my turn to be the recipient of a spontaneous, unexpected love-bomb shower from Finny. We’d just done our story and were lying in bed (at his request) for a few minutes to do “talk a little bit.” All of a sudden he reached over, gave me a big hug around the neck and said “I love you so much, Toad!” (Toad is one of the characters in the Thomas vids). He continued, “I really really love you a lot” and then proceeded to snuggle up and lay on the smooches and more hugs. Yowza! Talk about a terrific feeling. Rainbows and shooting stars! I of course returned all that affection with even more hugs and smooches, and then bid him sweet dreams. I think my dreams will be pretty sweet, too.
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Arrgh… Shiver Mein Timbers!
Greetings from Hamburg, Germany, where Dad-O is fighting jetlag and preparing to meet with his new team in the morning. As you may recall, Margot cooked up an elaborate pirate-themed mythology about Hamburg during her last visit, so now I have a few days to dream up an impressive story to tell Finn!
While I was busy playing human origami in the back of a plane, Mom-O & the guys were off celebrating little Halcyon Stotzner’s birthday with a posse of tots at a nearby jumpatorium. Here’s a quick photo snapped by Halcyon’s proud mom Meredith, documenting one of many human trains the guys formed. I already can’t wait to get back and horse around with them.
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Dance Dance Revolution
Hen’s little personality is coming out more bit by bit as he explores tiptoeing, causing (play) vehicular mayhem (“Dump!! Oh NO!!”), dancing, and more. Here he shakes a leg (and a book) with Harper and her newborn brother Tiernan:
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Mind-blowing greatness
This whole parenting racket can be a grind, but then the guys do some terrific bit that just blows us away.
Last night I had to attend a work function that ran surprisingly late. I was able to scramble and get home just in time to tuck in Finny. He dubbed himself “Thomas” and me “James,” and we laid in our little shed (his darkened bed) talking about our railway adventures. That’s when the laying on of crazy love-bombs commenced. Tipping over, he spontaneously embraced me and said, “I love you! I love hugging you, I love hanging out with you, I love playing with you…!” And when I explained how I’d hurried home, he shot his hands up in the air and exclaimed, “Hooray for James!!” At which point my heart nearly exploded. 😀
Hen, not to be outdone, has been getting more and more playful and chatty. Here’s his novel interpretation of how to use a chef’s hat!
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Drummer Boys
Step into our beat lab, won’t you? 🙂
(Shot this afternoon at the Exploratorium in San Francisco.)
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Henry Nack, Tickling Enthusiast
Something tells me that baby Tiernan Hogarty, glimpsed briefly here slumbering peacefully despite the hijinks nearby, is in for a laughter-packed upbringing at the hands of his mom, Sarah. See what I mean:
Over the holiday break I had fun shooting little pics of our guys, then processing & sharing them with the iPhone app Instagram. Here’s a little gallery.
Seeing the image at left just now, our friend Julieanne said, “It looks so old that it could be you in the photo.” I said, “Yeah, except that if it were me, my dad’s finger would be covering half the image.” 😉
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An ideas man, on the can
“I have an idea,” reported potty-dwelling Finn last night. “The idea is, maybe when a kid is sitting on the potty, the mom and dad can just take off, and then the kid can shoot some poop or pee into the potty, and then after that he can put a foot stool up to the sink and just climb up to the treats and *haaaup!*, eat one! The kid needs some privacy–that’s the idea.”
Good suggestion, lad. Now we might want to consider hanging one treat (a chocolate-covered pretzel) on a little hook by the sink, such that “the kid” could climb up and help himself to just one treat. (Maybe it could be like a “take a penny/leave a penny” dish: “take a pretzel/take a pretzel.” :-))
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Two Tots Named Teeter
Oddly enough, it wasn’t til this past week in Oklahoma that our lads got to experience the power & pageantry of teeter-totter riding. Here they are in action, throwing in a special bonus performance as a couple of quails (per an earlier post):
The other day we took the boys to Woolaroc, a former ranch/wildlife preserve of an Oklahoma oil baron, which is now a local attraction. There are plenty of indigenous and exotic animals to see, a fantastic Western art and artifact collection, as well as some vintage oilfield vehicles like fuel trucks and aircraft. Here’s a little gallery of our adventures. Henry, of course, went running after the big orange fuel truck on display and was just dying to climb aboard, while Finny was fascinated with the oil pumps, the 3-story high observation tower, huge stoic buffalo, and kid-sized old-west style playground. His enthusiasm for the old west has now resulted in him “jailing” us (the “bad dudes”) for offenses such as stealing lion blankies and stuffed monkeys, even though we’ve been framed by our local pint-sized sheriff!
Although the kids’ petting zoo was not officially open, our dudes did manage to get a little face- and fur-time with a few goats, sheep, and chickens. One of the great things about Woolaroc is that the wild animals are just roaming around freely on the grounds, and so we got some great close-up views of buffalo, deer, and elk from the car as we drove through. We even got to see some zebras, an ostrich, some llamas, and a zonkey (zebra + donkey, which looks like a zebra that just hasn’t bathed in awhile!).
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Chinny Jipasaurus and the Baby Quail
We have a lot of fun goofing around with words at our house, and Finny is not only a willing participant, he’s often the instigator of new phrases and word games. Utterly out of the blue, he renamed himself Chinny Jipasaurus while we were horsing around one afternoon. The name has stuck, and Chinny Jipasaurus has come out to play several times over the last few weeks. He even named his brother Hinny Jipasaurus!
Other personas and characters are often adopted by Finny. Lately he’s been a quail, running around ululating behind us, or from under tables or behind furniture. His favorite game right now goes like this:
— F: “Can you say ‘Where did that quail go’ Dad-o?”
— Dad-o: “Hmm…I seem to recall there being a quail running around here. Have you seen him, Finny? Where did he go? I haven’t heard him in a while.”
— F: (a little bit put out) “I’m the quail! doodle-oodle-oodle-oodle-oodle!”
— Henry: (getting in on the act with a fainter, higher-pitched tone) “doodle-oodle-oodle-oodle-oodle!”
— Dad-o: “Hey! There’s the baby quail, too!”
(repeat)
He’s been downing a lot of unusual “birdseed” as well: square birdseed (mini-wheat cereal), meat birdseed (self-explanatory), and round birdseed (Cheerios).
One last bit of language fun: Yesterday, when John and Grandpa Liggett took the boys to a big aquarium, they saw sharks, stingrays, crabs, turtles, otters, and beavers. When John asked Finny what he liked best about their visit, Finny replied “I liked the stingraisins!”
We’ve been having lots of tiny “OK” adventures. I’m typing this quickly between visits to the Oklahoma Aquarium & a Mexican restaurant. With the help of some new puffy jackets, we’ve been exploring the yard and neighborhood, after which we cooked up s’mores in the fireplace. Here’s our gallery.
By the way, I’m trying something new with our galleries: instead of creating Flash & HTML versions that live on this site, I’m hosting the photos on Flickr, meaning that they should be viewable everywhere (including my parents’ TV). If you run into any problems with the new setup, please let me know.
Merry Christmas, everyone! We’re chilling (literally, the rare times we venture outside) with Margot’s folks. Both guys were brilliant travelers (note to self: leg-stretching layovers are kind of a great thing), and as you’d imagine we all had a ball opening presents today. I especially enjoyed an early morning exchange with Finn:
“Do you have to go to work today, Dad-O?”
“Nope, I’m hanging out with you guys!”
“Oh NO!!”
Ah, what beats unconditional appreciation from one’s child? 😉 Being kind of zonked, I’ll keep things brief and will just share our photos from the day (HTML). More to come, I’m sure, as our adventure continues.
Previously:
Our man Finno is a born wheelman–at least when it comes to holiday carnival rides. Little Henry has to put on some inches before joining in the action, but boy will he be ready when the time comes. The video below combines two rides–one at the Zoo Lights in Oakland, the other at the SJ winter festival. Enjoy!
Okay, I have to admit two things up front:
- One, this video could easily appear in a collection called “Portraits in Unwatchability” or “Experiments in Motion Sickness.”
- Two, despite all the spinning, not all that much really happens.
So, you can’t say you weren’t warned. 😉 The other night we took advantage of some (rare) clear weather & took the lads to San Jose’s Christmas in the Park, a little set of carnival rides & holiday displays. The guys remain too little for ferris wheel rides, giving Finn a chance to practice his “glower” face, but we had a good time on some carousels, “bumpy cars,” and the spinning ballon-car ride you see here. Hen was a cool customer as usual, and Finn did well until then end when, Margot reports, he remarked “I hope it’ll be stopping soon!”
“Neither rain nor cold nor gloom of night will stay these cherubic buddies from the swift enjoyment of their date with the zoo…”
After our first attempt got rained out a week earlier, on Sunday evening the Nack Pack rallied & met up with pals Bettie, Quade, and their folks Tara and Andy at the Oakland Zoo. Here you can see us enjoying the groovy nighttime zoo train, sighting a wallaby & a Macy’s-float-sized Henry face. 🙂
Our picture-taking time has been a bit limited lately, but we’ve gathered together some good odds & ends into a little gallery (HTML). And check out Finn making a literal “holy cow”!
