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”):
Henry had his one month checkup this week with Dr. S. He currently clocks in at 12 lbs 2 oz, 22 inches long, and has a head circumference of 40 cm. This puts him in the 90th, 75th, and 90th percentiles, respectively. His throat has healed up from the reflux thanks to Zantac, which he will continue to take. We have to up his dose of antibiotic for the kidney since he’s getting bigger.
He has also started becoming much more alert and aware of his surroundings, which also translates into a lot more difficulty in getting him to fall asleep and stay asleep. The changes in his sleep patterns between last week and this week are marked. This week we’ve had a lot more fussing and sleep-fighting, and it takes a lot longer to get him really and truly asleep and have it stick for more than 10 minutes. That means he and I are spending exponentially more time in the rocking chair, and also exponentially more time awake in the middle of the night if he’s not in the mood to continue sleeping. Yeesh. The last couple of nights have been rough, and it’s hard to remember to be patient and empathetic when your baby is wailing at you from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m!
Yesterday Finn was sitting on my lap while we were recounting the day’s events. I looked over at him to find his right index finger shoved as far up his nose as it would go. “Hey Finn, what’re you doing with that finger up your nose?”, I asked. Finn looked at me, then took his left index finger and shoved that into his other nostril. “Two!” he said gleefully.
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:
Yes yes, we know: Not everyone (anyone?) besides Margot, Finn, & me is a fan of calling Henry “Goonie.” My dad pointed this out on the way to the airport this morning.
“People will think he’s… special,” he opined.
“You know, Dad,” I replied, “as far as that goes, we feel about the same as you do about memorizing wine details: we just don’t care.”
Moments later we pulled up at the curb behind a minivan full of scruffy characters, including a middle-aged guy sporting a tank top & a raft of tattoos.
“Oh, since you guys are early, Dad, you could hang out with that guy,” I suggested. “Y’know, maybe get some ink done–get sleeved.”
“Oh yeah,” my dad shot back, “and you know what that guy’s name is? Goonie.”
Well played, sir; well played. 🙂
The gazebo has been getting a good workout, hosting my folks and their books plus various visits from Finn. Grandma Nack blew Finn’s mind with her “Surprise Lap” routine, humming a jaunty little Irish lullaby, then “dropping” him at the end (as he yells “Dump!!”). Now we hear him waking up in his crib, singing & saying “GrammaNACK!” Here’s a little gallery (HTML).
Off to grab a waking-up Finnster,
J.
We’re having a ball with my folks being in town–cruising in a wagon, swinging, riding the slide (“Kindasteep!”) backwards & forwards, reading Mother Goose (“GeogiePogie!”), and more–and of course the Papa-razzo is snapping away. I haven’t had much time to select photos to share, though, so in the meantime here’s just a fun little sequence of Finny hamming it up:
(Here’s a larger version.)
Courtesy of Merriam-Webster, The Word of the Day for August 5 is:
philoprogenitive \fill-uh-proh-JEN-uh-tiv\ adjective
*1 : tending to produce offspring : prolific
2 : of, relating to, or characterized by love of offspring
Correct on both counts!
We’ve mentioned our weird family version of This Little Piggy, but it’s never before been committed to film. 🙂 In this clip you can see Grandma Nack cracking Finn up, earning unending calls for “More Domendite!”
After another sleepless day and night with little Henry, we paid a visit to Dr. S. this morning to see what is going on. I was unable to tell if it was gas, or the antibiotic, or reflux, or something I was eating that was bothering his intestines and tummy after nursing. All I knew is that pretty much like clockwork, about 20 minutes after nursing, Henry would start screaming and writhing, and was unable to stay asleep for any length of time.
I guess not surprisingly, the doc checked Henry out and diagnosed him with reflux, just like Finny had as an infant. She said his throat is just raw and red and it was no wonder he was screaming and not sleeping. So…the good news is we know what to do and the condition is treatable with the infamous “veg pillow” and Zantac. The bad news is that it’ll take a few days for the meds to kick in and his throat to heal, and then we’re on the Zantac wagon for the next 6 months, 3 times a day. As Finny would say, “poorguy!”.
Finn has been having all sorts of fun this week with his Liggett grandparents. Yesterday he was treated to a dramatic reading of “Three Billy Goats Gruff” by grandma, a chicken taco lunch with grandpa, and lots of time outdoors touring the neighborhood and playing in the sprinklers. He busy was making big strides in feeding himself with a spoon and actually getting the food into his mouth (as opposed to unintentionally dumping it into his lap on the way up). Both grandpa and I were thrilled to see Finny predominantly using his left hand, only sometimes switching to right to see if he could make it work any better (answer: no).
Henry is going through his 3-week growth spurt and is eating all the time, which is great for him but not so fun for me. He has been having bouts of gas and tummy aches and has been quite fussy and not very sleepy for a couple nights in a row. We broke the cycle last night–slept for a 4-hour stretch, then a couple of 3-hour stretches, and did not have any intermittent spit ups or howling due to gas pains. Whew. We both needed the rest!
Tonight Margot and I gave Henry (aka Goonie, aka the G-Man) a bath, and while it wasn’t his first, this time I was able to grab my camera. Check out the photos (HTML) of our littlest guy doing the backstroke.
For a fun comparison, here’s Finny’s first bath (and, what the heck, a later one, too). Seeing those pics & realizing they were taken less than 18 months ago (!) really drives home the truth in all those cliches about “they grow up so fast.”
Great moments in human development:
Our young man is very directive these days. He’ll walk right up to my shoe saying “Do-MAHN, Do-MAHN,” and begin untying it, even if I’m in the middle of push-ups. Once he’s exposed my foot, he’ll grab a toe and begin trying to drag it up to switch on the swing’s music (“Moo-geek!”), grunting with effort and satisfaction. I find it all hilarious enough to indulge, at least for the time being.
We’re having a great time introducing Henry to his Liggett grandparents (GP’s–hence “Jeeps”), so we’ve been a bit lighter on the blogging. Finn delights in showing grandpa around our usual haunts–e.g. dragging him to the “antenna truck,” jumping to him from our neighbor’s porch, and playing around in the pool. While I’ve got a moment before he gets up, here’s a gallery (HTML) of the proceedings.
Dad and Finn like to recap the events of the day, or even the events of many days ago. One of Finn’s favorite conversations, from about 2 weeks ago, follows. “The ladies” are the housecleaners, who remain guilty as charged for throwing away Finn’s favorite paper towel tube:
F: “La-dees!”
J: “Oh yeah, did the ladies throw away our tube?”
F: “Darn-eet!”
J: “But then did someone bring us a new one?”
F: “CoCo!”
J: “And now what do we do?”
F: “I like to moo-bat moo-bat… Keeck it now, keeds!”
…and subtle variations on that theme. 🙂
The paper tubes we rescued from our neighbor Long’s garbage cans are a favorite topic (“Broken! Cut! No Pat No!”), as is the shopping cart that fell off the park maintenance truck (“Dump!!”), the cherry-picker baskets on the cable trucks parked outside on the street (“Up up!”), and Hoot and pickles for lunch (“Hoot! Peecoles! Monday!”).
It’s week two with Henry on the scene, and we’re all settling in to our groove as a foursome. Henry and I spend a lot of time on the couch, or in the rocking chair while he nurses or naps. We’ve set up the playpen/bassinet in the living room so we have a drop-off spot for him that is both Finn-proof and centrally located so we can hear him from the kitchen or other rooms.
John and Finn have a really good routine going these days. They spend a lot of time outdoors exploring, going for Cozy Coupe rides, or Bob-ing their way up the street to the park. Finn has really taken a shine to the various slides, as well as the swings. There is a public pool at the park, too, which is open every afternoon, so the boys have been swimming a few times in the past week. Finn loves it, and John mentioned something about how great it is to be a dad when it comes to playtime and pool time with Finno. We also found out that the big carousel at the Guadalupe River Park is free one Tuesday a month, so John and Finn took a spin on the various animals last week–I think a wolf, zebra, and giraffe were involved–see for yourself (HTML)*!
John and I get some quiet time together in the evenings after Finn goes to bed, and Henry settles into his nighttime sleeping pattern. He conks out after a couple of closely-spaced evening feedings, enabling us to enjoy the quiet and the descending darkness.
*The image quality of the last shot here is, as Finn would say of milk being microwaved, “Nottoohot.” 🙂 Still it captures the feel of the scene, and it’s not too bad for a $3 souvenir. Finny was kind of freaked out by the ride at first (“Down down down!”), but he became an addict almost immediately. In the end it was woozy Dad who had to call a break to all the riding!
Hoot! Tom! Milos!–not to mention Alex! Sarah! and Harper!–gathered at our house last Saturday for an impromptu homecoming celebration just after we arrived from the hospital. It was so nice to introduce Henry to our pals, and to have them help us raise a toast to the newest Nack. (Even Finn got in on that action via some sparkling apple juice. Note, however, that carbonated juice + sippy cup = Molotov kiddie cocktail. We learned the hard way!)
Here are some photos (HTML) from the little shindig. Thanks to Tom & Hughes for contributing some great camerawork.
Finno gets a real kick out of saying “BUCKet!” with regard to little-kid car seats. He’s often talking about our little neighbor Maddie and her seat (“Money! Bucket!”), and now he gets to see Henry occupy his old bucket.
We’re told that older kids sometimes regress developmentally when a new baby arrives. Finn has done nothing of the sort (in fact, just this week he decided to shift gears & move to one nap per day), but we got a kick out of him trying to stuff himself into Henry’s seat (“Goonie! BUCKet!”). As you can see (HTML), he likes to rock out. Maybe he’s pining for his lost youth… If this is the worst regression we have to deal with, we’ll count ourselves very luck. 🙂