Micronaxx

Another weekend, another swim class for Mr. Finn. This week, no-holds barred head underwater dunking!
We’ve been making baby steps towards a full-face dunk each week, getting him used to splashing, then getting mouth and nose wet, and finally a few quick dunks underwater. He did great! To get the babies comfortable with the whole situation, the parents go underwater first then pop up and smile, and when it’s the babies’ turn, we sing a song, swish them back and forth (heads up, of course), then a quick blow of air on their faces and under they go. The breath on their face startles them a bit and they suck in their breath right before going under. There was only one instance where Finny swallowed some water and spit it right back out like a cherub from a baroque fountain. He seemed to enjoy himself even more this week than in the past, so we think swim class was definitely a good move.
The rest of the weekend was spent charming the guests at our friends’ baby shower, and then wrapping things up with tons of Dad-led horseplay and what John likes to call “inversion therapy” (flipping a chortling Finn upside down).

What a day for our little Finnster–and all of us–to be alive. 🙂 The small guy watched this morning’s proceedings with Margot and me, waving (rather randomly) at the crowds on TV.
Lately he’s been more and more vocal, saying “Ooh Ooh Ooh!” when we point out the monkey among his little jungle pals, and exclaiming “Oh!” pretty much constantly. We tried today to get him to say “BaMa,” figuring we could then get “Oh BaMa” from him–but it wasn’t to be. But hey, we’re still working on “MaMa,” and right now Finn calls both me and Margot “DaDa.” I now refer to her as “Lady DaDa.” 😉
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention: Today Finn learned to high-five! He must have picked it up from us, as we were doing it constantly.

(sung to the tune of “Back In Black”)
I’m pleased to say that all three of us are back in fighting trim (or in Finn’s case, chattering/laughing trim)! Despite all the nastiness of Thursday and Friday, our little dude was a great patient, never becoming a pill or a pain–and this despite teething. Poor Margot got the worst of the bug, I think, still feeling bad until this morning, but she too is better.
Friends with kids tell us, “Get used to it,” and I’m sure they’re right. The irony here is that if we hadn’t been concerned about Finn’s ear (teething), we would’ve skipped the doctor visit and thus maybe the whole ordeal! Ah well; it certainly renews one’s appreciation for good health, and for a groovy kid who can roll with the punches.

I won’t go into great detail, but I will say we are currently struggling our way through our first Nack family Norovirus siege. I think Finny and I must’ve picked up a bug when we were at the doctor’s office the other day for his ears, because yesterday we awoke to find that Finn had thrown up in his crib (blaaaaargh) sometime in the night. We mopped him up and everything seemed fine, no further issues.
Until last night, that is. That’s when it got really ugly around here. Both John and I started feeling awful around 9:30pm, and from then on it was a race to either the bathroom or the kitchen sink. All. Night. Long. Thankfully John kept it together long enough to race to Walgreens and get Gatorade and Pepto Bismol. We got very little sleep and have felt awful all day long. Finn slept through the whole ordeal and seemed to be doing fine until about 3 p.m. today, when he barfed himself awake from his nap :(. We’ve spent the rest of the evening trying to keep him cleaned up and drinking Pedialyte (he could not be less interested). Right now he’s in bed, and fingers crossed, we’ll have an uneventful evening. But I’m not counting on it.
Yeesh. We’re looking forward to getting over this bug! I’m buying stock in Clorox and Tide.

We now have official confirmation that Finno is an Advanced Super Baby(TM)! I took him to the pediatrician today, because I was worried he might have an ear infection. He’s been tugging on his left ear a lot, and sticking his finger way back into his mouth and chewing on it. All the nurses and Dr. S were shocked to see our man toddling around on his own at only 10 months. The doc said it was the earliest she’d seen a little boy walk! She was also pretty impressed with his pointing and waving skills.
In addition, turns out he doesn’t have an ear infection: he’s teething again, this time on his 1-year molars! The doc said he’s super early on molars as well as walking! And he’s doing even more proto-speaking, so we expect to be filling out college applications in the next month or so (KIDDING! Only kidding!).

I think we’ve mentioned that Finn’s starting to recognize words and phrases, and we’re having a lot of fun asking him to “kiss” his stuffed animals. For Finny, a “kiss” is really just leaning into the stuffed animal with mouth agape and pressing his face against it. It’s very sweet to watch, even though he hasn’t really mastered the pucker yet :).
He hasn’t really started saying words, although the one thing he will say, much to my chagrin, over and over, is “Dada!” or “da da DADADADA!!!” I ask him to say “Mama”, but he won’t really go for it…But even though Finn may not humor me by saying “Mama” very often (ok, *ever*), today he did something even better! We were playing around with his stuffed penguin, and after I asked him to kiss it, I said “Will Finny kiss Mommy?” And reader, he DID! Right on the cheek! Woohoo!!! He did it twice in a row (second time on my shoulder, not my face, but hey–beggars can’t be choosers, knowwhati’msaying?).
Pretty great stuff. It totally made my day! I am really looking forward to more Finny smooches.Oh, and maybe the best part is that when John asked Finny for a smooch, it was no dice ;-} (heh heh).

For the past several weeks, Finn has been less and less interested in, and more and more distracted while, nursing. It was starting to seem like he wasn’t getting very much to drink, and I was concerned that in addition, my supply was starting to dwindle due to his reduced demand. I have also heard that pregnancy can affect the amount of milk your body can produce, and that it can also change the flavor, so your nursing baby may not like the taste anymore.
So, since Finny seemed to be starting the weaning process, I decided that we might as well go all the way, and transition him to formula for the few remaining months prior to his first birthday, when we’ll transition him to plain ol’ milk.
I was worried that the weaning process would be difficult, painful, and depressing. Thankfully it has not really been any of those things. We took it slow, over about 3 weeks. It went remarkably well for both Finny and me, and I have only had a couple painful episodes. Finn took a few days to warm up to formula, but now he’s pretty darn excited when he sees the bottle coming his way. Oh, and neither of us seems very depressed at all :D.
In fact, I sort of feel emancipated, in a weird way. Being able to share bottle duty with John is great. Now I get to read the bedtime stories while John holds Finn and the bottle! Being able to wear whatever shirts I want, without having to consider how well they’ll accommodate nursing, is also pretty terrific. It’s also far less emotional to give Finn bottles (in a good way, as trying to nurse a distracted/uninterested baby was a total drag). I think my body will appreciate the break between babies, as I do plan to nurse #2 as long as possible when he or she arrives. Maybe now I’ll have a little more horsepower to give to the bun in the oven!