Okay, we know this is an offbeat & slightly unflattering shot of Henry, caught at a weird moment–but for some reason we find it charming. It’s a little as if he’s raising an eyebrow at any floor-surfing girls who might happen by, luring them to the “cat mat” for some delighted cooing. 🙂
Just some typical Thursday evening foolishness at Casa de los Nacks:
Leprechauns, Unite! 😀
The four of us were treated to a spectacular double rainbow on Saturday. Clearly our little Irishman got a kick out of it, saying “Pot o’ gold over by Adobe!” The light show provided a nice recollection of the rainbows that decorated our wedding.
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More often than not, Finn wakes up happily chattering in his room. It can be fun to listen for a couple of minutes via the baby monitor, trying to figure out what he’s saying.
He really seemed animated the other day, so I poked my head in and asked, “What’s Finny talkin’ about?” Without missing a beat he replied, “Yep yep yep yep, happy happy boing boing, eBay, eBay, eBay!!“ Why yes, son, we’re all very happy that Mom has a job, but–Ah! I realized he was referring to this bit from Sesame Street, one of our near-daily favorites. Here’s a later re-enactment.
This past week marked my first week back to work, and I’m happy to report that the boys were fabulous for the nanny all week. Knowing that they were in good hands and having fun made my hours at the office, away from the boys, stress-free. They both napped well, played well, and behaved themselves on all fronts. Whew! Finny’s been having a bit of a rough time going to sleep at night, and we think it’s because he’d like to spend more time with Mom-o and Dad-o since we’re both now away a large part of the day. My singing the “Personal Penguin” song to him in his darkened room seems to put him at ease.
This coming week marks our big nanny transition. Carol (a.k.a. Coco) has recuperated from her back surgery, and is coming back full-time as of Feb. 1. This week she’ll be job-sharing with Laurie, who’s been filling in for her since October. Hopefully this will make the transition a bit smoother for the guys–they can refamiliarize themselves with Coco, and Coco can get up to speed with the day’s rhythms, playgroup schedule, etc. And we will miss Laurie, who has been so good to the boys. She is moving back to San Diego with her daughter and granddaughter at the beginning of February.
Other small things of note from this week: Henry had his first official high-chair meal when we went out for pizza yesterday. He’s now stable enough to stay upright on his own in the chair! And Finny has started referring to himself as “Big Goonie” instead of “Binny”. That little guy is as sharp as a tack. When Dad-o pointed to a vehicle in one of his books and said “What’s that?”, expecting the answer, “bulldozer,” Finny replied “That’s a bulldozer scooping sand in the desert!” Why yes, yes it was!
Tired: Just stuffing Veggie Booty into one’s mouth.
Wired: Having Leo do the stuffing!
Sing it with me: Dah, DAH dun dah DAH, dah dah dah… 
…Super Henry!!
That’s it; nothing more to report at the moment. 🙂
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Join us again, won’t you, for another trip through the Not-So-Secret Nack Family Decoder Ring! Recent additions to our weirdo canon:
Bonus: Here’s a little taste of OhJeez. (No real mystery about Margot’s lack of enthusiasm for the practice. ;-))
The past week has been a big one in terms of developmental leaps for both boys. It’s so fascinating to watch both of them do things that they couldn’t, or hadn’t, just days ago. In the blink of an eye, so many things have changed!
Henry: Has started supporting himself in a sitting position! He’s working so hard to keep his little back straight and his head held high. He’s also very aware of when he is being left alone, even for a few seconds. He protests quite audibly when he sees his companion(s) exiting the room, and he has his eyes trained on us when we’re moving around or talking. He’s started eating some veggies in addition to his gruel–I mean cereal. We joke with Finn that if he could talk, Henry might say “More peas, please!”. His wakeful periods between naps are lengthening out, and we’re no longer doing four shortie naps per day, we’re down to either 2 or 3 almost-decent ones! If he’s like his mom, the full tummy definitely helps with sleeping.
Finn: Instead of “Finny the Carpenter” or “Finny the Engineer” we have started calling him “Mr. Independent Play.” This is such a wonderful and sudden development. Almost literally overnight, Finn went from needing constant playtime participation and companionship by one of us, to venturing out completely on his own and having his own private adventures. We realized something significant had changed when we were able to eat brunch and chat with our friends for almost an hour while Finn kept himself completely entertained with their son’s selection of toys! And all week he has been making up stories and things to do all by himself. Sometimes he requests that one of us be in the same room that he’s in, but we don’t necessarily have to do anything. It’s very freeing for us, and also fun to observe what our little guy comes up with to entertain himself. His imagination is on fire!
Finn has taken on many personas lately as his imagination has kicked in with a vengeance. One of his current favorites is “Finny the Carpenter” thanks to his terrific red toolbox and play tools (thanks Uncle James!), and a book about building a house, loaned to Finn by our friends the Pawligers.
Yesterday, we received an assembly-required cedar chest to store John’s sweaters. Do I need to mention how excited Finny was when he saw the box pieces, the box of screws, and my drill? He went completely bananas and immediately grabbed his toolbox. “Tape measure! Hammer! Screwdriver! Finny the Carpenter building a box!” Here are a couple of pics from his carpentry adventures. We played with the box for a good three hours! (Finn’s Tournament of Roses shirt courtesy of Auntie Laura and Uncle James.)
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We’re rarely content to call things by their right names, so why should “domendites” (er, toes) be any exception? Henry’s new discovery down there coincides with his big bro (almost) mastering our family’s version of This Little Piggy. Check it out:
Historical bonus: Compare this bit to Finny & Grandma Nack doing the routine back in August.
Several weeks ago, Finn & I were playing in the park when some little girls came by and asked to borrow our trucks. That was cool, and Finny & I actually went off a little distance while the girls played in the sand. After a few minutes, the littlest girl popped out of the bushes and called to us, “Hey!,” then rattled off a stream of gibberish.
At that point Finn & I enjoyed a kind of magical moment: We looked at each other and exchanged a look of bemused bewilderment: What is that girl talking about?? In that moment we smiled and shook our heads at the craziness of the world.
Pretty soon the story solidified as, Q. “What was that girl talking about?” A. “Hey, Bot de BAH!” This morning I poked my head into Finn’s dark room and said, “Bot de BAH!” “What that girl talkin’ about??” he immediately responded. Here’s a sample of our conversation:
[audio:http://www.jnack.com/micronaxx/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Bot-de-Bah.mp3|titles=Bot de Bah!]A few weeks ago, Finn was fascinated to learn about how birds eat bugs off the backs of alligators, hippos, and other big beasts–many of which decorate his crib & room. He got a big kick out of my “circling and circling” his head with my hands (birds), pecking bugs off him. “Binny clean, alligator clean!” he’d declare. And naturally, of course, he got into “haaup!!-ing” the bugs off the gators himself. Here’s a small taste of the show:
Big Henry is just that! At six months, he clocks in at 19 lbs. 7 oz, 25 and 3/4 inches long, with a head circumference of 45 cm. This means he’s a little chubby for his height, but I’m guessing a growth spurt is coming on since he hasn’t stretched out much from his 4-month measurements. Compared to Finn at 6 months, Henry is 1/2 pound lighter and a little over an inch shorter, but his noggin is slightly bigger.
He was an absolute dream at Dr. S’s office and was quite flirty with the cute nurses. He only squawked for a second after his shots, then we sailed home in the Ocho so he could load up on cereal and milk. Dr. S. thinks we can start weaning him off the Zantac now, and start offering him water in a sippy cup after he eats solids. We’re still waiting for an appt. with the pediatric urologist so we’ll keep him on the antibiotics until we know more.
Let’s be honest: there are certain things that no one–even grandparents–wants to hear too much about, and potty training details must be at the top of that list. Therefore let’s be mercifully brief and just note that the Finnster has turned a big corner, putting his potty chair to good use. He really digs us reading Time to Pee! as we all, uh, wait out the proceedings.
Here you can hear the “Proud Pooper” (as he calls himself) give his thoughts on the subject; click the little arrow to play:
[audio:http://www.jnack.com/micronaxx/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/Pooping.mp3|titles=Pooping!]Oh, I do have to note that as I walked out of his room tonight, I heard a little voice in the dark remark with some wonder, “Poop is brown!” 🙂
The Tinmen Cometh. 🙂
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Mr. Henry Seamus Nack turned six months old today. We can hardly believe it! Time has flown since he’s arrived on the scene. He’s gotten so big, and just lately he is so much more animated and alert than even a month ago. We love his giggles, his mischievous little grin and sparkling eyes, and his wonderful talent at sleeping through the night. He has started making a lot of sounds, prompting his big bro to say “What’s Goonie talkin’ about? Crazy baby!”
We go in for his official check-up with Dr. S. on Monday, so we’ll post his stats then. He’s growing like a weed, and is a big fan of his rice cereal. He cannot keep his hands off the spoon when it nears his mouth. And boy does he have a strong grip! If he’s this excited about cereal, I can only imagine his enthusiastic reaction to other, far tastier foods in the near future. So Happy Half-Year, Henry! And we’ll lift a teensy baby-spoon to the next six months!
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He seems pretty excited about his new discovery, no?
Man oh man, has Finn’s imagination taken flight upon reading Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (“Beast Book!”). Today he decided that he wanted to wear a crown just like Max’s “Beast King” crown in the book. He remembered that he had the blue fuzzy crown from his first birthday, and was very specifically asking me to look for it so he could wear it. I found it, and he proceeded to wear the “Beast Crown” all morning, including our outing to “big playgroup”. He wore it until I suggested he take it off for nap time. It was kinda fun explaining the crown to the other moms.
Later this afternoon, he donned the crown again and decided to set sail on the ottoman and climbed aboard: “This is the boat! Sailing to the island! Island over there! (pointing at the kitchen) Have a rumpus!”
When he arrived at the rumpus, I asked him if he was going to swing from the trees like Max does in the book. He walked to the baby gate on the kitchen doorway and started grabbing onto the bars: “This is the tree! Swinging! Bursting!” When he later heard me telling Dad-O about it, he said, “Mom-O opened the tree!” (Mom-O needed to get to the kitchen to get the Beast King some dinner.)
Faaaaaaantastic.
As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the Finnster and I like doing lots of crazy little duets based on my murdering of popular music. Recently we’ve turned The Guess Who’s “American Woman” into “American Birdman.” Now when I poke my head into his darkened room in the morning, I can say simply, “Do dee doo doo doo, dee doo!” And up from the crib comes a wavering little falsetto: “‘Mer-i-can Boo-man!” It’s pretty fantastic. Here’s a sample of our routine: