Categories
Photos Zoos

Pet Sounds from Way Out

On Sunday we & the lads enjoyed a visit to the recently re-opened Happy Hollow petting zoo. It was a lovely warm, sunny day, and we all had a great time roaming around the park. We saw goats, mules, sheep, lemurs, and parrots, and we didn’t even make it through the whole zoo! We decided to buy a family membership since it was obvious we’d want to come back many times.

Here is a little gallery (HTML) of our adventures. Finno and Dad-o decided to feed the goats–happily no trolls were spotted. Even Leo got in on the action! (We were a little worried that one of the goats might make off with Leo and have him for a snack!) We found a big water pump just like the one in Finn’s favorite book Hogwash. After a break for sandwiches and fruit, Finn and Dad-o made their way to the carousel where Finny got to ride on the big giraffe. On our way out, Finn made the acquaintance of several large brass animals that were gleaming in the sun.

[These days Finn is just as taken with inquiring about drainage pipes, wires, etc. as with checking out animals. Seeing (and announcing) “Lemur pooping!” was a highlight, however, as was his spontaneous attempt to drink from the goat watering hole! –J.]

Categories
Videos Zoos

Giraffes, Beating Sticks, & More

Finn has been really into giraffes lately, loving to watch all kinds of YouTube clips about them. He especially loves how their super-long tongues can scrape leaves off of “beating sticks” on trees. This has led to lots of horse–er, giraffe–play involving the zookeeper (Dad-O) and the strings of his hoodie sweatshirt:

Categories
Photos

Grandma Nack’s visit

Grandma Nack was in town to help us celebrate Finny’s birthday a few weeks ago, and although we’re admittedly late in getting the photos posted, here they are! Just as cute as the day they were captured.

There were lots of adventures, and here is a little gallery (HTML) of them. Among them, you’ll see Finny unwrapping Grandma’s presents, enjoying some leftover birthday cake (chocolate, obviously) with Henry riding shotgun, and Henry munching on one of Finny’s gifts–BugBonz from our pal MrsW.

Oh, and there were plenty of Grandma’s smooches, Finn enjoying his new bike (a zike bike, perhaps?), and a goofy exchange of glances between Mom-o and the boys in the kitchen.

Categories
Photos

Tiny engineer, on the move

Finn has been having a ball commanding the ol’ iron horse around our house. He’s awash in great Thomas the Tank Engine wooden train pieces (found via Mom-O’s homework project to buy something via eBay*), and he’s even sporting his own engineer cap, bandana (which he calls “banana!”), and train whistle. (Special thanks to pals Erica & Zachary for those.)  Check it out (HTML)!

* This caused some funny confusion: Finny was a little concerned that when Mom-O was headed back to work, she’d take the trains back to eBay!

Categories
Photos

Heavy Metal Thunder

For father-son bonding, there’s nothing like a little trespassing on heavy machinery.

(Click the image for a larger version.)

Acting on a tip from Mom-O, Finn and I scrambled around a big piece of equipment (an asphalt-devouring Wirtgen 1200 F cold milling machine, I’ll have you know!) that was parked in our neighborhood.  Finn (and Leo) got a big kick out of sitting in the driver’s seat, playing with the steering wheel (but not the God-forbid-it-turn-on knows/switches), and plugging various lights into the tracks.  Our boy now knows what a grease gun is. 🙂

Categories
Photos St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Paddy’s from the Nack Leprechauns

Finnegan & Henry Seamus Nack bid you a hearty “Sláinte!”  As Finn would say, “Go Irish!” (“Beat the bad dudes!”)  We can pretend that Henry’s non-seasonal pumpkin is a boiled potato or something. 🙂

For a bit of historic fun, see how Finn looked on his very first St. Patrick’s day, and what the two of us were doing last year.

Categories
Miscellaneous

Botanical discussion o’ the day

Eyeing an empty stem from which a large petal had detached & descended:

  • Finn: “What happen to that flower up there?”
  • Mom-O: “Oh, it got kind of old, so the top part fell off.”
  • F. (earnestly insistent yet quizzical): “Fix it?!”
  • M.: “Um, yeah, it doesn’t really work that way…”
  • F.: “Duct tape?!”
Categories
Miscellaneous

Happy News for Henry!

Hip Hip Hooray, Henry Nack is A-OK!!!

We’re just back from the pediatric urologist, and have fantastic news. Henry’s kidneys and ureters are absolutely perfectly fine. He has no blockage, everything is draining as it should, and the issues we were seeing before have resolved themselves almost completely. Hooray!!!

No more antibiotics, no more tests, no surgery, and no more worries about our guy’s kidneys. We’ll do one more ultrasound in June to check on the slight remaining swelling in the left ureter, but the Dr. assures us Henry will outgrow the issue completely, and that we have no reason to worry about anything.

Speaking for both John and me: “Whew!”

Categories
Miscellaneous

Chaos & Sweetness

Whew–what an evening. Things were running pretty much as usual, with everybody happy and active as ever. During dinner Henry got fussier and fussier, so after we finished I gave him some gas drops for his tummy. Who knows whether that was the trigger, but immediately afterwards–well, let’s just use the word “projectile” and leave it at that. Poor little guy. I can’t recall seeing anything quite like it, putting the fountains of the Bellagio to shame.

“Finny saw that!!” his brother declared excitedly. Eyeing the carnage, he pronounced it “Disgusting baby food.” After being shooed out of the room, though, he returned to do something profoundly sweet: Bringing in his beloved lion-buddy Leo, Finn said, “Bring lion over to help him out a little bit!,” making Leo peck Henry on the head. He may have been thinking of The Lion and the Mouse, a new favorite book from cousin Anne Nack.

Fortunately a good puke seems to have been just what the G-Man needed, and from that point on he was his regular content self.

Bonus Finny bits o’ the eve:

  1. Margot observed him talking by himself in the kitchen, making each of his hands into a little talking wedge. “I would like some more graham crackers, please!” one hand told the other.
  2. During his bath Finn was making up a bunch of crazy jibberish, saying, “What that mean?” I told him, “You’re a strange boy.” “And good!” he replied. “Strange and good!”
Categories
Videos

Dueling Zerbertists

Henry, having decided that blowing raspberries with just his mouth is passé, kicks things up a notch by blasting Mom-O’s bicep. Big bro Finn cheers him on. 🙂

Categories
Milestones

Henry the 8th (month, that is)

Drumroll, please! Henry Seamus Nack turned 8 months old today. He kicked off his celebration by snacking on his first fistful of Cheerios and cracking into a Yo Baby banana yogurt. (Which, based on his intestinal distress later in the day, seems not to have agreed with him very well.)

In addition to taking on Cheerios, we’ve been introducing more “table food” like rice, guacamole, and banana pieces. He gobbles them all down happily and waits impatiently for the next bite. I think he’s teething again because he’s drooling like crazy and chewing on anything he can get his hands on.

Physically, he’s been making lots of progress. He’s an avid practitioner of what we call the “Judo CHOP!” This is where he raises both tiny hands then quickly blasts them down to his waist and does a little grunt at the same time. We tend to see it when he’s excited about something–food, new toys, grabbing my sleeve and shoving it into his mouth…He’s sitting up like a champ, and as he reaches for things just beyond his wingspan, has started to roll onto his tummy. At which point, after getting over the initial bewilderment of being on his tum, he either gets mad because he’s not sitting anymore, or rolls over to his back (the better to see those scintillating light fixtures!). He’s babbling–he’s entering his Dadaist period (dah! dah dah dah!) and is also working on “ma ma ma” and “va va”.

He continues to be fascinated with and amused by his big brother–especially in the bathtub, where there’s a lot of splashing and laughing. For his part, Finny has taken to intoning “No, NO, Goon-IE” when Henry’s taken something he was playing with. All in all, it’s a good time to be Henry, and based on the number of big grins accompanied by his twinkling little eyes, he seems to be enjoying himself.

Categories
Milestones

The Big Deuce

Finny had his big-guy 2-year checkup today with Dr. S. Our hale and healthy boy checked in solidly on the 97th percentile for height, weight, and head circumference. He is 37 inches tall, which strongly suggests that he will be over six feet tall when he’s fully grown. He is a whopping 33 pounds 4 oz., and his head is 51 cm. around.

Dr. S. was impressed with not only his size but his verbal acumen and his skills at pretend play. She asked if he spoke in sentences of 4-5 words, and I said “yeah, well, a lot more than that, actually. It’s really like talking to a normal person,” and gave her an example of one of his typical sentences these days: “Mom-o get Finny some lunch and put Goonie in the  hopper.” I believe “Wow!” was her response. She also liked hearing that Finn’s already got quite the imagination–calling me “the caboose” and his brother “little freight car” or “screech owl.”

Our boy had to get three shots today, but he was really a champ about the whole thing–only crying a little bit after the first two. Once I picked him up and gave him a squeeze, he was fine and later remarked “Finny got some shots and cried a little bit.” Now he won’t have to worry about shots until he’s 4!

Categories
Photos

Melting Weirdo Theater

I think Finn may have been born about a century too late for his true calling, that of fainting silent movie ingenue. Check out his swoon over the new one-of-a-kind acorn hat that Hoot & Alex commissioned for his birthday :-):

(Click for a larger version.)

Categories
Miscellaneous

Impromptu “medical” exam o’ the day

Finn, grabbing my ear, turning my head, and peering intently this evening:

F: “Finny the doctor. Checkin’ out the ear.”
J: “Uhh… what do you see? Is there any byyuck in there?”
F: “No. Buncha hole in there.”

Categories
Miscellaneous

Aerial Hijinks

We’re all still coming down from our Thomas-cake-induced sugar crash, so we’ve been a little slow in sharing photos and news.  I know, I know: thinking that taking three days off from a family blog constitutes being “slow” is more than a little warped.  We do have a backlog of some fun pics and videos, though, so look for those soon.

This morning Mom-O headed out for Pilates plus a haircut, leaving me to manage both lads–including getting Henry down for his nap.  I’d been weirdly psyched out about that task, but happily, he was a dream about the whole thing.

Afterwards, Finn and I headed outside to climb up a full-size ladder, among other things.  Yes, that does sound like an unbelievably awful idea, but I was holding onto/following him the whole time.  Finn, carrying his plastic crescent wrench, was “Handyman” and dubbed me “helper.”

“Handyman climbing up to the clouds!,” he announced.

Soon we were having fun with letters & wordplay.  Pointing to the name of the ladder with me looking over his shoulder, Finn remarked, “Bunch of letters right there.”

“Yep,” I said, “W-E-R-N-E-R.  That spells ‘Werner.’  Or maybe,” I said, cueing up an over-the-top German accent, “it’s ‘Vurh-ner.”
“No!” said Finn. “Not Vurhner!  Dad-O say the wrong thing!”
“Dad-O said the wrong thing??” I asked, kind of taken aback.
“Uh-huh.”  Then he turned to look at me slyly and said, “Vurhner.”
“Vurhner?” I repeated.
“No, no Vurhner,” he said, turning away again. “Finny no say the wrong thing.”

And thus concludes today’s performance of Nack Family Aerial Playhouse. 🙂

Categories
Birthdays Milestones

It’s Official: The Finn-Man’s Two

Happy birthday, big-little guy.  We sure do love you a whole lot. <:-)

Categories
Birthdays Photos

Finnster Party Pix (aka, “Now eat some *candy*!”)

We really had a ball celebrating the big guy’s birthday with so many pals yesterday. At first Finn wasn’t quite so sure he was ready for the “Totpocalypse” of toddlers descending on our homestead. Five minutes after the party started he said, “All done… all done with kids!” He then wanted to hide out in the “bat cave”–i.e. the pullout couch that Grandma Nack had been occupying. Fortunately he chilled out pretty quickly, and Grandma was a huge help in minding the sometimes overstimulated Henry.

Anyhow, it seemed that everyone had a great time, as you can see in our photo gallery (HTML). Special thanks to our pal Hughes (Hoot) for manning the camera and getting some great Finn’s-eye-view perspectives on the scene.

PS: “M&Ms are *GOOD*. Finny like to EAT them!!”