In the WP

It was nice to be away on vacation, but still feel like it was home. Finley had lots of people and toys to place with, rooms to explore, food to eat, and energy to burn. He loves being outside these days and it's amazing how his mood changes instantly once he is set free in the world.

He'd heard a bird and looked up to find it.

Not sure if he was pointing at another bird or the tree here, he loves both! I love the scale of this photo, a small boy in a big, big world. While we were running around the cul-de-sac, we practiced jumping. From our play at the gym, Finley has tried to figure out how to jump. He bends his legs and thrusts up, but doesn't quite leave the ground. It's so funny to watch and he seems to get a good amount of joy out of it despite the fact he isn't actually getting any air!

Grandpa Murray has quite a collection of bird feeders and bird baths in the backyard and Finley was in heaven watching the flocks of birds through the big windows. I wish we had a video of this since he was pointing and talking, pointing and laughing, and waving you over to come see all the birds.

Here he is trying one his fancy new penguin, swirly straw cup from his Aunt Caitlin. He loves it!

Dan likes the next picture since it really captures how we see Finley a lot these days as he asking "up up" to get picked up.

While this is probably a no-no to snap photos during Shabbat prayers, we wanted to capture how much Finley enjoys his GG singing and watching the candles before dinner.

On Thursday, we caught up with the Cohens. Leor and Dan were in school together and had their bar mitzvahs together. We went to Leor and Miri's wedding in Israel several years back and they were visiting with their two kiddos. Agam is about 4 and Yaad is 2. After some indoor playing, we took the bunch outside and while it was windy and chilly, we had fun.

Here are a couple shots from the morning that Aunt Caitlin was over.

As we prepared to go, Finley discovered that his Grandpa has an itouch just like I do and his Grandpa was more than impressed that Finley knew how to turn it on.

He can't do more with it yet, but I suspect we'll get there. It's just fun that he probably thinks everyone's itouch's have wallpaper with his picture on it, since both mine and his Grandpa's do!

Group photos are always tough with a toddler, but these two are surely keepers! Dan sacrificed himself by being the photographer and we thank him for that.

Other things to note from our trip:

1. Grandpa Murray's blog entry that sums up much of our own sentiments about the week:

http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2011/04/return-of-blogger.html

2. Finley was great in the car and by that I mean he slept most of both rides. We timed them with his afternoon nap and that plan was executed quite well, go us!

3. Finley spent one afternoon without us while we hit the local outlets and he was a gem for his Grandparents and Aunt. He was such a daredevil on the playground structures, Murray remarked how opposite of the toddler Daniel that was.

4. Finley "played football" with Uncle Carl. He threw the ball well, though it was often more of a spike in the endzone type toss. Carl tried a simple quarterback handoff, but Finley fumbled :( Good thing he's got Frisbee in his future and not the NFL.

5. He fell back in love with eggs and had one almost every morning with his yogurt (in lieu of his typical not-kosher-for-passover multigrain waffle).

6. Using Dan and Ellie's old Care Bear kitchen, Finley cooked up a storm and offered his creations to just about everyone. Also, there was a pile of toy dinosaurs and much to our surprise, Finley took to them and had fun standing them all up on the couch together like a diorama. Hello Natural History Museum!

We love you GP and GG, thank you for a wonderful visit!

Chag Sameach, Finley

Last week, we were down in NY to visit with family and welcome Finley to the traditions of Passover. He was too tiny last year and not on solid foods, so the holiday basically passed him right by. This year he was able to enjoy many parts of it, but he mostly enjoyed trying matzo for the first time.

Almost sharing his crackers with Grandpa, but not quite!

While he went to bed before the seder actually started, he was able to mingle for a while with all our guests. Linda and Jacob, Jenny, Great Uncle Carl, Great Aunt Annette and Great Uncle Bernie, Aunt Ellie and Uncle Donny, and his grandparents were all happy to see a bigger, more coordinated, and talkative recently turned 17-month-old Finley.

We went to services at Temple Israel in the morning and Finley did just fine, waving and saying "hi" to anyone whose eye he'd catch. And not just once, but he'd say it over and over (therefore requiring me to apologize to everyone who was kind enough to keep waving back again and again).

For the second seder, we went over to Jacob and Linda's house. Linda was well prepared for Finley's arrival and he was soon trying out the toys she'd collected for him.

But Finley always seems to find other ways to entertain himself :)

The best entertainment by far was Oreo, Linda and Jacob's dog. Finley's love of canines (especially the small variety) was clear as he tried to get up close and personal with "e-o."

Oreo was very tolerant of Finley and seemed to enjoy having someone on the same level. Thank you, Linda, for all the pre-bedtime entertainment! And thanks to Aunt Ellie for this formal t-shirt, we found a great occasion to debut it.

Wonder what Finley will be up to next Passover. I doubt he'll be ready to ask the four questions (as the youngest person at the seder is supposed to do), but I bet he'll be a louder part of the evening for sure.

First Haircut

After months of dancing around the subject, we finally decided to get Finley a haircut. The timing was just perfect to do it down in NY and so Grandpa Murray made an appointment at Young and Classy with Rosie. Why a yankee haircut you ask? Well, Rosie just happens to be the same stylist who gave Dan his first haircut just about 30 years ago!! She cuts Murray's hair regularly and was honored to have the chance to cut Finley's.

I plopped him down on my lap after he gave kind greetings and smiles to everyone in the shop. I got a smock and so did Finley. With grandparents and his dad and I looking on, Finley submitted to this ritual without so much as a peep.

I won't go as far as to say that he enjoyed it, but he didn't cry and only wriggled around at the end. I think he was a bit petrified and therefore froze up a bit while it was happening. Dan and Murray snapped some good photos and we all weighed in on the final product.

He's smiling here if you can see and we agreed--it was a great cut!

A few final touches and Rosie finished up. She remarked over and over again how amazingly well behaved our guy was. Since his hair was still a bit damp when she was done, she asked if she could blow dry him a little. We all knew he would probably flip, but gave her the go ahead. We were right and he quickly let us know this wasn't cool.

Thankfully, he recovered quickly and enjoyed getting brushed off with the big brush.

Since our trio family pictures are few and far between, I thought we should grab one.

Well, we tried. At least you can see how nicely his hair was trimmed in the back. I think he hadn't quite forgiven us for the whole ordeal. But once he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and everyone smiling back at him, all was right with the world.

Good job, Finley, another milestone to check off the list and you clearly handled your first trim far better than your father back in February of 1980!

Dropping the Ball

Well, I feel as if I have been dropping the blogging ball. Only 2 posts all month?? My excuses are many and mildly pathetic, except for the one about trying to write narratives for the children in my class in preparation of my parent-teacher conferences in 10 days. That's for real. The bigger reason for lack of blogs has been my lack of photos. Either we're not doing anything interesting worth taking photographic evidence of or we're doing so many fun things that I don't have time to grab the camera...I suspect it's more the latter, but I'm sure I could do better :)

Here are so totally random and unrelated photos from the past couple of weeks.

Finley and I went out to a late lunch last Friday at a fun diner in Newton. For most of the meal, he was turned sideways looking at the waitresses and busboys coming and going. Waving and saying hi over and over, thankfully his greetings were returned each time (what a friendly waitstaff!). After eating his hot dog, I got to eat while Finley continued to be social with all the passersby. I was hoping he would surprise me and actually eat his delicious looking french fries (which for some reason seem to repel him), but no dice. I squirted some ketchup onto his plate and in the blink of an eye, Finley picked up a fry, dipped it in the ketchup, and popped it into his mouth! This was his first encounter with ketchup, to my knowledge, but perhaps he's been partaking in the tasty condiment at Beth's. Unfortunately, Finley was only licking the ketchup off the fry after the first three or four dips, but eventually he began to eat the disguised potato product. How funny!

Another eating photo gallery, here's Finley at dinner this evening. Notice the shirtless bib look (spaghetti sauce has a way of getting on EVERYTHING so I opt for no shirt) and the nice red plate that Dan surely ate off of as a child since we inherited a whole box full of them from his folks.

At some point during every meal, Finley wants to play "Open and Closed." Dan obliged him tonight as I tried to get some picts.

Despite all the fun and laughter, he actually ate most of his food and didn't seem to notice that the plate could have been lifted and flipped over, phew!

Finally, some cute ones Dan snapped before bed earlier in the week.

Finley's bookworming nature has certainly continued and it's hard not to indulge him before bed each night with one more book and then another and maybe just one last one. As his vocabulary expands and his memory grows immensely, it's fun to read and ask him to find things on the pages. However, at some point we have to put all the books on the shelf and read The Going to Bed Book. Finley loves this book, but he knows it means bedtime and sometimes he'll squirm out of our grasps and pull another book of the shelf and request it be read. As if we won't put him in the crib unless we finish The Going to Bed Book...sorry buddy, bedtime is bedtime. But we like your literacy enthusiasm!

Wordsmith

Well, before this list gets too long, I thought I should make a note of the words that Finley has said and can say. Since Dan and I have been a tough audience in terms of naming an official "first word" I suspect we missed which one was the truly the first, but perhaps our expectations were a bit high :) From what I can tell, most kids' first words are simply those that they echo as opposed to ones that they spontaneously utter all on their own. Once they have repeated it enough and understand the meaning/use, then they might say it without hearing it from someone else first. Finley is still at the echo stage (with a couple exceptions), but it seems easier for him to repeat several of the words we say to him these days. As we got him ready for bed tonight, I was saying a few things so Dan could hear Finley repeat them and the little gem actually cooperated! Dan was blown away! He was away over the weekend and doesn't always get a ton of time with Finley before bed, so it was great to show off some of his new vocabulary.

So here's the list (to the best of my memory) of words that he can repeat or has been able to at some point in the past few weeks. It's funny that some of the words are words we say to him ALL the time and others were sort of random in-the-moment words that he just grabbed onto the first time.

-apple

-help (hup)

-up

-uh-oh

-cheese (dairy product or camera related)

-wow/whoa (sometimes he says these on his own if he falls or spills something)

-da-dee and da-da (so much easier to say that ma-mee or ma-ma, apparently)

-ball (ba)

-shoes (soos)

-Arty (his small penguin)

-bubble (last night in the tub it was "bu-bu" and tonight before bed it sounded more like "bu-bl", progress!)

-mango (newest one inspired by tonight's dessert after dinner, kinda sounds like man-o)

And the last two words are the ones that he says on his own (often) when the occasion calls for them:

-hi (whenever he sees anyone on the sidewalk, when I open the car door to get him out, when he sees a person in a book and it's usually accompanied by a hand squeezing wave)

-more (sounds like "mo" and comes with the sign language sign and means I NEED/WANT FOOD!)

His extensive babbling continues and at times it seems as if he's really having a conversation with us or himself. I think it's great because we've managed to convince him that we understand what he's saying or asking in order to continue the conversation :) He's also added high pitched screaming (excitement related, thankfully), self-imposed bouts of laughter, and the occasional whisper to his sound toolbox. So fun to have such a vocal member of the household emerging!

Hopefully there will be some video evidence of all this chit-chatting soon, but I can't promise anything!

His Father's Son

After school and some errands, Finley and I arrived home and while I was excited to go inside and sit down for a while, my partner in crime had other plans. Each time I put Finley in or get him out of the car, he lusts after the small snow shovel we have hanging in the garage. As he reached for it today, I gave in and took it down off its hook. But then he wanted a frisbee we had up there, too. Soon he was exiting the garage with both in hand and I smiled thinking that Finley is playing with the two things that his dad spends his free time with: a snow shovel in the winter and a frisbee the other 3 seasons of the year.

While it was funny just watching him scoot around with the shovel, trying his best not to actually move any of the April snow we got overnight, the funnier part was that he was having an ongoing conversation without any input from me. Babbling, shrieking, laughing, etc. all as he looked around and tried maneuvering the shovel from one place to another.

After about 5 minutes of snapping photos and playing defense so that Finley wouldn't tumble down our sloping driveway, I realized I should try and capture this on video. Thank you camera for your built in HD video option! Couldn't get it to upload on blogger, but youtube was being more cooperative. Less than 2 minutes and totally worth your time, turn up the volume!

I thought he was tiring a bit, so I put the camera away and expected to have to pick him up (and the shovel and the frisbee) and carry them all into the garage, but Finley had other plans. He trotted towards the garage and requested a bigger shovel.

I obliged, but then he changed his mind and requested the green one.

At least he used it productively.

But in no time, he was back in there again wanting some other manly landscaping equipment at which point I decided it was time to go in the house.

I'm hoping he'll really be into raking this fall :)