January 2011 videos

Everyone's healthy right now. Finn is drooling a ton, teeth must be coming, but he doesn't seem bothered by it.

Vaccines, drool, smiles

First Vaccination for Finn last Friday, when he got it sounded like a little wild animal. He slept all day, or was fussy when he wasn't sleeping. But by the next day was back to normal. Very drooley lately, like a little spitty bug, maybe he's teething. Whenever I hold him in the sling he winds up slobbering my arm, and he likes to put a toy giraffe in his mouth too. He's still really smiley, he looks up into your face and just breaks into one smile after another. We had him sitting up on the couch and he was entranced with his big brother bounding all over the room. I sat him up on the couch and he "talked" a lot, just like he was having a conversation. Francesca said yesterday he was in the bouncy chair while she was making dinner and Oliver held his hand and talked to him and he was happy. He's getting really strong, his little hands cling tightly to mine, or my clothes. He caught a little cold, he keeps getting very distressed that he can't breathe, he hasn't figured out that he can breathe through his mouth yet.

Hand to Mouth

Finn is getting pretty good at finding his hand with his mouth, even getting his thumb sometimes, but the downside is he's wacking himself in the head more. When I start talking to him, once he clue's in that I'm there and looks at me, I usually get a big grin. They're golden. Just pure joy shining out of this little soul. Of course 2 minutes later I get a funny frown, so maybe I shouldn't read emotions into testing the facial muscles. Smiles sure are nice for me though.

It's hard that I get to hold him so little. When I get home from work Oliver needs attention and Mama needs a little break to catch her breath. So Oliver gets most of my attention, I'll hold Finn a little bit, but pretty quickly I need my hands to play, or we need to eat dinner, or Finn is needing to nurse. When it's added up, it's not very much time at all that I'm holding him. I'm more relaxed about this then I was with Oliver, I think the perspective of having gone through it once I'm more confident that when Finn is bigger and a little more independent from Mama he'll find me more, they only recently became two seperate organisms. Still, I was proud of myself for getting him back to sleep twice last night when he was fussy.

First vaccine at the end of the week. I want to be there for Finn, because it's my place. But I'm betting that I'll need to be there to run interference on Oliver so he doesn't get worried about his brother. And if this one does bother Finn (Oliver was pissed when he got shots this small) Finn will just want his Mama's milk to reassure him that the mean scary bugs are done biting him. (Speaking of, Oliver was recently telling us that we are as mean as small barky dogs (which he has direcct experience of them being mean)). Oliver is still doing well with Finn, if I'm paying attention to Finn Oliver often comes up and tries to hug him and pets his head and says "I love you" to him.

Squeeze Box

Seems like Finn's diaper always has a little poop in it, as soon as we change it and sit back down on the couch he fills it again. Sometimes it seems like if his legs bend a little fart squeezes out, just like a squeezebox. Otherwise doing well, chunky rolls. Starting to laugh in his sleep, not awake yet. Looking around more and more. Still sweet sweet smiles. Accidentally got dumped out of his bouncy seat the other day, but slept through it. So much easier having been through it once. But came across a quote recently the resonates; "to have a child is to give fate a hostage"

Chunky

Finn's getting chunky. Lots of smiles, no laughing yet, but pretty easy to go into smiles when he's awake, and they're so sweet, just makes you happy seeing them. But when he gets mad he scrunches his face up so tight it goes white and pink like your palm when you make a fist. Oliver is still doing amazing with him, very happy about having a little brother and wanting to take care of him. Oliver learned to ride his tricycle this week, in like 2 sessions, much faster then expected, still needs a little practice with steering and pedaling at the same time, but doing really well. We've been just us 4 for a little bit now and that helps to restore a little sanity, I think it's easier for Oliver to not have constant stimulation (though he really relishes it when he has it.) But Francesca and I are still kind of on alternating days showering we're so busy running around after the 2. Fun fun :)

Christmas

Christmas went great. Kind of difficult to get out the door, getting everything packed, Oliver is super excited and asking tons of questions so kind of reducing whoever he's talking to to half capacity because it's so distracting, Finn is still so small he needs to be 2 handed held, and the toilet seemed to be leaking so we were seriously considering taking it up to replace the seal. But we made it out and survived the drive, Finn did fine, Oliver told us he had to use the bathroom at one point but once we fought our way off the freeway and into a mall he didn't have to, so he and I went and got fries from In and Out while Finn Nursed. Then on up to Nevada City, and everything was easy. GrampaHoward played neverendingly with Oliver, fireman and mechanic and circus, and Finn had plenty of volunteers to hold him. Oliver is old enough to really get into Christmas now, so it was fun. He was excited about the crumbs Santa left on the plate. And super into presents "oh, it's the bike I always wanted" but was still overwhelmed by them "I'm done opening presents" (and he went to play with the ones he had already opened.) Finn is doing great, still mellow, only uses his cry when he gets annoyed. Seems to be having the same trouble as Oliver in that his mothers milk is too abundant when he just wants to chill and suck. We're back home, with new toys (that will hopefully give Francesca some time with Oliver entertaining himself.)
It's been harder to really appreciate how wonderful it is to have a little baby because I feel like we are just running at full sprint the whole time. Things are great, and it's great having two, but a little harder to have the breathing space to really absorb the miracleness. It's pretty golden when he looks into your eyes and then gives a coy little smile. Finn is so strong, doing push ups practically and can creep 1/4 of a crawl. But he's crying now so I should go try and help.

Found his cry

Francesca showed Finn his reflection in the mirror and he gave a big smile. He's found his cry, getting stronger by the day now, and louder, when he gets angry at having his diaper wet or getting it changed. We're still just treading water, trying to learn how to run 2 kids, we're both pretty tired by the end of the day. It's a very rainy winter, which makes it harder because it takes more organization and limits more what we can do and where we can go. I think we had the last of the meals that the mama's group did for us, which was a HUGE help to not have to deal with meals on top of wrangling these to boy-o's.