first haircut

poor baby. if you look closely you can see the stream of snot that was generated by his fitful tears. 

playing with goo

this was 2 parts cornstarch, 1 part water, and food coloring of assorted colors.

cornstarch is weird. and food coloring stains. do not do this activity before a photographic event. just a friendly word of advice :)

new words

we have some new words to add to finnie's list. his doctor told me i wouldn't be able to count them by the time he turned 18 months which is fine with me because i have no interest in math. language is so awesome! why kill it with numbers?


ok...firetruck (every truck is a firetruck and i think we reinforced this by taking him to the fire department and letting him sit in the big one and push all the buttons), car, fish, squirrel (sounds like "kwuul"), please, cookie (sign language and regular ol baby talk),cracker, jacket, keys, poo-poo, tee-tee (we're learning where to put these), head, hair, nose, eyes, banana, star, coffee (sounds like ka-ka), pumpkin, apple and night night.

those are the ones i recall right now. and the ones i can decipher. they say that babies might label everything with one word they like such as 'ball' for all toys or "baba" when they want food or drink. the only thing i've heard like that in finnie is that he's constantly saying "da-da". and sometimes i know he means his dad. but other times he's grabbing a blanket or his jacket and you can hear a subtle difference in his speech. to me that's the fun part of this time in parenting. i have a walking talking treasure map that is leading me to problem solving gold.

one from the archives

Happy New Year!

i haven't written down any resolutions yet but if i did have a resolution, let's say that it would be to be a better conversationalist. i really like talking to people but sometimes i find that i either dominate the conversation or take it in a different direction. i interrupt or interject a little too often and talk about myself more than i'd like. and more than other people like i'm sure.

i mean no one really wants to know the exact layout of my first office job or the recurring dream i have about the boat capsizing. they don't care ab0ut finnie's bowel movements or his sleep schedule unless they directly ask and if someone is talking about a point of interest i would like to train myself to just shut up and visualize instead of thinking about what to say next. talking with people involves listening, empathy, sympathy, language development, learning, wit and just a little dab of sugar.

so i'd like to be better at that. how about you?