Thursday, January 31, 2008

Finn's 9 Month Stats

We had Finn's 9 month appointment a few days ago and here's how he's stacking up:
Height: 28 inches (50th percentile)
Weight: 19 pounds, 3 ounces (30th percentile)
Head circumference: 18 inches (60-65th percentile)

Here, have a look at a couple of shots of the wee one:

Monday, January 21, 2008

Under 30 (and holding)

When someone would ask me how old I was turning, I would say that I was going to be 29 and that I'm ok with that, but that I'm not so sure how I'll feel next year at this time. They would usually respond by saying that 30's aren't a big deal. The teller at the credit union even said that 40's are the new 30's. But I'm not sure how much stock I put into what they any of them said because...well, they were all old.

My birthday was on Saturday and my parents came to visit Friday night. I took Friday off of work to see them when they arrived. They stayed with the kids that night and Mandy and I went out for Indian food for the first time and are looking forward to going again. We have a great little theatre in River Falls where you can see nearly brand new movies for cheap and the food they sell is equally as cheap. After dinner, we went and saw the movie Juno, each had candy, and shared a drink, and it only came to $8.25. The only drawback to the place is that after going there I can't justify going anywhere else to see a movie, i.e. if they don't get the movie in town, I won't go see it. If you have a chance to see Juno, we both recommend it. I don't remember laughing out loud that much at a movie in a long time and it was a great story too.

On Saturday my parents took us out for lunch - I got to choose the place. I chose The Winzer Stube, a German restaurant in Hudson. My parents left Saturday afternoon, but not before having a little birthday treat that was all Julia's idea. For her 3rd birthday in August, Julia had pink cupcakes with pink frosting. Several weeks ago, Julia decided that since my favorite color is green, that I needed to have green cupcakes with green frosting. So that's what I got!
Sunday was another busy day. We dropped off Finn at a friend's house and the three of us went to Minneapolis and donated a trunk-full of clothes to Sharing and Caring Hands. From there we took Julia to see Sesame Street Live. She had been looking forward to it for weeks and she was pretty thrilled about it. It took her awhile to take it all in, but she really enjoyed it and it was a fun experience for us too.


So, I had a good birthday weekend...and I could really handle a few more four day weekends too, birthday or not.

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Out of the Mouths of Babes...

Julia had been asking to play downstairs for awhile, maybe a half an hour. The game was on and I wanted to see Manning lose so I told her that we could go downstairs as soon as the game was done. There was only five minutes left; who knows how long that would take. She was quite patient and eventually the game was done and she mimicked me when I raised my arms in triumph. Before heading to the basement I grabbed the book I'm reading - being down there for more than a few minutes gets boring because Julia goes through and plays with the different toys pretty good by herself, just needing some comments and replies to her statements from the adult down there with her.

Once down there, she immediately went for the many bins of fake food that she has to compliment her kitchen set. I settled into the little rocking chair that we have down there. It's cold in the basement and colder in that chair - it's a faux wicker thing that is made to be outside. The chair used to be in Julia's room, but when Finn came along it got relegated to the basement to make more space. As I began fanning through the book to find my place (bookmarks are for losers), Julia was asking me about whether or not I like different types of foods and if I would like that as part of the meal she was making for me. I was reading, she was talking to herself about the different foods and sometimes saying things that I felt needed a response, so I would give one. After awhile she moved onto some toy musical instruments and then her chalkboard. After drawing a chocolate chip cookie she exclaimed that she made an "M". I looked up and there was a few sideways straight lines that really did look like a tilted "M". I'm sure that it was an accident, but she was proud of making it and I was proud that she recognized it. I gave some generic, but genuine praise and went back to reading.

She moved back over to the food and started talking again. It wasn't anything that sounded like I need to reply to it, so I just kept reading. After a few moments, something she said caught my attention.
"...to help me go to sleep at bedtime."
"What was that, Julia," I responded. She had stopped playing with the food and was looking at me.
"You used to rock me at bedtime so I could go to sleep."
I immediately knew what she was talking about and why, but I wanted to hear her say it. I wanted to hear more from her memory. I wanted to hear her version of what will always be a pleasant memory of those times with my young daughter.
"What do you mean?"
"You would rock me because I didn't want to go sleep."
"Rock you where?"
"In that chair," she said, pointing at me.
"We would rock you in this chair?"
"Yeah, you would rock me to help me go to sleep because I didn't want to go sleep."
We looked at each other quietly for a few moments and then Julia told me she wanted to go upstairs. We put things away and went up.

That particular memory, which I'm sure neither of us had thought about in a long time, was brought back to Julia when she saw that not-so-comfortable chair in the basement. Her words brought back the same memory for me. I'm sure it meant different things for each of us, but it was pleasant for all. Not only was it a good memory that rose to the surface, but it was a feeling that we, as parents, had done some things right so far.

Sunday, January 6, 2008

Rockin' in a Winter Wonderland

Ok, maybe not rockin', but "Building Snowmen and Sledding in a Winter Wonderland" didn't sound quite as good.

After we had gotten some snow, Julia wanted to build a snowman. The snow was too powdery and so it didn't pack very well. What she ended up with instead was more like a snowblob. But, she still liked it a lot!
Julia also got to sled down a hill for the first time. We had pulled her around the yard in previous Winters, but this time we went to the park and she got to really go fast. We were pretty surprised that she wasn't scared and she actually went down several times by herself. Finn had to stick to staying on flat ground though. Here he is enjoying being pulled around.

Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Happy New Year!

Let's have a look at some Christmas pictures of the kids, shall we? That's kind of a rhetorical question - you don't get much of a choice since you chose to come to this blog, unless you have a slow internet connection, in which case...if you don't want to see the pictures, quick! close your browser window before they load!

To everyone who's still here...



Julia enjoyed "helping" Finn open his presents. Next year, he probably won't appreciate her generosity quite so much since he'll have a better understanding of what's inside the gift wrapping.

Our blogging New Year's resolution is to make sure we get least four entries a month. And to keep them chock-full of links!