Sunday, November 30, 2008

The Finncident

If you don't like gross, skip right down to the pictures!

It was the day before Thanksgiving at about 8:30 pm and we were nearly at the end of our three-hour drive to Wisconsin Rapids - about five minutes from Mandy's parent's house. That's when the Finncident occurred. We heard a gurgling noise coming from the back seat, so we turned to look and saw vomit flowing out of Finn's mouth. He paused to sputter a little before releasing the second wave of stinktastic yuck all over himself. We had just passed a gas station so we ended up pulling into a car dealership. As we were coming to a stop, Finn went for the trifecta of puking and let out one last burst of stomach nastiness, this time nearly choking on it. Mandy got out and started wiping the chunks and liquid of off Finn as best she could. At the start of the trip, the empty space below Finn's feet looked like the ideal place to put our jackets - at this point, not so ideal. Mandy was holding Finn outside the car and now he was shivering in the below freezing temperature. Since my coat was already dirtied, she used it to wrap him in it. Julia was still in the car but now she was holding her hands over her face, nearly crying, and her muffled voice saying something about the smell. I let her out. A few moments later she was shivering too, so I let her climb in the passenger seat to be out of the cold and not directly in the stench cloud. At this point an unmarked cop car pulled in and the officer asked if everything was ok. We said something about a vomiting kid and that we were ok (Later, I commented that I should have asked him to arrest Finn - disorderly conduct seems like it would have been justified.). The officer got back in as if to leave, but then a few moments later he came over and gave us a few stickers for the kids. It was nice of him to do and later Julia was pretty excited about it, but at the time I thought, "Ohhhh! Are they puke cleaning stickers?!" We finished throwing out all the chunks and sopping up what we could and then we got back on our way. After we arrived we needed to do a load of laundry and clean the car and Finn's car seat. The car seat was the worst because it's a pain to take in and out and because Finn's foulness was all over the buckle straps, which was hard to get the smell out of. It turns out he was probably just carsick, since prior to and after the Finncident, he seemed fine and we did not have any other nauseating nightmares that weekend. The whole event also made us realize that we need to teach Finn how to chew his food better.

We had a Thanksgiving gathering at out house a few weeks before the real thing. Here is Julia participating in a mutual back rub with a few of our guests.

Both kids really enjoyed building a gingerbread house with Uncle Jason and Aunt Tracie.

Uncle Jon and Ginny took some time to lounge on the couch with Julia.

Jon was trying to show Julia something on his computer when suddenly, out of nowhere, Finn pounced!

At Mandy's parent's house, there was some Christmas cookie making going on.

Julia either contracted a new disease, symptomatic of green and red sugary spots on the face, or a sprinkle bomb went off near her.

Finn's up close picture - him getting up close with a candy cane.

Julia had her third dance recital last week. Here's a short, soundless excerpt of it. She's the dancer in the bright pink leotard with dark tights.
Video link.

Finn is a great helper around the house. It might take him awhile to do certain things, but he's determined.
Video link.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

The Dynamic Duo!

As the kids are getting older, they're interacting more often in meaningful ways. Often, these meaningful ways result in Julia yelling at Finn for wrecking whatever she was trying to do. But there are also a lot of times where Finn studies what Julia is doing and very closely mimics her. It's a pretty amazing thing to see.




Here is one of the times when Julia is mimicking Finn. He likes to drag the little rugs around the kitchen and then put them down someplace, flatten them out carefully, and lay down and pretend to sleep. Yeah, it's as cute as it sounds.

Finn's pumpkin costume ended up a little tighter than we had planned, but I think it looked cute that way.


Here's a good view of what we call Finn's "chuggy cheeks". I don't remember how the word "chuggy" came about, but I'm sure it's a derivative of "chubby".

A few weekends ago we went out to a teppanyaki style restaurant with some friends of ours (four adults and four kids aged 1-4, and yes, we survived). The chef prepares and cooks all the food in front of you. There's a lot of fancy knife spinning, flying raw eggs, and some flames. It was a lot of fun!


On a non-family related note - I was pretty excited to have been able to be a part, in a small way, of the important elections that took place yesterday. I took the day off of work and got to be a poll observer for the Obama campaign. Our purpose was to sit at the polling place and mark off supporters who voted so that those people would not have to be called later in the day to remind them to vote, thus freeing up extra time for phone calls to be made or doors to be knocked on for people who hadn't yet voted.