20 months old

This one is the most extremely late one ever.  But I've just started a new job and refurbishing the flat is a lot more time and work then I anticipated.  It has all been a bit overwhelming and stressful.  So I'm very sorry to everyone whose birthdays we've missed and invitations to come around we've ignored.  It will all settle down soon I hope.
But now there's the actual packing and moving to think of... and unpacking... and buying furniture...
siiiiigh.

Anyway!  Finn is now 20 months old!

Here are his pictures side by side:

19 months old

20 months old

We did lots of stuff in May.
We finally got the keys to our new flat.  Here's us arriving at OUR place for the first time:

We all had a good look around.

I quite like the view:

But it's nothing compared to the other view we saw.  James' Mum came to visit us for a few days and we went up the Shard (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shard) (which you can see in the distance above) to see the view.  It was incredible!!

Finn enjoyed it for a bit, pointing out the 'water' and the 'bus'es.  But then he didn't really care anymore.  He much preferred his Cheerios.

Finn had a great time with Granny and he made sure that she was well aware anytime there was a boat or a duck or a bus or water or an airplane etc.

We even got to ride on an actual bus!

Finn is a HUGE fan of pointing and naming things.  And he will keep going until you acknowledge that you've seen what he's trying to show you.  Walks with him nowadays tend to sound a bit like this:
bus.  bus.  bus... BUS.  BUS!!!  'yes, I see the bus' ... car.  car.  car.  bus.  CAR!  BUS!  'yes!  A car and a bus!  Thank you.'  ...bus.  bus.  BUS!  BUS! BUS!

His range of what he can identify is getting much bigger.  I think we're the only ones that understand him most of the time but he now knows things like: flower, bee, slide, park, bath, bear, quack, cat, bowl, ball, baby etc etc.  It always impresses me when he just comes out with something new!  His current favourites however are most definitely car, bus, airplane, and water.

He's also been spending more time with his friend Lily. The other day I was working so James and Finn went to visit Lily and her dad and they decided to play some ping pong... ( I love Lily's face when Finn is about to leave!). 

I think this is the real reason we love play dates:

Lily also came round to ours for a bit while her parent's were packing to move house. I love this picture of them having a snack - it just sums them up to a tee!  Lily is politely breaking her cracker into small pieces and eating them and Finn is... not...

I think the biggest thing about Finn these days is that he has a definite personality.  And VERY definite ideas of what he wants and how things should work.  He doesn't like when things aren't the way they should be and he can be very very bossy when he tries to sort stuff out.  At nursery they are always reporting back that he doesn't like to take part in any sort of messy play (paint or play dough etc) but that he very much enjoys egging the other children on to get as messy as possible!  Apparently pointing to the paint in front of another child and saying 'yeah! yeah! yeah!' until she put her hand in it and then laughing hysterically.  But he refuses to touch the paint himself.  They did a special activity to try and encourage him where they used cars to run through the paint and then run across the paper.  He was fine running the car across the paper but each time it needed more paint he would give it to his key worker and indicate that she should do that bit instead.

But Finn is a multifaceted young man... I have no idea why he hates paint so much.  Because at home he does things like this:

The worst was the other day when he and I were eating dinner (beans on toast) on the kitchen floor.  I don't quite remember why, but we were.  Everything was going well. He doesn't really wear a bib anymore because he is very good with his spoon and eats quite cleanly.  All was fine so I got up and went to the toilet.  I was only gone maybe a minute and I came back to see that he had decided to scoop the beans up with his hands and rub them all in his hair!  The damage was done so I did what any parent would do next - let him carry on and take pictures.

A few days later he did a similar thing to James with his soup.

There's something about their textures that he seems to enjoy smearing all over.  And yet he won't touch paint.  Odd odd child.

Other odd things about Finn...

He has become very particular in what he wants to wear.  He will choose something and insist that you put it on and he will go insane if you try and take it off him.  Most of the time we can accommodate and it's fine.  But his main love is having a car or cars on his shirt (see monthly picture above) and he didn't have many of them (we have since rectified that situation and now have MANY potential car tops). But recently when James and he were home together, he got something on his car top and it had to be taken off, and there were no more car tops around.  Finn was inconsolable.  Until James came up with a quick thinking solution.  It involved a plain white undershirt and a sharpie.  Finn loves his new shirt and will often check to make sure the car is still there... then point to it and make sure everyone around him is aware that there is a car! car! car!!

There have also been a couple instances when what he's insisted on wearing is so strange that you just have to go with it... one Saturday he insisted on wearing one of my jumpers for the entire day....
what can you do!?

He also LOVES to wear my rings:

One of his favourite things to do (when we let him) is to watch youtube videos.

I'll give you three guesses what they have to be of...

yup, cars.
This is him dancing and 'wowing' to a car commercial that we watch on repeat.  Midway through he also kindly points out that the car is driving past some 'water' ... just in case you missed it.


aaaaand this is what happens when you decide he's had enough!  My favourite thing is the ending where he seems to clue in that Mum is saying no... so I'll try Dad...


Another odd thing is that his second favourite video to watch after the car commercial above is the video of himself watching the car commercial.  He loves to watch it and imitate himself dancing and repeat all of the 'wow's and 'water's etc.  So strange.

But mostly he just does very very odd things sometimes and we have no idea why.  Here is a video where he was playing with his jar of rocks (we have really posh toys around here) and for some reason started rubbing them on his legs.  I haven't the faintest idea why he's doing it or where he saw it... so it's just really really strange!



And lastly, here is his new super strange 'smile' that he likes to break out when a camera is around.
Enjoy!

Finn walking

We mentioned in the last post how Finn's now walking, but we didn't actually put up a video. Here it is:


Of course, he began taking steps over five months ago, and he's now been walking fully for over two weeks, so Finn's already quite reliable on his feet. This video, however, is only perhaps a week into his walking, so he is rather more precarious. It's amazing that he isn't falling over walking like this!

We'll be back with the full update hopefully on time at the end of next week...

19 months old!

Hello all!

This has been an extremely busy and stressful time lately.  I've been interviewing for and been offered a new job and James and I have been finishing off the process to finally purchase our own flat (which we now have!  Woo!).  Sooo... we didn't do much in the month of April.  But we've done a LOT already in May.  But the stuff we've done in May belongs in his 20 month update, so this one may be a bit sparse.  Although I think I always say that and it ends up being long anyway :)

First off, here are his pictures side by side:

18 months old

19 months old

And, as a first - there are no outtakes!  For once, he climbed into the seat himself and hung out there and enjoyed himself smiling and having fun.  Partly because he LOVES his new tiger shirt.  So instead of outtakes, here are two more good ones!

First up.  Here is a photo that shows us as the worst parents in the entire world.

Finn is sitting on a counter.  Next to a knife.  And a hot stove.  Wearing a borrowed jumper because we forgot to bring one when we went out.
I can hear people dialling child services.
It IS a bit staged though, to be fair.  We DID forget his jumper and need to borrow one. And Finn LOVES to sit on this section of the counter.  I don't know exactly why, but it might have something to do with the fact that his snacks are kept in that red bin.  And we do cook while he sits there.
BUT - there is always someone standing right next to him whenever he is there (assuming they aren't quickly ducking away for the sake of the photo).
So it's not really all that bad, but I thought the photo was pretty funny!

Other stuff we do.  Finn loves to chat on Skype to his Grandma.  We usually do it on Sundays right after he wakes up from his nap.  Here's a fun series from a recent online chat.

We also love going to the park now.  We go nearly every day on the way home from nursery and are blessed that there is a great park just outside our front door.  Finn's favourite is definitely the slide.  He loves the slide.  And now that he's getting more mobile, he can go down by himself!  He still needs help getting up the steps though, but yesterday he managed to climb up the slide all the way to the top.  I was hovering right behind him in case he slipped but he didn't - I was very impressed!  That kid is stronger than he looks (he was walking up and holding on to the sides). He also loves pointing out every. single. car. siiiigh.

 

The biggest news is, of course, that he's really fully walking with confide

nce now.  The first time he properly did it (as in refusing to hold our hands and running off on his own) was in Ikea.  As thrilled as we were for his new found independence, I'm not sure I recommend Ikea as the ideal situation in which to find it.  Exhausting.
What I find amazing though is how much his walking has given him confidence in other areas.  He has always been extremely clingy to me and not liked it when I moved too far away from him.  But now he seems to know that if I go too far, he can come and get me, so it's fine.  Yesterday we went to the library and he sat down to read some books in the kids section and I was able to go to the other side of the room and look elsewhere.  It sounds like no big deal, but in our world this is HUGE!  He would keep checking I was still there, but was fine.  After a while, he stood up and brought his book over to ask me to read it with him, which we did for a bit.  But then when he was bored of that book he walked himself back over to the baby section without me.  It really was amazing for me.  I know walking brings its troubles as well but so far it's been nothing but fantastic.  A couple days ago we were on the couch Skyping with my Mum when Finn asked for some water.  I told him to go get it from daddy who was in the kitchen.  And Finn stood up, walked into the kitchen, asked for water, got it and brought it back to the couch.  These sorts of things blow my mind.  He certainly is no longer a baby.

His communication is definitely getting better as well.  I'm not sure if the rest of the world can understand him, but James and I certainly know what he is saying!  It's amazing how clear he can be even with minimal words.  And putting them together to make himself understood.  I was trying to distract him with his train set when I wanted to get dinner ready and he very clearly said "no.  bye-bye choo choo."  He said it with such a stern face as well it was hard not to laugh!
I think my favourite word of his, though, is thank you.  It's a bit like 'dah do' but the inflection is clearly 'thank you' and I find it very sweet.
So I leave you with a video of him saying thank you...
Enjoy!

Hand, Foot, and Mouth...

Finn, and nearly Finn's entire nursery all have hand, foot and mouth disease.  Luckily, because they ALL have it, everyone is still allowed to come in and we haven't had to stay home with him at all.  This is particularly good as he doesn't seem affected by it.  Some of the kids have had fevers or been unwell, but Finn has been mostly fine.  A bit off his food (though not his cake and custard) and a bit unsettled at night but otherwise totally fine.  The only symptom is an awful, nasty, gross scab-fest of a face. 

Much like this one:

18 months old

Yay!  A monthly update almost actually close to the monthly birthday!
Patting myself on the back.

Unfortunately there isn't too much to tell.  The big news of the month was James and Finn's trip to the Isle of Man - but he covered that already... so this will just be a bunch of photos with very little stories to go with them.  We've still been in the thralls of illness after illness and, as James mentioned, Finn is hard-core teething.  He's getting his very back molars now - which don't usually come until closer to two years old, but that's our Finn - he may not be the brightest knife in the shed but boy can he grow teeth!
Anyway, it is making him MISERABLE and we haven't made it out to do much fun stuff as a result.
But anyway - update!
I'm going to break with tradition and show you the update outtakes FIRST. These are the pictures we tried to take on the 2nd.  They didn't work.  He would not. sit. down.  But they are still pretty cute and give you an idea about how tall he is now.
I should note though - he looks like he's standing on his own.  He isn't.  He's leaning against the wall. Here they are:

But a couple days later we tried again and got an official update pic.  So here they are side by side.

17 months old

18 months old

The reason it is in a new location is because we are in the process of moving to a new flat.  That being said we've been "in the process" since November - it's a very long 'process.'  But we're hoping it will happen fairly soon.  The place we're moving to is unfurnished (unlike where we are now) so we have started collecting some furniture etc.  That means that we now have TWO tables in our tiny flat, EIGHT chairs... etc. And we got this giant sideboard thing... it's huge.  I got it off of freecycle and didn't really check the measurements first.  Ah well.  So it's taking up another large chunk of the living room.  At least Finn thinks it's fun!

As I mentioned before, he still isn't walking.  I'm not sure when you should start to worry about that sort of thing... but nearly all the other babies in his nursery are walking, including some who are much younger.  He doesn't crawl much though - he just makes you hold his hands everywhere.  And he doesn't seem to have any interest in doing it on his own whatsoever.  None.  He will practise if you make him, but for the most part it just gets in his way of getting whatever or wherever he wants. And if you simply refuse then he complains for a bit and then will just crawl off - no attempt to stand or anything.  Maybe he is just the laziest of lazy babies.  Which is another thing - he really isn't a baby anymore. He's a toddler.  But he doesn't TODDLE... soooo... what do you call him eh?  A pretoddler, I suppose :)

What else?
I think I mentioned last time that his sleep is getting much better.  That is still true.  Amazing what a difference it makes!  When his teeth are really bad, we're still up with him a few times a night but he can (and does) sleep through the night and get himself back to sleep if he wakes up.  Which is so nice.  Partly this is down to James' "sleep training" which is simply an absolute refusal to take him out of the cot in the night.  If he's in pain or ill we do, of course, but luckily it's easy enough to tell the difference in his crying.  This training started while I was away in York for a couple days for work.  I came home late at night to find this on the bedroom door:

And was instructed to sleep in the living room.  This went on for about a week in preparation for James to be on his own in the Isle of Man.  The main thing was weaning Finn off of me in the night.  He'd been 'weaned' off of milk in the night for ages of course, but if he knew I was there he still wanted me in the form of a cuddle or a kiss... and I will be the first to admit that I gave in.  A lot.  So I was banished from the bedroom in order to take the temptation to step in away and thereby spoil all the work that had gone in.  Also that fact that Finn somehow just KNOWS when I'm nearby... even in the dark!
And as much as I still hate it - if we ignore him he now usually goes back to sleep on his own eventually.  It's the 10 minutes of screaming that I can't handle though.  But he only does that if he knows I'm in the room - if I'm sleeping in the living room (or in a different country!) then he is fine.  So I'm hoping that this new place where Finn gets his own room will help out with that.
But anyway!

What else?

Finn does have a few new words - in addition to 'choo choo' and 'ne naw' he has: ball, bus, car, and cheers (said while clinking cups together! He learnt that one from his friend Lily).  I think that's it... he knows a LOT of new animal noises though, so that's fun.  The monkey is my favourite.  And he can identify a lot of things that he can't say.  Always surprising when you are reading story and say 'elephant' and he points straight to it!  I particularly like it when he imitates us by putting on a 'funny voice' - we do it a lot when we make his toys talk and his version of it is hilarious!
Other than words, he recognises songs and the motions that go with them.
Speaking of songs - although we don't have a TV, we do watch things on the computer from time to time and Finn's new favourite show is Bob the Builder.  Which I'm ok with because it's pretty good, and only 10 minutes an episode! Lately he's taken to pointing at the computer and asking for 'Balla Biller' which is pretty funny.
He loves the theme song though and gets excited and dances when it starts.  My favourite thing is the fact that he waves back to the characters on the screen as they are introduced and wave. James got a bit of it on video - it's usually more enthusiastic (when Finn's not distracted by a camera) but it gives you an idea of the cuteness.

I think that's all for stories, so here are some more pictures.  It's been six months since we last did 'family' pictures and it was a nice warm day (for once) so we went out back and tried to take some.  Finn was entirely uncooperative!

The pictures consisted mostly of him insisting on wearing his hat and then making funny faces...

Or getting bored and walking away...

Or being just in general fed up and determined to do something more fun somewhere else... but it's awfully hard to storm off in a huff when you need someone's help to do the storming.  Especially when that someone responds by making faces right back at you!

So they may not be the best pictures in the world... but at least they are a fairly accurate portrait of Finn and his demanding, wilful ways!

Manx Moods Missing Mum

Finn and I went to the Isle of Man over the Easter weekend, without Cori, so I suspect that it's reasonable that it's me who writes it up (and it will give us some more time to try and pin Finn down for his monthly picture!)

The Boy Trip was planned long in advance: knowing that Cori had to work and that nursery was to be closed on the Friday and Monday, we thought that it would be reasonable for me to spend the time looking after Finn on the island with help from his granny and nephews instead of kicking our heels around the flat for four days. This sounded great to us all in advance - Cori getting a rest, me getting to the Isle of Man, Finn not being bored at home - but when the time came we were all a little apprehensive or sorry to part.

Things would have been all super, were it not for Finn's teething (or something to the same effect) that had him in an inconsolable wailing mood for nearly three of the four days we were on the island!

Things were quite terrible at times - such as in the mornings when he was in a grump from waking up, or towards evenings, and certainly at dinner time - but he was ok when he was out of the house, and especially around his cousins. So he still had a lot of fun, even if he would weep and wail without respite at other times!
Unfortunately Finn's granny saw most of the misery, as we were staying there instead of the flat, but at least she got to see the beam of sunshine which was Finn's good mood on the final day, when a final forlorn dose of Calpol had the almost miraculous effect of restoring him to top mood within minutes! (So I'm hoping that we might be allowed back at some time...)

Unfortunately, because there weren't two of us, and there was one needy Finn, there aren't as many pictures as I would have liked, but there are some that tell some of the tale of our four Manx days...

Finn was delighted to find that granny's house also stocked his favourite cereals... but he was distraught two days later when it ran out (not pictured):

Finn had a whole new set of cars and trucks to push around, such as this very manly green rubbish truck (just out of shot is the pink and purple animal rescue van, complete with baby giraffe with a bandages on its knee):

You might also note in that last picture that Finn was making his fart-like noise that sometimes accompanies truck-pushing, although nursery today reports that everything received a "nee naw" fire engine noise from Finn today - just one of the many skills his granny taught him in the Isle of Man. Cori was most impressed to hear his new noises when he returned, and especially the "choo choo" for anything train-like, which was another of granny's introductions. (I don't know why he took up those words from her when he generally just stares blankly at us when we try words on him - it must be all the chocolate she gives him!)

Finn was also introduced to Lego for the first time, which was quite something (although he did mainly just like the cars and bikes!):

We were also very excited to go to the Auldyn School playing fields to see some top-level football courtesy of Finn's excellent footballing cousins. Action shots of Oliver, Thomase and Jake include the following (I suspect that Jake is here working on his goal celebrations!):

Finn also got to hang out with his cousins at their house. There he would be found shouting his way happily up the stairs in order to thrown himself into Jake or the twins' toy boxes with joyous abandon. Unfortunately I used such times, with Finn finally occupied with something, in order to slip away and drink more than just a sip of tea, and so there are very few pictures. But there is this nice one of Finn and Thomase (with the original "nee naw" -ing vehicles within sight (as is a suspiciously Calpol-looking box on the table behind!)):

If anyone was in doubt about the root of Finn's mood over the weekend, this otherwise lovely picture of him and his granny shows how mouth-conscious he was, shoving his hand into his mouth like this almost constantly:

Other than that, we went swimming in Douglas, to the Wildlife Park in Ballaugh (where we rode on a miniature steam train!), to the gate of Peel Castle (but not in, as it was closed due to the snow), to the Peel 'House of Manannan' museum, on a nice long walk around Maughold Head, and through 8-foot-high snow drifts south of Kirk Michael. - Lots of exciting things to keep Finn from feeling too much of his misery!... It's just  shame that I don't have more pictures.
(And, since some might be wondering, Finn also had two perfect plane journeys: sleeping throughout on the way over without even a shout, and happily playing or looking out the window on the way back to London).

But I do have one last picture of Finn looking nice in his Ohio State top, probably wishing that his mum was there with him to hear him say "choo-choo"!

- James

Finn's "dubha dubha dubha" a month ago

This video is from over a month ago, back at the end of February. It should have been uploaded then, but we were having problems getting it off the camera. Sorry!
It's a nice video of Finn speaking though, even if it's in a style we've not heard in a while, so it's probably worth our posting: