The Birthday Boy (with photos)

So............ Fin turned 1. ONE! One Year Old. Woooooohooooooooooo!!!!

Congratulations to the parents for keeping this living being alive and safe and well for a whole year! (17 to go...)

Time really does fly. I mean, I barely feel like I'm back from maternity leave and already we're celebrating his first birthday!

Oh, did I mention he's WALKING pretty much full time now? Ugh.........

By the way... yesterday he also went to the vet - er, I mean, pediatrician. He's 25.5 lb. and 31.5 in. I would have guessed more for both (giant!) but he's still in the 95th and higher percentile for his age. (big stinky feet!)

Here are some photos. Thanks to all who came to his Par-tay. We love you all!

Finally, a photo of the big guy.


This is going to become a habit, I can see it already.


Someone falls asleep on all his Christmas presents.


Dad's shoes are going to be hard to fill.
At least for a few more weeks.


Fin discovers his new back yard.


Chew chew!!! (pun)


Driving the invisible car.....


Cake is pretty easy to eat without help.


Did I mention it was FREEZING a few days ago?


Baby travel bed by night, playtent by day!

Still W/O Photos!!!

Man, what is wrong with me!??!?! Even I'm having photo withdrawals. I have been taking them, just not putting them on the blog. SORRY......... hope to get all set up by the weekend as we will have lots of birthday photos.

It has been COOOOOOOOLD here. There was ice on my windshield from the sprinkler. I didn't know what to do! There was a water main break which blew a hole in the road about 50 yards from my new house. Yikes! Things are freezing - literally. The nanny is afraid to take Bunky out on a walk!

Speaking of walk... he is doing it very well now. Walking, that is. He is finally getting the confidence to walk rather than crawl. So cute. He's also excellent at climbing down from things like the bed, couch, or jungle gym feet-first. He is being very cuddly. In fact, he seems remarkably smarter than just a week ago. Must be entering a new phase.

Photos soon, I promise!!!!

A message from Fin

Fin typed a message here but then he also somehow (in his wild, random pecking) figured out how to delete it. Oh well. I think the translation was something like: give me banana or the fat cat gets a haircut.

To distract him from my laptop, i had to give him a broken cell phone. It has no battery so the buttons make no noise, so it won't last long.

I don't have any photos from this laptop (i will post more soon) so I can only write. Here's a little description of some amazing developments we discovered yesterday.

He has learned to go up and down the stairs on his own. Of course, we don't let him unless we're with him, but he's pretty good about it. Going down he sticks out a toe until he feels the step below, then lowers himself.

He has learned how to get off the couch and our bed feet-first. He stops at the edge, flops on his belly, turns round, and slides down.

He climbed into and out of his little blue tub by himself. (No water, he just uses it as a boat when we're in the bathroom.) He puts his hands on either side, stands, sticks one leg over, and slowly (clumsily) gets out. Admittedly Mark held the boat so it wouldn't tip, but the kid gets it.

He climbed up the gym at the park and actually went to the slide on his own, and sat down, and tried to figure out how to "go", so we helped him, and he slid down. He fell backward so it wasn't the best experience ever, but at least he's getting into it.

Seriously these things just "appeared" yesterday. There were a couple other "appearances" but I can't remember at the moment.

He also walks, but he chooses not to. He stands a lot, and takes a step here or there, and he is very capable of walking, but it's much more efficient to crawl still, and certainly more fun to hold someone's hand.

He climbs into and out of boxes pretty well on his own. Especially box lids. We're packing, as you probably know, and it's a pain with a nearly-toddling self-centered demanding little tyke clinging to your leg. So it's going slowly. He takes lids off boxes and sits in them. He transfers objects from one open box to the other. He takes stuff out, puts it back in. He's having a blast. I'm ... not.

Soon we'll be in our new house, and I'll have my work schedule (some from home, some from office, some from classroom, some from local hotspots), nailed down, and I'll get back to regular updates on the blog. For now, be happy that we're still alive and well :)