quick tidbit

This was too long for a facebook blurb, so I suppose I'll stick it here. It's too funny not to write up.

So, I'm standing in the kitchen peeling Finn's second clementine for the day (he's developed an addiction I think), when I see him sneaking into his hiding spot. Our kitchen counter extends to the wall but the cabinets underneath do not since there's a heating vent on that wall. This leaves a little space perfect for Finn to hide in. Oh, and by "sneak" I mean he does everything imaginable to make sure someone notices him going into hiding. So, he's in his hiding spot and I pretend not to notice. Usually I pretend to be in a panic and yell "Where's Finn?" or something along those lines. But I didn't right away today and after waiting a few seconds I guess he got impatient because i heard "Where's Pinn? Where's Pinn?" from under the counter along with a stifled giggle.  He barely ever attempts his name since he can't make the "F" sound properly. After holding back my laughter I repeated back "Where's Finn? Where's my little boy?" and he ran out and exclaimed "Dere's Pinn!"

Oh, little man, you are priceless.

Potty monster

I don't know how it's come to this, but I'm about to rip my hair out.

Last year at this time, Finn was darn near fully potty independent. we started using EC when he was about 8 months, which is considered a late start as far as EC goes. But he did so wonderfully with it. I knew his pee scedule by heart. And if we were doing something that involved not being right by a potty, say driving, he would hold his bladder until we got to our destination and were able to get to the nearest bathroom.  And for awhile there he even got really regular with his pooping too. Very morning as soon as he'd wake up, on the potty he'd go and within a few minutes he'd be pottied and back in his jammies ready to start the day.

And then we moved into our new place. And things started going downhill. Fast. First his bm's became more irregular. Then he began wetting in between trips to the potty. He'd pee in the potty and as soon as his diaper was back on he'd wet it as well.  Then he began only wanting to sit on and use his potty if we read books. Which is fine. But then it grew into a game almost. We'd sit and read book, after book, after book. And when we'd give up and put the diaper back on...instant wetting.  Now it's to the point that he won't even sit on the potty. He screams, he kicks, he throws punches. He does the ol' stiff as a board move. He'll roll on the ground. Anything to not sit on the potty.  Just recently he's started telling us when he's peed again, which I guess is a step in the right direction since he hasn't even been doing that for the past few months. I've tried everything to get him back on track, and I'm at my wits end.   I just wish I knew what was going on in his little head.

Birthday bonanza

Finn's party on Saturday was a hit. Papa Bill showed up early in the morning (with donuts from Mighty Fine. Yum!) which pleased the birthday boy very ,very much.  Steve and his dad took off into town while Finn napped. He didn't nap long though. Just barely long enough for me to get the decorations up and put the meatballs in the crockpot. He' been awake for just a few minutes when Nana and Grammy showed up with the rest of the food for the festivities, followed closely by Steve and Bill. We made the mistake of putting his presents out, and played a rousing game of keep-away until the rest of our guests showed up.  Pap and Uncle Mike showed up, along with great Uncle Jeff and Gram Janice.  Finn hardly knew what to make of it all.  After stuffing ourselves full of super yummy food, Finn finally got to open his presents. He lost all interest in them though once he opened the computer from Steve and I.  So the adults took turns opening the presents and showing them to the toddler hunched over the laptop.  Oh well. We figured he'd be super amped about blowing out his candle, as he begs to have candles lit just so he can blow them out. But no. He extinguished his birthday candle with his hand. What a goober.  Now for some pictures!

This year's attempt at making the cake was far more successful than last year's:

Nana and Pap showed up with a huge bag of peanutbutter M&M's, so he didn't eat any of this yummy lunch. Way to go Nana and Pap...

Showing off his new Batman shirt. He was really excited about it until he saw the computer...

Crammed inside the ballpit/tent/tunnel complex from Nana and Pap. It's ginormous. We're going to have to buy the huge victorian house we've been looking at just to have somewhere to put this thing. Finn adores it though. He loves asking people to "Come in!" when they walk by.

After all the guests left, Finn lasted about another hour before he completely crashed. Easiest bedtime ever.

On Sunday, we took him to our favorite local Mexican restaurant for lunch. The boy loves tacos. He had no interest in his taco though, instead he focused his eating powers on the bowl of chips and salsa. All the while, trying to charm the little girl at the next table.  He even tried to impress her with a little dance and his Spanish skills. Okay not so much skills, as ability to repeat "gracias!"

That's about it. All in all, a very nice birthday weekend for the little guy. I have more to update, but I'll save it for another post. Later yinz guys!

Well, since I've been asked two times this week "where did your blog go?" I suppose I'll resurrect it.

So, Finn turns two this Sunday. He's somehow gone from this:

To this:

Pretty unbelievable if you ask me. I can't figure out where two years have gone. He's so darn remarkable and lightyears cooler than I will ever be. His vocabulary is astonishing and terrifying. He has little conversations with himself these days. Just yesterday he was helping in the kitchen and he plucked a magnet off the fridge and had the following exchange with himself: "Coe-lor's that? Dat's blue! No, it's not owange, it's blue! Mummy, it's blue!" So funny. He's also become obsessed with anatomy lately, and being a little boy ,his focus is on one certain body part. He delights in yelling "penis" or "my junk!" any time his pants come off. So far no public outbursts have occured, but I'm sure it's in our near future. Christmas was fun this year, since he had a little more sense of what was going on. He made out like a bandit (as usual). He has no idea what to make of this birthday business though. He knows that he gets to blow out a candle (which he's very excited about) and it involves the cake sitting in the fridge (which he's very, very excited about). I'm excited to see his face when he opens his presents. Steve's dad got him a mailbox playset, which I can already see being the hit of the party. Finn loves, LOVES to get the mail.  The playset has a big wooden USPS drop box and has letters and postcards of different sizes to sort and match up. He's going to have a blast with it. Steve and I got him a big set of wooden food that I think Finn will love as well. He played with some over Christmas and really liked telling us what each piece was and making pretend meals, so this should go over well. I'm really relieved that we're keeping it low key this year. Just having the grandparents and Uncle Mike over.  It was great seeing so many people last year, but OMG. The planning and organizing was awful. Not to mention wasting all that money on a hall rental. Ugh. That still irritates me.  I'm sure we'll have many birthday blowouts down the road to look forward to, so I doubt we'll miss one this year.

Finn turning two also means we're hitting another marker. I've said for ages now that when he turns two I'd get my IUD out and we'd start trying for velociraptor #2.  The lack of insurance is putting this on hold at the moment, but I think it's something that I'll be doing in the near future. I think we've both been having the baby pangs lately. I know I certainly have. And Steve has been quick to point out cute tiny babies when we're out and about.  Sure, Finn drives me nutso at times, but when he's his usual sweet, goofy, affectionate self...man, there's just nothing better in the world. And when he cuddles up and says "Kiss? Hug?" he just melts my heart. Another one of those? It's not even a question really.

should have stayed in bed.

We had some AMAZING weather yesterday. And by amazing, I mean shutting down every major highway. I was scheduled for a call-in at 12:30 (which means that I call the store an hour before and see if they need me or not). Given the wonderful weather conditions I started calling at 10 (to tell them I wouldn't be in until my solid shift at 4). No answer. I figured maybe we opened later since it was Sunday. Called again at 11. No answer. And again at 11:30 and 12. Uh-oh. Finally got a very flustered Rhonda on the phone at 12:30. Seems everyone had trouble getting there. What a bunch of awful. And when I did leave for work at 3:15, I got about 1/4 mile down the road and the noise we thought was being made by the brakes got really, really loud. So I turn the car back around, get home and discover I have no tire on my passenger side. Complete blowout. Ugh. Piled us all into Steve's car (which is any day away from blowing a head gasket. Stupid cars.) and got dropped off at work.  Two things did make my no-good-very-bad-day a little better though. Having pretty amazing co-workers (one of which is possibly procurring me some new tires for free) and watching Meet the Natives when I got home. Seriously, if you haven't watched it, and you enjoy seeing the way we live as Americans mocked, you need to see it.  Hilarious.
Back on the car though, the rim seems to be okay. And it looks like something had been rubbing on the inside wall of the tire, and that's what caused the blowout . Steve drove it (very carefully) to work today and is going to take a look at everything. No sense in putting new tires on first, if there's something that's going to cause another flat tire. Fingers crossed that it's not something uber expensive.

Pretty, but cold.

As I type this, my hubby (Steve the great white hunter) is out braving the frigid temps in one last attempt to fill his deer tags for the season. As much as I love venison, I'd rather have my left arm sawed off than sit outside in the cold. Not for me. I'll stick to cuddling inside with Finn, eating hot toast and cocoa with marshmallows, thanks. Brrrrrrr.

This little monkey is growing and learning in leaps and bounds lately.  His vocabulary is exploding and he's getting better at putting said words together and making small sentences. Lately everything has been "BIG!". Big truck, big ball, big butt, big tree...you get the picture. And he's learned to kick so we hear a lot of "Hey! I kick it!" and "Mommy! Kick it!" Such a little boy these days.  The only time I see the baby side of him anymore is at bedtime, which had been pretty darn good for awhile. But lately, he's backslid a little, and always says "Mommy! Stay here! Stay here!" when I try to tuck him in and leave.  I don't know if he's getting afraid of the dark or having bad dreams or what.  He has a heck of a vocabulary, but still can't always tell us what's wrong (not that I'm expecting him to be able to or anything. That's just ridiculous).

He's finally un-afraid of Grammy Zarnick (my maternal grandma). I think the fact that she treated us to a wonderful day at the Science Center helped her cause a good bit. I don't know who was more in awe of the exhibits, Finn or Grammy. They were both pretty blown away by the underwater Omnimax film. I was just shocked that Finn sat through teh whole 45 minutes of it. Of course seeing a lot of the Nemo critters probably helped ("Mommy! Tu-ttle! Ssssark!") and the fact that he passed during the last 10 minutes didn't hurt either. Grammy couln't stop talking about teh trip for a week. And of course before leaving she loaded the boy up with every souvenier from the gift shop. Such a fun day. I think we'll go back for his birthday (which is rapidly approaching. Holy cow. 22 months already?) when the miniature train village is back up and running (we missed the re-opening by a week). He's got a love of trains and big trucks, this one does. He will not be disappointed on Christmas since there are at least 3 gigantic dumtrucks, a big backhoe and a plethora of tractors waiting to go under his tree from various sources. Santa has some very busy elves apparently.

I've been working pretty steadily, which is both great (we can definitely use the money) and stressful (shuffling Finn around is making me want to rip my hair out). Finn's been staying with Grammy Z. the past couple of weeks while I've worked and he's done really well with her. Unfortunatley I just got a call this morning that she's back in the hospital with her Crohn's acting up. Obviously I want her to be alright and get better, first and foremost. But now I'll have to find somewhere else for him to stay this week, which is going to be none too easy given my crazy schedule. I found one daycare with openings, and I'll have to give them a call bright and early on monday. Fingers crossed that they don't charge an arm and leg fo just a couple days a week. Sigh. I really wish I knew more people around here that were good with kids and had free time.

Oh! Two gunshots from the back property!!! Go Steve, GO!

Work and possible dead deer aside, Finn and I have been keeping busy around teh house as well. We've put up the Christams tree and hung all my grandma's old ornaments. Finn, unfortunately, think that they're huge candy globes and has tried to eat three of them so far, and pulled countless others off the branches. He's also been a big help in the winter baking. We've made bread, pasta, pretzels and numerous cookies in the past few weeks. He makes for a great sous chef/official taste tester.  I think we'll make some egg noodles today for dinner next week. And we have plans for Guinness cupcakes and Guinness cheese fondue for Christmas eve. This will be our first time hosting the Christmas eve get together, and I thought it'd be nice to throw in a few new things along with our traditional grub. We always have meatball and hot sausage subs, pasta salad, macaroni salad, some form of potato and a dessert of some sort. Kind of a picnic meal. We'll open our presents from mom and dad and eat til we're ready to pass out. Sounds like an excellent time.

More shots! What the heck? Either he missed the first two times, or this is an indestructable deer. The pressure is really on today, since this is the last day Steve will be able to go out and since my little brother got one yesterday...well, I think Steve's feeling a bit competetive. He has three tags to fill, and judging by the amount of handwarmers he purchased last night, I think he means to stay out until he has them all filled (one buck and two doe.) Three would be way more than we would eat in a year (two would be too much, really.), but we plan on donating any extra meat we end up with.  He hasn't texted me back yet...hopefully this means he's on the chase! I had a dream last night that I woke up at 9:30 (yeah I know...sleeping in to 9:30 would be a dream indeed) and Steve was in the living room playing with a fully dressed and breakfasted Finn (again, a dream). I was confounded as to why he was back so soon and he said "I got two by 8, so I decided to call it a day!". I woke up from the dream before I could badger him about why he couldn't feed Finn breakfast every morning.  Go figure. But I'm hoping this means good luck for his hunting today.

Okay, off to shower and make noodles. Think good deer thoughts for Steve today!

Quick tidbit

A conversation with Finn yesterday while waiting for Thanksgiving dinner:

*Finn walks by muttering something incoherent*

Me: What was that buddy?

Finn: Boobies! Big, BIG boobies! Big boobies!

Me: Big boobies?! Who taught you that?

Finn: Nana.

Me: Mooooooom, come here for a second......