Finn LIVE!

I posted a video of Finn:

My camera apparently doesn't have sound so I'll tell you what's going on. First Finn sneezes...that's the funny bit where he screws up his face and arms and legs all go flying at the same time. Then you'll see a practice smile (watch for it, it's really cute). About once a day he's calm and relaxed enough that I get real smiles, the rest of the time he's asleep, eating, frustrated/grumpy/cranky/tired, and then sometimes he still practices. He practices in his sleep, too. But those few smiles where I smile at him and he smiles right back are just priceless. He is cooing and sort of gurgling at his mobile and watching the critters go around.
Poor Finn, his mobile is attached to the coffee table. He doesn't have a true crib here so we don't have anything in the Boys' room to attach it to. He's got a really snazzy Pack 'n Play but they don't come with nice slats to put toys on. Luckily our coffee table here has this iron work on the sides that we can screw things through, so his 'crib' toys are all out in the living room where he can play with them during the day (since we keep the pack and play for night time sleeping only anyway). Maybe some day Finn will get a crib...although he does sleep really well in the PNP.
Picture is the guys having lunch in Dun Laoghaire last weekend. Travis had a sandwich and a Coke, Finn had formula :) Yes, Finn has a Broncos pacifier tether (even though he's rarely interested in a pacifier). GO BRONCOS!

Rugby Beefcake

My guesses were right, Finn tipped the scales at 1/2 oz shy of fifteen pounds today. He is indeed a very very very large baby for his age. He was fussed over and ooohhh and aaaahhhhed over at the doc's today. This was the follow up visit back to the office we spent our entire 40 weeks at (and the pediatrician was the one who saw him at the hospital not our normal everyday GP, we see him next week). They are a bit disappointed that we are leaving Ireland and taking what they are sure will be a future Irish rugby star with us...
So fifteen pounds is kind of heavy for a guy who wants to be held all the time and a new mom whose muscles haven't caught up yet (I know I get NO sympathy from you moms who are hefting around your toddlers). For the rest of you, try walking around with three bags of flour tucked up against your shoulder for three hours (and no sitting, that starts the howling, walking alternating with jiggling only please!). Or if you don't have any flour hanging around a couple of jugs of milk will do.
Ah, but it's all worth it :) Today I got the first real smile. And not just one, a whole variety pack. We've had a few test runs, but not the real thing yet and both Travis and I have been awaiting the real thing. I got so excited and I jumped up so fast to call Travis to brag about it I think I scared Finn. Added bonus, yesterday some serious cooing started! We still get plenty of grunts, but when he gets the least bit relaxed Finn will let go with some manly little coos. What a little guy... for those of you who have yet to meet him we just can't wait to introduce you to him.
Sorry no pictures with this post, will work on some more this weekend...check the last post if you missed it for some recent pics.

Elvis Baby

Finn's 7.5 weeks old, but looks older. He still seems huge to me, and has gi-normous cheeks that get exaggerated by the way he holds his head back and tucks his chin in. Travis had really big cheeks as a baby so I'm not too surprised, but Finn looks all cheeks and head when you look at him. Have no fear, there's plenty of the rest of him, trust me!

This is my view of Finn most of the time. Although generally a little better in focus :) A little less in focus at 3:30am.

This week we'll go to the Dr. for our '6' week check up. We're told it's normal to have this check up anywhere between 6-8 weeks. This appointment is with the pediatrician we saw at the hospital. Then next week I think we have to go get our first round of shots. I am NOT looking forward to that! Poor guy is grumpy enough as it is, I don't really want to subject him to pointy things in his pudgy little parts.
Speaking of grumpy, he's still windy and still having a rough go of things. Yes, if he's awake he's agitated and frustrated and crying or on the verge of tears. We're getting some noises that aren't grunting, but neither Travis or I are holding our breath for contented cooing.

Ah yes, the Elvis impersonations! Young babies 'root' or shake their head back and forth with pursed lips looking for food. Finn's been a great feeder, and 'rooted' from the beginning. There's a twist now, the rooting's been replaced by the Elvis. Now we get the lip curl. Picture that thing Elvis did with his lip where he curled it up. It's hilarious.

I haven't managed to capture a picture of Finn doing Elvis as it comes right before feeding time, you'll just have to picture it in your mind. Even if poor Finn's having a rough time at least Travis and I are enjoying ourselves.

I don't know how much Finn weighs right now, I should be able to update that after our appt this week. But here's a picture of him so you can see how much bigger he is. He's holding his head up and is getting good trunk control, so he's generally less 'floppy.' He hates tummy time, but will happily lay on his tummy on my tummy or Travis' tummy, or on my lap. Generally he falls asleep there so he's not really building up any of those muscles he's supposed to be working on but at least it will hopefully help to avoid the flat head. This picture makes him look like a fat little old man, and while he's big some of that is the camera angle and the way he's propped up.

Ah yes, and a bath picture. Travis asked for one of these. This is kind of cool b/c you can see that Finn does, indeed, have a neck. I missed out on the 'my first bath' picture. I was too focused on getting the bath done (this was weeks and weeks ago, please don't think we never bathe Finn) and not really thinking about taking pictures. Which was OK because for the first two weeks Finn hated baths. Then all of a sudden he started liking them. I accidentally ran a really warm bath once and it turns out he likes REALLY warm baths, so now we run them hot, stick his little bath thermometer in, and wait until it cools off just enough so that it says it's safe to stick him in. No tepid baths for this one. Travis also asked for the picture to be, uh, discreet. Enjoy.

Last bit of news, last day in Dublin 11/16 and we're flying home. Where next? Unknown. May be back to Denver, may be on to somewhere new. Will know more in a month or so and will keep the blog updated

Totally Ensconced

Just a quickie this time -
SIX weeks old this week! oh my goodness... New this week, hanging on to things. Like mom's shirt, mom's hair, mom's skin. The childcare books point out this is the time to give your baby their favorite toy to grasp. Ummm...OK. Guess that would be me. At least he grabs on to Travis occasionally, too :)
Link to pictures of our snazzy apt, with loads of baby stuff every where. You'll note the colors, furniture, wallpaper aren't exactly what we'd choose, but it's still a very nice place that we enjoy quite a bit. Those of you who have visited should note it's MUCH larger than the previous place, with no less than THREE bathrooms, all with loads and loads and loads of water pressure! http://mteire.multiply.com/photos/album/24/New_Dublin_Digs




This ... is a wall sconce.

There are four of these in our living room. For weeks these have been one of Finn's favorite things to look at. We're wondering if we can take one with us... so much for all those great educational, developmental, vision building toys we have for him, he likes the sconces.

Light in the Leaves and the Great Catastrophes

This past weekend was a bank holiday weekend. WAIT! you say, it's a bank holiday and you didn't go on vacation!?!? Yes, it's true, we must be new parents or something ;) But seriously, we can't get a passport for Finn until mid-October and we're already going away for a weekend in Ireland in September, so we decided to stay at home and enjoy each other on our own turf.
So, bad news first... Sunday was not so good. Travis got called in to work at 4am. Our power went out at home. Then a light bulb blew up in the kitchen and it blew the fuses for half the apartment including all of the appliances necessary to making formula for Finn. I had enough prepped to last for a couple more feedings, but things were looking dire. Shortly after noon I called Travis to see if he could come home to fix our crisis at home which Finn and I thought was more pressing than whatever else he might have been working on.
Travis came home only to find the gates that keep us nice and safe weren't opening. The pedestrian gate was open, so he parked on the sidewalk like any good Irish person would do and walked in. We also have electronic/magnetic locks on the building doors, and he called me from downstairs to see if I could let him in since his little swiper didn't seem to be working. Finn and I trekked downstairs only to discover that we couldn't get out and Travis couldn't get in. OH NO! I did know that we could get out if I pulled the fire alarm, but that seemed a little extreme. Travis ended up scaling a retaining wall and climbing in on our balcony, about 15min later someone did pull the fire alarm and all the magnets released so the doors were open.
So power went on and off a few more times, water went off once, we had no cable, and no internet (luckily we still had our wireless box from the last apt which still worked so we were OK) and no common area power at all until today. Apparently the power company came out to take a look at the problem on Sunday when it happened, determined they didn't have the part, and couldn't get it until after the bank holiday weekend. Sometimes I get a little bit homesick...
Travis snuck in a quick nap and ended up back at the plant the rest of Sunday, so our holiday weekend was looking like a dud :/
Monday, however, things looked up. The pouring rain stopped, the sun came out, so we quick packed up Finn and headed to the botanic gardens. We did a little walking around outside, see Travis and Finn in his super-duper 'buggy' on the bridge. We got to use the sun parasol! It's so exciting not to have to use the rain cover!
We ended up spending most of our time in the tropical greenhouse, we got in there and Finn just loved it - as much as a 5 week old can. He just looked and looked and looked. Unfortunately we didn't get too many pictures of that, we were too excited watching him watching the light in the greenery. Babies his age like high contrast things and the light in the leaves was just right for his developing vision. You can sort of see it in the picture where I'm holding him upright and in the one where Travis is holding him and Finn looks like he's about to fall asleep on a leaf (strange camera angle but his eyes are open and he was looking, I promise!). Plus I threw in one scrunchie face since that's still the face we see a lot of and one 'I'm really sleepy, can we go home now?' face.

Finn's First Pub

Friday was Finn's first trip to our new regular pub, or the 'local' as the folks around here would say. It was the best day we've had in months, not cold, not rainy, not yucky at all. Finn and I walked down the few blocks to meet Travis and some of his coworkers after work and another wife and their 3 kids came, too.
The pub is Crowes and Finn enjoyed (i.e. slept through) it. He even made his special scrunchie face for one of the pictures, he makes this face even when we don't do terrible things like make him face the sun (truly, it was only for a split second and it wasn't as bright as the picture makes it look). Click on the photo for a close up of scrunchie face. These days we seem to see this face a lot... someday his little tummy will start working better and we'll move on past scrunchie face and 'windy' baby...
Pubs here are great family places, not at all like bars in the US. There are often kids of all shapes and sizes running about and they are welcome, up to a point. Generally after 8 or 9 pm all kids are asked to leave, but until then pretty much every pub I've been in is quite the family place. Hard for Americans to understand if you've only ever been to bars in North America, but it's really a different culture and atmosphere. Finn was adequately fussed over by neighboring tables and our waitress :)

Forget the gym...

Forget the gym, no lifting weights for me! I'm just going to lift Finn.
We went to a new GP today to 'register.' This is a weird thing that I don't quite understand...we had to make an appointment to get a new doctor. Both Finn and I had to go in and have a visit with the new doc, who will be our doc for the next 3 mos, and fill out a generic new patient form so Finn can qualify for the child benefit free health immunizations and checkups in the future. We'll be around to take advantage of the 2mos and maybe 4mos immunizations. So today both Finn and I had to pay - note that's pay twice - so we can qualify for two free appointments. Uh, OK.
Anyway, I liked the doc we saw today, nice guy who I think is younger than me. While we were there I asked him to weigh Finn, 5.75kg which I had to come home and figure out in lb and oz... hold on to your seat now... 12 lb 11 oz. WHOA! The doc was a bit amazed at Finn's weight and double checked his age with me. Yes, he really is still only four weeks old. Yes, he does eat a lot and yes we do go through a lot of diapers. And I think part of his overall fussiness HAS to be growing pains. Wouldn't you feel fussy if you increased your body size nearly 10% in a week? Sounds painful to me. All I know is that the 0-3 clothes are a thing of the past and the 3-6 aren't going to last long at this pace.
So, cute outfit pictures this posting. I especially like the 'tall' outfit which won't fit much longer. Travis has never seen this outfit in real life so when I put it on Finn today I was determined to take a picture of it on him so Travis could see what it looks like. For some reason this particular outfit always gets spit up on or falls victim to a diaper blow out. True to form Finn threw up all over it right after these pictures were taken.
Have you noticed the super chubby cheeks? When he sucks his head looks bottom heavy to me. I'm sure he'll outgrow it but it's funny right now :)
I tried to get some pictures with his eyes open, he's been awake more the past couple days. Trouble is when his eyes are open he turns his head to the side. The straight up head isn't coordinated with open eyes quite yet, at least when he's laying down.
PS if you click on the picture you'll get bigger ones... in the close up one where Finn's wearing the striped shirt you can see his milk moustache!