My stpid keyboard

I really am not a fan on the laptop keyboad. It doesn't like to make all the letters tht I think it should be making. This becomes glaringly obviouswhen I ead the posts after I ht "Publish".

Sometimes the pressure of getting a new post out there means I just thow words onto the page and don't worry about proof reading it afterward. yikes.

To make all those posts semm not as bad, I am publishing this one as is without even a cursory re-read to catch those errors. Please keep this disclaimer and the original disclaimer in mind when reading the blog.

thanks.

the management.

Zoo day

Before the weather really kicked-in Sarah look Finn to the National Zoo. It was Finn's second time there; we had visited the day of the Worst Diaper in History. He always enjoys watching the aquarium displays. This time it was the seals or sea lions or walruses or something.*


The sea mammal would swim directly at Finn's head and then turn away at the last moment. Finn woud then say "wow". Repeat for 15 minutes.

It's been far too cold to make a return trip, but I'm sure it will be a favorite when the spring returns.

* We did learn tha seals haven't any visible ears and flop around when on land. Sea lions crawl on their flippers and have little ears.

Botttonless pit

In this picture Finn looks like a contestant in the closing moments of a competitive eating event. That's because he was on his fourth bowl of Cheerios that sitting.


Some meals he really does eat as much as Sarah does. I figure one day he'll challenge me, but not yet.

Mr. Pibb Update

Mr. Pibb has adjusted to the new place. He likes some things, and could leave some things.


First, he likes the squirrel that lives in the tree outside our house. He watches the squirrel and the birds through the windows and can choose which floor he'd like to perch.

He howls at the wall each night. We don't know why. It's irritating. We think he may be lost.

Finn has begun to pet Mr. Pibb nicely. Though of course he still will chases Pibb around with a baseball bat laughing manically or maniacally.

Same old tricks

It has been well-documented that Finn likes to hide in closets, cabinets, lockers, and other small spaces. Our move has not affect him in this regard at all.



And, according to his perspective, having everything out in the living areas means that there are that many more drawers to go hide in.

Moving in (a.k.a Maximum Entropy)

Moving is awful. Your stuff is everywhere and you haven't a clue where to put it. If you do put it somewhere, when you need it, you fail to remember where it went. There is no routine to your life and everything takes 50 times longer to do than it should.

Like most things, this can be explained by the three laws of thermodynamics. As everyone knows, the first law is:

"Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only change forms."

Here is a picture of us moving in. You should recognize the bike helmet and the boy, but it seems to be in a new place. Further that place (our dining room) is no place for a bike helmet.


See, we have all our stuff, but it is different places and change context and may not make much sense being where it is. But all our stuff is still here. Everywhere.

The second law states:

"The entropy of an isolated system not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium."

That means that any changing process will increase the level of chaos (entropy) in the system. That level of disorder will maximize once you reach a steady point again. So to get organized, you have to have all you stuff everywhere, nothing goes back to where it was before, nor does anything end up near the other stuff it was near before.

The final law of thermodynamics is that:

"As temperature approaches absolute zero, the entropy of a system approaches a constant minimum"

.

While most postulate that this means that an absolute zero exists where things are so cold that all thermal energy is gone and that atomic motion stops. Only then does a minimum point of entropy exist. However, I think it means it will be a cold day in Hell before we get this placed cleaned up.



We're still not there, but at least we're in a livable condition.

Taking out the trash

Back in our temporary place, Finn would walk out with me to the trash room each night. By the end of our stay, he wanted to help.


This is a behavior we strongly reinforce. There are lots of "great job!" and "you're super" being said. My goal is to create a boy who is only happy doing my bidding and only satisfied after finishing my chores.

Vegetables and Trains!

When we were back in Wisconsin for Thanksgiving Finn played with Lanny's old toy. One of the toys was a set of cooking utensils and plastic food. The food could be "cut" with the tools by wedging them between pieces of Velcro holding them together. Finn played with that set during the trip and seemed eager to continue playing with them when we got home. That's when Christmas came to town.

We got him a set of his own, but rather than the sandwich set, he got fruits, vegetables, and a "knife" with which to chop them. Here he as chopping in high-speed.




The gift that defined this year was that from first-cousins-once-removed, Kate and Emily. They gave Finn an Emily train (with tender) from the Thomas collection. Finn was attached to them from that point on.


The gift set the ton for his birthday, which fed into the train obsession.

I fully acknowledge that this video is not exciting, but it shows how Finn is very intense when playing with the train and tunnel.

Unwrapping

Finn mostly liked unwrapping his presents. He would get one and say "Open". He would tear, rip, or cut any paper on any box during Christmas. So it was important to keep presents not intended for him away from him.

Here's just a sample of some of the opening ceremonies:

Finishing Chirstmas Dinner

These posts are not just a little behind schedule, they are in almost no sequential order. That disclaimer being said, here is a story about the wrap-up of Christmas dinner.

Finn has always liked fire. I suppose that is one of those things all people like and what differentiates us from apes. We (and by "we" I mean other people typically found surviving in the jungle on the Discovery Channel) can make fire and control it to provide for us.

Finn has always been impressed by our lowing out the candles too. It is almost as cool as the clapper. You can "turn off" a candle, as he says, by your mouth and not by the switch on the wall. It really must be a remarkable sight for a baby.


This was Finn's first successful time blowing out a candle. He's made the flame waiver and return, but this time he did it.

I remember that extinguishing the candles was my favorite part of Christmas dinner besides the table presents. I had to use a snuffer though.

Bag of Goodies!

Alright. It's been a busy week here and I am a little behind on the posts. Back to the Christmas stories. So Finn got a whole bag of presents and was excited about reaching in and pulling out a bunch of different things.


One of our first tasks was to get him unhitched from the Bengal's loser train. Each time we walked around the Pentagon City mall he would run into the sporting good stores and look at the hats, jerseys, and miniature athlete statutes (read dolls for boys). But the big bin of balls realy got his attention. He woud pick them up and throw them around the store. We figured that this would work well as a present and as a retraining tool.


We went to the mall a lot. It was within waking distance of our first place and had a Metro stop in it after we found this place. The mall is much better without mall traffic. Before we got our furnature delivered, it was a convenient place to let Finn run around and not cause too much trouble when there wasn't much at home.


Back to the subject at hand, Finn also got a cute sweater and matching hat. It makes him look a little elfish, which is appropriate for Christmas. The hat looks extra fetching in combination with his sunglasses.

I think that the lesson learned is that man small gifts are possibly better than a single big one for a little boy. We have to remember that.

Actual conversation

Beach: "You know the best thing about this french silk ice cream?"

Sarah: "The chocolate chips?"

Beach: "No. It reminds me of when I would go to Perkins and order a whole French Silk pie."

Sarah: "Wow. That must have been about the only good thing about your time at the Academy."

Beach: "Well, The Village Inn had some good pies too."

Tools!

Another favorite toy this Christmas was the tool set. It has screwdriver with replaceable heads and a hammer. Finn had to learn that a hammer is not be used on everything. Things such as the following are off limits: doors, people, cats.

In this picture Finn is eating a breafast scone while trying to hold every tool in the set.

He later figured out that one tool per hand makes things much easier to handle. He is also trying to sneak another whack at the door without being caught. Now the floor is about the only thing on the appoved list for hammering.


Now when he sees a screw head on something he runs over and asks for his screwdriver so that he can fix it. It'll be nice when he is old enough to actually o some of the repair chores around the house reliably. I'm sure he'll expect union wages. Right now he will do his work in exchange for a peanutbutter cracker.

Christmas Dinner

Sarah's family came down from Massachusettes this year. They run the greatest cofffee shop slash restaurant in New England, Brew Ha Ha, so dinner was guarenteed to be fantastic.

Finn ate early and we timed the meal so that it was during his nap. Not that we didn't want him to be part of the meal, but our eating schedule is longer than his. We would get half way through the meal and he'd want it to be over so we could enjoy all the fantastic flavors that were there.

Not only was it delicious, it was giant. We had ham, turkey, stuffing, potatoes, bread, asparagus, carrots, parsnips, cranberry cake, buche noel, and other stuff I can't remember.


We've made it through the left-overs, to include two soups made from the meats. Thanks again to Meme and Pappi for the food prep and help in unpacking.

Books!

A recurring theme of Finn's gifts was literature. He got several book from various people and loves them all. Here is a couple that represent broad categories.

The first is a writing book. It is filled with activities to do with a dry erase pen. Unlike the name implies, dry erase does not erase from everything, especially pants.

The second major class class of books are bard books. I used to see their utility as unrippable by a boy on my lap. Now I see that they are small enough for him to hold and thick enough for him to turn the pages.


Finn is read about 6 books a day, so they are always very appreciated. He has a decent library. He as begun filling in the next words in some of the more worn books. I hope he doesn't mind sharing them with his brother.

Sunglasses!

Opening his stocking was a great experience for Finn. Unlike last year, he completely understood that the contents were for him. There was genuine excitement at what would come next.



Sarah's parents were in town to see the unwrapping first hand and my parents got on the trusty webcam and watched from far away. There was only a sight hiccup in getting the connection working and in the end the videoconference worked well.

The first of his big gifts was his sunglasses. He saw these sunglasses in a store a couple weeks before Christmas and was very excited to wear them. Sarah told him that they should take them up to the register and tell the cashier to tell Santa that Finn wants them. By all appearances the cashier has a direct line to Santa.

Immediately after removing his new sunglasses from the stocking Finn put them on and only took them off yesteday. In case you can't tell from the picture, they have little turtles on the legs and they are super cool.


Finn loves the sunglasses and reminds us every day to put them on as we go outside, regardless of the weather. It seems that the intensity of the light is only a secondary reason to fashion.

In this shot we're waiting at the Metro stop ready to explore, eyes protected, and head warm (also a Christmas gift - this one from Great-Aunt Debbie and Great-Uncle Jeff in NY). In the photo is another favorite Christmas gift, Emily the train from Thomas and Friends, sent by Finn's cousins Emily (Seattle) and Kate (NYC).


Perhaps the boy will be a fashion forward kind of guy. Perhaps he will be a poker player. He'll definitely be protected from UV waves.

Early Present

The Christmas gift giving season lasted several days this year. Some gifts were mailed and took longer than expected, and one came early. While unpacking I came across our old camera that no longer worked. I thought that Finn may like to play with it and have it as his on camera.

It turns out I was right. He ran around all week "taking pictures" of us. He likes the flip out screen and the spin dial the most. This way he can choose the best way to capture the events and share them with all the friends and relatives who weren't with us this year.

As a side note, you can see Pibb walk through the background of the movie. I haven't given an update on him in a while, but he is doing well and staying in shape by running from Finn. Finn thinks that it is fun to chase Pibb, pull tails, and smash with a toy. The good side is that Pibb can generally outrun Finn, especially up the stairs. That means that Finn can only cause trouble if he uses surprise or guile to reach Pibb.

The Christmas Tree

It was a Christmas miracle. We had no idea where to go to find a real Christmas tree so we pulled out of our garage and I saw a string of bulbs glowing through the Metro tunnel behind our house. That could only mean one thing: a tree lot.

We drove over to look at what was left so late in the season and saw only a few were available. The sale was put on by the Alexandria Police Department to raise money for their youth camp. The cop who was running the lot came over to greet us an said that all the 8+ foot tall trees were 50% off. He said that no one wanted them and that he would be stuck with them. He also said that few people had a ceiling high enough to accommodate such a big tree. Having just moved into a townhouse with 12' ceilings, when took it as a sign and agreed to take one of the monsters off the lot for him.

When we brought it home, Finn was a little confused. He was also a little sad that it wasn't as pretty as the other trees in the neighborhood.

Luckily we had a bunch of boxes of Christmas decorations that could be used to fix the situation. Although Sarah was pretty sick, her mom and I were able to make the prettiest tree in all of Virginia. After it was decorated Finn looked a lot less sad.

So the stage was set for a great Christmas. The tree's wide branches provided plenty of room for all the presents that would assembly Christmas Eve. Sarah got better after a day. The only hiccup was that the bottom string of lights had the front half stop working soon after we put them on. However, that was only 1/16th of the 800 lights on the tree. It couldn't ruin Christmas.

Christmas Season

I'm sure everyone is desperately waiting to see the Christmas pictures. We have finally gotten the pictures off the cameras and they will come coming days. There is too much to dump into one post.

This is the start of the season. Christmas in DC is a fantastic place to be. The stores have displays in the windows, the tress are all decorated, and the streets are filled with people. Sometimes you can hear "Silver Bells" playing in your head. Well, I can.

This was taken at Union Station. There is a giant tree brought in by the Norwegians that looks way better than the tree by the White House. The White House tree is covered by netting that pulls it into a lumpy lop-sided shape.


They have a Santa's Workshop at the Ellipse and allow people to come visit and share their gift list with Santa. We went in and Finn was more interested in the train circling at the top of the workshop than in Santa. They also will take your picture with Santa.


The picture is about perfect. Finn is fixated on the train, Sarah is worried about him and trying to get him to pay attention to the camera, and I am just trying to get through the picture and worry about the train situation afterward.

The other thing there to see was the burning yule log. It was a nice touch of warm on a cold night and sent glowing embers into the night sky.

So yes, DC is a great place for Christmas. And yes, the pictures will soon be up. It was fantastic, but I don't want to ruin the suspense right now.

Le Deuxieme Update

Our second son is doing well and has passed the halfway point now. We had the first appointment here in DC and got an ultrasound to see what was going on. We found out that the second is a boy.


We're very excited that he's a boy. Boys are fun. Plus we got a bunch of boy stuff already. Not that he'll never get new things, but we won't have to get almost all new stuff. That includes a bedroom. We figure that they can share that too.

I'm sure that they'll get in each other's hair and not like it. I figure if I have to share my room, they should too. Speaking of which, my roommate is looking more pregnant. She's feeling good to except for the nighttime fatigue and heartburn.

So everyone is doing great and excited for the things to come.

Train Fixation

Finn is absolutely obsessed with trains. Perhaps it can be traced back to his first birthday party. The party was train themed and even had a train cake.

However it happened, he it train-crazy. If things are going poorly, we just have to ask if he wants to go in the train (Metro) and things are better. A great place to see trains is the American History Museum. Of course a major part of our American history is the railroad and there is a great exhibit showing that history.


With the Christms season, there are many more trains around town than in the rest of the year. One of those exhibits was at the Botanical Gardens. A train set runs through a miniature village built of bark and other natural materials.


Another season train was at Union Station. The Norweigian Embassy sponsors a Christmas train set. The scenery is set with mountains, cave, trolls, and even a radar station.


No matter where the train or how big it is, Finn is completely enchanted by them. He has his own trains at home and makes tunnels out of anything for them to go through. All h needs now is a conductor's hat.

Natural History Museum

We brought Finn over to the Natural History Museum for a mornign adventure. We got to see the dinosaur skeletons, but Finn liked the ocean exhibit better. This picture s from the transition from the dinosaurs to the ocean, fittingly filled with oceanic dinosuars.


The ocean area had pickled fish and live aquariums. Finn ran up to the aquariums to watch the fish. There were many other kids there, all as enthusiastic about fish as he was.


The museums all seem to be much bigger than his attention span is long. That has the benefit of making multiple visits without seeing the same exibits many times. I can see that being a benefit not just for the kids, but for the parents making the trip as well.