Tickle Toes

There are two games that are played over and over again right now, "Tickle Toes" and "Who's coming to get Finnbar?" Tickle Toes consists of Finn crawling over and grabbing our toes while we laugh as he "tickles" us. This gives him endless amusement. Who's coming to get Finnbar is most enjoyed by Sean and Finn. Finn will begin to crawl out of a room. Sean will ask, "Who's coming to get Finnbar?" and crawl after him. This ends with Finn crawling away and laughing hysterically. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten the best video of this one, but the following should suffice. Hopefully you can catch Finn's maniacal cackle of a laugh in both. And you should be most impressed by Finn's standing up in the Tickle Toes video!

Sweet Glorious Sleep

I haven't talked about sleep in a long while. I stopped talking about it because it was awful and I was frankly tired of repeating the same story every time someone asked. Every night was the same and none of us were getting good restful sleep. We put Finn down and on occasion we would get 2 hours before his first wake up, but often he would wake up every half hour until we go to bed and then end up co-sleeping. We were okay with this for awhile because while we didn't get a lot of sleep co-sleeping, it was still better than not. Well, in the past month even co-sleeping hasn't been cutting it. Finn would still wake up often and it was getting harder and harder to soothe him back down. When we were at the apartment, I could go to the living room and cuddle him on the couch or just let him play until he got tired again, but when we moved to the new house, we had nowhere to go in the middle of the night since the place was carpeted in boxes. This left us struggling with a lot of sleepless nights. Now, there is seriously a reason that sleep deprivation is a torture technique. It is terrible and affects everything. Sean and I were in such terrible moods. Well, I have been working very hard on getting Finn into a more regular routine here at the house and always putting him in his crib for naps. Then, after months of Finn refusing to be comforted by Sean in the middle of the night, he suddenly decided that Dad is just fine for a good cuddle. So, two nights ago, Sean and I decided to try to keep Finn in his crib through the entire night. I was leery of this, expecting to not get any sleep. I like to go to bed earlier than Sean, so he took the bedtime to midnight shift and then I took it after. We discovered the first night that Finn needs a light on. When Sean went to turn off the light in the kitchen which gives light into Finn's room, he woke up more often, but when we left the light on, he tended to sleep longer. That first night, Finn woke up just two times during Sean's shift and went back down pretty quickly. Then, he woke up at 1am, it took me one hour to get him back into his crib, but then he slept til 5am! Then, last night, he had a hard time getting to sleep, but after that he only woke up twice during Sean's shift (11pm and 11:30pm) going back down quite quickly. Then, he slept until 3am! I went to bed at 10 and so I got 5 blissful hours of uninterrupted sleep. It has literally been 9 months since I have gotten that much sleep in a row! And, I was able to get Finn back to sleep in a 1/2 hour and he slept until 5:30am! I had a hard time going back to sleep after I got him down, but I would say I got another 1 hr and a 1/2 in! I feel magnificent. I have been floating on a cloud all morning. You don't realize how much you are affected by disrupted sleep until you get a good rest. I am ecstatic. I realize two nights does not constitute a pattern, but I do pray we are on a good course and things only get better from here.

9 Months

Little Finnbar is 9 months old today! It may be silly, but this month seems like a big deal to me seeing as he has now been in the world for longer than the pregnancy. I don't know how to describe it. At any rate, I can't believe it. Seriously, since he hit six months the time has been flying by, punctuated by how quickly he is changing. He is a crawling champ and has moved mostly to bear crawling with his feet. He pulls up on anything and everything.
Often when he pulls up he will let go with his hands and stand on his own. He has gone for a full minute before he plops down to his bottom. This is the best picture I have been able to get of it thus far. He is playing with the tape on the box:
He has been quite the help with unpacking, anxious to get into everything:We have moved up to three meals a day and Finn is really enjoying food these days. He finally embraced it when we gave up on purees and started with finger food. But he is even more enthusiastic now that we are giving him large pieces of food that he can gum down. I was inspired by reading a lot about baby led weaning. It is simply the philosophy of giving your baby the control in the solid introduction process and it makes so much sense. I wish I knew about it before as it would have saved me some anxiety when Finn flat out refused purees. I have joined a facebook discussion group that is really great if anyone is interested. Here is Finn at the old apartment enjoying some broccoli. He loves it!
We have been loving our new house. Finn feels very comfortable crawling from room to room. I know you are all anxious for pictures, but we are just not put together enough yet. I swear I will get some up soon. We made some great progress painting and getting through some boxes this weekend. We have also been taking full advantage of our amazing yard. Both Finn and Lily are in their element.
Finn loves getting into Lily's water bowl:
Finn still loves pulling grass:
We were very excited to expand our baby-wearing capabilities as my friend Mandy sent me some of her beautiful woven wraps to try. I have really enjoyed back wraps. It frees up my hands and still gives Finn a cozy place to be when he wants to be held. I have successfully gone walking, made dinner, and picked blueberries with him on my back now. I am getting quite good at wrapping him by myself, but I have only mastered this one carry thus far. There are a lot of options that I am going to try. You-tube is great for learning these techniques!
We were really excited to put our bird feeder in the yard. We just have it hanging from a tree now. The first bird we saw to visit it was a purple finch, which just so happens to be the state bird of NH.
We also have a lot of gold finches:
So, we were welcomed fully into home ownership last night. Our water runs very hot so Sean went down to the basement to see if he could adjust the thermostat on the water heater. We haven't been down there for a week since the bubble up radon mitigation system was installed. Well, Sean came up from the basement around 9pm last night to inform me that there was 6 inches of standing water in the basement! Ah! The bubble up system was spewing water out of itself. And the old sump pump that the previous owners left wouldn't even turn on. So, on Finn's 9-month birthday Sean stayed home to buy a new sump pump, install it, and muck out the basement. We are awaiting a call from the radon guy to figure out where things went awry. Good times!

Back Online

Hi! We are back online, but still in the utter chaos of boxes everywhere. I know it will take awhile to get it all put away and we are just doing it bit by bit as we have free moments. It is tough as we are trying to establish a routine for Finn too. It will be a little while before I get some pictures up, but be patient and stay tuned, they will come eventually.

I am so happy to be here. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this house. I feel like I was always meant to live here. It is so peaceful and quiet. No sirens, no crazy fighting neighbors, no drugs dealers or prostitutes (oh, those Akron days...). Life in the country is good! Our mailman came to the door and introduced himself and welcomed us. Our neighbors are leaving this weekend and told us to check their garden for fresh veg while they were gone. Everyone is so friendly. It is truly idyllic thus far.

Moving Truck is Booked!

Okay, NH friends (and anyone else who wants to make the trip), we have booked our moving truck for Saturday, July 25th (one week from tomorrow) from 8am to 5pm. We are seeking strong, enthusiastic, potentially masochistic individuals who would enjoy spending their Saturday lifting and carrying boxes and large bits of furniture down a steep flight of stairs to load a truck in the morning and subsequently unloading said truck into our new digs in the afternoon. We will fill you with pizza and beer and many thanks. Give us a call if you can lend a hand in the morning or afternoon!

Bathroom Remodel

In the new house, the bathroom could use some work. The shower walls are in need of replacement. Sean and I figured this could be something we could do down the road. But then I saw this article in Country Living magazine. They use corrugated metal as a shower backsplash. I love the idea. What do you think? Could our tiny bathroom pull it off? Is it one of those projects that looks easy in a magazine, but then becomes a nightmare? I don't know about the cutting of it to get the faucet through, etc. Any handy people out there with tips?

Weekend Recap

It was a beautiful weekend in NH after all the rain! We made the most of it. Sean was able to get Friday off and we headed to the house to begin painting. We got 3 rooms primed which was a good start:


On Saturday we headed to the seacoast for the Portsmouth Harbor 5K. We met up with Jon and Kate and Annalise. Jon ran the race with Annalise in the jogging stroller and I ran solo. Sean and Kate cheered us on. I was really pleased with my race. I have finally begun to see some improvement in my running. I did it in 27:32 (8:52/mi pace) and came in 15/50 for my age group. The best part is I felt good throughout the race and in the end felt like I could have pushed it more. I am ready to get serious again and start adding in some speed workouts to try to get back to my pre-pregnancy times. I am looking at a 5k at the end of August and after that, I would like to start upping the mileage, perhaps setting my sights on the Manchester Half Marathon in November. I do think running with the jogging stroller has helped me gain some strength. It is great.

After the race we headed over to Jon and Kate's. Annalise shared her playroom with Finn and they had a good time:



We went to a bbq that afternoon at one of Sean's work friend's house. We met a lot of great people and Finn decided he really liked bocce ball:
On Sunday, we headed back to the house for more painting and Sean mowed the lawn. Sean's friend from work gave us an old mower that he had and it worked great, although 4/5 of an acre is quite a bit of mowing and took about 3 hours!

We got the bedroom painted and I LOVE the color. I'll post pics when all the painting and trim is done. Sean left for NY this morning and will be gone til Thursday, so it is up to Finn and I to pack, pack, pack. Ugh, my least favorite part!