Cat's in the cradle

I used to idealize business travel. Expense accounts and frequent flier miles were something to look forward to, but these days I would much rather spend my time in my own bed, listening to Finn discuss current events with his Hootie owl over the baby monitor, than I would trying to figure out how to discreetly hack into the hotel neighbor's wi-fi.

I haven't had to travel for work since Finn was born, but that streak ended last week when I made it from Seattle to London to NYC and back inside 5 days and 2 hours, 5 days and 1 hour of which were spent in the air. This was by far the longest that I'd been away from the boy and in that span of time he has started shaving, been married (twice) and retired after a successful career as Journey's fourth lead singer.

He's also got a new word ("wa-wa", which we're pretty sure means either "flower" or "convenience store") and has mastered the art of mountaineering.

He was already starting to climb before I left, having summitted Mount Jungle Gym down at the park and regularly perching himself in the mini easy chair in the bedroom, but he is now legitimately climbing stairs - using feet instead of knees. He's also able to pull a wicked Luke Perry on the gliding ottoman in his bedroom.

That thrills me to no end and not just because I love to see him having that much fun. It's also because I really love Luke Perry.

It's good to be home.

Yes man

Most of the time, Finn is a very agreeable dude. Pretty much always, with the exception of feeding time which he still hates with every ounce of his being most days. Or at least it seems that way. Perhaps it's our fault, though. Maybe we're just not giving him what he's asking for -- which is a difficult thing to determine since he's not great at communicating beyond the banshee wail.

He does have words, like "yeah" and "dad" but I'm not sure he's really using them appropriately.

For instance, "dad" is any light fixture. The dome light in the car is dad, the lights in the kitchen are dad. Sometimes, even the sunshine is dad. I don't mind, I just wish these other dads would kick in for daycare or at least change a diaper every once in a while. Deadbeats.

As for "yeah", he can be counted to use it as a response to almost any question:

Do you like pepperoni pizza? Yeah.
Do you think Mommy is hotter than Megan Fox? Yeah.
Do you think Daddy is better looking and has more range to his right than Derek Jeter? Yeah.

He nailed the first two, but the last one made it clear that he has no idea what he's talking about.

He's thrown around some other sounds that could be words, including "Cash" for the cat and "hot" for the stove, but that may just be wishful thinking. Either way, he's getting closer, which can mean only one thing. Unless I want his first words to all have four letters, I'm going to have to start watching my mouth around the house.

Parenting is hard.

Maniac, maniac on the couch

Let me state for the record that we did not dress him in this outfit. This is how he returned from daycare. Given how his head has sprouted little blond wings, I'm not surprised they're getting confused about his gender. You can't see his socks, but they're yellow with Southwest designs.

My boy Tim would not approve.


Since this picture won't be embarrassing enough for the future Yankee shortstop*, check out his dance moves in this outfit. Ladies and gentlemen, I present Finnifer Beals in "Couchdance".

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* No pressure.

Bacon!

Look who loves him some bacon.

Back in the before time, when I was getting psyched up for the Ninja's arrival, there were two activities that occupied the majority of my time:

1. Getting drunk.
2. Deciding which of my numerous obsessions to pass on to the boy.

Number 1 was easy. Just ask Kitty. Number 2 was a little trickier, since the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I didn't really care if his preferences matched mine. For instance, I didn't really care if he was a Yankees fan, provided he pretended to be one while around me by wearing a Yankee hat, praising John Sterling's play-by-play and reverently rubbing the piece of Babe Ruth's jersey in the Yankee shrine in the basement. The same would have applied to bacon worship.

Of course, it's better when things work out for real.

Not that it's that surprising that he would be into bacon. After all, he's not a commie.

Bruiser

The alert Fussy Ninja readers (Hi Mom!) have no doubt picked up on the new additions here on the blog. For those of you reading the email updates, the Ninja has sold out and we now have ads. That future Adderall addiction isn't going to pay for itself. Of course, the ads only make money if people visit the site and that's just not going to happen if I'm only posting once every 10-days.

Since it's been so long, I've actually got stuff to report. First off, the fever I alluded to way back when turned out to have been the result of an ear infection that we let fester in the little guy's skull for days without treating. It turns out that he's only fussy for non-important stuff. If a disease is eating away his ear canal, it just makes him a little sleepy. We didn't want to get the "first-time parent" side-eye from the doctor, so we just kept him home until he eventually stopped eating. That'll learn us. Now I'm the only one in the family not on antibiotics. I feel so left out.

Grandma Parker also stopped by to spend a week with us. In addition to helping with the cooking, cleaning and daycare she decided to toughen up Finny and gave him his first black eye. If you look closely at the picture above, you can barely make out the remnants of it over his right eye. He's the one on the left.

Truthfully, it wasn't G'ma's fault. We had been talking up how good Finn was at going down stairs and how cautious he is in general. In fact, he's so cautious that he's been known to walk downhill backwards and he'll get on his knees and turn around to descend a 3-in. step. I take no credit for this - it's all Kitty's doing. If it were up to me, the only skills we'd be practicing would be couch jumping, Ninja tossing and CSI-watching. Mommy, however, chose to focus on the productive skills and as such, Finn can almost be trusted around open staircases completely unassisted.

Almost.

Turns out that his depth perception still isn't that great, particularly when the stairs out behind our house are all painted the same color and there are lots of things to distract him. Turn your back for one second and he's introducing his eyebrows to each step as he rolls down.

I think G'ma was more traumatized than Finn. To make up for it, she continued making dinner and providing free daycare for the remainder of the week.

I think Finn and I are going to have to practice this fall down the stairs thing some more before MeMa Finn gets here in August.

Happy Mother's Day!

The Ninja would like to give a big fussy shout-out to all the Moms out there on the interwebs. Moms are the ones that fix us up when we're broke. They're the first smile in the morning and the last kiss at night.

And they're really, really good at cleaning up poopy diapers.

So Happy Mother's Day, Moms! May you all enjoy one poopy-diaper-free day! *

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* Except for you, Kitty. Your Mother's Day doesn't really start until I get home from Portland, so there will likely be at least one diaper bomb with your name on it.

Sorry. I owe you (another) one.

Follow-up

I need to follow-up the last post with a couple of late-breaking items:

1. Finn has been running a fever for the past 5 days (more on that later). For the most part, it hasn't affected him and he's been his normal cheery self. The other night, though, he woke up crying and didn't go back to sleep like he normally does. Kitty quietly got a dropper of Tylenol and sneaked it into his open cry-hole. Though half-asleep and crying from a 103 degree fever in a pitch black room, Finn still mustered the energy to reward her with an "aaaaah".

2. A comment on the post from Shana:

"You know, I grew up thinking (via Kris) that if you took a drink without saying "ahhh" you would die... Finn is just surviving!"

Since Finn is working so hard at surviving, we figured we'd do our part too and got him some protective head gear. He is now impervious to wet pasta and boiled vegetables, though he can still get very wet.