And Now You Are Eight

Dear Finn,
Today at 10:58am EST, you turned eight years old. It's hard to believe! I bet I'll still be writing that when you're 16...

When Declan turned eight, he seemed so grown up. To me, you are still so young--probably the difference between the first born and the "baby." Although you'd slug me if you heard me call you that.

Unlike your brother, who burst into the world upside down and two weeks early, you were perfectly content to hang out until week 40 when the doctor finally had to bring you out forcibly! It was a sign that you were going to be an amiable kid and a great sleeper. I rarely got to rock you to sleep--you conked out so quickly, no rocking was necessary. When you could walk, when you were tired and ready to sleep, you went right to your crib and stood there until we put you in.


Your Birth Day: Your big brother was so curious about you!

Your hair wasn't curly right away. It was very lightly red and the curls started showing up when you were about 8 months old.


You could spit up like nobody's business.

As you got older, you got curlier. People came up to me in the grocery store and touched your hair. When you were old enough to realize what was happening, you were a little freaked out.

As I looked back through my files for pictures for this post, there were so many that just made me smile or even laugh out loud. You were so YOU from the very beginning. As I look at pictures of you over the years, I still see so much of the same you.

Some of my favorites:




You smiled ALL the time. We called it the Finn Grin. This was your first haircut.







Some of them crack me up just because YOU'RE cracking up. Like you're years older and laughing at some inside joke that only you know about.






And then other times, you're just adorable. Can I still call you adorable?


This picture is so totally you. Still.


I love your gusto.



It seems like you've barely changed. But of course you have. As of this birthday, you have lived more than half of your life in Colorado. It's hard for me to imagine that you don't really remember Ohio and your first three years and 10 months there.

And today you are eight. Eight is great.






You are funny, smart, impatient, energetic, curious, sometimes a stinker, sometimes a little teaser and instigator, imaginative, loving (but I dare not try and give you a smooch!), and you can make me go from ready to strangle you to wanting to hug you in a single bound.

You are The Mighty Finn--a superhero in your right.



You are eight. And it is so lovely.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

Because it's October and I figured I'd better finally write about it.

There were so many pictures to upload--that's why it's taken me so long. Whatever Kodak Gallery has done to its site, I don't like it. Stuff takes forever and putting picture titles on there is totally cumbersome. The problem is that I don't want to switch to a new service because I have so many things archived on their site. So wah wah wah. I'm dealing with it already.

The boys and I were on the road for three weeks and a day in July/August. That was a long time. But it was a great trip. We saw a lot of people, took a lot of pictures, as you'll see, and we were ready to come home at the end. That's the best kind of trip in my book.

I'll link you out to the pictures at the end, but here's a rundown of what we did.

Ohio
We were flying out of Denver so we took the opportunity to drive down the day before our flight and go to the Denver Museum of Natural History and Science. That might not be the actual name, but close enough. It was the second time the boys and I had been there and the first time for Eamonn, so it was fun for them to see it with him. Many of the exhibits are permanent, but they have some good rotating ones. In fact, it always cracks me up when I think about something a friend said once, "There's a good exhibit on natural disasters this month." It just struck me as funny.

We also squeezed in a clinic visit the day we left.

And then we were on our way. The boys love the whole airport/flying/travel process. Me? Not so much. But I do it to get from here to there.

Ohio was hot this year. Ridiculously hot. Last year, the weather was so nice, we often turned off the air conditioning. This year--no way. In fact, the boys frequently walked around saying things like, "Why is the air so heavy? The air makes me sleepy." I felt much the same.

We did have some rain, which was nice. I miss rainstorms here. So we went to see a movie. Something about Cats and Dogs who were spies. I fell asleep.

We saw tons of family and friends, including spending the night at my Grandpa's. They don't have air conditioning. And as much as I wanted to bark at the kids to get outside and play while we were there, I didn't badger them too much because after 8am, it was mostly miserable to be outside. We did help Grandpa fix an electric fence that was down--and I will mention briefly here thay my sweet Grandpa put my hand on a fence THAT WAS STILL LIVE--but I won't hold it against him. For much longer. He also took the boys on a tractor ride which is really their favorite thing. Right after eating homemade ice cream.

We went to the Ohio State Fair again. I think I talked briefly about that when I did a few posts at Mom's. I was hungover. It was a difficult day.

Eamonn arrived. We went to a water park. That was very fun. I sunburned my chest. That wasn't fun.

Virginia
Our trip to Virginia was in two parts: Norfolk for Eamonn's cousin's wedding and Williamsburg for family vacation time.

I really liked Norfolk. It, of course, sits right on the water, which I dig. I like being able to see the ocean or other large bodies of water. The focus was the wedding, which was beautiful and please note I didn't take any pictures for some reason (mostly because the purse I took was too small to hold the camera). We had a great time with Eamonn's cousins, some of whom we hadn't seen in awhile. We did have some time on Saturday morning to visit the USS Wisconsin and the attached museum, which the boys loved.

I went and got a pedicure. Which I loved.

And then we went on to Williamsburg.

Which I totally loved.

I did wonder if Finn would be too young to appreciate it. He wasn't. Both boys had a great time, as did we. There is so much to see there. We did the different locations in chronological order, based on when they were settled/took place:

1. Jamestown--Sunday
2. Williamsburg--Monday, Tuesday (and then I went back and did a walk through Wednesday evening)
3. Yorktown--Wednesday

I read about doing it that way in a book or on a website or something. I don't know if it made any difference to the boys--I think maybe they looked at the whole thing as just a bunch of people dressed in costumes in three different locations.

Whatever. It was fun.

So if you're wondering about taking your kids to Williamsburg--do it. However, don't go in August. In fact, I recommend October through December. The last time I went, it was October 1990 and my friend Karen and I went. We had a great time, but even in October, it was pretty humid. Of course, a hurricane had just rolled through. I laugh looking back at the pictures, some of which are pratically duplicated for our 2010 trip.

The saving grace of our trip was the $10 souvenir mug which you could use for unlimited refills of various and sundry drinks. My kids drank more high fructose corn syrup laden lemonade in the two days we walked around Williamsburg than they have in their entire life.

It was hot, people. Oppressively hot. At one point, after lunch on the second day in Williamsburg, it was so hot I wanted to lie down and scream. But I figured that might be bad for morale, so I didn't. You'll see how sweaty we look when you see the pictures.

A huge, huge highlight of going to Williamsburg was getting to meet blog friends, Beth and Hannah. Beth had been providing me with Williamsburg advice prior to our trip. Her son attends William and Mary and they live about 90 miles away, so they've been to Williamsburg a time or ten. In fact, I believe Beth told me Hannah was "over" Williamsburg, which made me laugh. After four days in the heat in the area, I was over it, too! So Beth and Hannah graciously drove 90 miles to meet us! It was very exciting and we had a great time visiting.

And I'll tell you something else--after weeks of "quality family time"--the boys were so excited to have someone else to talk to. They enjoyed showing off their swimming and diving skills for Hannah. I think they were so relieved to have an audience who appreciated them and wasn't lecturing saying things like, "don't splash me, you're being too loud! Don't run around the pool!" etc. Ah, parenthood.

Anyway, our whole sweaty summer vacation is available for viewing HERE. Kick back, relax and enjoy with an ice cold glass of high fructose corn syrup.

Or hot chocolate now that it's October.

We Interrupt this Dinner for a Few Questions

So last night the phone rang at exactly 6pm. Exactly 6pm. I was right in the middle of fixing dinner. Who calls at exactly 6pm?

It was someone doing a poll about the elections. Ugh.

I'm embarrassed to say that I have no clue who I will be voting for and was mortified to think that I was going to have to answer questions about the candidates.

One time, a reporter was trying to interview me for an article about local candidates. I had to decline the interview because I was so clueless.

Anyway, back to the 6pm phone call.

I always try to take part in those phone surveys because my minor in graduate school was consumer behavior and that's how you get your information--surveying people. So I try to take one for the team and answer questions when I can.

I asked how long the survey would take, given that I was in the middle of making dinner and was using a knife. There are many well-documented circumstances of me trying to talk and cook at the same time and it never ends well.

The survey woman said it would take 5 minutes.

OK, I could spare 5 minutes.

We started the questions.

Immediately, I was annoyed. The survey woman had such a heavy African accent that I literally couldn't even understand the candidates' names. Now, I know I said I was clueless about who I was going to vote for, but I at least know their names and I was completely unable to understand who she was talking about.

The survey dragged on.

I gave some flippant answers, including one that asked me to give my opinion about the ethics of the various candidates.

"They're all crooks."

She also wanted to know who I was voting for. Even though I didn't know, I wouldn't have told her if I did. Isn't this why we have secret balloting?

She kept asking. I kept replying, "I'm not going to tell you that."

I'm sure it was annoying.

Ten minutes later, I asked how many questions were left because it didn't feel like we were reaching closure.

She told me in an impatient voice, "Just a few more."

Truthfully, I wanted to hang up at this point. We were long past the 5 minutes, and I was having to concentrate so hard to try and figure out what she was saying that I'd had to abandon my efforts to make dinner.

Really. Annoying.

Finally the call ended, 15 minutes after it started. And I have to say, I was totally bugged, not only that I spent all of that time on the phone and dinner was delayed, but that a survey company would give a phone job to someone with such difficulty in pronouncing key elements of the survey--like the candidates names. Doesn't that seem like it should be a very basic thing?

It's got me all riled up. This is me. Riled.