About 3 pounds of hair gone

I set out to lose a certain amount of weight before cutting my beard, and then I decided that it would be when I finished a certain task and then it just had to wait until Jen and Ben arrived. Well Jen and Ben are here, so it was time. After growing out my beard for real starting in September I have trimmed it down to just a slight dusting instead of the full on homeless beggar beard. It feels good and a lot sad to see it go but it was time. What do you think?

happy me day

Beautiful made me and my dad a shirt with the boys silhouettes. It is kinda awesome even though it looks like they are squaring off for a no holds barred battle royal. Beautiful seems to think that is a bad thing that it looks that way but I see that as a feature. I got to sleep in until nearly 11 after a late night of partying, err..., going to the Drive-In. When I got up we went to The Cup and Saucer in Kenton and had a tasty brunch. After brunch Finn and I went into a great little bookstore in old Town and I got a book on Beginning chess so I can get me some culture. Chess is a smart people game so I am going to fake it till I make it. The boys don't know about the contrived holiday yet but they were very loving. I got to lay down with Finn as he woke up from his nap. He counted the freckles and moles on my arm as he told me stories. We had a nice dinner on the back porch with my sister Zonda, brother in law James, my mom, and our housemates. It was a really nice day, thank you Beautiful!

henry, daddy, and the light

We went on a man walk today. Just the dudes doing manly things like playing in fountains and eating Mexican food. Jesse and I filled our strollers with supplies and strapped in our boys for a little trip downtown. We took the train two stops down and then walked over the Broadway bridge to Jamison Square park where they have a fountain that Finn had played in before. Finn was tentative at first but joined the throng of kids splashing around. Henry had been completely worn out by the arduous trip over the bridge in the stroller and napped for the first part of the water time. After some head on collisions with other kids and a good soak we hopped the street car to 23rd Ave and got some food at Santa Fe. Henry ate his body weight in Carnitas and Finn snapped 30-40 pictures on the camera, mostly of cars. The picture above is one of Finn's creations at a new shop that Jesse wanted stop at. Apparently he didn't get the memo about this being a dude walk. People were already marking out their spots for the Rose Parade tonight as we took the street car back to the train and then headed back home. It was a good walk for us and the boys ended up both sleeping for three and half hours so they got nice and worn out too. Finn went for his first movie in the theatre with mommy and Henry and I watched the Eastern Conference close out game. He wanted Lebron to pull it off but I told him he had to be patient. I was right and Henry cried, he takes these games too personally.

He is cute, I am not

Today while playing on the floor with his trucks Finn Said " Mommy I enjoy interaction!" The thing is someone on the TV just said that and he was repeating it but it cracked us up. It is true, he enjoys interaction and is always trying to get us to play with him.
A couple of days ago we were in the car coming back from the mall and I was feeling a bit defeated. We had gotten a bill for medical stuff that happened last year and should have been covered by the insurance that Kate had at the time but wasn't. It was the latest in pile of bills that come when you think you might finally be doing well. Anyway I was moody and quiet and trying to explain to Kate why while Finn asked question after question in the back seat. I told him to wait a minute while daddy was talking and he kept asking and asking. I snapped at him "Finn I need you to SHUT UP for 2 minutes!" and even before the words left my mouth I felt like an ass. Finn clammed right up, not saying another word for a minute and then saying to Kate, "Daddy says shut up Finn." I turned and to him and told him I was very sorry for saying that, I was wrong and should not have said that to him. He said "It's OK daddy." Later while we were driving he said "Sometimes daddy says no, and sometimes daddy says shut up." I wanted to cry, I know I will say and do terrible things but knowing that doesn't take the sting out of it when you have just done it.

Timeouts = No more Trucks

When he is naughty he goes to timeout. He has a chair in his room that is his Timeout chair. When he screams, hits Jake or Henry, throws toys he goes to timeout. It didn't seem to be working, going to timeout means attention. We go in there and try to explain why he is in trouble and he gets one on one time with mommy or daddy. We are angry and he is meant to be punished but to him it as time of his own so he would try to go to timeout. We had to change it up a bit and not give him special attention during the timeout but that still wasn't enough. So e decided that toys would be taken away to reinforce the timeout. I explained to Finn about consequences, I kno he doesn't understand completely but you have to start and be consistent so we started. Do something naughty, go to timeout and get one toy taken away, and not just any toy a truck. The first day he lost 4 of his trucks, the next he lost 3. His toy box was getting pretty bare of quality vehicles. When we ran out of trucks we took away his stroller. We got to the point here he had no more trucks or toys of any kind that were uniquely his. Do we take away his books now? On Friday Finn had a good day. It was 3 in the afternoon and no timeouts for the whole day. We told him that if he made it to dinner with no timeouts he could have 5 trucks back. We had been given him trucks back when he did good things like coming when we called him or sharing with Jake but this was an epic day. He made it to after dinner with no timeouts and him and I excitedly went to the garage to the box where confiscated toys live and pulled out his five favorite trucks: The red pickup truck, the mail truck, the green jeep like Aunt Bum's, the cement truck, and the Gator. He also negotiated the release of his stroller and for the next two hours played with these things all ove rthe house. We didn't hear a peep from him until it was time to skype with Grandma and Papa. It really was great to get to reward instead of punish. Saturday was another pretty good day, had a timeout but nothing to bad and this morning I told Finn that if he goes the whole day without a timeout then he can all of his trucks back. The monster trucks, buses, transformers, and the rest. He got really excited thinking about he beloved trucks and ent off playing. I had Henry in my lap watching football at 7:30 in the morning and Finn comes up with his Mail truck and smacks Henry in the head above his right eye. Got him good, like they were in a bar fight. I immediately brought Finn to timeout where he screamed and tried to smack me. I sat him in the chair and he screamed with all his might. Meanwhile Henry was crying like crazy in the living room waking up Kate from her sleep in day. I went and got three trucks to take away and went in and let Finn know that he could no longer play with these anymore. He sat in timeout until he stopped screaming, almost ten minutes. I don't get it, why does he take a truck and nail Henry in the head as part of playing. He might have been jealous but he was getting just as much attention, I just don't get it. It has been a rough morning.

The new stutter

Finn has started stuttering in the last couple of days. He repeats the first word of sentence 5 or six times, sometimes more. It is heart wrenching to hear. I feel bad for him, worried, even a little frustrated sometimes when it takes so long to get out what he is trying to say and that makes me feel incredibly guilty. It is so strange how it all started about Tuesday afternoon. Before that he was spitting out sentences pretty clearly. He has trouble with his "L" and he replaces his "S" with an "F" but you could understand what he was saying and he was stringing a number of words together. I did some reading online about stuttering and toddlers and it is pretty common. Most sites say that all kids go through some form of stuttering as they are going through changes in the amount of words they know and the amount that they can effectively communicate. While it is pretty normal it could also mean that he will continue to stutter. I learned to let him get out what he wants to say without rushing him or anticipating. Then show that I understand him be repeating back what he said: "Maybe maybe maybe maybe get maybe get the truck off the table." "You want to get the truck off of the table?" It helps to have something to remember and reinforce so that I don't just feel helpless. We will wait and see how Finn continues to develop, he doesn't seem to get too upset about the stuttering and he powers through with what he wants to say.

Our Family

Lazy Tuesday

While waiting for our car to be fixed and word from some promising interviews Finn and I had nap is Stumptown.