17 Months

I'm only 9 days late.  That's not that bad.



I really love this picture and his little sneaky smirk.  And I really love what is happening at 17 months.

Finley's tentative walk has morphed into a uncontrollable "run".  He likes to spin in circles and lean on things.  It's fun to watch him figure out how all his little parts work together.

He says a lot of gibberish, but some of his favorites are: keys, shoes, door, dog, dada, I love you and a few animal sounds.  He's been doing a little bit of sign language--more and all done--but I think he sometimes gets them confused.

He loves his stuffed animals and real animals too.  He loves to be outside--and his bug bites are the proof.  He likes to color and to pretend to drink out of bottles. And he likes to brush his own teeth, but not when we brush his teeth. He is tall enough to open a few of the doors in our house--and also the door to the backyard.  Yikes!  He likes to read books and plays pretty well independently.  He's a doll.

Bedtime is normally around 8:30pm he sleeps until about 8:30am.  The last few nights he has slept through the night with his brace!  Hooray.  He takes a pretty good nap in the afternoon, normal for about 1 to 2 hours.  He eats better and has decided he likes milk (and Pedia-sure) a lot.  He chugs that stuff.  He really likes lasagna and ravioli, cheese and grapes.

How are we almost halfway to three?  Inconceivable! (Name that movie.)

Dennis Brown Bar for Clubfoot

If you've been following for awhile, you've gotten to read the intermittent updates on Finley's foot. (After reading the updates myself, I realized I have far too few pictures of his foot and the stages of healing he went though... sad!) He was born with one clubfoot and had many casts and one surgery to correct it.  (Baby casts are darling.)  He's been wearing a little brace to sleep in and help the foot not relapse.  At the last appointment, I was a little concerned that it wasn't fully corrected--sometimes he would walk or stand with his foot not totally flat in the floor and he would hold it tilted in sometimes.  I asked the doctor if he needed a more serious brace.  The doctor said to come back in a few months and see how it was doing... but I asked for the brace now.  Our original brace was a little over $300 and luckily, this one was only $100.

But it's a little sad looking.  It consists of two lace up shoes that are attached by a bar.  The affected foot looks like the shoe is on the wrong foot--it curves in the "wrong" direction.  It's also set out at a 30 degree angle.  The other shoe is straight.



He is supposed to sleep in it at night.  We've successfully made it through the night three nights out of the past few weeks.  He doesn't mind putting the brace on or wearing it, he kind of giggles and thinks its funny.  Sometimes we stand him up on it and he looks like a little snowboarder.

He goes to sleep in it pretty well.  He normally does a little bit of yelling before he gives in and sleeps--but I think with the brace he goes right to sleep because he can't stand up.  Our sleep problem is that he wakes up around midnight every night and doesn't want to go back to sleep.  We've had a little success picking him up and comforting him, then laying him back down.  I'm not sure what sleep gurus would say about that... but at least he's sleeping and wearing the brace!



We're going to go have him checked out again soon--I'm not sure how long he needs to wear it (the official Ponseti Method website says until he is FOUR... yikes!).  It's not the coziest and makes me a little sad for him.  But it would be even sadder if his foot didn't develop normally and he had trouble running marathons later on.  And it will look really cool bronzed beside his other baby shoes!

Go State!

Sol's BFF Riley's birthday was a good reason to get some K-State fans together to celebrate.  It was also a good reason to make Finley wear his cowboy gear again.

Luckily, some of the littlest K-State fans were there.  Olivia still can not keep her hands off Finley.



While Calvin may not be a K-State fan, he's still pretty cute.



This will have to count as our family picture.  Too bad Finley can't smile sweetly at the camera like his parents.



Go state!

Eating Like a Champ

The eating stuff with the little guy is going better--in fact he helped himself to a substantial amount of Victoria's burrito this week.



He's getting to be a more adventurous eater... and some how still getting cuter.  I loved these pictures too much not to post them, even if I don't have many accompanying words.

And in other news, my pal Marie is moving to London!  Like right now.  She's fun.  You should read her blog.

Finley and Lasagna

The last video was well-received and Victoria took some hilarious footage of family dinner and I am trying to hone my iMovie skills. So, another video. Longer, but funnier.

Finley loves Books.

Stomping on a book is a completely normal thing to do, right?

And dressing your child in a thermal shirt, diaper and socks is normal too, right?

And I have no idea how to use iMovie.

What I'm Watching

It's been excruciating, trying to decide what will and won't make my fall line-up. Seeing how most shows start up this week, I didn't want anyone to have to make their decisions alone. Here's my tentative plan:

Shows I'm (Probably) Cutting

The Office -- It's gone too far. I love Jam, but I can't take it anymore.

Big Bang Theory -- Will Sheldon find true love? Do I actually care? I'll catch this one on DVD.

Gossip Girl -- I've come to terms with myself. I'm not an upper-east-sider. I'll read the recaps online.

Chuck -- You were a new friend, Chuck Bartowski, and your father was from Quantum Leap and now he is dead. I feel like that maybe was it for me.

Shows that are on Probation

How I Met Your Mother -- All I have to say is, they better SUIT UP. Let's get going already.

Grey's Anatomy -- That hostage episode slayed (Vic and I decided we should start saying "slay") me, but I was struggling before that. Back to the old Grey's please?

Shows that I will watch unless they JUMP THE SHARK

Community -- If you aren't watching this show, you must not have had a TV for the last year.
Modern Family -- SAME.
30 Rock -- How can I resist you, Kenneth? Liz? Tracy? Jack? Occasional Jon Hamm?
Parenthood -- Lauren Graham can do no wrong. Except her Emmy dress.
GLEE -- Obviously.
The Mentalist -- It's Simon Baker's hair. I can't escape it.

New Shows I'm Adding

Running Wilde -- Will Arnett + Keri Russell = hopefully awesome?

Mike and Molly -- I may not add this, but Sookie (of GG) is on it and I love me some Stars Hollow.

HOUSE -- I didn't watch last season, but I will now because HUDDY!

Shows I'm Not Allowing Myself to Watch

Desperate Housewives -- I love you Vanessa Williams!

Lonestar -- It looks too good to be true.

Reality TV -- Stop.

Summer Shows That are Ending

Psych -- What a silly show. Love it.

Lie to Me -- Also, I just love it.

Mad Men -- Jon Hamm. The end.

Anything I need to add or subtract? Remember, go here to see when your shows are coming back! Happy fall!

Amazon Mom

I've mentioned before how much I love Amazon. Craigslist and Amazon are probably the leading places where we get stuff. And J. Crew--(oh and PS they have their Factory store online until tomorrow! Go shop!)

The last things I bought on Amazon were:

• Baby utensils and cups
• Diapers
• Canned Pumpkin (although I cancelled it because it wasn't shipping until mid-October--what's the deal with the pumpkin shortage, America?)
• A new carseat

Our two favorite things about Amazon are Prime Shipping and Subscribe and Save. Prime is a service you that gives you free 2-day shipping for a year for only $79--and you can share it with four friends. That is a HUGE bargain. It saves you so much time and money. Subscribe and Save is what Sol uses to buy these ridiculous items. It schedules deliveries for items you go through often and you save 15% on them. So we get more flax seed every other month. Awesome.

I learned about something today that combines these things into the coolest thing in the world.

Amazon Mom.

Joining (which is free) gives you a free 3 month Prime Membership, which is extended by a month every time you spend $25 on baby stuff. And you can share it with one friend! Also, instead of saving 15% on baby goods, you save 30%!!! Last week, I bought a box of diapers for $40 (which is already a great deal) and could get the same box shipped to my door in two days for $28. Seriously, that's a great deal. We only buy diapers every few months since Finley only wears a couple disposable ones every week, but for those of you not using cloth, this is a HUGE money saver!

If you have children, or know someone about children, pass this on! Cheap diapers! Free shipping! Hooray!

Sadly, I'm never as cool as I think I am.

Do you want to hear a story?

You know you do.

This is a funny story. It's also a mortifying story. And it's a little sad too.

Once upon a time I had a blog. I still do, in fact. I installed Google Analytics on said blog, and enjoyed looking at all the lovely numbers trickle in. How many people are visiting from Idaho? How many minutes were spent on my post on poop? What color are most of my visitors wearing? (Kidding, Google is smart, but not that smart.)

Eventually weird things started happening. I was getting an inordinate amount of traffic from a doctor blog and a fashion blog. I wrote a post about it. I ruminated on it for a long freaking time. I couldn't solve the mystery of the referral traffic.

I also noticed that Google Analytics would show posts written by my sister (a doctor) and Shea (a fashionista) as ones read on my site. "Strange," I thought to myself, "People must really like to click to Laura and Shea's blog from mine!"

And a couple of months ago, my traffic started gradually picking up. "Man," I thought, "I must be getting to be a pretty awesome blogger."

WRONG.

A couple weeks ago, Victoria started complaining about traffic from Marie--some of Marie's posts were showing up! This is where I die. So mortified. So embarassed.

I finally realized something. Apparently, I'm not an html wizard. I'm an html muggle.

Victoria and I design blogs using a basic template--and on several occasions we've used our blogs as starting points. Laura's. Shea's. Marie's. Which means the code that Google Analytics uses was reporting the stats for our blogs AND their blogs.

Funny that I've been living a blog lie. Mortifying that it took me so long to figure out. And sad that I'm the awkward kid who thinks she has hundreds of friends, but is wrong. Really, I have tens of friends. Which is still pretty awesome.

Whoops! I'm really glad it got sorted out. My code is removed from Laura and Shea and I can know look at my data in peace--and know that is JUST mine. I guess I can trust Google after all.

Little Monkey Man

Finley is a little tricky to get to eat sometimes. So we pretty much do whatever we can to keep him eating.

Currently, he only wants to eat bananas IN the peel. Not cut up.

Same for cheese. I guess he thinks he is a mouse? Or a monkey?

It must be working--I think he is getting taller. And better at spinning in circles. And sillier.

Peach Picking with Pals

The stars aligned Labor Day weekend and we made a quick trip to Charlottesville to see the Woods and the Barretts. Both Barretts are in residency and they happened to both have the weekend off! We showed up with Carlos O'Kelly's queso and the fun began. (For as many photography enthusiasts as we had gathered, there are very few pictures--these are all Dane's. Sorry. Here's one of me and Meg. Just because.)

Our last trip out, we got to go apple picking--this year we went peach picking with one extra baby (Ed$$)!

It was the last day of peach season and we were committed to finding peaches. We walked VERY far in the wrong direction, but eventually found some beautiful, delicious peaches. We're planning some fruit harvesting trips to exotic locations--grapes in Napa, bananas in Colombia and oranges in Florida...

Last year, Cory used his impressive wingspan to take a group picture of all of us. We only brought the 50mm lens this year, so we had to use a homemade tripod.



As you can tell we had a fun time. Carrie, Megan and I also believe that we have reached critical friend mass, so BSCers, start planning your trip out here while we all live in the same state.

Envy

I try not to be envious of middle schoolers, but several of my girls have showed up with this and I WANT IT.

I mean, I love my trusty TI-83 circa 1998... complete with stickers from Mr. Boast's class. But I would trade it in a heartbeat for this bad girl.

Family Picture

I feel like I am limping through life right now--talking to 8th graders all day makes me ti-red. And then trying to love my kid sufficiently when I get home makes me ti-red. And so does keeping our house relatively picked up. And thinking about going running--oh that wears me right out. Finley was a very sad kid today and finally fell asleep in the car while running errands--so we slept in the car for almost an hour in the driveway. It was a gift. Ahhh, sleep.

Here's our family picture from Labor Day, courtesy of Victoria. I wish Finley would look at the camera or act like he likes me, but I'll take what I can get.

While this picture is a bit out of focus (dang 50mm lens) I love it anyways.

I hope your Labor Day was Labor-less.

My Blog Hurts

Dude, it's been so long since I have posted that the blog was about to get kicked off of my browser's list of my fave websites. Not. Good.

And here's a picture, ok? I don't know why I haven't posted one in so long. It's probably because I want a new camera real bad. And probably because I feel like I have taken every possible picture of Finley at this point--there is nothing new.

I'll hopefully be back to my obsessive posting of His Royal Cuteness once I get use to teaching everyday again. My days of living as a Lady of Leisure are gone.

A story from when I taught in Boston

Victoria and I were setting up our classrooms a few days ago and started reminiscing about the good ole days at our inner city schools. We laughed about our belongings getting stolen, and my mind went to the (first) time my wallet and phone were stolen. This is a kind of long story, but it's one I never want to forget.

It was my second year at my school in Roxbury--the not so nice area of Boston. I could tell it was a not so nice area before I knew anything about Boston because of the looks I got when I told people where I would be teaching. After a long school day (just kidding, my contract ended at 1:45!!!) I opened my desk drawer to grab my purse and go home. Funny. My purse normally weighs more than--DANG IT! Where is my phone and wallet?

Frustrated and embarrassed, I made my way down two flights of stairs to the office. Why didn't I lock my purse up? I don't know, because it's too much work to take the padlock off the closet every time I need something? The secretary urged me to get on my carrier's website to see if the culprit had made any calls. Sure enough, they had.

And sadly, I knew exactly who took my phone the minute I looked at the screen. Eight calls had been made to Taunton and one of my favorite, sweetest boys' mother lived in Taunton. We called the number to make sure it was his mom--initially she confirmed it, then denied it when asked if her son had called her. Joel (or Joely as I liked to call him) was still in the building at the after school program, so we hunted him down.

We chatted/interrogated Joel for well over an hour. The sad thing about eighth graders is that they really think that they might be able to get away with it. Joel never confessed. He eventually told us the wallet was in the boy's bathroom trash (where 3 fires had been set this year) and that maybe one of his friends used the phone to call his mom? Why would one of YOUR friends call YOUR mom, Joel? I don't know. It was sad. I was heartbroken for him--heartbroken at his hope that maybe he could still get away with it. A few dollars were missing from my wallet, presumably so he could take the bus to go see his mom. Even with the mountain of evidence against him, he wouldn't fess up to his mistake.

Eventually Joel's dad showed up. And this is where my heart REALLY broke.

Joel refused to leave with his father--he told us that his father beat him. He was planning to run away to his mom--who wasn't allowed to see him because of drug problems. Out of the eight calls sweet Joel made, his mother only answered the first time. She wouldn't take his call the next seven times. I wanted to take him home with me. I thought about what it would be like for him to sleep on my couch--could I trust the kid who went through my desk for bus money? What would it be like to drive him to school with me every morning and home every night?

Eventually child protective services came and took him. He wouldn't--and we couldn't--send him home with his father. Joel was in foster care for awhile after that. And really, he was never the same.

The way little Joely will always be in my mind is the sweet, grinning kid in the baby blue polo shirt. We had a uniform policy--white or navy polos--that very few kids followed because very few teachers enforced it. Joel showed up every day in the same baby blue polo shirt, following the policy as closely as he could. After he was in foster care for awhile, he didn't wear the polo anymore. He wasn't the sweet boy I knew--he started wearing t-shirts 4 sizes too big with pictures of rolls of cash, guns or Tupac on them. He always carried around his baseball hat with the big flat rim. He grew about a foot (likely not due to foster care) and started walking with his own special swagger. He hung out with the wrong kids and misbehaved in class. He was one of the VERY few kids we held back that year (although MANY kids deserved it.)

I saw Joel several times a week after he was held back, and my heart broke a little more every time. Sometimes he would still say, "Hi Mrs. Scott!" with his shy smile when I saw him in the hallway. And sometimes if I was feeling mischievous, I would say, "Hey Joel, remember when you took my phone?" And he would say, "Mrs. Scott!" and we would laugh.

That's not my favorite memory from my time in Boston, but it's an important one. It reminds me of the important work I did there, and how much important work there is to do still. There are just a lot of kids to love.