Finn’s Hodgepodge Costume

Finn cobbled together the best costume ever today. In the Heffernans’ magic dress-up box, he found part of a camel costume, a magician’s hat, and a pair of Snow White shoes. Here’s the finished product. The pictures aren’t great, but you get the idea.

Finn's costume front

Finn's costume back

I think the orange underwear pull the whole outfit together nicely. Project Runway, look out!

Finn’s Passport Arrived!

Finn’s passport came in the mail yesterday and he was very excited! Here he is holding it up so we could send a picture to Jamma.

Finn celebrates the arrival of his passport

He just wanted to hold it and “read” it forever. He sat on the porch steps looking at it, and at one point asked me, “Do you know what these words say?” I said, “What?” He said, “Mommy and Papa love you.” Awww, what a cutie.

Finn reads the passport

Oh, and he calls it his “pors-pat.”

Finn’s New “Cass”

Finn moved into the Monday, Tuesday, Thursday summer school class at Cottage this week, which mimics the class he’ll be in in the Fall. It’s a much smaller group (8 versus 17 or so) and the kids are closer to his age. I had a work shift yesterday and took some pictures, of course. Finn spent the entire day in his underwear (which was probably smart considering it was 96 degrees out).

We made lemonade — the kids squeezed the lemons, added water, mint and sugar, and did lots of taste testing. Here’s Finn adding some more mint while Charlie helps himself to another taste.

More mint

They also did some painting — first cardboard boxes, then themselves.

Painting cardboard

Then they took the painted cardboard boxes and taped together a space ship.

Building a spaceship

Finn Goes to the Dentist

Finn had his first dental appointment today and he did great! Ezra was due for a checkup as well so he went first — x-rays, cleaning, etc. — and Finn got to watch. As is his habit the last month or so he said, “This is taking SO long!” But finally it was his turn in the chair, where he got to watch Toy Story on the TV hanging from the ceiling. I never heard another peep out of him.

Finn's first dentist appointment

Close Call

We had an amazingly successful three-day potty training session with Finn over this long weekend. I’m sure we’ll still have accidents, but he hasn’t had one since the afternoon of the first day. However, last night after his bath I gave him the choice of either gray or blue underwear, but he was distressed. Finn likes orange. Only orange. And I have no orange underwear for him. Then he said the dreaded words, “I want a diaper.” NOOOOOO! I told him we don’t have anymore diapers because no one in the house uses them anymore. I was able to talk him into the gray boxer briefs, but he was still upset. So, I ran to my computer and Googled boys orange underwear.

My initial search resulted in an image of two pairs of boxer briefs, one navy blue and one orange. “Score!” I thought. But when I clicked on the image this is what I got:

Holy moly, $59 for two pair of underwear? Really? Um, no.

So I kept searching. Turns out I could not find any solid orange underwear for Finn, but I did find an alternative at Gap.com:

I showed them to Finn and they passed his test, so I ordered two packs. Hopefully six pair of orange-ish underwear will keep the diaper requests at bay.

Day 2 Update

End of Day 2. Not one accident all day. This is crazy! We may even try leaving the house tomorrow.

Go, Finn!

Day 2

Finn is rockin’ this potty training thing! He stayed dry all night and has managed to get to the potty on time all morning! I’m sure we’ll have more accidents at some point, but Day 2 is starting off great!!

Day 1 Update

End of the day … finally. It was a long day but Finn did great! We had a few accidents, but none after about 2:30 (his post-naptime grumpy “I don’t need to go! … Oh wait, maybe I do” pee in the garage). He balks at being told he has to try to pee (like before Bruce took him on a bike ride or before bedtime); I’m guessing he wants to be in control.

Backyard peeing — two different approaches:

3-Day Potty Training Boot Camp

Day 1. We’ve been up since 5:30 (it’s 9:40 as I type this). We’ve had three successes and two accidents so far. It’s positive reinforcement all the time around here. And boy, do those little buns look cute in boxer briefs!

Last Work Day in Mulberry

Yesterday was my last shift as work parent in Finn’s class, which is just weird — how can he already be nearly done with his first year of preschool? I kind of shirked my duties a bit to spend time taking lots of pictures of Finn. Here are a few.

Finn was completely captivated by this very persistent and focused squirrel. The previous two days’ classes had used birdseed to play and experiment with and it was all over the grass. It took a few more two- and three-year-olds showing up before the squirrel finally gave up and left. (As a side note, I don’t know what that box at the bottom right hand side of this picture is — it just showed up on a couple of my photos.)

Finn and I spent a lot of time playing with this makeshift punching bag. Check out Finn’s fancy shoes.

My sweet boy on the slide. We had a good day.

Finn Plays Catch … sort of

I took the boys to Under the Sea indoor playground this afternoon, and Finn spent a good amount of time playing a game of catch. I wish I’d caught more of his little hippity-hop run on the video, but this will have to suffice. I love Ezra’s little cameo at the end, too. It makes me laugh every time.

Eeny, Meeny …

Finn’s been working on learning the words to eeny, meeny, miny, moe for about six months now, and today he spent the entire day singing it. As we were all together all day — coming back from a trip to Warner Springs — I’m pretty sure we all have it stuck in our heads now. After I shot a video of him singing it tonight, I went searching for a video I took of him a while back when he first learned the words. Here are both renditions (10/29/09 and 5/2/10, respectively).