Random Finley Photos

Here are some random Finley photos for your viewing pleasure.

Finley and Iris got together for a playdate last week, and they were just too cute! Iris is a month younger than Finley, and their personalities are quite different. Iris seems to be a keen observer, while Finley is all action. Iris sleeps better at night, while Finley is a better napper. They could really stand to rub off on each other a bit!

Fascinated with each other

The bird on Finley's floor gym is one of his favorites. Here he is giving it a little kiss. (I love this photo!)

Finley has a new problem: he wants to hold on to his toys, but he also wants to roll over!

Finley has definitely discovered his feet. He had one in his mouth last week, but by the time I grabbed the camera, it was already out again. He frequently sits around with one or both legs up in the air. Looks comfy, right?

One of Finley's other obsessions in the past few weeks has been his mirror. He loves to chew on it or kick it with his feet.

Baby Teeth & Preserved Lemons

This week has been all about teeth in the Dennison household. On Monday, Finley's first tooth broke through, and today he is cutting his second tooth! As you can imagine, the amount of drool has been unbelievable. (I'm sitting here typing in a slicker and galoshes.) Finley has been chewing on everything in sight with renewed vigor. We feel very grateful, however, that he hasn't been terribly fussy or had significant trouble sleeping. Definitely a bit more temperamental than he normally is, but manageable. I have to say, though, I've been surprised at how slowly his teeth are coming in. At this rate, it could easily be a few more weeks before he's sporting two full teeth.

We had quite the adventure yesterday. We were out for almost 5 hours, which is a lot with a 5-mo-old! You have to be quite strategic in order to still maintain sleeping and eating schedules. We went to Kowloon to (FINALLY!) drop off Nate's guitar to have some work done to it. We also shopped around a bit for some baby items and went to lunch at Rice Paper, a Vietnamese restaurant. Finley even had his first ride on the Star Ferry. We should have brought the camera, but somehow forgot amidst traveling with a very full diaper bag, a baby, a guitar etc. These few photos taken with Nate's phone will have to suffice.

The first two are of our fancy drinks at the restaurant. We thought we would get crazy and try something new, so I ordered a violet lime soda, and Nate ordered a preserved lemon soda. (Preserved lemons are pickled lemons which are left to ferment in their brine for months.) When Nate ordered it, both the waiter and I were like, "Are you sure?" I'm pretty confident he didn't know what he was getting himself into. My drink was lovely and tasted great, complete with orchid to garnish. Nate's, on the other hand, was pretty gross. It was salty and made me want to gag. Somehow, he managed to drink over half of it.

Now that Finley can sit up on his own, we thought we'd try out a high chair in the restaurant. It's getting difficult to hold him and eat because he tries to reach for all the food/silverware/etc. Of course, eventually Finley bent over and tried to chew on the chair, which we had to stop since it was not particularly clean.

What a View!

Nate and I (and Finley, for that matter) never tire of the view from our apartment.

I just love the clouds and their shadows in these photos. It doesn't get much better than this!

Sitting Up

Guess who learned to sit up this past week...

He's quite proud of himself!

"And now, I will take a bow."

Eventually, he starts to lean forward and then ends up on his belly.

Rice Cereal Video

Here's the video from the first time we fed Finley rice cereal (Monday). Pretty funny!

Rice Cereal

In celebration of Finley's 5 month birthday, he got to try rice cereal! Doctors/books/etc. say you can start solids between 4-6 months, but they also say not to rush it. We were actually planning to wait until closer to 6 months to try any solids, but EVERYONE tells me, 1) it will help with sleep and spitting up, and 2) they started their child even earlier than 5 months, and now their child is at Harvard. We'll see...

Finley seems fine with the cereal so far, although it's going to take some practice for him to figure out how to really eat it. Here's a little photographic evidence of the new adventures in solid foods!

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We got a hand-me-down high chair last week, so we thought we could try it out for the first feeding. When we actually put Finley in it, he looked tiny and the chair looked massive! It was hilarious. So, we opted to use the Bumbo seat for feeding instead.

Finley probably didn't care all that much about the rice cereal, but he loved the spoon.

"More spoon, please!"

Things got pretty messy after a few bites.

Just when you think he's eaten it and you go to feed him more, out it comes.

Food & Finley

So Nate and I decided to try getting a food delivery of local organic veggies (and a few fruits). It came, looking all nice and pretty and tied up in twine. So healthy, so natural. I was excited.

Check out the mushrooms!

Then came the hard parts- figuring out what to do with it all, and trying to get it all eaten before it went bad. Now Nate and I eat our veggies, but this was A LOT of stuff. And you would think that because it's local and didn't spend much time in transit that it would last longer. Well, it doesn't.

I spent the first day looking up the three different kinds of greens on the internet- didn't know what they were. Found out we had red amaranth ("Chinese spinach"), choi sum, and sweet potato leaves. Who even knew you could eat sweet potato leaves? We also had yard-long green beans, three kinds of mushrooms, white and purple eggplant, two kinds of basil, bananas, green chili, okra, and guava. It was a lot of food to try to consume in a few days. Some recipes we made to use it: roasted eggplant risotto with pine nuts and goat cheese, fried okra, gnocchi with mushroom sauce, etc.

It turned out to be very stressful for me, trying to figure out what to do with all of it and worrying if we could get it eaten before it went bad. So, sadly, I don't think we'll do it again. Oh well, we tried.

Now, on to what (or rather, who) you all really want to see- Finley!

Here he is, caught red-handed: "Who, me? I didn't bite the crab, I swear!" (Notice the trail of drool coming out of his mouth.)

Finley is getting much better with the hand-eye coordination. He loves to grab and bat at toys on his play gym. If you hold a toy (or anything, for that matter) in front of him, his hands immediately go for it.

Grabbing his bird's tail feathers is a favorite. You can tell by the open mouth that he really wants to chew on it.

Happily hanging out in the Bumbo seat.

Trying to chew on the Bumbo seat.

Trying to escape the Bumbo seat. (He's getting quite mobile!)

Looking all cute and serious, playing on the floor.

Learning to sit up!!!

Finley Noises

Finley has been making all kinds interesting noises recently. The end of the video shows his grabbing skills. Pretty impressive!

Lost in Translation

As many people as there are in HK who speak fluent English, you would think companies could find someone, anyone, to appropriately translate things for them. But, apparently not. These photos were taken with Nate's phone when we were out last weekend.

Click on this one to see it larger. Hard to read, as it was taken from inside the car with a phone. It says, "No smoking. Highly inflammable goods."

This one was posted inside a car park (parking garage).