beard out of my mind

just a couple beard progress photos for you to enjoy.
look at that glorious shag.

Time for Some Proud Fatherly Gloating

Today, Karissa and I (and our little Pookasha) are coming off of our best night of sleep since Finley was floating in amneotic fluid. It was glorious, I tell you. Finn was in his crib from 6:00pm (his usual bedtime) until 5:45am (his average typical wake-up time) with only ONE feeding at MIDNIGHT!!!

This was a remarkable feat, as many nights -especially recently- he has been waking up every 2-3 hours. He definitely woke up and fussed a couple other times, but he put himself back to sleep in a matter of minutes. K and I awoke from 5 consecutive hours of sleep this morning, and felt as though we had emerged from the roborant slumber of the gods.

Could it be a coincidence that last night was our first attempt at using special "overnight" diapers?


Regardless, I'm feeling inspired to brag on the little man for a few paragraphs.

*Although he is only 7 months old, we are quite positive he has already developed a small vocabulary, which includes the following words: bath, up, mama, and dada
Although he is not perfectly consistent with his usage, he has blurted out all four words (or at least his version of those words) at shockingly frequent and appropriate times... especially bath and up ... the former takes the form of a maniacal "Bah bah bah bah bah bah" (along with flailing and thrashing about excitedly in our arms) whenever we take him into the bathroom and start filling up the tub ... the latter typically accompanies raised arms, slight-to-moderate fussiness, and manifests as a repeated "puh, puh, puh" sound. At the very least, he definitely knows what those words mean.

*Finley is also now way into giving kisses ... mostly to Mommy, as Daddy's beard and unfettered morning hair tend to confuse and overwhelm him a little bit. But all we have to do is ask him to "give mommy kisses", and he will clasp her head in both hands, and plant his wide open, drooly lips on her face .... usually with a loud ahhhhhh kissing sound. He has also kissed Uncle Nate and Nicole G... neither of whom have beards.

*Finley is not a Biblical name...apparently ... and being good Christian kids, we naturally feel very guilty about this. We already weep with shame thinking about our poor little son attending future Sunday School classes with hordes of little Josiahs, Elijahs, Joshuas, Ephriams, and Mele Kalikimakas. So, to compensate for our decision to give him such a profoudly secular name, we have begun calling him Finnbosheth. We feel it has the good, pious ring of a Minor Prophet, at the very least. Derivatives can include, but are not limited to: Finnbo, Bosheth, Litto Finnbosheth, and The Bosheth.

*Although he has not yet started crawling, he has become a "rolling over" addict.... specifically from back to front. Although this is a great milestone, he still struggles with going from front to back. This is mainly a problem due to the fact that he is unable to sleep on his tummy. During naps and after bedtime, we will frequently hear him grunting and fussing on the baby monitor, like a confused, exhausted, beached manatee ... and one of us has to go in and flip him back over ... whereupon he will usually go straight back to sleep.



*Also, today, we are celebrating the arrival of a new coffee machine. Our old one died yesterday, and we could not endure the reality of a single day without our essential caffeine intake mechanism. It's got a touch screen, kids! Plus, it has a special breast milk-integration system that allows Finley to enjoy a morning (sippy) cup of joe with us as we watch the Today Show together every morning. I didn't realize how much babies enjoyed coffee.

Take That, Peanut Butter Recall!

Paranoid about getting salmonella from peanut butter products?

Not this guy. I'm sitting here enjoying my #1 favorite snack:

Peanut butter-filled pretzel bites. mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

They're so delicious, it would definitely be worth a couple days in the hospital.

It's a Beardiful Thing

Here are the latest pictures of me and my beard. It is now officially "too long"... in terms of nice-looking beards, that is. Now all I can do is hope that I am able to maintain the the pseudo-ironic, change-of-pace, devil-may-care look that I'm going for, and avoid a headlong plunge into "homeless chic". We shall see...

For now, enjoy these superfluous (and to most of you, probably somewhat disturbing) pictures of me, interspersed with some high-quality Beard quotes gleaned from Wikipedia.

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"There are two kinds of people in this world that go around beardless — boys and women — and I am neither one." -Greek saying



"A woman with a beard looks like a man. A man without a beard looks like a woman." - Afghan Saying

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"The beard is the handsomeness of the face, and a wife is the joy in a man's heart." - R' Akiva, Eicha Rabbah



Leonato: You may light on a husband that hath no beard.
Beatrice: What should I do with him? Dress him in my apparel and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man: and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him… -William Shakespeare - Excerpt from Much Ado About Nothing – Act 2, Scene I