Welcome to Finn-land!
maintained by his very fond Uncle Ashley
Finnian "Finn" Baylis Liket Young
CLICK HERE for the Beck-Room
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yellow, hole, block, reindeer, snowman, red, Zamboni, Pooh (winnie-the-pooh), puddle, pool, teeth, pig, kerplooie, busy bees, bumblebee, pepper, rock, fire, toast, apple, hippo, big (usually referencing a book or bird) bye-bye, neigh, moon, mouse, mieow, noodle, football, toe, knee, foot, who-who (owl sound), ashley, santa, uh-oh, water, vroom-vroom, Donald (Ronald McDonald, yikes), grandma, turtle, doodle-doo (cockadoodle-doo), blue, flower, mmmmmm (i.e. I'm hungry, that food sure looks good), bear, baby, yaya, bottle, nana, banana, pumpkin, boo, opa, boat, eh-eh-eh-eh-eh (monkey), ball, baa, mama, dada, moo, lilah (note: Rheal heard him clearly point to Lilah and say "lilah" ... I heard it too, a few weeks later. No one will believe us!), duck, dog |
December 22nd: Okay, okay, it's December. But Al and Ashley are determined to keep this site more updated now--we promise! Finn started school this year. He goes to the Evergreen Montessori school and we suspect he's learning a lot. He won't talk about it at all. School is this huge mystery to us. But he does return singing new songs and writing "F"s and speaking Mandarin and so on, so it seems to be working. This summer Ashley began reading chapter books for Finn; he has progressed from demanding pictures on each page to being able to sit and listen attentively for an entire chapter (or more) with nothing to look at. We've read The Wizard of Oz, The Wanderings of Mumfie, the first three Moomin books, the first two Maggie Muggins books (at least, of the ones we had, there may be others), and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane; now (today) we just finished the penultimate chapter of Mary Poppins. Finn betrayed his knowledge of letters by being surprised that there was an "s" at the end of her name, since (as he explained it), he'd thought her name was Mary Poppin. He's extraordinarily social and polite (for example, when a man agreed to let the Youngs sit at his table at Costco for hot dog consumption, Finn, unprompted, said "Thank you for letting us share your table." Mind you, he does apparently think "Excuse me" means "I'm about to interrupt you with something much more important," which, come to think of it, I guess it does. He's somewhat obssessed with dinosaurs (and roaring) and especially the Tyrannosaurus Rex. At the start of the chapter book reading, he would often suggest that a Tyrannosaurus Rex enter the story and consume the characters. Eventually he came to realise this wasn't likely to happen. "Not in chapter books," he said, somewhat resigned to the fact. His largest dinosaurs are Dave the Brachiosaurus and Rod the Stegosaurus, which he's had for over a year; they're particular favourites. March 9, 2006: With apologies for those checking - we hope to update the Finnland more often, so you can hear about all the fun world that is Finn. Finn is excited to be playing more with his little brother Beck who is almost big enough to be fun to play with. Finn is also often heard saying, "I want to go to school !" Which has been chosen after much research to be Evergreen Montessori on Vancouver's west side. He can't wait. Finn is now an expert, golfer, singer, hockey player, swimmer, and loves gynastics. Look out summer! December 5, 2005: I've been testing Finn casually, and he seems to know which is the bigger number when given two choices between 1 and 9--I think that's pretty good for his age! He's developed a little dance that accompanies "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" (it helps to imagine a peg-legged pirate attempted an Irish step dance), and is very excited about the big holiday events--it's the first year he's picked out presents for loved ones (or so I gather, from his not-very-well-honed-secret-keeping skills). November 8, 2005: More about the advanced skills of wunderkind Finn: he's mastered all kinds of songs (he's long known Eensy Weensy Spider, but he can sing Frere Jacques in English and French, and knows which is which, for example), and plays accompaniment on the piano, alternating right and left hands and finishing with both hands playing together--they aren't the right notes, but his rhythm is perfect and he certainly has style. I've decided to teach him to read surreptitiously (the teaching, not the reading, I mean). I figure if he understands the sounds that words are made up out of, it'll be a lot easier when he just has to recognize the symbols for each sound. You can ask him to come up with "D" sounds, for example, and he'll know "D for dog! D for dinosaur!" etc. I think he's a smartiepants! For Halloween Finn went as a Fire Chief, with a yellow slicker and a yellow fire chief hat. He was very pleased with the trove of candy he got to bring home, and ate his allowed portion one M&M at a time while we read Whatley's Quest (an alphabet book). Oh, and he can rattle off sentences as long as (this is a real example) "Uncle Ashley is carrying me to music class on the sidewalk in the rain." September 12, 2005: Finn's returned from a visit to the cabin with even greater linguistic skills, believe-it-or-not: subjects and predicates, all in the right order, and a much better use of pronouns. Music class starts this week--he's taking two, one with me (Uncle Ashley) and one without, and I'm hoping he'll put up with the songs he doesn't like (when I try singing a song he frequently sighs "different song," and dutifully, I follow.) Archived Photos: From Birth to Now |
