The first year of Finn's life was like a whirlwind. Some of it moved by very quickly and some of it moved slowly. Sometimes it felt like years, especially in the tough early months, and then sometimes I would spend a lot of mental energy trying to appreciate each day as the clicked off between work and bottles.
When it came time to plan Finn's first birthday it was bewildering to me for this reason. A party that was a few weeks away felt months away, and even during New Years when it was a month away it still felt far off in the distance. Luckily Lindsey started feeling the best she had felt (from my perspective) since before the pregnancy and she took a very active role in getting everything together. She got two awesome Daniel Tiger cakes, fixed up our porch and house, and worked out the food and balloon plans. It was very well done with photos everywhere of Finn's first year.
The party itself had a great turnout, pretty much everyone was there except her brothers and my family. Shawn and his family came, and Ipher's mom spent a good majority of the party holding onto Finn and taking care of him. My Austin friends came and tore up the Whiteclaw, and I got to demo the Rift S to about a half dozen people that hadn't seen it before. But the best part was the star of the show Mr. Finn as he smashed his cake or took in the people. After thinking the phase in life had passed that night he even gurgled to me on his changing table, which reflected my interactions with the four month old Finn when he did that and I really bonded with him for the first time.
As the party winded down and people left we went to play with the swing Finn that Steve not only brought him but hung as well. When swinging for the first time Finn expressed pure joy, and it was as happy as I had seen him maybe in his entire life. I purposefully put down the phone I was toting around for pictures all day and just tried to soak up that happy one year old baby swinging, not allowing myself to reflect on the year or look forward to the next but doing everything I could to be in the moment.
In the days after the party Lindsey expressed how sad she was it was over, and we left the balloons and decorations up for another week for this reason. I quickly fell back into our routine but not before reflecting one last time on the day and the year when I put some of the toys in his room and saw the blocks that represented his age. I changed them to 12 months to represent the moment despite the fact no one would see it. We not only survived the first year, but it represented what was the best year of my life...
When it came time to plan Finn's first birthday it was bewildering to me for this reason. A party that was a few weeks away felt months away, and even during New Years when it was a month away it still felt far off in the distance. Luckily Lindsey started feeling the best she had felt (from my perspective) since before the pregnancy and she took a very active role in getting everything together. She got two awesome Daniel Tiger cakes, fixed up our porch and house, and worked out the food and balloon plans. It was very well done with photos everywhere of Finn's first year.
The party itself had a great turnout, pretty much everyone was there except her brothers and my family. Shawn and his family came, and Ipher's mom spent a good majority of the party holding onto Finn and taking care of him. My Austin friends came and tore up the Whiteclaw, and I got to demo the Rift S to about a half dozen people that hadn't seen it before. But the best part was the star of the show Mr. Finn as he smashed his cake or took in the people. After thinking the phase in life had passed that night he even gurgled to me on his changing table, which reflected my interactions with the four month old Finn when he did that and I really bonded with him for the first time.
As the party winded down and people left we went to play with the swing Finn that Steve not only brought him but hung as well. When swinging for the first time Finn expressed pure joy, and it was as happy as I had seen him maybe in his entire life. I purposefully put down the phone I was toting around for pictures all day and just tried to soak up that happy one year old baby swinging, not allowing myself to reflect on the year or look forward to the next but doing everything I could to be in the moment.
In the days after the party Lindsey expressed how sad she was it was over, and we left the balloons and decorations up for another week for this reason. I quickly fell back into our routine but not before reflecting one last time on the day and the year when I put some of the toys in his room and saw the blocks that represented his age. I changed them to 12 months to represent the moment despite the fact no one would see it. We not only survived the first year, but it represented what was the best year of my life...
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