Four months into Finn's life it was clear he needed a helmet to straighten his head. Somehow a c-section baby ended up with a crooked head (I blame the fancy crib), and he would spend over a year in a helmet. We were very fortunate we lived in Austin, as there were only two places in Texas that even offered that sort of service and one of them was here in downtown Austin.
More than once when I was shuffling down to the office for an appointment to check the fit I reminded myself that if we still lived in West Texas I would have driven hours to get to the same place. They did an amazing job taking care of him, but he hated wearing them and we were looking forward to when he could get done with them.
Overall there were three helmets. Many parents painted them, but we decided to use stickers to decorate each one instead. The first one was decorated with Harry Potter stickers, the second one was decorated with Star Wars stickers (this one was the cutest), and the final one was decorated with my favorite IP- Mario! By the time it was Finn's first birthday we were on the Mario helmet and we had already seen progress on that issue.
For his first birthday we had a blowout party planned. We invited all the family, all my friends, Shawn and his family and we had picked a Daniel Tiger theme. Lindsey got a cool Daniel smash cake lined up, and we were pumped to celebrate our new little guy. Rene did a pile of photo shoots prior to (with the helmet off), and I did the best I could to capture as much as I could of his life at that moment in time.
The party was packed. For some people they were first meeting Finn, others who were first coming to our new house, and some came from hours away to celebrate his first year. As a social person I loved the celebration, and I loved being the proud dad showing off my son and my super fancy smart-house. Many people had questions about the helmet (Shawn suggested I just needed to squish his head I didn't need the helmets), but I was super happy with the fact that the Mario theme I had for the helmet looked cute on his big introduction to so many people in my life.
Overall I spent most of the time giving tours of the house and helping direct traffic to the events and food Rene had setup. It felt like a blur, but it was also really well timed- just a few weeks later the COVID lockdown happened and Finn not only didn't get a second birthday party like that but we barely socialized like that again for years.
For his gift Steve hung for Finn a baby swing on the tree outside, including using real chains so it was more secure than it needed to be for a child that age (we ended up re-using those chains on a full swing later on). My clearest memory of the day was putting him in the swing after everyone left. There he was in his helmet, and I kept counting "1,2, 3!' letting him go on three and his making his happy noises for me doing it. It remains one of my earliest and best Finn memories. Just dad and his one year old miracle.
A few months later he grew out of the last Mario helmet and his infant years ended, just in time for the toddler years to take over.
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