This blog started centered on Finn, and he is five years old which means so is this journey. Recorded here are the many struggles from those five years and the many victories. I feel very fortunate that I have been such a part of his life during these fives year and that I have been able to put together a blog full of memories. I think of all the absentee dads out there who miss these vital years with their children and I wonder if they know what they missed...what got sacrificed to some other cause.
I hate to trivialize life into video games, but to me there is a good analogy in gaming for being a parent. In many games there are side quests and new skill trees that you can unlock if you make certain choices and spend the extra time on those quests. Often you can beat the game without taking on this content, but you can never 100% the game or have the full experience. Many people don't want to have kids and I respect that, they can still beat the same game I am playing by the end by having a satisfying life. But I feel like that there is a whole skill tree, a whole part of human experience, that isn't unlocked unless you have kids.
Even more than that, when kids are young there are multiple versions of the same person that you will miss out on and never have the chance to meet again. Along the way I have friended, loved and mourned versions of Finn that came and went. In a way, I have been a dad to five different people, and each one has a memory I cherish that I wouldn't trade anything for.
Finn at zero I will admit was a bit of a struggle early on. I marveled at how cool having a little person is, but I didn't love "the baby smell" or how unresponsive he was the first few months. Mostly I soaked up the social windfall that is being a new parent, and the moment that got stale I quickly pivoted into a period marked by a lack of sleep. I remember almost getting in a wreck commuting because I was so tired, and people laughing off what to me was probably the hardest period in my life as "part of being a parent." For a while it felt like drowning. Then eventually about five months in he started to gurgle at me on the changing table when he was happy, and I gurgled back. We have a way to talk to each other! This is a sound that is forever locked in my memory, and peaked as an experience the day I got back from Buddy's funeral. That night after I walked in he was already in his high chair, and he just exploded with gurgles at me for what seemed like minutes as tears of joy rolled down my face. I remembered Buddy telling me that his favorite memories in his 90+ years were of my dad in the same position in a high chair, and suddenly the circle of life felt like something I was part of. That and "Old Town Road" will always be my memories of his year zero.
Finn at one started with a bit of concern. By then he was in the helmet, but it was clear he was behind what was expected of children when it comes to timing for walking. He was placed back in physical therapy which I was a big part of and in itself was an amazing memory. But my favorite part of this age was when I got motivated to take him to the local park, plop him in the middle of the field, and force him to walk to me day after day until he got good at it. Those park trips, sometimes with Luna, sometimes not, are burned in my memory as maybe my strongest early Finn memory. Until my dying day I will never forget his determination to use his legs to cross those soccer fields, and how it wasn't long before he could get across a decent part of the park. The became THE memory of parenting for me, the moment when I felt like I really had a positive impact on his life. From it the rest of that year was a blur of one park after another. Luckily this memory overpowers the other main memory of that time period, of trying to get through a pandemic with a small child in tow.
Finn at two was not the terrible experience I expected, as he grew out of everything baby and became a boy. The helmet was gone, the therapy was over, and for the most part this part of his life was pretty "normal" after we got him into the local amazing day care. I don't really have any memories of two year old Finn that stand out except one: the time Lindsey let him watch a little Paw Patrol (before he was ready IMHO) and when I turned it off he immediately demanding more. His independence of a person was coming through.
Finn at three was tough for me. He demanded independence that I had trouble adjusting to, and it came right around when Luna was in her final months. He was almost four before I got my head around it. Onbe of my biggest memories of him being three was when I took him and both of his grandparents to see Minions 2. The parents had a blast but Finn got bored, luckily he passed out in the theater before he got to misbehaving. Funny that years later this would be one of his favorite movies.
Finn at four was all about his therapy, all about getting him ready for school. I remember battles over potty training, and how focused I was on soaking him up as much as I could. This was the year I was very aware he was growing quickly, and that I had a little bit of time left before school took us all into another phase of life.
Finn at five was maybe my favorite age. In some ways I felt like it got wasted because much of his fifth year I was focused on moving out of the house as the final month of his fourth year I got the notice that my time was up. I was caught between soaking up every day I could and trying to plan my next leap in life. It was this year he really started to bond with me over music like Last Christmas, which created some great memories in an otherwise tough year.
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