4 Years of Finn

I’m not going to lie, when the ultrasonographer told us that you were a boy, I cried. I hope that she thought they were tears of joy, but really they were tears of “I didn’t think it was possible to have anything other than a girl. I hadn’t planned on a boy.” I would see these crazy, wild little boys at the park and fear for our future. I would fear for all the beat downs Niamh had in her future. I vowed to make you in to the kind of boy that the other kids made fun of. I was going to make you a wimpy Mama’s Boy. I haven’t completely succeeded, which is probably good, but you sure do love your Mama. And, Kid, I am wild about you.
Finn, here is your birth story. For anyone not interested, go ahead and skip down to paragraph 4.
We moved to Seattle from Los Angeles 6 weeks before your due date. I was sure you were going to be an early baby. Actually, I thought that it was the law of nature that your second child comes before the time your first child did. Niamh was born one day early, so I was certain you’d be at least a week early. My OB wanted to know what book I read that in. You were FIVE days late. FIVE DAYS is a lot when you are expecting an early baby. No matter, you made up for it with just a wee bit of time in labor. I woke up at 2:30ish AM. We were renting a place in Seattle so we had to wait for Grandma Pat to drive from Issaquah to take care of your sleeping sister before leaving for the hospital. We arrived at the hospital just before 7AM. I know because it was change of shift for the nurses so we had about 6 nurses in 15 minutes because there was confusion about who was going to be assigned to us. I don’t know why they wouldn’t want to be assigned to us, I wasn’t screaming or anything. I am pretty sure I said “Please” when I told them that I would indeed appreciate an epidural. Lucky for me my own OB was the doc on call (until 8am) and she lived right around the corner from the hospital. Which, again, was lucky because I was pretty darn close to delivering you when we got there…not a whole lot of time to spare for someone to get stuck in morning traffic. I’ll skip a lot of the details but I was about half a finger width from being fully dilated when I arrived so I really had to convince them that I refused to deliver you without an epidural. “We have to get a liter of fluid in you before the anesthesiologist will even come bedside,” they said. “Well, better start getting those IVs in and might as well grab some pressure bags from the OR. Why don’t you go ahead and page him and tell him to just start walking on down here,” I replied (politely). I won. You were born half an hour after the epidural, at 7:50AM weighing 8lbs, 5 ounces.
Summary: FIVE DAYS late, less than SIX HOURS of labor, delivered 10 minutes before my OB (who I adored) would have passed me on to the next physician on call. I forgive you for being late.
We really tested your adaptability as a newborn. We lived in 4 different places before you were 6 months old. You weren’t very adaptable. You were very cute though and you were an advanced smiler. You started smiling when you were only 3 weeks old. There is nothing like a baby smiling right at you to make your frustration melt away. Mother Nature is a smart woman. She has genius ways to keep Mothers from eating their annoying, crying, sleepless young.
Eventually, you went from screaming newborn to mellow infant. I’m pretty sure the change coincided with the sudden weight gain and feeling of satiety. (By 9 months old, you outweighed your sister who was 26 months your senior.)
You met all your milestones late. You were just too satisfied with whatever you had in front of you to feel the need to roll over, crawl, or walk. Even if you had nothing to play with, you always had your feet! Because you were happy to lie on your back, motionless, staring at the ray of sunlight on the wall, you had a flat head. What does a Pediatric ICU Nurse/Mom do when her kid has a flat head? She takes him to the Craniofacial Clinic to be fit for a skull shaping helmet. Sorry about that, Finn. We both left humiliated.  Your head is fine now. There was no need for me to go out and buy you all those hats.
Now,Finn, you are the perfect combination of crazy boy energy zipping around the house “flying” airplanes and “racing” cars, mixed with Mama’s Boy sweetness. You are cuddly and sensitive. (That comes from your dad.) Unlike your sister who gets really ticked when she is in trouble (that comes from me), you get so upset and sad that I actually want to apologize to you for feeling angry with you…even when you punch Niamh in the stomach just because the crazy boy energy overwhelms your spirit for a brief moment, you somehow make me feel sorry for your hurt feelings.
This is a very short selection of the very long list of things you do and love that make me smile.

• I love that you call oatmeal, “etmeal”. 
• I love how you always tell me you are cold right before you request Hot Chocolate, like its a treatment rather than a treat.
• You miss your sister every day when she is in school and you give her huge squeezing hugs when she emerges from the classroom. You two are the very best of friends.
• You have a super human sense of smell. You know when I have eaten a peanut M&M when you are in the next room.
• Your favorite meal is salmon, and you like lettuce on your sandwiches.
• You love when I tickle your feet, scratch your back, or rub your head. I can actually see your pupils shrink as you become sedate with a back scratch.
• You are interested in the minute details of airplanes and cars. Not just vrooming them around the house, but making sure take off is perfect, and landing is safe.
• You try to copy your big sister’s big phrases but sometimes they come out wrong, like, “You get what you get and you don’t throw fish.” (The right way is, “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.”)
• You love hugs. You really love hugs from me.
• I don’t have to bribe you to share with other kids.
• You wonder what your best buddy, Cameron, is doing when you aren’t with him at school.
• You are funny in a way that I don’t think is normal for kids your age.

I Love You, Finn, with all my heart. Happy Birthday, Little Dude.
 










 











(When we get around to having your party, we will add some party pics.)