Finn

So guess who woke up in the middle of last night and decided it was time to party? Yeah, this guy. He finished his milk and instead of rolling over in a milk coma like he usually does, he sat up and flashed me a full on cheeky grin, like “I’m full now, let’s play!!”

Normally, the only thing I’d be playing at this time of the night is playing dead (or actually be more or less dead) and be all “shhh, go sleep baby…” but that grin and those sleepy eyes and that hair – it was all too much to resist.

This boy is my kryptonite.

We played peekaboo and sang songs using a pretend-farting sound and laughed till we couldn’t breathe for a good 20 minutes until he decided that ok, he was done playing and it was time to sleep so he crawled over to my arm, found a nice spot and promptly fell asleep. As far as bedtime routines go, it was one of the weirdest but also one of the best-est.

Which is not to say that this will be happening with any sort of regularity at all. I’m thinking it’s a one-time thing that I’ll look back on with fondness, like remember that crazy time when baby Finn woke up to play at 2am? What were we thinking??

As of now, the baby shushing resumes but last night was our special midnight party. Our little blip on the radar. And I’m glad for it.

I’ve been having one of those mommy moments recently, one which involves a lot of time spent scrolling through old baby pictures and an equal amount of tears, y’know, those of the “where has my baby gone” variety.

Turns out that my little Finn-o-saurus seems to enjoy scrolling through his own baby pictures as much as his momma. He plonks himself on my lap to join me in this wonderful activity and uses his tubby forefinger to help me swipe through the pictures on my phone. He’ll even smile a little half-smile when he sees his own squishy face looking back at him. It’s the best thing to do while snuggled up in bed with my favorite picture-viewing buddy. Does this kid know he’s a looker or what? Just look at that face, I could eat him up, that’s what.

This is baby Finn at 6 months with his explosive hair and toothless, gummy smile.

I’m like “my tiny tiny baby…*sob sob*” and he’s all “that’s ok momma, this version is better” and he’s right. This version is better. This version hugs me back and makes cheeky faces and hangs out with me to look at old pictures.

The husband says I’m in dangerous territory because it’s very close to the “I think we should have another baby” suicide zone (even though I know he really doesn’t mind). I think he might possibly be right. My ovaries need to just calm down and have a milkshake or something.

Aight, just a few more and I’m out.

Once they hit the 1-year mark, it seems like babies just start to blitz through the rest of their growing process. Have I already mentioned how much I love this stage? If I could have a 1-year-old baby for the next 10 years, I would not mind that at all. And I don’t mean having 10 babies turn 1 every year for the next 10 years, don’t even suggest it. I just want this baby to stay my baby.

Just so I can read this over and over again, here are some of my favorite baby Finn moments at 2 weeks past a year old.

1. The minutes right after baby Finn wakes up from a delicious nap. He’s got sleepy eyes and he’s all soft and snuggly and he just melts into my arms like a newborn all over again. For the first few minutes right after a nap, he lets me hold him and stroke his gorgeous hair and whisper sweet nothings to him. I live for these fresh out of bed moments.

2. When he stubs a finger injures a body part, he’ll crawl into my lap and hold it up for a kiss. Although scientifically, kisses do nothing for his injury, it makes him feel better and I get to feel like a superhero because at least for now, I’m his entire universe and I can somehow make his pain go away.

3. When he laughs and can’t stop laughing and he’ll hold his head with one palm like it’s the funniest thing he ever saw. I’ll say it straight up that I’ll do anything to make this kid laugh. We all will. Whenever he starts one of his giggling fits, everyone comes running in to do more of whatever is making him laugh. Truett & Kirsten are the masters at this.

4. Watching him stagger around like he’s flat out wasted. Oh, drunk baby steps, you complete me.

5. Anytime he’s hungry (sometimes even after he’s just eaten). He’ll look longingly at the kitchen and say “mum mum mum mum mumm mmmmm *some lip smacking action* mmmm mum mum mummm…” At first I was all *heart melt* because I thought he was calling for me, but no, this kid just wants food.

So it turns out that baby Finn is the fastest walker of them all. He’s been holding on to furniture and cruising around for a while and on his first birthday, he was all like “this is nonsense, I’m just going to let go and walk like a big boy.”

And so he did.

There’s been no turning back once he discovered the freedom of walking without help from anyone or anything. Just my baby boy and his two little chubby legs ready to conquer the world. Speaking of which, he’s really fattened up over the past month. I love that he loves food and more than that, I love his smooshy (but firm) baby fats. I love them so much I can’t stop munching on them all day. I like me a fat baby and that’s all there is to it.

He’s still a bit wobbly and he’s stumbling around (sometimes falling all over the place) like that drunk uncle who’s had one too many beers. Cuuuuute doesn’t even begin to describe it.

I clearly went overboard with the editing but adding fake moustaches to my smooshy baby is strangely addictive. Hi I’m Daphne and I’m a fake baby moustache addict.

Allow me to raise a glass to more drunk baby shuffling, the cutest kind there is.

Finn! My littlest baby boy is turning one tomorrow and I’m sitting here feeling like a proud momma.

I’ve always thought that 1 year old is the point where they start to get really fun. The stoner infant stage is great and I do so love that newborn smell but they’re usually either fast asleep (good!) or in the process of trying fall asleep (not so good) or screaming their heads off for any number of unknown reasons (very, very bad!) Ok, it was kind of cute when he learnt to flip over and sit up and commando crawl for like all of 5cm. Watching all that effort go into moving 1 chubby thigh forward several inches is one of the most underrated joys one can have.

But 1, ohhh 1 is the magic number. We’re just having the greatest time with him lately. The little guy the light of everyone’s universe around here these days and he’s soaking up all the attention like he’s been doing it all his life. He flashes his cheeky grin right before he attempts to destroy his siblings’ masterpiece creations or ransack their toy cabinets and they just let him. Tru will be all “Finn Finn, noooo…arrghh, ok fine, fine, kor kor will build another one later” before affectionately ruffling his hair. And Kirsten is just the sweetest protective big sister. She follows him around holding both his hands as he takes a few steps forward. She makes silly sounds for him and her whole face lights up whenever he breaks into one of his giggling fits.

They’ve also learnt a new move – tag team to give baby Finn a little boost whenever he wants to climb up onto the bed or couch. One will grab his waist while the other grabs his bottom to hoist him up and I’ll be hovering behind like “Watch out, don’t let him smash his face guys!!” Whenever they succeed, I have 3 little people giving each other hi-fives like it’s the greatest accomplishment in the world. SO. CUTE.

Over in the snuggly department, I’m thrilled to say that baby Finn is turning out to be a most snuggly, lovey dovey baby. I certainly didn’t see this coming because he’s been a non-stop action kind of baby from birth. He used to be all “Snuggling? Ain’t nobody got time for that!” But these days, it’s like he’s trying to find little ways to make me all his.

Like how he attaches himself to my lap for a few extra minutes and drapes one arm on my thigh to mark his territory. And when I’m carrying him, he’ll flop his head down onto my chest just to hear the thump of my heartbeat. And when I’m lying next to him on the bed, he crawls all over my face before pressing his nose really hard into mine. I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love all his baby nose presses. It’s weird and my glasses gets all squashed into my face but it’s the most wonderful feeling in the world. I’m milking all the affection for as long as I can, that’s for sure.

And a few more of his other favorite things to do…

He loves dancing. He now has 3 moves – the side-to-side-hand-swipe, the raise-your-hand-in-the-air and the stationary-knee-bounce.

He loves books. Every morning, he yanks down a pile of books from the shelf and sits right in the middle of them flipping and making sounds to himself. He’s a reader, this one.

He’s really into hi-fives. One time, right around the start of this hi-5 obsession, I was giving Truett a hi-5 for his stellar spelling results and Finn was on my lap stretching out his hand to join in the hi-5 party. I was busy talking to Tru and when I finally noticed his tiny neglected outstretched hand, he looked at me with such profound sadness (the kind that you get when someone kills your puppy) that I made up for it with another 20 good ones up top. I bet he thinks that hi-5s are awesome, which they totally are.

He makes everyone smile, even the grumpiest-looking ones. People are always chatting him up in elevators, in coffee shops and out on the street.

He’s learning how to walk unaided and he’s loving every moment of it. It looks like he’s drunk half the time and the other half, he’s crumbling to the floor and face-planting into stuff but he just gets right up again and keeps going.

He’s also got a great big heart, far bigger than a person his size should be having.

All the time, I think of what a privilege it is to watch him grow and develop a personality and become this really amazing person. I thought I was pretty savvy with the mom thing after having 2 but in a lot of ways, parenting him has been a new and awesome experience. Each kid teaches me something different and I’d like to think that each one of them has helped me to become a better mom.

Happy Birthday, my sweet, sweet, snuggly little man!

The much-anticipated long weekend has finally arrived and we’ve got an unbelievable amount of frivolous (but fun) activities planned with the kids over the next couple of days because adventures aren’t going to have themselves, you know.

So in lieu of a real post, here are some pictures of baby Finn’s crazy hair coming at you right now because that’s what it is.

PS. Speaking of *the hair*, this hair growing business is turning out to be somewhat more tricky than I expected. My plan up to this point was to pretty much leave it alone (I know, right, genius level solution right there). No, seriously, it’s the only way I know how to make hair grow. All those theories about how cutting it makes it grow faster – that’s nonsense. Taking off 1 inch means it’s gone, making it 1 inch shorter, not longer. Basic math, people.

PPS. For a while, I had some success keeping his hair out of his face with man clips but he woke up one day and decided that he was done wearing them. Coupled with the fact that his psychomotor skills have progressed to the point where he’s able to yank them out and fling them across the room, it makes for some really wild hair moments.

PPPS. Then I tried waxing it just a little bit with one of those wax sticks and Truett was all “why are you putting glue in Finn Finn’s hair? Glue is not for hair, y’know.” Granted, it does look like an oversized glue stick but still…sigh, it’s clear that this boy needs to learn about hair products pronto.

PPPPS. Crazy hair or not, the level of cuteness in this kid is straight up lethal.

PPPPPS. Alright, I’m done. The number of P’s are getting out of control. You guys have a good one this weekend.

So I’ve been trying to grow out Finn’s hair nice and long. I don’t mean actively growing it like one would a pot of plant with water and sunlight and all, but more like refusing to cut it in the face of tremendous opposition. Which usually comes in the following forms:

“Why boy keep long hair? Look like girl leh…”

“HUH THIS ONE BOY AH?”

“His hair is all over his face, how to see?”

All valid points, I have to admit, but that’s why they call it growing pains. It’s been 3 months since I decided to grow it and this…this is the current state of the hair.

This is what it looks like fresh from a nap. From time to time, it falls all over his face and he starts blinking furiously. There might also be some frantic nose twitching thrown in there somewhere. I’ve been trying to teach him to do the Bieber hair flick for several weeks now but clearly he doesn’t consider that culturally relevant enough and therefore refuses to cooperate. How rude. Or smart. I’ve always known that this kid is too cool for his own good.

Every time my mom sees his messy hair, she’s all “you need to do something about his hair”, which is her way of saying “fine, that’s kind of cute but as a responsible adult, I need to point out how ridiculous this is.”

So I went out and got him a man clip. A what? A man clip. This.

It might be known to some as stationery but it’s functional, does the job and most importantly, not pink (even though the shirt is – although at this point, I feel the need to point out that the shirt is actually a shade of manly salmon, which is technically different from pink). In any case, that’s a market gap right there. Somebody needs to design hair clips for boys and I’ll buy it in every manly color you’ve got.

On another note, isn’t that like the smooshiest baby face you’ve ever seen? Sometimes I don’t know what to do with all the cuteness that explodes out of his face. One of these days, I’m going to munch it like cookie monster munches cookies.