Five Things I Love About Finn, Who Turned 1 Yesterday

1. His favourite game is walking. In our house you can walk in a circuit through the living and dining rooms, around a hallway, and back again. Ever since Finn started hoofing it on his own, at around 10.5 months, he’s spent probably an hour every day doing this loop over and over again. Pure joy.
2. He’ll try eating anything. As a baby, Bridget was the pickiest of picky eaters. Not Finn. He’ll make short work of beans, cheese, hummus, spicy veggie burger patties, and all manner of fruits and vegetables (though he has gotten more discerning in recent weeks). He eats with his hands, and after every meal you can find a ring of crumbs and stains on his shirt at the exact point where tray meets stomach.
3. How much he loves the outdoors. A big selling point of our house was the backyard, which is big and ringed with trees. Whenever the snow has melted (Edmonton springs are a tease), we let Finn run wild back there, and wild he does run. This is going to be a kid who grows up with dirt under his fingernails. Already, when he sees an open door but can’t go through it, he screams.
4. He smushes his face into a stuffed animal to show he likes it. Adorable.
5. The way he looks up to Bridget. This is the easiest one of all to spot—he obviously thinks the world of his big sister, and will dutifully absorb whatever nonsensical song she’s singing or Harry Potter spell she’s casting. Watching your children feed off of one another may be the single most fulfilling part of being a parent.

So happy birthday, Finn. You are exactly as old as The Pale King, and I love you even more.

Easter 2012

FRIDAY

Kate had to finish her last essay of the semester, so she took off to Transcend first thing in the morning. I played with both kids for a few hours and made everyone lunch. When Kate came home, I took Bridget and Finn out to Wee Book Inn, so he could pet their crusty-eyed cat Yvan who lives next to the sci-fi. I sold eight books and bought three new ones (one for Bridget). We went to Videodrome and rented four movies. Then we drove to a nearby Mac’s and picked out treats to go with the movie. Bridget picked these horrible synthetic chemical-ropes called Cow Tales, which Kate and I have since agreed are now off-limits. I got a peanut butter Snickers. We came home and put on part of Bridget’s Sesame Street country music jamboree DVD so Finn could dance to the banjo song and point at the screen whenever Elmo appears. We ate dinner. Bridget and I watched Labyrinth. Kate finished her essay and I proofread it before she handed it in. She was very excited. Bridget slept in our bed. Finn slept very poorly.

SATURDAY

I had an appointment to donate blood—my first—at 8:45, and Bridget really wanted to come with me and watch. Later she told me she was gathering material for a game called Blood Clinic. We all went on the LRT, and Bridget got squeamish once we walked in the door. She agreed to come sit with me in the chair only after the needle was in. It went fine; I ate soup after. Meanwhile Finn pooed, so Kate took off with him to buy wipes. They ended up too far away, and decided to walk home. Bridget and I got back on the LRT and went to the downtown farmers’ market at City Hall, as planned. We bought apples, pears, eggs, an onion, a cucumber, and one cookie dough Cake Bite each. We walked home from the LRT and sang “Ten Green and Speckled Frogs” as loud as we could.

Kate was in full-on cleaning mode, and Finn was napping, so Bridget and I kept playing at home. We drew exquisite-corpse monsters and played Candy Land on the floor of her room. Then we drove out to the library and bought some groceries from Safeway. Kate stayed home with Finn and did some dinner prep. We ate dinner, and Kate’s mom came over to babysit. Kate and I went out and met some friends at a new bar called Cask and Barrel downtown. We drank two beers each, came home, and hid Easter eggs all around the house before bed. Finn slept surprisingly well.

SUNDAY

Bridget woke up at 6 AM, ready for her Easter egg hunt. She surprised me with a present she’d picked out with Kate, and vice versa. Neither of us suspected it. Bridget hunted for eggs all over the house and found most of them; Finn waved around his rabbit balloon on a stick. We ate breakfast. Bridget was surprised, and not unpleasantly, to find some Mini-Eggs sprinkled in with her Cheerios. We drew on and then dyed some pre-hard-boiled white eggs. I played with Finn inside a nylon tent in the office while David Bowie’s Low played in the background. We had a picnic lunch in our backyard on a spot where the snow had melted. Kate and Finn went inside; Bridget and I kept playing until she fell and scraped her palm on the concrete. Kate and I played Scrabble at our dining room table while Bridget kept score. Kate got a 50-point bonus for playing “e[n]abling”; I used “squab,” and wasn’t sure if it was spelled right but knew Kate wouldn’t challenge me. Bridget and I went to the Garneau Theatre to watch Chaplin’s The Gold Rush on the big screen. She giggled during the potato-dance sequence, and her laughs echoed around the whole theatre; she also tried a single sip of pop, wrinkled her nose, and declared it "too bubbly."

When we got back, Kate’s parents were over, and they were all working on the nearly finished basement suite. Together they changed locks, fixed our busted gate, and installed curtain rods. I made dinner—kidney-bean veggie burgers, yam fries, and asparagus—and Kate and Bridget made little strawberry shortcakes for dessert. The grandparents went home, and the kids went to bed. I hung laundry to dry, then sat down and wrote this.

Easter 2012.