finn turns 6

we've dubbed this year 'the never ending birthday' for finn. he celebrated in new brunswick, he celebrated at school, he celebrate an entire weekend at home and then again with family and friends, and then he continued the celebration in disneyland. to say this kid got a lot of attention this year is a bit of an understatement. 

for some reason, 6 has been a real doozy for me. each birthday that passes is always emotional, but SIX has definitely knocked me on my ass. i think part of it is that six just FEELS like the first real 'big kid' age. as much as i look at him and see this little person that will forever be my baby, the reality is he suddenly weighs 60lbs and can probably run faster than me. he's losing teeth, gaining independence, starting to read and write and come up with super creative things without us planting those initial seeds. he suddenly cares a little bit more about the image he presents to the world- some old toys are deemed 'too babyish' and certain sunglasses or shoes are suddenly 'super cool'. he doesn't want or need me like he used to, and although at the end of the day, he still snuggles in to my chest like he always has, the handholds and public kisses are gradually becoming fewer. he loves nothing more than independent play time his friends- the further out of sight and unsupervised, the better. and for the most part, we are happy to give him that freedom- gradually allowing him to learn and explore on his own, unobstructed by our visions or interpretations of what surrounds him.  i can sense the days of just him and i are no longer what they used to be. summers past would have been filled with solo him and me time, but now requests to play with buddies trump most things i'm able to offer.

its both incredible and heartbreaking to watch this transformation. he is SUCH a cool person, and seeing him grow will forever be one of the greatest experiences of my lifetime. but it also reinforces just how fast life moves, and i know that is a feeling i will never get used to. 

a bit about these photos- for the past few years, we have made finn a bit of a 'choose your own adventure map' to lay out what we will be doing on his birthday. this year was a bit trickier as his birthday fell on a saturday that happened to be the opening ceremonies for his baseball team and my sister was passing through town with her family, so we had already made plans to have dinner with them and ended up with a pretty crammed day.

we also weren't really sure what to get finn for a gift this year (he really didn't have anything on his wishlist and we wanted to keep it simple/inexpensive since we were going to disneyland). we ended up getting him a really basic digital camera. the idea being he would have something all his own to take pictures of whatever he felt like, and he could also bring it to disneyland with us. so far its been a pretty big hit. we continue to prompt him to use it as its not yet a regular habit, but he has really loved capturing the things going on around us.

happy 6th birthday, bunny! xo