A Whole New World

Warning: this is a very mom/baby-focused post. Come back in a day or two for lots of recent eats if the mom stuff isn’t your thing. 🙂

Being a mom has surprised me in countless ways but one of the most significant is how much I joy I feel watching Finn see and experience life with such childlike wonder. It gives me so much pause to reflect on true happiness, unconditional love and pure presence.

Honest to god, I never never thought that I would love being a mom as much as I do. In my 30s I came to realize that I definitely wanted to have children but I wasn’t prepared for the depth of emotion that would come with it. Finn is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

My dad was always very averse to shows, movies and books where bad things happened to children. Not that I also didn’t like seeing those things, but I didn’t fully get that until I had one of my own. Now, I have extremely visceral responses and find that I easily cry when I read news about terrible things happening to children or watch movies or read books where children are hurt.

Earlier this week I had tears in my eyes just watching Finn sit on my grandmother’s balcony. I was drinking coffee and he was hanging out. I looked over at him and he was just sitting there smiling SO big over nothing but being awake, outside and alive.

Seeing Finn with my parents and grandmother makes my heart want to explode. I have written this before but you have a whole new appreciation for your parents after you have children of your own. Like holy crap, you loved/love me THIS much!?

This deep bond is extra sweet. Finn adores my grandmother and you should see the grins he gives her when he sees her…whether that’s greeting her when we arrive after a few weeks away or just seeing her open her bedroom door in the morning.

Finn also loves to bring my grandmother books to read. He picks up a book, walks up to her, turns around and backs into her wanting to be picked up to read a book.

He also makes the everyday moments special. How awesome that Finn can find so much entertainment exploring the contents of a cabinet?

Or how much fun he can have interacting with water?

My child has ZERO fear around water and is going to be a little fish, I can already tell.

I’ve appreciated the opportunity to raise him so close to the ocean. Some of my best childhood memories with my family and my brother are on these beaches. <3

Babies and dogs…oh my heart. I dreamed that one day Sullie would be a big sister to a baby and how lucky was I that Finn and Sullie got to cross paths? Those are memories I will never forget. My little guy is a true dog lover and I love it! He calls Zoey “o-ey.” He loves patting all the dogs. 🙂 He does the same walk up to Zoey, turn around and back into her to sit down that he does with my grandmother. Haha.

Finn has been the greatest teacher of my life. Things are not perfect but every day I am given a choice on where to place my focus. I am trying hard to keep my it on the blessing that Finn is, and not on the lack of what I thought becoming a mom and having a family would be.

Praise god for his incredible creation.

With love,
Jen