Just a quick post to point out that I’ve made an experimental Twitter/Flickr mash-up: twitickr.

First post of the New Year and first proper post in donkey’s!

The last two or three weeks have seen to ‘first proper’ events for Finn. To begin with, this was his first proper Christmas; that is to say, the first Christmas that he’s really been aware of what’s going on though he didn’t really understand all of it.

He knows who Santa is, for example, and will point him out when he sees a picture of him or someone dressed as him (or if he sees a polar bear, for some inexplicable reason). He’ll also tell him that Santa says ‘ho ho’ if you ask. But I don’t think he quite grasps the concept of Santa as a bringer of presents. Before we opened the sitting room door on Christmas morning, Áine and I told him that we could hear Santa trying to get back up the chimney. Finn got a bit frightened when we said this so we had to hold his hands while we opened the door for him and lead him into the room.

His reaction to his presents was funny; his main gift from Santa was a bike and he got a few other knick-knacks such as a ‘Roary the Racing Car’ racetrack, some books, a Fisher Price Noah’s Ark and so on. Santa had quite helpfully unpacked everything and set it up before heading off, leaving the bike at the front of the pile. Áine and I felt a bit relieved when we saw Finn race over and grab his bike – we had, after all, written his letter on his behalf. Imagine our dismay then when he pushed it out of the way so that he could get to Roary! The bike hasn’t had a look-in but that’s probably the weather. Right?

The other ‘first proper’ for Finn this year was snow. Last time he was too young to go out in it (and couldn’t walk anyway) so this year we brought him out for a few minutes. It had started to thaw so we couldn’t build him a snowman but he enjoyed stomping about in it. He wasn’t too impressed when he tried to pick some up and discovered how cold it can be though!

Barely.

We (finally) got Finn his first haircut last Friday. Here he is looking like a little angel:

And here he is (pre-haircut) in his current default mode (eating):

That last pic was taken at Powerscourt Waterfall the day of my birthday. Absolutely gorgeous place, I love having stuff like that so close to Dublin – literally a thirty minute drive.

So, Finn is just over 14 months old now and is coming along in leaps and bounds. Not literally – he’s just starting to find his feet as it were and is pretty close to walking. I’m guesstimating that this time next month he’ll have taken his first few tentative, unaided steps. For the moment though, he has us holding his hands while he walks stiltedly everywhere (he may have found his feet but his knees are a different story). He usually insists that you hold both hands but sometimes he’ll settle for just his right hand; for some reason he puts his left hand over his ear when you walk with him like this. Try to let go of his right-hand in favour of the left and he’ll just plop himself back down on the ground.

He’s confident enough at this stage to be able to walk up and down the living room (and the path outside the house) using his walker for balance. Trying to explain to a one-year-old that it’s time to go in because it’s just started raining is great craic.

When it comes to cruising though, he’s flying around and is well able to pull himself up on pretty much everything he can reach and that isn’t likely to topple over – sofas, beds, chairs, Thomas the Tank Engine thingie, your legs and the TV stand. I used to think that that last one was Finn being pragmatic; instead of moaning that 32 inches just isn’t a large enough screen size, he figured that if he got closer to the screen it would seem bigger. But then he started hitting the screen and I was quickly disavowed of that belief. Little rascal.

Anyway, here are some videos: