My Mothers Day Gift: Your 7 Month Birthday

Setbacks and delays abound.  I had a big scare this week regarding my pictures.  I plugged in my portable hard drive, where I store every single picture I own, and every folder was empty.  Just blank.  My heart sank and felt sick to my stomach because it's been a year since I backed them up.  You're only 7 months old.  Do the math.  Yep, that's every picture of you, and tons of your sisters.  Fortunately, I took a deep breath, connected to dad's computer instead, and they're all there.  Needless to say, I have been backing up for days and it's really putting a kink in my blogging schedule.  But the pictures are safe, and I am more relieved than I can say.  

Leaf-eater

Now on to the post I wrote over a week ago but didn't add without pictures:
What a busy weekend!  You and I spent our first Mothers Day together.  And while it's not even close to being my first Mothers Day, it was yours.  Even more importantly, it was my very last "first" Mothers Day.  The kind with the new baby smell.  The next time I hold a new baby in my arms and can lay any claim to him or her, she or he will be a grand-baby.  Yikes!  Let's hope that's quite a long while off.  

Where we spent Mother's Day morning: In bed.

Before any Mothers Day festivities could get off the ground, we had another big day to get out of the way.  Saturday was Ashley's senior prom.  I'm not sure how I got to this place where I have a senior in high school, a tiny baby and two more girls sandwiched in the mix, but here I am.  Ashley looked amazingly beautiful and sophisticated.  It's pretty much impossible for me to reconcile in my mind that tall, young woman in front of me with the memory of the little girl that she used to be.  

My first baby.

I had no idea how emotional I would be about her senior prom.  Somehow it all seemed so final, and I couldn't help but fight back tears when she joined her friends on their "party bus."  She has a way of stressing me out when it comes to any sort of function or event.  She is a bundle of nerves and doesn't handle the stress well, and I don't handle that well.  But I cried anyway, because we'll never do this again together.  The crazy dress shopping.  The second-guessing of the dress we bought even though it says "All sales are final" on the receipt.  The back and forth decisions about all of the little details.  The crunch-time freak-out because she doesn't like her hair.  The panic because we're running late.  It's kind of become tradition.  

Cute couple.

Funny enough, the sunset was gorgeous Saturday night.  All I wanted for Mothers Day was to sit on the beach with my family and watch the sunset together.  We just haven't gotten down there enough this year and I almost ache when I see the pink and orange sky from our driveway and know the beach is a five minute drive away.  Your sisters (and dad) woke us up on Sunday with breakfast in bed: pumpkin pancakes, coffee and chocolate truffles.  It's a good thing I don't eat a breakfast like that every morning!  What a nice surprise.  There were funny cards and Godiva chocolates.  The kind of things Mothers Day is made of.  We made plans to meet Uncle Kendall, Jill and the kids at the beach.  Grammy was going to show up also.  We were finally going to take some family pictures.  I couldn't think of a better way to end the day.  But as luck would have it, it began to rain.  Somehow, our favorite beach was in a cocoon of sunshine hold-out for a while.  But by sunset it was pouring.  We were trapped in the snack bar tiki hut.  Minus the snack bar, because it was closed.  Good thing we brought empanadas, arepas, subs and muffins.  Do we know how to party, or what?

We made it to the beach, at least.

This was our view to the left (yes, those are min-rip curls...unheard of in the gulf)...

...and our view to the right.  Yes, that's a downpour out there.

There was just enough time to play in the sand for a bit.

We headed to shelter just in time.

We spent a lot of time doing this...

...and this...

...and this.

Sunday was also your 7 Month Birthday.  I had planned on getting your "month birthday" pictures at the beach.  I'm so disappointed that things didn't work out as planned.  But pictures or no pictures, you turned 7 months anyway.  

What Finnlee is Digging: 7 Months

• Shaking your head "no".  You are doing it constantly now.  Answering every sentence with even the slightest questioning lilt on the end of it with a shake of the head.  It is so adorable.  For now.  Ask me in two years how I feel about this.
• Dropping things.  Your newest obsession is picking things up as high as you can and then just opening your little fingers to see what happens.  Lots of fun when it's little stuff like measuring spoons (favorite).  Not so much fun when it's bigger stuff.  Ouch.
• Bananas!  You have decided that they are your food of choice.  I have fully capitalized on this by blending them with all sorts of odd foods to expand your palette.
• Rattle apps on Mommy's iphone.  They are lifesavers when I'm driving and you would rather I wasn't.
• Squealing/Screaching/Screaming.  It depends.  When you're happy you can let out the cutest, loudest squeal.  But when you're mad, you've got quite the temper.  I tried to squish your cheeks together the other day and you let out an angry yell like I've never heard from a little baby before.

I have so much more to add thanks to a blogging hiatus.  I'll save it for another post.  For now, we'll just revel in one last 7 month old Finnlee pic.