Monday night Jack and I got a rare, rare treat - a date evening from 5 - 10. Our dear friends, the Stutsmans, took Finny for the afternoon and evening. They all went swimming in their home pool, they went to Conan's, they watched Daredevil vs Spiderman, they ate cinnamon toast, they went swimming again. Finny went over there feeling kinda sensitive, kinda sad and kinda surly - he and I had had some cross words earlier. He came home happy as a clam. We walked over around 9:30 and saw them playing spy in the front yard with flashlights. Finny reeeeeally wasn't ready to go yet and the Stutsmans were kind enough to tell us "no hurry." Finn felt like he needed one more swim before he left so he climbed on in (he was already naked, as usual) and sat on the stairs. He asked Autumn how deep the shallow end was (he swims in this pool all the time and knows this, but I could tell he was up to something). She told him 3 ft. He asked if he could stand up in that and she assured him he could. He asked me if I thought he could go out there without his swim ring. I assured him he could. And he did! Not only did he head on out, but he started doing a kind of swim dance that I remember Bowie doing when he first started really swimming. JUST like Finny to watch and observe and do it when he was good and ready. He was THRILLED and so was I. He bounced around and even took some water in a time or two and hung in there. This was really big for him. Really big. He loves to play in the pool, but has had absolutely zero interest in "learning" how to swim. He doesn't like water in his face - won't even put his face in the bath water or let water be poured on his head, won't go under water, nada. And here he was, up to his chin in water, no swim ring, alone, just bouncing on his tip toes and trying to do the swim dance. THEN he wanted the pool light off. I was slightly terrified as it is DARK in there with no pool light and he really can't swim yet and I was fully clothed. I tried to talk him out of it for a minute, but it was pointless. He got really upset and demanded to do it and so I just swallowed my fear and told him to go for it. And he did. It was so cool and he was HUGELY proud of himself. I had a lump in my throat the whole time watching how excited he was. Being proud of ones self simply eclipses having someone else be proud of you, no doubt about it. It was just glorious to watch. My baby. It was also bittersweet to me because he and I had had a "fight" before he went over there for the night. Too much to go into and nothing major, but I know that part of his jumping in the pool alone was him doing something to garner my attention and approval. He KNOWS, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he has that without having to do anything, but I knew what he was feeling nevertheless. He wanted to do something to show me how great he is and how deserving he is of my love. What he did was so cool, but I like to think I would have given him that same attention even if he was on the floor in hysterics. We walked home, late at night, Finny still naked and barefoot, all of us giddy with accomplishment and love. Jack and I were starving when we got home and no one felt like going straight to bed, so in perfect consensual living style we cooked up some shrimp tacos and Finn asked to paint. You can see how he lined up all the colors and all the glitter - so beautiful. He has such a good eye for color and placement. He moved the colors around until they were "right." I asked him where he wanted the paper; I had an idea of where it would look best. He picked the exact spot I was thinking of - perfectly balancing his creation. The set-up itself was pure art. He then proceeded to squirt a LOT of paint on the paper and drive his trucks and cars through the paint leaving beautiful tracks. Then he decided to paint himself, as you can see. I felt so happy and grateful that he lives in a family where the desire to create art at midnight is more important that an arbitrary bedtime. He had a lovely and soothing bath followed by 11 hours of hard sleep.
We all got all the things we needed, as we needed them and it was all perfect.
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