This is the Finn I know and love.

We lost Finn for a few months there, starting on August 26th, and it feels like we're starting to get him back.  (I don't dare say we have him back because I know better and Jason says I jinx us--it is always two steps forward and one step back with this boy.)  We lost him to Kindergarten.  Its hard to pinpoint the exact problem beyond exhaustion and adjustment, but just we've been living with a version of Finn I sometimes describe as Jekyll and Hyde.

One moment he would be crying on the way home from Concordia because I had let on that we were not having chocolate ice cream for dinner!  (And that is only a slight exaggeration.)  Later in the evening he would emerge from the gloom and tell us in detail about the best game of tag ever that he got to play in gym class that day.

Even though Jason and I literally said out loud back in August, "We need to brace ourselves for this transition."  That didn't do anything to actually equip us to cope with or help Finn through this overly-new full-day school life.  I've been waffling between grin-and-bear-it and how-soon-can-we-send-him-to-boarding-school?! 

But now, sigh, the good news.  I have recently caught a few glimpses of the Finn I know and love.  Busy and completely and delightfully absorbed in a project of his own design.  Observing and talking about and drawing the moon on our way home from Concordia.  Explaining in great detail his plans for his two newest fixations--a treehouse and an invention that will instantly compost dog poop where it lands in the grass. 

He is a delight to be with again, at least some of the time.  He is sweet and loving, even to Wylie, some of the time.  He wants to spend time with us and acts appropriately, some of the time.  He sweetly offers to share a piece of his Halloween candy.  Ah, maybe this is even the new and improved Finn!