Ah Finn?

For years, my idol was Wilco’s lead singer, Jeff Tweedy. I concocted elaborate schemes to become his best friend. I tried desperately to shorten the six degrees of Kevin Bacon that separated us. I even contemplated converting to Judaism so I could just so happen to show up at his temple. I’m sure somewhere a lawyer is drafting a well-worded restraining order as I write this.

Luckily for Elijah, his idol is his cousin Finn. It’s much easier when the object of your obsession lives five minutes away. I’d say roughly 3,000 times a day Eli looks out the window and inquires, “Ah, Finn? Ah, Finn?”

Even more luckily for Eli, he got to spend two glorious days with his idol at my parents’ for a pre-Christmas spectacular. Eli shrieked with glee as Finn shoved him to the ground. He positively howled when Finn chased him through my dad’s living room and crashed into the glass French doors. He even attempted to mimic Finn’s sippie cup drinking style. Which involves sprawling across the arms of a recliner.

Unluckily for me and Diana, Eli wanted to spend quality time with Finn at 4am Saturday night. We bolted up in bed to the hysterical cries of Eli. We held him and he sobbed, “Whaaaaaaa. Ah Finn? Ah Finn?”

The combination of being in a strange darkened room and not being able to see Finn rendered him unable to go back to sleep. We tried rocking him and fetching him water, but he kept crying and inquiring. Crying and inquiring.

Finally, I put him on my chest, which calmed him down. He wriggled into a comfortable position and drifted off to sleep. However, his comfortable position included jamming his shoulder into my windpipe. I tried to reposition him, but that only served to wake him up.

“Whaaaaaa. Ah Finn?”

At which point he wriggled back to cutting off my air supply. I laid there, convincing myself that I only needed 20% of my usual oxygen intake and I drifted off (blacked out).

Thankfully, I woke up not dead the next morning and took Eli out to the kitchen for breakfast. He got headed off at the pass by his idol, who resumed chasing him for the next 12 hours.

p.s. The only photographic evidence I have of the two boys is this image from last April. The Wolfman in the background is Steve. I also think that’s Grover’s nose on the right.