Finley turned 18 months this month and in a week, she’ll be 19! Time is flying by, I can’t believe how grown up she is.
I don’t even know where to begin with the latest stories but I’ll try to write down a few in hopes that someday I’ll turn this little blog into a collection of short stories to place in a book for Fin about her childhood.
We went to Phoenix last week to visit “ma-ma”, “pa-pa” and “g-ma Audie”. Finley flew down with my parents on Wednesday while I went down with the girls to celebrate mine and Jeff’s pending nuptials. The girls and I had a fabulous time. Stayed at Lon’s Hermosa Inn. Drank by the pool. Had dinner at City Hall. And, went to Kazimierz wine bar, just to name a few things. It was all of my favs from my past life when I lived it up in PHX.
On Sunday, I joined the fam at my parent’s house and we hung out and relaxed for a few days. Fin is enamored with her Pa-Pa and loved to follow him around and call out to him when he left her side. Ma-ma, who has renamed herself chop liver because that’s how she feels in comparison to Pa-Pa, and G’ma Audie got such a kick out of lil Fin calling out to her Pa-Pa 24/7. They would go “weeee” thru the neighborhood on Pa-Pa’s yellow golf cart at least a dozen times a day.
We taught Fin how to say, “Audie’s Girl” while in the back seat of the car one night and Fin thought it was so funny that her Pa-Pa would get upset when she changed her mind and became, “Audie’s Girl”.
One evening after shopping, Fin saw a Chipolte Restaurant. Jeff and I take her there once a week (don’t laugh, there’s not a lot to choose from in Fed Way, believe me, I’ve looked!). She obsessively pointed at the restaurant until I brought her in and got her a ‘nack’….that would be snack for lil Fin.
In other news, we’re starting the potty training thing. She’s so curious about the potty and even tries to get on the big potty by straddling her leg over the seat and right into the water. “Yuck! I yell,” and she breaks into hysterics and calls back to me, “Uck”. So we went out to buy her a potty last weekend and low and behold, last night, there was a little tinkle in the pot. Go Fin! ;)
I sacrificed yoga practice last Saturday to take her to the Lil Gym. I was sooo excited to take her there. Jeff and I woke up around 8am last Saturday, and we arrived. The teacher told us to take our shoes off, and come sit by her and the other families at the gym. The instructions were as follows, “let your kid do whatever, but parents please stay with me, you’ll lead by example and hopefully your kids will stay by your side and join you in the class.” As class begin, the teacher asks the parents to join her in song and clapping. I bet you can just imagine the look on Jeff’s face when the singing and clapping begin. We join in and minutes later, Finley is shouting at the top of her lungs, “no way” “no way” which is her way of telling us she doesn’t want to partake in what we are asking her to do. The teacher calls her up to do a roll and she refuses. The class gives her a big hand and she hides behind me. She then walks over to the door and yells out, “buh-bye, buh-bye” which means she’s ready to leave about 5 minutes in. We got her to stay the entire 45 minutes but needless to say, she wasn’t all that impressed. They called me this week and welcomed us back for another trial session but I don’t think either father nor daughter is interested in going back. Would it be weird if I showed up alone? Nevermind, I’ll just pick back up my yoga practice on Saturday mornings that I missed.
In a couple weeks, Jeff will be finally moved up to Seattle for work. This means, Fin’s daycare in Tacoma will be very difficult for us to get to. We’ve been on a waiting list at a new place in Edgewood since May with very little movement on getting in. We told Fin’s teachers this week that in the next month or so, we’ll be leaving the Center and it was so terribly sad. She’s been there since she’s been about 6 months old and we’ve really come to love and trust them there. It’s going to be such a hard transition and I’m sad to be leaving such a great school. I hope the transition on Fin is easy and that we can start to love this new place as much as we did the old.
Stay tuned for more updates!
