A few weeks ago we went strawberry picking. At first Finley was very helpful, but she quickly delegated herself to official strawberry taster.
And here’s where i lost my little helper…
oops. that was was a little too dirty.
messy hands…
“oh dear!”
i swear that time flies by even faster when the weather is nice. is it seriously halfway through june? we’ve been spending every chance we get out in the yard, at the beach (i use that term liberally) or at the toddler water park by our house (which i’ll save for another post). finley is in her element when she’s playing outside…climbing, exploring, anything involving water, looking for flowers and animals, and especially the freedom to be as loud as she wants (which is really loud, trust me). and in my humble opinion, the best thing about being in the great outdoors is that the tantrums and timeouts are almost non-existent. there are no battles over sitting nicely in the shopping cart. no exhaustive conversations about sharing. aside from 1 or 2 boundaries involving safety she is free to do whatever she chooses. she loves it. we love it. everybody is happy. 
i love this girl.
Well. Finley is now a big 1 1/2 year old. This last month has been, well, an interesting one. Finley has definitely begun asserting her independence. And when you set a boundary she’s not down with she’ll let you know. In the form of a loud, wailing tantrum. Oh, joy.
Meeting baby lucy.
Approximately 2 seconds later she honked the baby’s nose. Thanks for teaching her that, babe!
she could eat that whole thing of hummus.
To preface this next one….We’ve been watching this elmo dvd that is 25 years old. And in one scene elmo is admiring whoopi’s pretty brown skin. He wants to have brown skin too.. Apparently so does Finley. She said “whoopi” when we asked her what she did.
I feel like I have so many stories and thoughts bouncing around in my head and I don’t know where to start. We have been sooooo very busy lately. Doing what? Well I’m not exactly sure… We’ve been running around Home Depot and Lowes on an almost daily basis (brian is very proud that his daughter knows which store is which), spent hours upon hours hunting for the perfect floor, back splash etc. that just so happens to be something that wont break the bank, all the while trying to keep Finley from poking an eye out with a rogue tool or eating a piece of sheet rock that she thinks is popcorn. Minus some sanding and paint, the kitchen is basically done, and let me tell you…it looks a-mazing! I’ll probably post a picture when it’s all done so I can brag about brian’s awesome work.
Even though the remodel has taken up the majority of our time lately we have managed to partake in some other fun activities. For example, we went to the Carnation Elementary Talent Show. Now, I know this is a pretty big claim to make, but I’m pretty certain it was one of the most entertaining nights of my life. Imagine if you will, a little tiny 2nd grader belting out a man-bashing country song, or a pair of 3rd grade girls singing Taylor Swift love songs. And the dancing, oh man! It was sooo obvious that these little munchkins have hannah montanna fever. When I was little I had no idea how dance sexy (as opposed to now) and I definitely would NOT have gotten up on a stage and attempted it in front of a large audience. Anyway, we had a great time cheering on our little Hailey.
We had the pleasure of cousin Maya joining us for our Wednesday play date with Grandma and Gigi. Grandma gave the girls matching dresses.
We went to a REALLY fun Easter celebration at our church. Finley decorated cookies, had story time, did art projects, and of course participated in an egg hunt.
And here we are at Grandma’s house for our family Easter celebration. She’s sad that it’s raining outside. 
Showing off her pretty dress.
Playing some hymns.
And last but not least, here is my little peanut enjoying the sunshine. Please let the sun come back soon.
For the sake of time, I will write a separate post giving a synopsis on our big 18 month old. Some titles that I’m musing over at this moment are: “the week-long tantrum” and “is it okay to put a shot of vodka in my coffee?”
i’m pretty sure finley is on the verge of reciting some shakespearean sonnets. well, practically. this week she started putting two words together to make a sentence. brian was quite tickled that he was the noun in her very first sentence. on the weekends we always bring finley into our bed for what has now become our favorite time of the day. she loves jumping around our bed and having little mini pillow fights. monday morning rolled around and brian was as work. i brought her in bed and she looked around and said “dada worka?”
A few nights later, she had a liiiiiittle incident in her bed involving a lot of throw up. i stripped her out of her dirty jammies and she really started crying, the kind with the huge tears that almost makes you tear up. she looked at me, and in the most precious voice i have ever heard she said, “hold you?” i silently made her a promise that i would hold her until she was thirty if she wanted. and there you have it. i am the proud owner of a little, talking toddler.
Here are some photos from the last month or so. It’s no easy feat to take a decent picture of her now that she is on the go all the time. 
After coming out of the bathroom I panicked when I couldn’t find her, and then I found this. She even has her hand on the mouse! This told me that perhaps I spend a liiiiittle too much time on the internet.
First time wearing pigtails. I love it!
This is what happens when we run on the concrete without holding onto mama’s hand. it’s sort of hard to see but she scraped her mouth and nose 
Just to illustrate that it’s not all champagne and caviar I will share my most frustrating parenting moment to date. Finley and I just got back from our weekly shopping trip. Normally, I love taking her along (not that I have a choice) because she smiles and waves at all the elderly people, who in turn tell me what an adorable little son I have. It’s good times all around. Today however, that was not the case. From the get go Finley resisted being strapped in the cart. After asking her nicely to sit on her bottom several times, she decided to up the ante and start screaming and flailing. So I did what any normal mom would do and I grabbed the nearest box of food and opened it in hopes of distracting her out of the worlds largest (and most embarrassing) tantrum. She took a few bites of the organic granola bar and sent it flying across the isle. Okay, deep breath. How about the binky? That went flying too. It became clear that this fit was going to happen despite my best efforts so I started to rush through my shopping (thus forgetting several key items). It got real ugly. She reached her go-go gadget arms into the cart and started throwing food onto the floor. Black Cherry yogurt was everywhere. Deep breath. Talk to her calmly and sternly. Don’t worry about all the people staring at us like I have 6 arms. Another carton of yogurt explodes on the floor. Don’t cry. Don’t cry. It’s not like people have never seen a tantrum before. Eventually we made it to the check out line. Finley distracted herself flirting with the little boy in front of us. I made chit chat with the lady checking us out and by the time we left the store my blood pressure was back down in a healthy range. I loaded Finley in her seat and surrounded her with our bags of groceries. In the 15 seconds that it took to return the shopping cart, Finley pulled out the lettuce and shredded it all over the back seat. I probably should have gotten mad, especially given her behavior earlier. But, I just decided to laugh. She had lettuce hanging out of her mouth and she gave me a look like, “What? What are you looking at? This is normal isn’t it?” In that moment I just had to give in to the humor of it all. After calling Brian to share in the hilarity, Finley and I had a nice chat, she signed “sorry” and I quickly forgot all about the world’s largest tantrum. I don’t suggest addressing every behavior problem by making light of it. That would be irresponsible. But sometimes you just have to. At least I do.
Lately, I’ve been overcome with thankfulness that I am able to be a stay-at-home-mom. It sort of dawned on me that i get to go to bed every single night looking forward to spending the next day with my daughter. I’m doing exactly what I’ve always wanted to do, and there’s not a job out there that could top playing with my baby. And my dear husband doesn’t bat an eye at working long hours to make it possible (thanks, babe)! I guess all this is to say that, I that I am thoroughly enjoying this season in my life.
Anywho…
Yesterday, Finley had her 15 month check up and as usual all is well. Still growing along quite nicely. No peanut butter till she’s two. Give her Tylenol on the plane ride to Maui. No big deal that she isn’t a pro with the spoon. Wean her off the bottle immediately. I knew it was coming, but I still thought I’d ask why. Dr B. answered, and I quote, “I see Suri Cruise and other 3 year olds walking around with a bottle and it just makes me so mad”. ohhhhh, well okay then, thanks for the scientific explanation. Who knew Dr. B was so caught up on celebrity babies.
In other Finley news… she is becoming quite the little talker. She mimics almost any word you ask her to say. Some of the words she knows are: mama, papa, yes, no, more, baby, hi, bye, i yuh you (i love you), milk, more, booty (the food, not the body part), cheese, juice, and ewwww (“i’m pooping” as if i couldn’t tell by the red face and loud grunting). you get the picture. The ability to answer questions with a “yes” or a “no thanks” is both convenient and hilarious. A few weeks ago I accidentally phrased my request as a question and asked her if she would put her binky in her bed (since we don’t like her to have it while unless she’s sleeping) she replied quite curtly, “no thanks”. What can I say… at least she was polite about it.