The Finlinsons

Friday, April 15, 2011

Little 10-Month Old Leila

My little Leila is gonna be 10 months old tomorrow. I can't believe how time flies.

Here's a little bit about my Leila:

She weighs 21 lbs and wears the same size diaper as Eden. But she's thinning out.
She loves food she can pick up and feed herself. She's vetoing baby food.
She can walk up to 7 steps at a time before falling.
She's verbal (and loud). Mostly loud "AH!" or "UH?" sounds.
She does say "mom", "dad", "more", "no", and "llama".
She loves to figure out how things work...take apart and put back together.
She loves to give kisses.
She plays Peek-a-Boo. Mostly with Eden's blanket...that she LOVES much to Eden's dismay.
She loves climbing the stairs, especially when she knows mom and dad are not around and she's being sneaky about it.
She HATES diaper changes and getting washed after meals.
She's really dramatic and complains to me by crawling to me until I notice her then she'll stop, throw her head down, and pretend to cry a little.
She's got 2 teeth on the bottom.
She favorite foods are probably plums, grapes, and green beans.
She uses her mouth a lot when making facial expressions.
She get SUPER excited about doing anything that she knows "big people" do.
She can open the toy dresser and pull out the toys she wants by herself.
She loves to play in the bathroom, especially unrolling toilet paper, putting finger in toilet water, and putting things into the tub.
She and Eden love to share toys back and forth while in their car seats.
She loves Eden. She's always trying to copy Eden.

Also, we have this book at my house...

I sometimes refer to Leila as "Pinkerton", the main character that is described as "pink, plump, and pushy". (I'm such a mean mom.)

Here's a little view of "Pinkerton" figuring out how to get around my obstacles I put in place so she would leave Eden alone and let her draw. But if there's a will, there's a way.

The last one is Leila trying to steal Eden's marker and Eden trying to swat her arm away and saying, "Leila's being trouble!" Eden also often says, "Leila, you're making this difficult."

I give Leila a hard time because she's so active and sometimes troublesome. But I really love her so much. Her strong personality makes her so lovable. I could hug and kiss her all day long if I could.

Eden and Leila are so different from each other. To see videos of Eden at this age, click HERE and HERE. These are some of my favorite Eden videos...I recommend watching.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

The More I Know, the More I Know I Don't Know

Tonight I'm feeling a bit....uneasy.

After watching a friendly show on Netflix with my husband we got in a conversation about something on the show....Osteogenesis Imperfecta (aka: Brittle Bone Disease) to be exact.

(This is the part where my husband lights up like a firecracker...I mean, he's a med student.)

After talking about brittle bone, we talked about how the eye works, how cells work, how placentas are formed, how the heart works, diseases, and more diseases.

But of course he used much more complicated words that are far beyond my capacity to remember let alone REPEAT to all of you my fellow readers.

He started looking up diagrams online to help me understand.

That's when I started to feel uneasy.

Being a woman, I totally over-analyzed.

"He knows way too much."

"Does HE know how much he knows?"

"What have I been DOING with all my time while he's LEARNING?"

"I know NOTHING."

"He uses WAY more of his brain than I do."

"Have I just been wasting my brain's knowledge capacity?"

I mean, I know that being a wife and mother is extremely important but I feel enclosed in this bubble of Dr. Seuss books and figuring out how to keep my house clean. His bubble contains things like, "I've felt what a LUNG feels like and its the softest thing in the world".

How can I compete with that?

All of a sudden the world is getting bigger and bigger.

I'm getting smaller and smaller.

I ask Tyson, "What's something I know that you don't?"

His response, "You know how to make Cinnamon Knots."

He gives a smirk.

My eyeballs roll.

Although I admit, I like these conversations with my husband. Watching him LIGHT UP cause he can teach me something that he's passionate about as well as learning new things (that unfortunately I'll probably forget by tomorrow morning).

But I currently feel like a speck of dust floating through space.

I gotta keep telling myself that its OK to feel like a little person in a big world. But instead of hanging on to whatever I can in order to survive, I need to simply enjoy the ride and take this opportunity to learn something new.

What he memorizes are charts, medicines, diseases, and the body.

I memorize signs that my children give to show they need something, recipes that use up what I have in the fridge so I don't waste money and food, and what time I need to START getting myself and the kids ready to go somewhere in order to make it on time (with which I admit I still struggle).

I'm really not even sure why I'm blogging about all this. I guess I need an outlet for all this uneasiness.

So, for those of you still following this post....or this blog...now you know what I'm feeling.

At least what I'm feeling right now.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Best Sister Award

I've been feeling lonely lately. Mostly just a bit homesick and ready to see my family again. I miss them.

Last year, for the April General Conference, my sister Laura came out to visit me with her son, Trey. This year she decided to make it a tradition and came again (this time with Trey and her new little one, Ramona).

Laura wins the "Best Sister Award". I needed that break from life and to see someone in my family again.

We kept pretty busy going to parks, window shopping, riding around town, chasing around children, and of course watching conference (...when we weren't chasing around children).

Ramona and Leila.

(The ironic thing about this picture is that I think Ramona is a happier baby than Leila in general. Ramona TALKS and BABBLES like crazy and Leila gave lots of CRUSTY faces and WHINY noises.)

Eden and Trey are complete opposites personality-wise. They had a love-hate relationship with each other. But overall, they loved being with each other.

Leila's first time on the swings.

She LOVED it.

Tyson was busy with school,

but was able to come out and enjoy time with us too.

Thursday, March 31, 2011

Real Life

Sometimes I read other people's blogs and then think about my blog.

I realize that I do tend to skip over bad things, bad days, bad WEEKS that happen.

Lots of people talk about life...REAL LIFE.

And I really enjoy those blogs. The ones that make the person seem real and human. The ones that make you say "AMEN. I feel the SAME WAY."

So, here's a little of what's been going on in my REAL LIFE.

Eden's going through a "phase" lately. It has improved, but last week I was about to pull my hair out and scream at the top of my lungs. And I had quite a few "cry my eyes out" nights after the kids went to bed. Yeah, one of THOSE phases. I'm almost positive that she's envious of Leila. Leila's been getting lots of attention lately. She's starting to learn more, talk, be active....as well as demand attention, complain, and get into things. Thus, Eden gets time stolen away from her as daddy and mommy either "ooh" and "ahh" at Leila or "AHH!" and "NOOO!" at Leila.

The problem: I was on the edge of explosion....all the time.

So, one little thing went wrong I would practically BURST into tears, run into my room, or get unnecessarily and over-emotionally upset at Eden. And when I did that, Eden did exactly the same thing back to me (realizing the unjustness of it all towards her as well as following mom's example).

It took a while for me to step back, re-evaluate, and do what I knew I had to do to get my little girl back.

Eden needed some extra attention and love. She didn't need "do this", "don't do that", and "I'm gonna count to three and then you'll have to go to time out". She needed someone to listen to her, spend time with her, feel like I cared about her.

I wasn't giving that to her. I couldn't. I was emotionally charged.

Tyson and I had a long discussion that involved reading books, scriptures, and heart-to-heart moments. We read the story of Martha and Mary.

Martha, the housekeeper, who ran around like a crazy person trying to keep the house nice for Christ, her house guest, and complaining that Mary wasn't helping. Mary decided it was more important to sit and visit and listen to Christ and all he had to teach and say.

While Martha wasn't being BAD necessarily, rather just trying to keep a nice house for an exceptionally important guest. But Mary realized that sometimes you need to put aside GOOD things for BETTER things. Listening to Christ's message and spending time with him was the BETTER thing to do.

I was running around trying to keep the house clean, Leila from sucking the ink from markers, and actually getting Eden to SLEEP when it was bedtime. It just wasn't working.

I took a step back.

This week I've really worked on listening to Eden. I have "Eden and mommy" time during Leila's first nap without the distraction of an "unclean house". I don't judge her actions. I speak in softer more controlled tones.

Things have improved. But I'm still working on it.

I have to "listen" to Leila as well. When she cries I need to first think "when was the last time I fed her?". She wasn't sleeping at nights....to find that she had an ear infection. I sat and watched her do stuff before running in to say "no, no" to find that when she reaches to pull books off the shelves she now takes them down one at a time, looks at them as if reading, and goes for another book. When she takes off lids from the marker she'll often put all her concentration on trying to put it back on the way it was cause she's just trying to figure it out.

And I also had to teach her...she's a good learner. I've taught her how to say "more" in sign language as well as say "more". Now if she YELLS for more food I said, "Leila, how do we ask?" She'll often quiet down, clap her hands together, and say "more, more".

After I've been able to relax a bit and get life back together, I can once again think of all the happy things have been going on.

Like hearing Eden randomly sing, "Hey girl what you doing down there. Dancing alone every night while I live right below you." (Name that song? I'll give you brownie points if you can. I'd give out real brownies but seeing how most of you live in Utah...seems difficult) Then I smile because any girl of mine better know her oldies songs.

Like watching Leila learning to figure things out on her own like opening the toy closet and pulling out whatever she feels like playing with.

Like Eden and I listening to old conference talks by Elder Uchtdorf during breakfast and then during lunch having her say, "Let's listen to Elder Eyring this time!"

Like Leila learning how to put necklaces on and then wearing them as she crawls around the house.

Like Eden learning to draw giraffes, monsters, volcanoes, bears, and her name.

Like Leila giving a "stink face" any time she sees a stranger.

Like Eden loving to stand on a chair next to me at the sink playing with her play dishes in the water while I wash dishes.

Like Leila laughing when she learns to do something new that gives her independence, like walking while holding on to my hands.

Like Eden running after me after putting her down to bed because she says, "Wait mom, you forgot your kiss!"

Like Leila snuggling with her stuffed llama and saying, "llama".

Like Eden and I having a race to see if she can get in her car seat first or if I can buckle Leila in first.

Like Leila's love for books that she loves to look through them any chance she can.

The list goes on and on. Its amazing the things you miss when you are emotionally distracted by things of lesser importance. And even though I say all these things now, I know that tomorrow will be a new day filled with new challenges. And there will probably be at least one time during the day where I want to scream and rip all my hair out.

But right now I feel blessed by my trials. I'm happy.

Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Back When the Weather was Nice

Once upon a time, there was a land where weather was nice.

A little family lived in this land and decided to search out God's creations.

Like gazing over the edge of a bridge to see a little turtle stick his head out of the water to say "hello"....

Ponds with geese...

And EXTREMELY large coy fish.

The family loved each other very much....and even held hands. (That's Eden and Leila)

The weather was so wonderful that the family had to squint in order to take pictures, for the sun was so bright and cheery.

Then the weather became sad....and nobody knew why. Perhaps one day the clouds will dry their teary (and snowy) eyes and the sunshine will come out to play.

Until then, we have pictures of the wonderful day in March when the weather was nice.

The End.

(Granted, I don't know what the weather was like yesterday because I didn't venture out and I don't know what the weather will be like today because I don't know the future.)