Things are getting exciting with Finley these days. It's like the moment the clock struck 11:37am on April 13th and he turned one, he felt obligated to start acting like a real, tantrum-throwing toddler. Seriously-- the tantrums started within a couple of days of his birthday. Lucky for us, these tantrums are mini-tantrums, i.e. throwing his head back, arching his body, and loud crying. So far no holding his breath, throwing things, pounding the floor, or kicking, thank goodness!
One of Finley's best tantrums so far was at the pool this week. Of course, it just so happened to be the most crowded day ever. Finley wanted to crawl all over the pool deck and look for unsafe and unclean items to put in his mouth, but I picked him up to bring him back into the pool instead. The Meltdown ensued immediately! The problem was (other than my embarrassment) that Finley best gets over his tantrums if I lay him down, step a couple of feet away, and pretend to ignore him. The concrete pool deck, however, wasn't a particularly safe place to do that, so I tried to hold him and comfort him. Big mistake. I learned very quickly to stick with what works. So while hold a 23 lb toddler who was trying his best to arch his way out of my arms, I attempted to grab our things, keep my swimsuit on (not easy with a flailing toddler), and get into the changing room, where I promptly sat our things and Finley down on a rubber mat on the floor. Somewhat gross, but necessary.
Just in Finley's defense, though, he is actually a very fun and happy baby, er, toddler, 90% of the time. Finley's talking is finally starting to take off, which is so exciting. Other people probably have no idea what he's saying, but I've figured out that he can say car ("ca"), dada, yeah, oh no ("oh!"), yaya (what he calls the helper- it's the Tagalog word for nanny), and I think he's working on bye-bye. He says so many other things, I just haven't figured out what they are yet.
I'll end with a nice photo of guitar time with Finley and Daddy. Finley still loves the guitar!
