Fun with the Finns - Part 1

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You may or may not know that my roots are Finnish.  Insert joke here:  “Finnished with what?”  I know, knee slapper.

Anyway, my mom is from Finland and that’s where my weird name comes from too.  We still have family there, and every few years, we are very fortunate to see them.  This time around, my aunt and uncle came to the U.S. along with 2 family friends – who, I might add – had never been to California before!  Ah, fresh meat!!!  You can picture me villainously rubbing my hands together.  I love showing people around, so I put on my tour guide hat and got to work, straight away.

We visited the Endeavor Space Shuttle at the California Science Center, walked around Downtown L.A., had drinks with a view of the Hollywood sign, took one of those double decker tour buses around Hollywood, shopped at the Grove & Farmer’s Market, had crepes at the Americana, spent some time at Santa Monica Pier, and lulled around 3rd Street Promenade for awhile.  Food included such places as FatBurger, Benihana, CPK, and BJ’s.  All in 3 days!

So. Much. Fun.  And “Part 2” actually begins now, with my cousin and his family.  They arrived late last night! Here we go!

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You know, I can’t lie and say that everything was perfect and wonderful and flowers and swirling hearts, because to be completely honest with you, Stephen annoyed me, a midst all the fun.  I hate to complain, but you know I will anyway.  The only thing that kid wanted to do the entire week was find a curb and step up and down, up and down, up and down – for like FORTY FIVE minutes at a time.  His PT would be happy! Anytime I tried to move him in another direction, he’d scream. Anytime we wanted to sit and relax, he’d scream. Everyone else thought he was pretty well-behaved, considering.  But I knew he could do better, so it was frustrating.  I always try really hard to be a fun mom and expose him to all sorts of things.  I never want to shelter him or think he can’t handle something.  And at this point, he just doesn’t care.  He is unimpressed.  He’s not interested in anything, it seems. Sometimes that’s hard for me to accept.  He’s simply not your typical toddler. Sometimes I wish desperately that he was.  But I have to remind myself how far he has come.  And you all know I will never stop trying with him. Because those moments that he does have fun are priceless to me, as few and far between as they may seem.