Anchoring Blinking Eyes to Body

So I know this is an easy fix but I cannot figure it out.

I have a character that has bones to move its arms and legs (via Movie Clip Symbol). I'm pretty new, so I attached the face of the creature to a bone as well, to keep it attached to the body as the character moved across the screen.

But then when I tried to animate the blinking eyes, by double clicking into the eyes and creating its own blink loop to play throughout the main animation, it worked in the sublayer, but when I returned to the main animation the eyes didn't blink.

So then I tried recopying the eyes as their own layer, and converted them to a graphic symbol rather than a movie clip symbol. I animated the blink and it worked - but now of course the eyes arent attached to the body, so I'd have to animate them moving with the body frame by frame. I tried attaching a bone to the eyes and they then stayed with the body as it moved - but the blinking no longer played and the layer was pulled into the "Armature".

Is there a way to anchor the eyes to the body so they down leave it? I have a feeling I'm just doing something completely wrong.