Hayley and Kate Minter

I’ve got a new video up - the first one in a couple of months. In it, Hayley shows the world her skill at rolling over from back to front, and at propping herself up on her arms.

We need to get better lighting in the living room, as all the movies come out a little too dark. But you can get the general idea.

Enjoy!

Got a call from Holly this morning.

She informed me that she’d placed Little Babycakes on her back on the floor, lying on a quilt. Holly sat on the couch to pay some bills.

She heard some commotion, and looked up to see that Hayley had rolled over. Ok, no problem, the baby wasn’t upset, so she went back to paying bills.

The next time she looked up, Hayley had managed to roll over and over and make it probably about six feet across the floor. Mobility! I wonder if she’s going to end up like Hammie in Baby Blues? Apparently she repeated the trick again this morning, so it wasn’t a one-time thing.

I got some video of Hayley turning over last night, but my Mac isn’t cooperating, so I need to do some work to get the footage online. But a new video’s coming soon!

We’ll get the vital stats out of the way first.

Hayley went to the doctor for her four-month checkup today. She weighed in at 14 pounds, 12 ounces, was 25 3/4 inches long, and measured 43.3cm around at the head. All of which are signs that she’s continuing to grow up just fine. Holly also reported that Hayley got four shots today, which didn’t amuse our little patient. The next trip back to the doctor will be in late July for the six-month visit.

We had a fun Memorial Day / 2nd Anniversary weekend. We topped it off with a trip to Goodberry’s in Garner. We were in line behind another family with what looked to be about a 7-year-old daughter. It gave us a start when they started saying “Ok, Hayley, what do you want?” I guess we need to get used to that, as Hayley (or, more commonly, Hailey or Haley) was one of the most popular baby names from the past few years. Our spelling is a little more uncommon, but that won’t help when we yell it across the park and 20 kids come running.

I got to spend some quality Dad-time with the little princess this weekend, taking advantage of the long weekend and allowing Mommy some time to catch up on stuff she needed to do. Hayley’s a lot more animated than she used to be, and is generally happy. If she’s bored, hungry, or feeling ignored, though, she won’t hesitate to let you know. Another change from the first couple months is that a car ride, which used to put her right to sleep, is now more of a “Hey! Why isn’t anyone back here paying attention to me? I don’t like that!” thing.

Regular readers will remember me beaming with pride when we were getting 6-8 hours of sleep at a stretch from about the first month on. Well, things have taken a turn for the sleepless lately. She’s been harder to get to sleep, and the past several weeks, she’s been waking up every hour or two. Maybe she’s starting the teething process, I dunno.

The past couple of nights have brought a little relief from a surprising source. Sunday night, Hayley had gone to sleep for about a half-hour, when the familiar wail came over the baby monitor. We lay in bed for a couple of minutes, gathering the energy for another go-round, when she got quiet. We waited another minute or so to see what was going on, still nothing. Holly went in to check on her, and Hayley had flipped herself onto her tummy and gone back to sleep on her own.

We then had to deal with the big parental connundrum: Do we wake the sleeping baby, or let her sleep on her tummy? Exhaustion won out and we went back to bed (although I think Holly got up every hour on the hour to check on her). Hayley woke up about six and a half hours later. We had a similar situation last night, too. Our theory, confirmed by the pediatrician, is that if she’s at the point where she can flip over on her own, there’s not much we can do to stop her. Plus, with her neck control being as good as it is, she can easily move her head so that she can breathe easily.

It’ll probably still be a few weeks before we can sleep contentedly, though.

I need to get some new baby videos up, but she’s not exactly a cooperative film subject.

Hayley hit the four-month-old mark yesterday - she’s a third of the way through her first year. Time flies, especially when you think about it in terms of percentages-of-a-year.

She’s making a lot of progress with her rolling over - she can quickly flip from back to front with about a 75% success rate of clearing that pesky arm. She hasn’t quite gotten the hang of front-to-back, though, which is supposed to be the easier one. Hmmm.

Holly and Hayley made it back safely this evening. It’s good to have them back, and Hayley didn’t seem to have forgottten me.

Mommy and Baby have gone up to Virginia to spend some time with the grandparents, leaving me to my own devices here in North Carolina.

So what does a new dad do without his baby for a few days? Not much. ComedyWorx, NHL 2003, generic computer geeking, and a lot of sleep.

It’s good to recharge the batteries every now and again, but I miss both of them, and it’s really weird being around here by myself. I’ll be glad when they get back.

We had a good first Mother’s Day (well, Holly was pregnant last year this time, but we didn’t know it yet). Mommy got treated to breakfast in bed, a nice steak dinner, and actually got some time to herself while Daddy entertained the baby.

Mommy wishes every day was Mother’s Day.
Hayley continues to make progress on her rolling skills, though never when the video camera is rolling. She’s rolled from back to front several times, though it’s always hit-or-miss as to whether or not she’ll make that last little bit over her arm. She’s even rolled from front to back once, which is supposed to be easier. I guess she just likes being contrary, like the rest of us.

She’s also continuing to develop her hand control. She’s given us a treat a couple of times by grabbing her feet and pulling them up to her mouth to chew on, a move that would probably pop my hip joints out if I were to try it. We got a good picture of that, so I’ll try to post it sometime soon.

Finally, we’ve got a new addition to the family - my cousin Lori and her husband Brian welcomed their first child into the world on Mother’s Day (apropos), a baby girl named Lily. That’d make Lily my second cousin and Hayley’s third cousin, if I do the math right.

It’s been a busy year for babies in my mom’s family - before this past winter, there were three babies between my mom’s two children and her sister’s three (my sister has two, and the eldest cousin Jennifer had one). Then Jennifer and her husband Rich had twins, we had Hayley, Lori had Lily, and the final cousin, Preston, and his wife Trish are due with their first in June. So we’ve gone from three to soon-to-be-eight in the span of about eight months. A family get-together is planned around the July 4th holiday, and I can guarantee there will be diapers-a-plenty there.

Well, that was quick.

After writing last night about Hayley’s near-rollovers, I went to bed. Holly came and got me a couple hours later. It seems that as Hayley fussed and kicked (instead of sleeping) in her crib last night, she managed to make that last little push, and kicked herself over onto her stomach. Her first roll is in the books!

I have a feeling it won’t be too much longer before she can do it on command, instead of by accident.

Hayley surprised us today by completing several “almost” rolls from her back to her stomach. She got her legs and lower body completely over, and had her upper half on her side.

If she just figures out how to get that pesky arm out of the way, she’ll have it down.

It’s been a moderately busy week around the Minter household.

The big news was Mom and Dad’s first real solo outing since January 22, as we got the Grandparents Estes to watch Hayley while we went to see X-Men 2 (which was a fun movie, by the way). Hayley was apparently a doll for the three hours we were out, and Holly managed to make it through the whole movie without calling home to see how she was doing. I’m very proud of both of them.
On the baby front, Hayley continues to become more adept with her hands, grabbing at things left and right. She can even grab hold of her feet and pull them toward her - it won’t be too long before she’s chewing on her toes. She’s also almost rolling onto her side - she arches her back and kicks, and ends up with some momentum. She’s not quite at the rolling over stage, but we have to pay a lot more attention to her at the changing table.

We’ve made the move for sleeping from her bassinet to her crib. She’s already showing us that we’d better keep the bumper tied down, or else it’ll end up away from the rails. But the sleeping is going well - I was worried that since we can’t rock the crib like we did the bassinet, she wouldn’t sleep, but apparently she’s like Aunt Jenny and could sleep through a tornado.

The title of this entry reflects Hayley’s new favorite phrase. She’ll put her lips together and blow out, making a semi-raspberry, semi-hiss sound. She’ll do it several times in a row, which leads me to believe that she knows what she’s doing.

As I write this, I’ve just handed the sleeping baby off to Mommy. We were all in the computer room, and I was having Hayley dance to the new music I’ve purchased from the Apple Music Store. After a little bit of dancing, I noticed her head drooping forward, so I leaned her back, and she fell right asleep on me. She hadn’t napped on Daddy in a while - it’s a very nice feeling to look down and see the sleepy baby on you.