Hayley and Kate Minter

Hayley’s having some issues this weekend. I don’t know if it’s the Thanksgiving travel or what, but she’s going through screaming spells for no apparent reason. And she’s really clingy toward Holly - probably about 75% of the day, if Holly’s not holding her, she’s going to be crying.

I don’t know if it’s separation anxiety starting early or what, but this weekend has been very abnormal, and trying for all of us. She’s not sleeping, she’s not happy when she’s awake, she only wants Mommy - it’s insane.

It’s not fun when it’s obvious that there’s something wrong, but you can’t figure out what it is.

We’ve had a busy few days up in Virginia visiting with everyone for Thanksgiving.

We started on Thursday driving up to my Aunt Martha’s house on Lake Gaston. All of the cousins were there, so we had another baby bash, like on July 4th.

All the babies are doing great - the twins are a year old, crawling, pulling up, and filling out well. It’s hard to believe that there were any problems during the pregnancy, as they’re healthy, normal boys. The younger babies, Lily and Jacob, are also growing up well. Hayley’s such a little midget that she’s about the same size as the younger kids, who are 4-5 months younger than her.

We left the lake and got to Holly’s parents’ place Thursday evening and spent the night. We met up again with Aunt Jenny, who had flown from Boston to Raleigh Tuesday night, and the grandparents got to give Hayley a bath and watch her frolic.

Hayley slept about 12 straight hours that night, and we spent the day visiting with the Estes Grandparents. That night, we met up with my Dad and stepmom and her family for another dinner. The weather turned nasty while we were there, cold and rainy, so we were glad we’d brought warm clothes for Hayley. The Estes house was full of other visitors Friday night, so we spent the night with Dad and Lynn. Hayley didn’t sleep very well that night, probably due to the howling wind outside.

Saturday, we went back over to the Estes home for a bit, then it was back to Fuquay. Hayley had a rough trip down, as she was unhappy pretty much from Henderson to Fuquay. This turned into a trend for the weekend, unfortunately. The Estes Grandparents and Aunt Jenny joined us a few hours later, as Jenny had a 7am flight back to Boston Sunday morning.

Saturday night was painful. Hayley slept from around 8:30 to 12:30, then was awake and screaming her head off until 3am, when Holly brought her into our room. She slept restlessly until around 6am, when she was up for good. So Mommy and Daddy are pretty worn out. We did get a lot of stuff done while the Grandparents were here, though - the Christmas stuff is out, the tree is up, and the baby gates are up on the stairs.

So it was a good, busy weekend. To see pictures, you can check the Fall 2003 Photo Gallery.

Hayley had another play date on Friday - Holly’s former co-worker Monica brought her twin boys back for a visit. They’d grown a lot since early October.

One funny thing that happened was that Holly was holding one of the boys, when Hayley noticed that Mommy was holding Some Other Baby. Well, Hayley would have none of that, and walked over to put herself between Mommy and the other baby. So cute.

Hayley hits the 10-month mark today - only two months away from one year!

Now that Hayley can pretty much go where she wants to, we’re finding out that she knows where things are. Holly reports that this morning, Hayley got up, walked over to the cabinet where we keep her wagon wheels and zwieback and whatnot, opened the door, grabbed the box of zwieback, walked back to Holly, and held it out in her hand like “Give me these!”

It never fails - I write about Hayley almost reaching a milestone, and I go home to find out that she’s done it that very day.

This time, it was standing unassisted. I came home last night to find that Hayley had learned that trick while I was at work. From a sitting position, she’ll lean forward with her hands on the floor, get herself into a squat, and stand up. So now she can just get up and go wherever she wants to.

I haven’t written in a while, so let’s catch up with what’s new in Hayley’s world.

We took her to get her Christmas pictures at Wal-Mart in Fuquay Sunday night. For it being near her fussy time, she did very well. She wasn’t into smiling for the camera, of course, but she never is when there are strangers around. The girl taking the pictures was like “She’s so serious!” as Hayley was giving her The Look. We took seven different shots - one that was part of a package deal, and six that were the “standard” arrangement. The package shot will become Christmas cards, and we picked four of the other six shots for a sheet or two each.

Along with the pictures, Hayley got her first pair of shoes, so that she could wear them in the shots. They’re red, size 3, and buckle. I don’t anticipate her wearing them very often, though it did seem that she could walk while wearing them.

Her fifth tooth (top, next to her right-front one that’s already in) broke through this morning. It’s pretty funny - for a kid who has spent most of her life thus far trying to suck on her parents’ fingers, she sure pitches a fit when you try to feel around for her teeth!

She’s getting a lot more steady with her walking, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s soon able to get herself from sitting to standing without having to pull up on anything. She can already walk along, squat down to almost-sitting to pick something up, then stand back up and keep on going.

Hayley went to her first hockey game last night! I was graduating from Hurricanes University, and Brian Mehm was nice enough to give me an extra suite ticket for Holly and the baby, since they were only going to stay long enough to watch the graduation.

They ended up staying a little longer. I came up before the game started, and played with Hayley while Holly ate. Eric Cole scored less than a minute into the game, though, so I had to grab Hayley and cover her ears so that the goal horn wouldn’t deafen her. She was alright for that one, but when we scored again 10 minutes later, she started bawling. I don’t know if the noise got her, or she was startled when Holly clapped her hands over her ears. At any rate, Holly and Hayley left for home before the end of the first period.

Even though she didn’t stay for the whole game, I’m glad we got to bring Hayley to watch the Canes in action. On my way out of the arena, I got her a little Hurricanes cheerleader outfit for Christmas. She’ll be the cutest ever.

Hayley’s fever broke by yesterday morning, so we figured we were in the clear. She was a little out of sorts during the day, though, and when we changed her diaper last night, we found that her torso was covered in a fine pink rash. Yikes.

So I called the after-hours nurse line, and described what was going on, and the nurse said “You’ve just given me a textbook description of Roseola.” Turns out that this virus can cause 3-4 days of high fever with no other symptoms, then the fever goes away, then a rash breaks out on the body for 3-4 days, then it goes away.

So Hayley’s still pretty rashy, but at least there’s nothing serious to worry about.

Probably due to the fever, Hayley’s been very restless the past few nights. We’ll hear her over the baby monitor moving and making lots of strange whining, grunting noises. She’ll keep this up for a half-hour or so, but when we go in to check on her, she’s sound asleep.

I don’t know if it’s a precursor to dreaming or what, but it’s odd having her that noisy while she’s asleep. It doesn’t make for a restful night for us, either.

Hayley’s been a little under the weather this weekend. We noticed yesterday morning that she felt a little warm, and when we took her temperature, it was around 102.5. We gave her Tylenol, and at 5am this morning, it was still at around 101.7.

So we went to the doctor’s office this morning, and they checked her out. They didn’t find anything other than a little redness in her throat and a little gurgling in her tummy, so the doctor said it might just be a virus, or it might just be nothing. We’re to keep an eye on her, make sure she drinks lots of water, and call them back if she still has a fever mid-week. The last time we took her temperature (before lunch), it was down below 100, so she might be getting over it already.

She’s learned a new trick - while making a sound, she’ll take her hand and make the “b-b-b-b-b-b-b-b” motion in front of her mouth, so she sounds like Chester Cheetah.