Hayley and Kate Minter

Hayley’s been an active girl lately, in spite of her head cold. In the past couple of days, she has:

• Climbed the stairs. She was doing that a couple months ago before we put the gates up, but she was much sure of herself this time. She made it from the bottom all the way up to the second floor by herself! Good thing we have the gates, or else she’d be up there all the time! I’ve also caught her trying to climb up on the outside part of the steps, on the outside of the railing. That’s dangerous - we’ll have to keep an eye on her when she’s over there.

• Thrown her little ball-popper balls. Again, she’d done a little bit of throwing a while back, but she really got into it tonight. She’d pick up one of the palm-sized balls, throw it forward, then go pick it up and repeat the process. She even managed to throw a ball into the ball-popper a couple of times. Nice aim!

• Kicked! We have a couple of balloons still around from her birthday party, and she’s been running around kicking them. And it’s not like she’s just trying to walk up to them and sticking her foot out too far - she’ll swing her leg and kick, then run up and do it again.

She’s also shown a preference for her shoes. She grabbed them off of the end table today, put them on the ground, and then tried to step into them! Holly put them on her, and she happily walked around in her footwear for a while. She’s still on her “chair” kick, too. If she wants up onto the sofa or recliner, she’ll go up to it and holler until one of us puts her up.

Hopefully she’s almost over her cold. She probably picked it up at the doctor on Friday, so we’re 4-5 days into it at this point.

Hayley’s come down with a head cold over the past couple days, which hasn’t been fun for any of us. She slept about three hours last night, hasn’t been napping, and has been up and screaming most of tonight, with no relief in sight.

Sears put our pictures from yesterday online, so here they are!

Click on the picture to see a somewhat bigger version

Hayley’s got a new trick. If we do a big, exaggerated Dr. Evil-style laugh (”A-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”), Hayley will break into a grin and say “Ha ha.” That’s one of the most adorable things I’ve ever seen.

We got our one-year pictures taken yesterday. We’ve taken them at 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, plus Christmas. I think we’ll be slowing down some in her second year. But yesterday, it was off to Sears in Cary.

We got there at our appointment time, but had to wait 20 minutes or so. But we got a very good photographer. Call her “Miracle Max,” because she was able to get smiles out of Hayley! She did it by sneaking up and tickling her under the chin, then darting out of the way to get the picture while she was still grinning. So we ended up with several really nice shots.

Daddy and Hayley took advantage of the 60° weather by playing outside yesterday afternoon. Hayley had fun exploring leaves, grass, and pine needles. Especially the pine needles. Good thing we enjoyed it when we did, because it’s supposed to be cold and nasty today.

She woke up a couple of times last night, and decided she wanted to get up for good around 5:30am. Boo on that.

We took Hayley for her one-year checkup today. The new measurements: 19lbs 10oz (25th percentile), 28 3/4″ tall (50th), and 47.4cm (97th) head size. So she’s still “petite,” and she’s still a bowling ball sitting on top of a toothpick. She also got three shots today, and she wasn’t really happy with them. She’s been cranky all afternoon, probably due to her busy week and the shots.

We’ve had a good couple of days celebrating her first birthday. I took Thursday and Friday off to spend some time with her, and it was a lot of fun. Thursday, we celebrated her birthday with videotape, by filming various parts of her day for posterity. She’s been having fun playing with blankets lately - I’ll hold a blanket up, and she’ll run at me and envelope herself in the blanket. Repeat as needed.

We got her another birthday cake. The red icing may have been a mistake, because she looked like a vampire after she ate it. She had some more fun eating with her spoon. Or playing with her spoon and eating strained squash with her hands.

Did a little imagination work this evening. Hayley was showing interest in one of the clothes baskets, so I sat her in it and we “drove” around the kitchen in it. It’s fun to play with the baby.

She’s got a new talent. She can get off of the sofa by herself. We’ll put her on the sofa, she’ll play for a while, then she’ll get on her belly, slide to the edge, drop her feet off, and stand on the floor. Of course, sometimes she goes down head-first, so we have to be ready to catch her. But she’s learning the ropes.

It’s amazing to think it’s been a year since we sat in Rex Hospital and tried to figure out what to do with this new person who was in our room. She’s been such a wonderful baby, and I hope she loves us as much as we love her. She’s grown so much since January 22, 2003, and I can’t wait to see what happens over the next year.

January 22, 2003

January 22, 2004

Happy birthday, Baby Doll!

Hayley is becoming more adept at using her spoon to feed herself. If she’s in the mood, she’ll take the spoon while eating her baby food or applesauce or whatnot, and start dipping it in the bowl and eating that way.

Of course, after she gets bored of eating, she moves to grabbing the food with her hands and stuffing it in her mouth, but we can tell she’s got the right idea.

We did a little shopping at Southpoint Mall in Durham today. They had several cariacture artists there, so we stopped by one and got Hayley’s picture drawn.

It’s a decent likeness, I suppose. The artist was very nice. As we were leaving, he said “She’s so beautiful, I didn’t want to draw her funny.”

She is a beauty.

Hayley has started on cow’s milk and “Yo Baby” yogurt this week, in preparation for weaning.

Next thing she’ll want is steak and sushi.