Hayley and Kate Minter

Success can be a double-edged sword. Case in point: I think we’ve pretty much succeeded in keeping Hayley from developing an attachment on her thumbs or pacifiers. She’s never taken a pacifier, and she hasn’t sucked her thumb since she was a couple of months old.

However, she’s all about our fingers. When she was little, since she wouldn’t use either of the above methods to calm herself, we’d let her suck on our fingers. I think we may have created a monster, though, because she’ll now walk up to us, grab one of our hands, and shove a finger into her mouth. Try to pull away, and she’ll grab on until she gets her way.

We try to tell her that she’s got ten perfectly servicable fingers of her own, but she just looks at us as if to say “Nah, you had your chance with those. Now I like yours better.”

Two of Hayley’s first molars have finally popped through the gumline - one on each side of her upper gumline. Hopefully she’ll sleep a little better now that they’re through. She hasn’t been eating a lot lately, either - maybe that’s because her gums were hurting, too. I dunno - I guess we’ll see. I think she could live off of her belly for a couple of years if she had to.

Hayley had a good time playing in the massive 2″ snowfall we got today, though Holly had her bundled up like the little brother in “A Christmas Story.” She’s awfully cute, though.

Hayley has a cute new trick. If you say “Hello!”, she’ll hold her hand up to her ear like she’s on a telephone and go “hoo.” If she finds her little toy telephone, she’ll pick it up to her ear and do the same “hoo” noise. I think she’s going to be trouble when she’s a teenager.

We had a fun weekend - the weather was very nice (sunny and low to mid 60s), so Hayley got to play outside quite a bit. We were also watching the neighbors’ Golden Retriever, Max, who Hayley just loves. So we’d let Max out and Hayley would watch as he sprinted around in circles, which would cause her to break out in big baby laughs. So I think she’s going to enjoy spring this year.

She’s had a tooth on the top-left side, midway to the back, that’s been trying to come in for about two weeks, but hasn’t broken through yet. I’m wondering if it will, or if she’ll have this permanent bulge on her gum where a tooth is supposed to be.

Last night, we did the bed-and-bath routine, as per usual. Holly gave Hayley her hug and kiss, laid her down, and left the room. 0.7 seconds later, there was no screaming. Two minutes, five minutes, no screaming. Holly went back and peeked into the room, and Hayley was fast asleep.

She stayed asleep until 5:30am, woke up and cried for a minute, then went quiet and didn’t wake up again until 7am.

Wow.

Hayley gave us a nice treat this morning. She started stirring around 5:45am, and we were thinking “Oh no, she’s up this early. We’re tired!” But, to our surprise, after making a couple of noises, she put herself back to sleep! She stirred a couple more times later, but didn’t get up for good until 7am.

Thanks, Hayley!

I came downstairs today on my way to work to find Mommy and Baby watching TV. Except, this wasn’t the normal “Good Morning America” stuff - it was The Wiggles. I was baffled. This was the weirdest TV show I’d ever seen.

Apparently it’s four Australian guys who do this sort of Pee Wee’s Playhouse thing, with songs and skits. I watched it for about 10 minutes and had no idea what was going on. Apparently my nephew Blake likes it, but that’s about all I could gather.

Are kids able to figure that show out? Is it just me who’s confused?

We’re three nights into our “Put yourself back to sleep, kid” experiment, and things seem to be going fairly well. We’re down to about 25-30 minutes until sleep now. Tonight only took two trips back in after the initial laydown, too.

So things are looking positive so far, she doesn’t seem to hate us in the morning, and we’ll see how it’s doing in a week or so.

We’ve decided to try something new for the nighttime routine. After talking with some other parents and whatnot, we’re going to attempt to do the “you’re going to learn to put yourself to sleep whether you like it or not” thing and see if it works.

So we started it tonight. Did the normal bedtime thing of pajamas, milk and stories, and tooth brushing. Then I put her in her bed, gave her a stuffed animal, kissed her and told her I loved her, and left. As soon as the door shut, she was up and screaming. It was 8:10pm.

So we staggered going back in there - 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes. By the time the 8:50 visit came up, the screaming had stopped and she was mostly asleep. Holly just helped her lay down and left, and she’s been quiet since then.

I guess time will tell whether or not she gets better at sleeping without the 40 minutes of screaming beforehand.

Hayley’s becoming more adept at her use of the word “up” now - she’ll use it when she wants to get up onto a chair or the sofa, and she’ll use it when she’s in her high chair and wants to get out.

She’ll say “Up! Up! Up!” until you comply with her wishes.

She’s been a little crank today - up last night at 2 and 4, then for good around 5:45. Didn’t really nap, and yelled in the car when we went out today. Cranky this evening, and then had a good scream session when we were trying to get her down to sleep.

She’s asleep now - for how long, nobody knows…

I went to the grocery store today with Holly and Hayley, which is pretty rare for me. Both because they usually go during the week while I’m at work, and I really don’t like going to the store in general.

But we all went out as a family today, to pick up a few things. Hayley started off in the basket, but then indicated that she’d rather be out. So I picked her up and carried her, but she also indicated that she wanted to get down. So I put her down, she grabbed my finger in her hand, and off we went. Walking up and down the aisles behind Mommy, with my baby girl holding my hand.

We went through the whole store that way. It was the best Valentine’s present Hayley could have given me.