Hayley and Kate Minter

One baby.

One father.

Eight hours.

Who will survive? Find out Saturday Saturday Saturday!

Holly’s going on an all-day scrapbooking binge this Saturday, so I get to spend some solo time with Hayley. It should be fun - hopefully she won’t be too broken up that “Mama” isn’t there, and have some fun with me. I’ve got a couple of ideas of things for us to do - one of which may be to hit Pullen Park for the first time. Mark seems to like the place for his little girl, so I’ll have to ping him for the lowdown on what to do there.

We saw in the paper that there’s this group called Playspace offering a free hour of “play time” to residents of Fuquay, so we may swing there to see what it’s like. Then, of course, we’ll have to navigate her naps and lunchtime.

It should be fun, though. We’ll see which one of us makes it through in one piece.

Hayley has tricks up her sleeve that even we don’t know about. We were at the mall Sunday, and I split off from the girls in order to get some sort of smoothie-type beverage. The fine folks at “Orange Julius” put it in a cup with a lid and straw for me.

When I caught up with the girls, Hayley saw that I had some sort of food substance that she did not currently have, so she wanted it. As a joke, I bent down and let her put the straw into her mouth. She went to town and started slurping the beverage up!

I guess it’s pretty much the same principle as the sippy cup, but neither of us had any idea that she knew how to use a straw.

Even though Hayley can’t talk yet, she’s learning ways to make her wants known. For example, she’s developed a system to let us know that she wants us to get up, if we’re on the floor, and follow her.

How does she do it? She walks up to us, grabs a handful of shirt, and pulls. Hard. She’ll pull upward if she wants us to get up, and pull out if she wants us to follow her.

English better arrive soon, or all of our clothes will be stretched out.

Hayley had her 15-month checkup today, on her 15-month-birthday. Shocking how that works.

The vital stats: She’s 22lbs, 13oz (50th percentile), so Holly was off by three ounces. Not bad - that’s in the margin of error. She’s 30″ tall (50) and her head is 48cm in diameter (95). The nurse even asked Holly “Does anyone in her family have a large head?” I don’t think so, and the really weird thing is that I don’t think Hayley’s skull looks that large - she seems very proportional to me. But according to the numbers, she should look like a watermelon on top of a toothpick. It’s very strange.

She got three shots today, and apparently doesn’t need any more until she’s four years old. Woo hoo! No more baby pincushion! Other than that, Holly says, it was a very routine visit. They said she looks perfectly healthy.

That’s what we like to hear.

The story behind this picture is fun. Holly had put Hayley in her high chair and given her lunch (”Ketchup with a touch of French Fry”), and Holly was sitting at the table reading. She noticed Hayley was quiet, and looked over to see her head starting to slump.

Her first thought was that Hayley was choking and passing out, but a second look revealed her eyelids drooping. Holly said she nodded a few times and then ended up like this, and stayed that way for a little while.

Now that’s funny.

I forgot to announce during my busy weekend that Hayley has a new friend. Olivia Caitlyn Hain was born on April 16, to our friends Kyle and Christine. She’s awfully cute.

So welcome to the world, Olivia!

Hayley keeps doing her thing. We think she may be adding a couple of words to her repertoire. The other day, I was eating a bagel, and Holly said “Do you want some of daddy’s bagel?” Hayley replied with something that sounded shockingly like “bagel.” We couldn’t get her to do it again, though.

Holly also said that they were going outside to play today, and Hayley stopped at the bottom of the stairs and said “Bubbles….bubbles…” She wanted her bubbles to play with!

She’s also sometimes using “down” to indicate that she wants to get down, as opposed to her former use of “up” to mean “down.”

She goes in for her 15-month checkup on Thursday. Holly estimated that she weighs 23 pounds now - we’ll see how close that is.

Not Hayley-specific, but I ran across a site that lists absolutely horrible baby names.

So before you name your new baby girl “Rhianyn” or put down “Jaden” on your son’s birth certificate, read that site and reconsider.

On a related note, I remarked to Holly the other day that I feel sorry for a kid named “Brad” who has to line up alphabetically in the next few years, as he’ll be at the end of the line, behind the 35 boys named “Austin” in his class. Not that “Austin” is a bad name, in and of itself, but I think every other person we know who’s had a baby boy has used that name.

And none of them are from Texas or wrestling fans.

(And yes, I realize that there are about as many Haley/Hailey/Hayley combinations out there. But this isn’t about me. It’s about “other people” )

Normally in the morning, and most other times of the day, Hayley is all about “Mama.” When I go to get her in the morning, she’s usually standing in her crib, pointing at the door, saying “Mama? Mama?” At night when I come home, she hides her head in Holly’s legs. If I can get her attention for a few minutes, I consider it a moral victory.

This morning, though, she didn’t want to leave me. She said “Mama?” when I got her out of her crib, but when I changed her diaper and took her into the bedroom to give her to Holly, as I usually do, Hayley wouldn’t let me go. If I made a move to put her down, she’d start protesting. So I ended up carrying her downstairs with me to get my breakfast, back upstairs as I ate breakfast and went through my morning routine (she raided my Crunch Berries, as per usual), and even had to hold her as I put my socks on. Holly had to distract her long enough for me to slip downstairs and out the door to work.

Rare as it is, it’s nice to know that she can like me, too.

Happy Easter, Hayley!

We figured she’s still a little young to really “get” the concept of the Easter egg hunt, so we had a pretty low-key day. We got her a little plush Easter basket, with plush Easter-themed things (rabbits, carrots, eggs) velcro’d onto the side. The velcro was not designed with kids in mind - you could tow a boat with that stuff. So we have to help her pull them off.

Inside the basket was lots of fun stuff - a “bendy rabbit,” a little rabbit bowling set, some Fisher-Price “little people,” and a new outfit. She had fun pulling all those things out, and seems to like the plush basket toys the most so far.

Cute thing today - Holly was vaccuming, and I was distracting Hayley so she wouldn’t get sucked up into the thing. She was trying to pick up both her basket and this red ball she has, and not having much luck. I told her “Hayley, why don’t you put the ball into the basket and carry it that way?” She set them down, put the ball into the basket, and walked off carrying the basket! And then, when she gets across the room, she sets the basket down, turns around, walks over to me, and gives me a kiss, as if to say “Daddy, sometimes you do know what you’re talking about after all.” It was absolutely adorable.

We had the neighbors and their kids over for dinner tonight. Their kids are very good with Hayley, the older one especially. She’s nine, and seems to think of Hayley as the “little sister she never had.” Hayley enjoys just sitting and watching them run around - I think she finds their manic energy amusing.

We went outside for a bit at the end of the evening and, of course, Hayley fell down and scraped her knees again. I don’t think it even fazes her any more. We put another Band-Aid on her just for our peace of mind. Hopefully her battle scars will heal before she goes to college.

All in all, it was a very good day.