Hayley’s pretty cute when she sees letters. She’ll find a word printed out somewhere and point to each letter. Of course, the only letters that she seems to know are “A” and “S,” so she’ll look at a word like “Tomorrow” and point to each letter saying “A…A…S..A…S…A….A….S”
We figure it’s only a matter of time before she cusses one of us out.
One sign that Hayley’s getting more advanced is that she can follow the dance moves on “The Wiggles” now. Of course, that may be because she watches them about 18 times a day, but when one of their songs comes on, she’ll approximate the dance moves in the song (”Put your hands in the air…..now turn around….”). She’ll do it, giggling like a maniac.
The only thing she doesn’t really seem to grasp is jumping. When it comes time to jump, she’ll stand on her tiptoes, but won’t actually leave the ground. Even with that, though, she’s awfully cute. If she enrolls in Toddle Time again, she’ll probably have an easier time participating.
Our trip to the beach convinced us of one thing. Well, two, actually. The first was that we shouldn’t take a car trip longer than 10 minutes with Hayley unless we find some way to snip our auditory nerve. But we already knew that. The second one was that we don’t have enough room in our cars for all the crap we now have to lug around with us.
In addition to the stuff that we have to take for us, we’ve added Hayley’s bed, her clothes, her toys, her food, etc., etc. My car, on that beach trip, had no more room for anything. Unused seats, floorboards, the trunk - all full. We even had to leave some stuff here. Granted, that trip was a little longer than we usually take, but even weekends to Virginia are an adventure in packing.
So we broke down this weekend and traded Holly’s Toyota Corolla in for a minivan. We got a Chrysler Town & Country. A fairly tricked-out one, too. I told Holly that this would be her last car until the kids finished college, so she’d better pick one that suits her. The model we got has the “Stow and Go” seats, where the second and third row of seats fold into the floor for storage, instead of having to be unlocked and removed, remote-controlled power side and back doors, a six-disc DVD player in the ceiling, roof rack, the whole nine yards. The only thing it was missing from Holly’s ideal van was the side-curtain airbags.
On the way back from Cary, after getting the van, we stopped and got a “Wiggles” DVD. We put it in and, I swear, Hayley didn’t blink the entire trip from Cary to Fuquay. She just stared glassy-eyed in her carseat at the video. It was freaky. She’s apparently recovered enough that she’s not completely mesmerised anymore, but the DVD has made trips in the car a lot more pleasant for Holly.
Another benefit to the van from Holly’s perspective is that the carseat is now level with her, so Holly doesn’t have to bend over and squeeze into the car in order to buckle Hayley into her seat. Just open the door and set her in. That should hopefully save some wear and tear on her back.
We must be suburban parents now - we have our uniform. And we like it.
Hayley’s illness is still around - she’s been pretty unhappy all day, according to Holly, and even threw up again this morning. Boo on that. Holly called the doctor, and they said that if her ear infection is still around, that could be causing either drainage or other problems that would make her nauseous.
So we’re just giving her medicine and trying to make her comfortable today.
Hayley seems to be over her illness now - she’s still somewhat clingy and moody, but doesn’t appear to be sick at all.
Thank goodness - I don’t know if I could take another barfing episode.
All of our illnesses took a turn for the worse today. We took Holly to the doctor this morning, and when we got back, Hayley was acting very strangely. She would cry inconsolably for a bit, then sleep for a while. After a couple of rounds of this, she cried for about 20 minutes, and I went and made her an appointment at her doctor.
About five minutes after I made the appointment, Holly was holding her and “splat” - Hayley puked all over Holly and the couch. She’s nearly 17 months old, and she’d never thrown up before.
Needless to say, we got into the car and went straight to the doctor. Hayley was very weak and sleepy in the car on the way, but by the time we saw the doctor, she seemed to be feeling better than she had been.
The doctor checked her out and didn’t find anything that would cause the vomiting. She did say that Hayley had a little pus in one of her ears, and prescribed some amoxycilin. She also suggested some motrin for pain, and that we use a humidifier in her room to help with the congestion.
Thankfully, Hayley’s been pretty good this afternoon, since both of us feel like total crap. Grandma Estes and Aunt Jenny are coming down tomorrow to help us out, which will be nice. Hopefully, Hayley will have a good night’s sleep and feel better in the morning.
As promised, a new video is online, featuring Hayley’s week at the beach.
This video is larger than usual - 8:30 long, and 17MB in size. It’s hard to pack a week’s worth of new experiences into a short video!
It’s been quiet around the BabyBlog for the past week, because the family has been in the Outer Banks of North Carolina (specifically “Duck”). Hayley, Holly, and I joined my mom, her husband Bill, my sister Beth, and her two kids Ashley and Blake in a condo by the ocean for a week away from it all.
This was Hayley’s first trip to the ocean, and I think she enjoyed herself. She spent most of her outdoor time down at the beach, playing in the sand. She enjoyed digging with her plastic shovel, scooping sand into her bucket, then just scooping sand onto anything she could find.
Hayley had her first swimming pool experience our first day there - that lasted about 30 seconds before she wanted out. I don’t blame her - the water was pretty chilly.
She started out wanting to go near the waves, but only if one of us was holding her. By Tuesday, however, she was brave enough to walk out to where the water would wash up on her feet. With one of us holding her hands, she stood there and let the waves rush around her. She also had fun playing with the seashells. She’d say “A shell! A shell!” when she wanted one. Walking around our second-floor deck was also a treat for her - she’d try to open the sliding door out to the deck, then spend quite a while just wandering around out there.
She enjoyed the planes that would fly along the beach, towing banners for this place or that. She’ll point up at them and go “airplane!” (ok, it comes out sounding more like “ah-poo,” but we know what she’s talking about.) Ashley was very amused by Hayley saying “Hop-Toad,” and spent most of the week trying to get her to say it.
She was funny this morning while we were packing up. She was pretty fussy from her lack of sleep, and we couldn’t find any way to make her happy. Our breakthrough came when I had her standing by the car. Hayley pointed to the back passenger door like she wanted in. I opened it, lifted her in, and buckled her seatbelt. And she was happy as she could be the rest of the time we were packing, just sitting there buckled into the back seat.
This child really, really thinks that she’s big people.
We got some sightseeing in. Of course, Hayley won’t remember it, but we’ve got photographic evidence that she’s been to the top of the Currituck Beach Lighthouse, been to the Wright Brothers Memorial, and has feasted on crablegs at a seafood buffet.
Unfortunately, the cold Hayley’s been battling for a couple of weeks is still around. She was alright until Wednesday night, when she woke up 3-4 times during the night and was up for good around 5am. She repeated the pattern Thursday and Friday nights, too, much to our dismay. She hasn’t been eating very well lately, either. I wonder if it’s time for another trip to the doctor?
I’ve got pictures up in the photo gallery, and will probably put a video up tomorrow. But for now, we’re all glad to be home, and we’re hoping Hayley will sleep a little better tonight.
Hayley is showing signs that she’s destined to inherit Aunt Jenny’s nickname of “The Destroyer.” The latest victim is one of the doors on our new cabinets. She likes to play in and with the cabinets, and somehow the other day she managed to snap one of the screws holding the door on in half. I took a new screw and put it in below the old screw-hole. However, this morning Hayley broke that, too, while she was playing with the door.
I’m not exactly sure how I’m going to fix this one, but I am sure that we’re going to latch the cabinets so she can’t get into them.
Hayley, much like her father, is going through a “falling apart at the seams” phase right now. We ended up taking her to the doctor on Monday to get her various ailments checked out.
At the top of the list, her left eye (the same one she had a stye on the other week) started looking red again over the weekend. It looked like another stye, but didn’t have a head on the eyelash. The doctor checked it out and said it was either a slow-developing stye or, more likely, a chalazion. If you are like me, you’ve never heard that word before. A chalazion is a blocked gland in the eyelid. It causes a swolen lump in the lid that apparently doesn’t hurt in and of itself. Sometimes they go away on their own, sometimes they have to be cut out. We’re applying warm compresses to her eyelid a few times a day to see if we can help it go. I’d rather not have her eyelid sliced open if I can help it.
On top of that, she’s been sniffling and sneezing again. We thought it might be a mild cold, the doctor thought it might be mild allergies. We’re not doing anything with medicine yet, but we’ve got Tylenol Cold on hand in case it gets any worse. Finally, she developed a little heat rash on the back of her neck, and started scratching at it.
On the positive side, we swung by Crazy Fire in Cary after going to the doctor. Crazy Fire is a “build your own stir fry” place, and the food is really good. We’d taken Hayley a couple of times before, and given her baby food, but this time we made her a bowl like a big girl. She had chicken, noodles, and rice in her bowl, but was mainly interested in the noodles. She looked pretty cute eating them, though. And, possibly as a favor from my friend David Sherson who works there, we didn’t get charged for her bowl.
We’ve picked up beach supplies for our upcoming trip to the Outer Banks. I went with Holly to get Hayley’s bathing suit, and made sure that we got a one-piece. It’s never to early to impart the “cover yourself” message to your little girl. 