Every other kid I know has a favorite animal toy. They’re normally soft, furry, and cute. A bear, a dog, perhaps a bunny rabbit.
My kid goes to sleep every night cuddling a collection of rubberized frogs.
I guess the odds were stacked against her that she’d avoid being weird, considering who her parents are.
Tonight we went through our normal bedtime routine, but when we were just about to put Hayley down, she said she had to “poo poo.” She had just pooed 45 minutes before, so I doubted she had to go again. So, I asked her, “Do you mean you have to pee pee?” She said yes, and I automatically replied, “Well, honey, that’s what your diaper’s for.” Then I thought, Maybe I should approach this a different way. I asked Hayley if she wanted to use her potty, and she said she did. So, we took her into the bathroom, she picked up her little potty and moved it right beside the big toilet, and then we undressed her. Sure enough, she sat down on her potty and tinkled. She seemed very pleased with herself for doing it, and of course, we praised her. We also told her that it’s good for her to tell us when she knows she has to go potty. Afterwards, she went to bed without any trouble.
I surprised even myself yesterday when I french braided Hayley’s hair. It certainly wasn’t perfect because her hair is still a bit too short for braiding, but it was a fun Mommy thing to try.
Hayley, like most kids her age, has no fear–of truly dangerous things anyway. She claims to be scared when watching Scooby Doo, but she has no qualms about leaping from the sofa to the loveseat face first. I have to keep a close eye on her these days because, call me crazy, but I’d prefer that the child not break her neck.
We all went out to the Outback in Garner for Holly’s birthday tonight. Taking Hayley into a resturant is always a crapshoot, but we couldn’t have asked for her to be any better than she was tonight.
She had a good car ride over there, watching some Charlie Brown. She held our hands going across the parking lot and didn’t try to run away. And she wanted to sit in her place in the booth instead of running around the floor. Sweeeeet.
We ordered the “Grilled Shrimp on the Barbie” as an appetizer. We offered some of the shrimp to Hayley, expecting her to put it on her tongue, make a face, and spit it out. But she liked it, and ended up eating about one whole shrimp (of the five) herself!
She continued to amuse herself by playing with the sugar packets, until she noticed the family in the booth behind us. There was a couple with a young boy, maybe three or so. Once she saw them, her curiosity was raised. She wanted to get our of her booster so she could look at them. She kept saying “Little boy!” over and over. She wanted to play with the woman’s hair, but we convinced her that she really shouldn’t do that, so she played with Holly’s instead.
At one point during this, she was looking over at the boy and she said “Little boy . . . Cute!” After I’d picked myself off of the floor, I told her that Daddy wasn’t ready for her to start flirting yet.
She was charming everyone, though. All the wait staff came by to ooh and aah over her, and Hayley was at her best, grinning, talking, and looking adorable. She was also curious about the people and things around her, pointing all around and saying her new favorite phrase, “Who dat?” Yes, when Hayley wants to know about something these days, she sounds like an extra from “Yo, MTV Raps!”
She did well during the meal, too. She didn’t spend much time in Holly’s lap, and ate some of her mac & cheese and her french fries. She also drank quite a bit of water and pink lemonade. And when Holly’s birthday sundae came, she managed to find room to eat some of that, too.
We had a nice trip back home and she went to bed like a champ. All in all, Hayley helped make Mommy’s birthday great. Thanks, bee!
Click for bigger versions. For reference as to how she’s grown, you can also check her one-year pictures.
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Hayley’s sense of self continues to develop.
The other day, we were talking amongst ourselves about “people.” We turned to Hayley and asked her “Hayley, are you ‘people’?” She paused a second and said, “No, I just Hayley.”
She did something similar today. She had a cat sticker on her pants, but she took it off and handed it to Holly, saying “I not kitty-cat. I just Hayley.”
We went out for some Valentine’s sushi tonight at our Cary sushi place. Hayley was very good during the meal, spending most of her time in her high chair and only occasionally bouncing back and forth to Holly’s lap. Her taste in Japanese cuisine is improving, too. She really liked the miso soup, taking big sips of it and saying “Mmmmmmm!” She also ate some tempura chicken. We promised her ice cream after dinner, but apparently the ice cream place in that shopping center vanished at some point, so we just distracted her and got her into the car. When it’s warm, we’ll make a trip to Goodberry’s to make up for it.
Today we took Hayley to see her first movie in a movie theater. We saw “Pooh’s Heffalump Movie,” and Hayley seemed to enjoy it. She got a little antsy toward the end, but by that time we were approaching her naptime. She was a little scared when the mommy heffalump trumpeted, but when I told her it was just the mommy, she kept saying “big mama elephant.” She had her little sippy cup in the cupholder and she sat in her own seat most of the time. I even got a little teary-eyed as I watched her sitting there like a big girl watching her first big movie. She’s growing up so fast.
We also had a nice visit with Grandma Queen and Bill this weekend. They missed Hayley’s birthday because of the bad weather, so they were able to come down this weekend.
Hayley surprised me tonight by saying the first half of “Hey Diddle Diddle” all by herself. I knew she could say the whole thing when we were saying it with her, but tonight she just up and came out with “Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon,” as matter-of-factly as she could be. She didn’t want to finish it up, but it was pretty amazing to watch what she could do.
We’ve had lots of fun playing the last couple of nights. Last night the big entertainment was a Thomas The Tank Engine toy - the kind you pull backward to “wind up”, then let go to have it travel forward. Tonight was a flashlight - we turned most of the downstairs lights out and did different fun flashlight-things. She’s really, really cool when she plays.
Hayley’s visit up to the grandparents was cut short, as she came down with the croup again and came home last night. Poor thing - she’s not too bad today, but we got a refill on the same medicine we used last time just in case.
On the plus side, we now get to see how she’ll react to the Super Bowl party….
It was a busy week last week, so busy that we didn’t have time to write anything. The big event was that my cousin Lori came down to Duke to have surgery, and her husband and 20-month-old daughter came with her. To help them out, we watched little Lily during the day on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
We were pretty curious as to how that would turn out. Hayley’s not around kinds her age very much, so we don’t have a whole lot of data on how she’ll act around them. On the whole, she was very good. However, her two-year-old posessive side came out in full force when Lily was around. Any time Lily would make a move toward one of the 800 toys strewn about the living room floor, Hayley would run to it, grab it, and say “MY toy!” I guess that’s to be expected when she’s that age, but we still tried to encourage her to share.
Other than that, they got along as well as toddlers can, meaning they played in the same general area as each other. I stayed home from work to help out, and was mainly responsible for playing with Lily. Hayley gave me some looks when I was holding Lily, as if to say “You’re not supposed to pick up any little girl but me, bucko.”
It was interesting to see the personality contrast between the two girls. I don’t know what Lily is like at home, but she was very calm, quiet, and reserved around us. Meanwhile, Hayley was wide open as always, running around the house with reckless abandon. One signature moment was when they were both in a playpen after naps were over. Hayley was sprinting back and forth across the playpen, while Lily lay down on top of her stuffed animals, as if to protect them from this loud creature near them.
I think Hayley enjoyed having another kid around the house, though, and we did too.