Hayley and Kate Minter

01/29/2006 (9:26 pm)

Bed, Baby Sitter, and Beyond

Filed under: Hayley

It’s been a busy Week In Hayley - too busy to write. So, better late than never, let’s review.

She had her third birthday party last Saturday, and turned three the next day. The party was fun - all the relatives made it down from Virginia for the fun, and Hayley got lots of new toys. The curse of the January Birthday strikes, though, as she’s had Christmas and Birthday within a month, and that’s it for nearly a year. Our big present to her was a Barbie Jeep, though she hasn’t seemed very interested in riding in it this past week, even when the weather has been nice. That thing was too expensive to be used as a lawn ornament.

After the party, everyone hit the Raleigh IcePlex for some skating. Hayley did well on the ice, when she was out there, seeming much more sure of herself than she was last time. My Dad and Stepfather Bill tried the skating, but weren’t comfortable and got off the ice, my Stepmother Lynn and Holly’s parents didn’t even bother, but my Mom, sister, her kids, Holly and I all had fun zipping around the ice. My Mom in particular was very impressive in her first time ever on ice skates, while Beth and Ashley both continued their impressive skills in their second time on the ice.

Hayley started off the week sick with a fever and probable intestinal virus. I think that got her out of sorts all week, as she wasn’t sleeping well at all. Toward the end of the week, she developed a routine where she’d wake up and get out of bed every two hours or so, which meant that we had to get up and put her back into bed. Holly said that she was complaining about “her leg falling out of bed” and waking her up. We told her tonight that she needed to stay in her bed, and if she woke up, just go back to sleep. We’ll see how that goes.

Hayley’s disrupted schedule led to another weird issue - we got a baby sitter for the first time (as in, a baby sitter not our next-door neighbors or a family member) while we went out to Ron Francis Night with the Hurricanes. The sitter was nice, and when we left, Hayley was having fun playing with her. Holly called home about an hour and a half later, though, and the sitter said that Hayley was cowering in the corner and wouldn’t let the sitter go near her. She was screaming and had wet her pants, a very rare event.

Eventually, Cheri next door came over and helped out, and Hayley was apparently in bed by 8. But we’ve never heard of her acting that way before. We talked to Cheri today, and found that the missing piece of the puzzle might be that Hayley apprently fell asleep at some point before we called, then woke up and started freaking out. So she probably woke up, was disoriented, couldn’t find Mommy or Daddy, and there was an unfamiliar person in the house with her. That seems a little more reasonable, but it’s still bizarre.

Back to the waking up, we decided that her “falling out of bed” complaint meant that she had finally outgrown her crib (which we had converted into a toddler bed). With her stuffed animals, she really doesn’t have much room. We’d been planning on getting her a new bed when we sold the house and moved, but since that’s not happening any time soon, we decided to go ahead and look for a new bed today.

We hit Rooms To Go Kids on Glenwood in Raleigh. When we walked in, someone asked us if we’d been in before. We said no, and they directed us to the “Disney” bed section, where “Cinderella” was there. She gave Hayley a tiara, a little Princess Jasmine doll, and two “Disney Songs” DVDs. Pretty nice of them, even if the middle-aged Cinderella had spent too much time in the tanning bed and really reminded me of Jennifer Coolidge.

We wandered around looking at the items. Holly wanted to get a bed with storage underneath, not too girly, and something that Hayley could use until she grew up. We eventually settled on this bedroom suite. While we were originally just going to get the bed, her bedroom set is a kind of ghetto mishmash of various beat-up pieces of furniture, so we figured why not get a decent set all at once? This set comes with the bed, mattress, nightstand, dresser, and mirror. It’s scheduled to be delivered (all except the actual under-bed drawers, which are backordered) next Wednesday. Rooms To Go delivery will bring the furniture and set everything up, which will be nice, and also deliver the backordered pieces when they get in.

In preparation, and to hopefully avoid “falling out of bed” problems, we disassembled her crib tonight and put her on the air mattress on her floor. So her crib, where she slept from a few months old until now, is no more. Just another sign of how big our girl is getting.

01/22/2006 (6:19 pm)

Birthday Pictures

Filed under: Hayley Milestones

Hayley Birthday party pictures

01/22/2006 (9:53 am)

Happy Birthday!

Filed under: Hayley Milestones

Happy birthday, Hayley! You’re three today!

What a big girl!

01/21/2006 (10:06 pm)

Caught In The Act

Filed under: Hayley

We were doing our normal bedtime stories tonight. Holly was reading, and Hayley had some toys. She got more interested in the toys, and started playing with them, getting caught up in her own little world. Holly stopped reading. Hayley kept on playing, then realized the story had stopped. She looked up at Holly, who raised an eyebrow at her.

Hayley slowly stopped playing, got quiet, and sheepishly said “Listening.”

Holly and I both spent the next few minutes laughing.

01/13/2006 (10:51 am)

Diagnosis

Filed under: Hayley

After Hayley was still favoring the neck, Holly took her too the doctor yesterday. The doctor diagnosed it as a pulled muscle - apparently somewhat common in kids. He said she could have just turned wrong or too quickly and pulled it.

She’s been sleeping good, and seems to be better now.

01/10/2006 (10:07 pm)

Rely On The Tiger

Filed under: Hayley

Poor Hayley’s had a rough day. She tweaked her neck somehow, probably at her playdate today, and Holly said she was just crying and crying on the way home, grabbing at her neck. We called the nurse line, and they eventually got back to us and said they though it was probably a crick or something, and to just give her some motrin and let her rest. So she spent most of the night holding the side of her neck with her right hand, and doing things with her left.

She was ok until we had to take her shirt off for her bath, when she really started crying again. We made it through that, then she was pretty much inconsolable as we tried to get her diaper on and her ready for bed. We eventually got her in her night clothes, but she refused to get in bed and just wanted Mommy to rock her.

Then I had an idea - I went to her bed and picked up her new stuffed tiger. It’s one like her cousin Ashley has, and she fell in love with it when Ashley came down for a few days, so we got her one after that. Anyway, she carries the tiger everywhere. I got the tiger and brought it over to a crying Hayley. I then had a conversation with the tiger, telling it that Hayley’s neck hurt, and the tiger replying that if the tiger put its arm around her neck, it would feel better. Hayley brightened up immediately. The tiger told her that he would stay with her all night and make sure her neck felt better, and Hayley was ok with that. We put her in bed, had the tiger with a paw around her neck, and said goodnight. She’s been quiet since.

Every once in a while, Daddy knows what he’s doing.

01/06/2006 (5:43 pm)

The World According to Hayley

Filed under: Hayley

Tonight after I had put dinner in the oven, I went to put some clothes in the dryer. I heard Hayley saying the following:

“Once upon a time there was a little girl named Hayley. She wanted to climb up on the counter, but Mama said no. That made her cry. Then they called Daddy. Then they made dinner. Hayley helped. And that is the story of a little girl named Hayley.”

I may have paraphrased a bit, but not much. She “told” this little story while she was snacking on Frosted Flakes. She’s quite an entertaining child.

01/02/2006 (5:40 pm)

Hayley In Pictures 2005

Filed under: Hayley

I’ve gone through the pictures I took of Hayley in the past year and picked out some of my favorites. They can be found in the Best of Hayley 2005 Flickr Photoset.

Enjoy!

01/01/2006 (8:51 pm)

Ice Princess

Filed under: Uncategorized —

We had some time today, so we decided to head out as a family to the Cary Ice House and take Hayley skating for the first time. We’d mentioned it to her, and she seemed interested, so we figured it might be neat for her. Plus, the two of us had only broken out our skates once since before she was born.

We got to the rink around noon, and it took us 10-15 minutes to get our gear on. Holly’d purchased a helmet-and-pad set for Hayley, so we got those on her. The rental skates looked so little, but she wore a size 9. We finally made it out onto the ice.

Hayley did about as well as can be expected for a not-even-three-year-old who’d never been on skates before. She went around with us holding her hands. She didn’t seem to get her balance, but she didn’t fall (because we were holding her, I assume). She even went one-handed with Mommy, holding onto the wall with her other hand.

After about 20 minutes, she said “This is hard. I’m tired. I want to go home.” So we took our gear off, and left the Ice House around 1. I think she had a good time - at least, she says she did. We may sign her up for the “Mice on Ice” class aimed at 3-5 year olds, teaching them to stand and get comfortable on the ice.

But we’re very proud of Hayley for doing well today!