Fun with friends! December 30, 2008

One of the great things about Christmas is getting to see friends who come home from out of town.  Hayden got to spend some time with Emily and Sadie who were in town from San Fran.  Sadie is 6 months younger than Hayden.  She is a strong contender for future girlfriend – in line with Bella, Avery, Brynna, Lauren…. 🙂

While Emily and Sadie were here we had one play date with the kids and one without, where we parents met Sunil out on the town and left the kids with the grandparents.  We had intended to have at least 2 other get togethers while they were in town, but Hayden had been pretty unwell for some time and we decided it was best to keep Sadie away.  Unfortunately, she ended up getting sick anyway, but it was not the same sick as Hayden so seems to not have gotten anything from him (phew!).

A couple of days after Christmas, the stars aligned and we were able to coordinate a meeting with Faith and her family and Steph and her family as each was passing through Indy!  We had a great few hours of catch up while the kids played.  It was really fun!  There is a 10 month gap between each kid – Jaden (Steph’s) is the oldest at 3, Avery (Faith’s) is 10 months younger than him, Hayden is 10 months younger than her, Brynna (Steph’s) is 10 months younger than him, and Faith is due when Brynna is 10 months old!  It was not long ago we were three recent college grads working at Lilly, meeting up after work at the bar at Rock Bottom for some wine and a moan about work.  Now when we are together we treasure the conversation we are able to squeeze in between one or more of us breaking off for side conversations with our kids along the lines of “Get that out of your mouth!” “Are you stinky?” “Share!” “That’s not yours!” and the ever popular “Leave the cat alone!” 🙂

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Painting!

Hayden had his first shot at flexing his art skills today.  (Well, the first day doing that with us anyway – they do crafts a lot at daycare.)  For Christmas his Aunt Tami got him some markers and paints that are specifically for hands as small as his.  They are shaped like balls to make it easier to grip.  Hayden had a great time playing with his art supplies.  He wasn’t really that interested in actually making art but was very interested in organizing the paints.  He would pick each one up and place them on different parts of his tray, over and over again.  He was very happy doing that, and when I took the paints away for dinner time he was really upset!  Luckily it’s all non toxic because as he expressed his sadness he got the paints that were all over his hands onto his face and in his mouth.  It was so funny sad. 

Christmas Day December 29, 2008

Christmas Day arrived and Hayden was definitely not that fussed with Christmas – It was a big effort to get him to open presents!

He loved his first two presents (both cars from his stocking from the movie Cars) and then after that he just wanted to play with them and couldn’t care too much about the big pile of presents he had waiting for him! I got him a few other Cars things that he got excited about.. basically unless it’s car’s he is not fussed right now.  We were expecting him to want to rip the wrapping off etc but he didn’t really.  I’m sure next year will be very very different!  Anyway – Kara and I made up for Hayden’s lack of excitement and ripped our wrapping paper as quickly as we could!

Christmas Day we go to Gretchen’s mum’s which is really close to us, so we only have to drive about two miles which is really nice!  Hayden was a rock star when it came to food again.  Fristly with the appetizers he was eating lots (well he started to get a little picky – see future blog on food pickiness) and then throughout the day he would just hang around the food table waiting for someone to reach up and pass him a cookie (notice a Christmas theme here….)  Later for dinner he again ate everything at the table – corn, mash potato, prime rib, gravy, yorkshire puddings, in fact he probably ate as much as me!  He is just a little eating machine!

David, one of the Jahn kids, got this skateboard half pipe for Christmas.  Later in the day he was playing with it with his brother, this perked Hayden’s interested because while skateboards are not as cool as cars, they do have 4 wheels and that is a really good start!  Anyway he was rather obilivious to how to play with the skateboards on the half pipe so instead decided that it looked like a comforatble seat.  it was very funny! (not sure David was impressed!).  Christmas day also has a dedicated album.

Christmas Eve December 28, 2008

Christmas Eve involves going to Hayden’s Grandma’s house and it means that Hayden’s cousin’s Jesse and Robby are there!!  Which means lots of kids all running around (now including Hayden) high on cookies!!!

Hayden wasn’t that fussed about opening presents.  We weren’t sure what his reaction was going to be but he could really give or take opening presents.  However he attention was definitely caught with Robby and Jesse’s presents.  They got remote control monster trucks and also a hot wheel track and Hayden wanted to play with these immediately.  Of course these are new presents for Robby and Jesse as well, so you can understand it’s hard for them to share their brand new presents!  So Hayden is running around with the monster trucks with the boys chasing him down grabbing the truck off him and then driving it off, Hayden chases the truck picks it up, and the cycle begins!

He had his usual appetite and was around to everyone’s plate begging for food the whole day.  He ate everything before him, green bean casserole, pigs in blanket, cookies, jelly (jello), shrimp, cookies, black olives (seriously!  he loved these things), baked beans (and we paid for it next morning), cookies, etc!!!

He did really well playing and eating all day, and only got really fussy when it was time for pictures with Grandpa Blue – these pictures will rival the santa one!!  (check out the Christmas Eve album)

Helpful boy…well almost December 22, 2008

Hayden has started to become very helpful recently.  Some examples.

• At bed time, when I’m putting his socks on (after I’ve attacked him with a game of ‘this little piggy’) he puts his feet up in the air.  Once you put one sock on he swaps feet and gives you his other foot.
• He likes to find his shoes and try to put them on his feet.
• When we open the dishwasher he helps us by handing us the cutlery to put away.
• Bath time, I ask him is he ready to get out and his put his hands up in the air and starts to stand up to make it easy to get him.
• He has started to use the spoon to feed himself.  This is in early stages… but nonetheless a move in the right direction.
• He also likes to press every button the washing machine to make sure the clothes are clean.

Smarty pants (completely unbiased)

So I have talked about all the words Hayden understands, but he also has a somewhat related party trick (literally – you can ask Emily because I made him do it when she was visiting).  He brings us a book and we ask him ‘Where is the ______?’  Whatever we ask him, he points to.  It all started with some strawberries in the Eric Carl book The Very Hungry Caterpillar, about a month ago.  After pointing out the strawberries roughly a thousand times, I asked him where the strawberries were.  He got very excited and pointed to them!  Now he can do it with oranges, plums, apples, pears, rainbow, bunny, sun, orange owl, kite, bubble, yak (I know!), the list goes on.  I will ask him about objects that are not on the page he is currently looking at, and he will flip through the book until he finds it, then point and laugh.  It is so cute!

Head Banger

Not quite in the musical sense…Hayden has this habit of just banging his head against things!!  He’ll just be standing near a door, the dishwasher or kitchen cabinet or something and start head butting it!!
He does it especially if he is in a bad mood – it’s like look I am going to hurt myself if you won’t pay attention to me and feed me cookies!!  It works of course!

Bath Time December 18, 2008

I thought it was time to give an update on bath time with Hayden.  As mentioned before this is my time, and when I get to spend some quality time with Hayden.  I’m pretty lucky because nine times out of ten he loves bath time!  (I try to make that other one time the time when Kara does it!! haha.. just kidding…)  I normally try pretty hard to get him in a good mood and laughing on the way up the stairs.  Normally just looking at my face works, or the latest thing is I do a Doctor Evil (Austin Powers) laugh and he thinks that is as funny as people throwing shoes at George Bush!  (i.e. Very!)

He helps me run the bath, he loves putting his arm under the tap as it’s running so that keeps him out of trouble and then we grab the towel, ditch the clothes and he jumps (well kind of) into the Bath.  He now has Rubber ducks on the bottom of the bath to help him get some grip and lots and lots of toys. His favorite are these foam cars which he plays with for hours.  Well actually what happens is he picks one out of the bath, says something to me and gives it to me, i make car noises and pretend that the car is moving around the bath, and then put the car back, he then finds another foam car, says something to me, and gives me the foam car and the process starts again, and again, and again 😀  I make brilliant police car sirens…

About a week ago his permament transition to the big boy bath was complete.  He now doesn’t do the baby bath (after all that is for babies and Hayden is a little man now).  This means when he is getting his hair washed he has to lie down in the bath, this is hilarious because 1) he has so much hair it just floats all around his head and looks really funny, and 2) he lays there like someone has paralyzed him.  Doesn’t cry,, doesn’t move, just lies there like he is playing sleeping lions.  It is the only time ever that he stays still for more than one second!

Hayden, two words – YOU’RE RIGHT!! December 17, 2008

Santa IS scary!

Mommy understands.

Uh oh December 13, 2008

Another phrase Hayden has learned from us recently is “uh oh”.  Typically he just repeats after us, but the other day he knocked over his milk, and he said “uh oh”… so he is obviously starting to understand what it means!  It’s very funny and cute!