Who’s the parent around here? February 28, 2010

In the last few days Hayden seems to have turned into the parent around here. When coming down the stairs yesterday he told me “be careful by the gate daddy”. When we were reading through his book last night and one of the pop up pieces of the book was broken, on the next page he told me “don’t break it daddy”. When I make tea in the mornings he’s been known to say “it’s hot, be careful”.

Today I was just about to get in the shower, so wanted to keep Hayden occupied and I went to get his soft football (soccer) ball. He turns around and says “Don’t play ball” (when I got his football out this morning and started kicking it around, he must have got that from his mummy!!! certainly not his daddy!!).

Yesterday I was brushing my teeth and he wanted me to pick him up, so my hands were some what employed and I had to hold the toothbrush in my mouth – “Don’t chew it daddy!” – apparently the exact words Kara had told him the night before when he was chewing is toothbrush.

Crash, Bang, Capow, Smash February 24, 2010

6am, February 23rd 2010.  Crash, Bang, Capow, Smash.

Kara and I immediately woke and jumped out of bed to find out what the dogs had been up to.  Hang on the dogs are with us.  It must be Abbey (it’s usually Abbey – trying to lick all the dishes clean to save us on dishwasher costs).  But this was no ordinary bang, this was huge!  Not even sure Abbey was capable of this one.

When once we’d got our glasses on Kara noticed that chandelier was missing from our 2 story entry way.  Missing because it had fallen 20 foot and smashed into a million pieces on the floor.  By some miracle our flooring wasn’t damaged (it’s tiled).  We had the fun job of cleaning this up, but of course it woke up Hayden, which of course is always the point of these blogs (as he is of course the center of the universe – well at least until the baby is born ;-)).  For the next 30 minutes all I heard from his room was a steady chant:

“I want to get out”, “I want to get out”, “I want to get out”, “I want to get out”, “I want to get out”…

I can’t believe he didn’t just jump out of bed to go find out what’s going on!

I want more pancakes

Last week was Pancake Day (affectionately known as fat Tuesday in the US).  This is an important day in the British calender, well it was certainly instilled this way by my mum (Nanny Mad) who is addicted to pancakes.  So I tried my best to keep up the British tradition and made pancakes for the whole family.  Well Hayden of course had no objection to this, his only objection was that I couldn’t make them fast enough apparently!  We had told him he was going to have pancakes for his dinner, so to him this meant I am getting pancakes right now!!  So he sat around impatiently while I tried to great it all ready in record time.

Of course he had the first pancake!!  He munched it down in record time and even before he finished it, he was asking “i want more pancakes”.   Next one, to his dislike, went to his mummy (apparently the baby also really likes pancakes).  Hayden and his mum worked their way through another one each in no time and I then i tried to sneak one.   Hayden didn’t like that so he ended up taking a couple of bites of mine just to pacify him.  Every time I turned around to the cooker, “i want more pancakes, i want more pancakes, i want more pancakes”.  In the end he managed to demolish 4 pancakes (not these are more like crepes than pancakes, but still a very healthy size) and whatever he stole from me and his mum.   Crazy!  He’s only two!

The picture above was actually taken the next day or so.  In this particular meal one plate wasn’t enough so he needed two to fit all his food on!!   He is a food monster!!!

As I mentioned above the baby liked pancakes too.  There was a lot of kicking and wriggling around in Kara’s belly post dinner!

It’s a sad day..

Today was the day that “moot” turned into “milk”.  Hayden has been saying Moot since the day he first started to talk and say words.  We’ve got so used it we call it moot, even when he’s not around!  So we’ve not been helping the translations.  Today after his bath he asked me for his “milk” (it might have been “Milt” but I’ll let that pass).  So that’s the end of that.  Our little boy is growing up!

Taking it all in February 21, 2010

A few nights back and Kara has gone out somewhere, when this happens Hayden and I like to turn the music up and dance around.  After buring off some energy it was time for dinner and the music was still playing.  Well I was “singing” along to the music and the lyrics went something like “You’re gonna have to leave home”, and Hayden immediately responds with “I don’t want to leave home!!”

Open Presents..

Little late for the Christmas blog I know but better late than never – right?   I’ll keep it short.

Hayden definitely started to get the hang of Christmas this year and thoroughly enjoyed the idea of presents, even if wanted to open everybody elses!   As soon as he saw a present as far as he was concerns it was fair game to whoever could rip the paper off first.  I don’t think Kara or I got to open a single present as Hayden took care of that for us!  “Open presents?” was a very popular phrase that week!!

One of the magic moments was when he was opening his presents.  He was working through his toys and getting excited, and he came across some clothes, he just threw down the box/clothes and grabbed the next present!   Just like his daddy!!!

Where mummy is?

I never kid myself, Hayden’s always been a mummy’s boy.  Recently though that has gone into overdrive. “Where mummy is?” is the most common phrase out of his mouth.  Every time Kara is not in site he’ll want to know where she is, what’s she doing and why she isn’t giving him attention.

If Kara tries to sneak out, it’ll take him about 2 seconds until he’ll start asking “where mummy is?”  If I can’t come up with a good reason or excuse that’s not viable then trouble is brewing.  If he senses she has left the building without him, then all hell breaks loose for about 10 minutes, until i bribe with a chocolate raisin.   If she’s just in another room, then give Hayden a few seconds and he’ll be standing next to her giving a strange look saying “don’t you love me anymore mummy?”

To be fair when I’ve been gone recently for a day to two, he did ask where daddy is?  But probably just once and wasn’t that bothered when he got the answer!

I play first

Hayden is starting to learn sequencing….Right now everything is “first”. I’ll tell Hayden he needs to get his diaper/nappy changed – “I play first”. Tell him he needs to get out of the bath “I play first”. I tell him we are going out “I listen music first”. Go to bed or nap, “I read first”… he’s starting to get very good at milking it and making his daddy look like a sucker!!!

We have started to use time to get him prepared and to get ready for a nap, or get our of the bath, etc.  So it’ll be “Hayden five minutes and then nap time”.  Well he has obviously picked up on this.  This morning for example after he woke up and I told him we need to go get some milk and get out of his PJs, he turns around “I play for a couple minutes first daddy”!

A couple more examples like this as well, is the use of soon and it’s coming.  “We go to Grandma’s read soon?” and today I was printing some off on the printer, and he was watching it intensely telling me that “paper coming”.  He’s learning!

I know what I want February 5, 2010

Hayden is very bossy. I’m sure I’ve made reference to that before. He knows what he wants, it’s as simple at that. We were outside playing a couple of weeks back and he noticed the lights went off. I explained they are off because they time out after the garage is opened. So of course he wanted to open/closed the garage to make the lights come on again.

Well the funny part of this was my hands were in my pockets. He knew I couldn’t pick him up if my hands were in my pockets. So with both of his hands he started to force my hands out of my pockets. He was leaning against my pockets and wouldn’t give up until my hands came out! It might be one of those stories that you had to see, but it was very funny.  He is a determined little fella!

Again and again and again

They say repetition is good and common for a 2 year old. They like to understand how things work so they will repeat things over and over. I got to experience this first hand yesterday at Hayden’s bath time.

We had used up the last of his bubble bath so i threw the container in the bath with him so he could play with it. Immediately he started to play by filling it up. Then he would realize “there more bubbles in it”. I’d go “there more bubbles in there?” and he would reply “yeah”. Then he pours out the water, fills it back and “there more bubbles in it”. I’d go “there more bubbles in there?” and he would reply “yeah”. and then he pours out the water, fills it back and “there more bubbles in it”. I’d go “there more bubbles in there?” and he would reply “yeah” and then….

This happened about 25 times in a row!!  Bath next day – we went through it all again!  I can see the TeleTubbies were on to something…. “again, again, again”…