Hayden likes you to pay attention to him when he’s talking. Particularly if I’m talking to or holding Layla. He will come up to me, and probably a have a toy or a card (like a top trump) and ask him what something is, if I ignore him, or I’m already doing something, or talking already, he will position himself so that his face is almost touching mine (so it’s impossible to see anything but Hayden) and ask me the question again. If I move my head he just follows me around getting louder and louder! What a rascal!
In Your Face November 6, 2010
Daddy Picks Up Hayden!
It’s pretty rare for me to pick up Hayden from daycare/pre-school. Kara tries to get him as early as possible and it’s nearly always before I’m home from work. This week I was able to finish up a little early from a conference and Kara was working that day so hadn’t collected him yet. So I got to get him and he had no idea I was coming.
I entered the room and couldn’t find him at first. All these kids sat around the table reading books and Hayden was on his own over by the toys! That isn’t a big surprise, Hayden likes to just play by himself and LOVES toys. At some point he heard my voice, slowly turned his head as he wasn’t expecting me and then jumped up and shouted daddy. He came running over to me and gave me a huge hug and then shouted to all the other kids “this is my daddy, this is my daddy!” I felt like he was really proud. It was a very cool moment.
It’s Not a Daddy Work Day
I’m sure I’ve talked a lot in these blogs about Hayden being a big daddy’s boy. Recently he’s been very interested in when it’s a daddy work day and when it’s not. He seems to count down the days to the “not a daddy workdays” and is always really disappointed in the mornings when I tell him I have to go to work.
The other night this escalated to a new high. We were just getting ready for bed and it was clear he needed to do a poop. He didn’t want to sit on the potty so we were having a “Discussion”. I was telling him about how Granddad was coming next week and how if he was a good boy I would take some daddy work days off when he was here. Somehow this got confused in his head….he had the biggest melt down, and didn’t want me to go to work anymore. I managed to get him back in his room and he just screamed and kicked for about 20 minutes. In the end I went back in and tried to explain to him why I had to go to work (to buy toys) and he was begging me not to go to work! Poor little guy. Eventually he was too tired and crashed out.
The next morning I had to get to work early, and I knew Kara would be tired from the late night she had. So I was hoping he would sleep in, but I was also worried that he was going to be mad if he got up and I had already gone to work. Well Hayden woke up early so I got him up and dressed. We were in the bathroom getting him ready and Kara came up to the door. He got up and closed the door on her, and announced I am closing the door so that daddy can’t go to work!!!! Then told me that he didn’t want daddy to go to work today and put himself between me and the door!
Just tonight I had put Hayden to bed and he was making some noise. Kara went up to see him, and she said that he was up on his knees when she opened the door, and he just shouted “it’s not a daddy workday tomorrow!!” That’s my boy 😀
Jibber Jabber November 4, 2010
I’ve been trying to get some video of Layla jabbering today, but when she sees me trying to record her she stops because she’s distracted by my phone! Here’s the best I could get.
She does a lot of vowel sounds – “oooo,” “ohhh,” etc. The only consonant sound she makes so far is “mmmm,” which of course MMMMMommy isn’t upset about! 🙂
Trick or Treat
Three is a fun age for Halloween. This was the first year I feel like Hayden was quite interested in trick-or-treating, even though he definitely lost interested long before the bigger kids. 🙂
Halloween was on Sunday this year, and Saturday my mom’s church had a “trunk or treat” event where you could take your kids to the parking lot and go car to car to “trick-or-treat.” I guess these things are getting more popular but I had never heard of it before. We took Hayden with Mom and Jim, and Hayden’s cousins Jesse and Robby came, too. It was really cute, and it gave Hayden a bit of a preview/reminder of what this trick-or-treating business is. The adults who were handing out the candy had gotten all dressed up – it was a really fun time!
Sunday was the real deal. We went to the neighborhood Halloween party, which goes for an hour before official trick-or-treat time starts. We had some chili, hotdogs, and snacks and Hayden did some coloring and playing with neighborhood kids. From there we started the trick-or-treating. John took Hayden around to start with while I took the car home and met up with them after a few minutes. He was really enjoying it. He wanted to go to every single house, and when there was the odd house we knew wasn’t giving candy he would protest, not understanding why he couldn’t go ring their bell.
After he’d done a fair amount of trick-or-treating, we went down to the cul-de-sac where our friends live. We decided to pass out our candy down there as our house always gets bypassed since we’re at the neighborhood entrance and off the main drag. Our friend Kris had made some mulled cider which the adults enjoyed while the kids all played around. It was a fun weekend!
I Wanna Hold Your Glasses
Layla seems to have entered a new developmental phase in the last couple of weeks: grabby and squirmy! She wants to grab onto anything within reach: hair, face, clothes, and yes, glasses. And she’s fast! She rips those suckers right off John and my faces before we get a chance to stop her. We’ve been introducing more and more baby toys to her to try to satisfy her frequent need to grab. She’s also quite squirmy. She’s very strong in her back and neck now, to the point where she’s mostly held on our hips as opposed to cuddling against our chests like little babies do, but she’s also starting to move around a bit when being held. Not with the force of a baby who walks and wants to get down to go off somewhere, but just trying out different movements I think. Another thing she really enjoys is putting her feet in her mouth. She sleeps in a sleep sack and when I am changing her in the morning the first thing she does is grab her feet and get them in her mouth. It’s like she’s thinking, “Well, there you are, Feet! I’ve missed you.”
But the big news of the moment is she rolled back to belly yesterday! She didn’t move her arm out from underneath her so she didn’t stay on her belly long, but her whole body was flopped over onto her front. 😀 Such a big girl!
Hayden and Layla's Place 