Strawberry picking June 27, 2011

Over Memorial Day weekend we went strawberry picking.  I had wanted to do it last year, but I got to the farm too late for strawberries (I guess having a 1 week old cramped my style last year 🙂 ), so last year we picked blueberries instead.  Madeline (“Nanny”) was staying with us so she came along, and Grandma and Grandpa came, too.  I thought Hayden would enjoy picking the berries, but I was wrong.  There was a lot of whining and talk about wanting to “go back in my van.”  Even the promise of ice cream when we were done picking didn’t really intice him.  Apparently he was interested long enough for us to capture one picture of him. 🙂  We got just under 10 lbs of berries, and I made 2 batches of freezer jam (which equates to… lots of jars in my freezer).  There were still tons of berries after I made jam.  I had them in tupperware to last as long as possible, which really did keep them good for a long time.  I was bound and determined to eat every last one of the berries, and eventually we did.  Thank goodness the kids are fruit junkies!

And afterwards, we did all enjoy some ice cream.  Hayden was funny because as he and I were standing in line for ice cream, everyone else was outside.  I realized I didn’t have any money, so I asked Hayden to go outside and tell Daddy we need money.  He ran outside up to John and excitedly said, “We need money, Daddy!”  I don’t think it translates as cute in writing, but you’ll have to trust me that was (so I hear, again, I was inside).  It was also funny because it was sort of a test.  It’s relatively new that you can tell him to tell someone something and he will do it at all or convey the right message, and it’s not 100%.  There was an equally good chance that he would have gotten distracted along the way and never made it to John at all, or not remembered what he was supposed to tell him.

Advertisement

Crawling and Standing

Layla is sort of working on a couple of developmental milestones, in her own reluctant way. 🙂  Last week she was on the floor and she seemed to be very deliberately trying to work out how to crawl.  She was on her hands and knees, and she would bring up one hand and bash it back down on the floor a little further out, then move her knee a little closer to her hands, etc.  I was surprised because she is such an efficient scooter I figured she would forgo crawling altogether.  And she very well might, because she hasn’t really explored crawling much since then.

 

We have been trying to work with her on standing.  Whenever we try to set her down so she is standing she just keeps her legs out in front of her so she is put down on her bottom.  She will stand when she can lean against something, such as the ottoman, but it doesn’t take long before she will start fussing or trying to sit back down because she doesn’t seem to like standing.  She has pulled herself up about 5 times in about the same number of days.  I’ve only seen it once (she was on the floor by the bathtub and pulled herself to a stand to try to reach the toys in the bath) because the other 4 times were at day care (she did it 4 times in a row there).  I made some wonderful (if I do say so myself!) chocolate chip cookies with the kitchen aid mixer I got for my birthday and our new convection oven, so maybe later today I will see if I can bribe her to a stand with pieces of cookie! 🙂  I seem to remember getting results practicing walking with Hayden using food.

Adventurous Hayden June 14, 2011

Hayden went to gymnastics camp for one week/four days in June.  Some other kids in our neighborhood had signed up so I thought it was a good opportunity to try a summer day camp for him when I could get some assistance with the carpooling.  He took gymnastics classes earlier in the year, about which he was lukewarm.  I would say he was similarly lukewarm about gymnastics camp as the week went on.  It was from 9 -1, and that is probably a big chunk of time for a 3 year old.  He would have rather stayed home and played trains (the boy is obsessed by trains currently), and I couldn’t seem to get him to understand that it was either gymnastics camp or preschool/day care since I was working while he was at camp.

On the last day they put on a performance that the parents could come watch.  I got to see Hayden doing all the different apparatuses (trampoline, bars, beam, vault.  It was really cute.  He has always been a very cautious little guy, so I was glad to see there wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do.  The owner of the gym said that he had not wanted to do some of the things at the beginning of the week but he had worked up the nerve over time so she was glad to see his progress.  Since camp, I have noticed that he is much more adventurous now on playground equipment.  It was all we could do to get him on playground equipment prior to camp, and now he climbs right up and seems to be confident using every part he can find.

He also took a couple of weeks of swimming classes recently.  Again it was hard to know how much he really liked the class.  Unfortunately, we were taking him to the Monon Center, which has a huge outdoor water park he is familiar with, so whenever we went he just wanted to go out there and play, not be inside taking swim lessons.  But it was good to get him some instruction.

Excuse me (Updated) June 8, 2011

It seems like we have been working on manners with Hayden since… well… he started talking.  He hardly every remembers to say “please” and “thank you” without being reminded (500 times a day!), but he now starts many sentences with “Excuse me.”  “Excuse me, but where is my yogurt?”  “Excuse me, where are we going today?”  It is hugely cute.  I don’t think he has ever used it when he is actually interrupting, but we’ll take what we can get!

++++++++++ UPDATE+++++++++++++

Another thing Hayden is saying a lot of that is cracking us up is, “Hold on.”  “Hold on, let me look and see which cereal I want.” “Hold on, I need to get my shoes first.” “Hold on, I am going to watch a cartoon.”  He also ends many of his sentences right now with, “OK?”  That one can get a little tricky because Hayden gets in these moods where he talks nonstop, and being a modern family with 100 things going on at any given time, there is always a point in his monologue where you have to stop paying complete attention.  In that case, you might be tempted to say, “OK” when he is finishing his sentences with, “OK” (and saying, “OK, Mommy?  OK?” until he gets a response), but YOU then don’t know what you’ve “OK’ed” but he DOES.  This can lead to tears later when he is insisting it’s time for a walk because I said OK when he said after breakfast we are going to go for a walk, OK? even though he is supposed to go to preschool after breakfast, it’s raining out, and Layla is asleep.  I made that scenario up, but the idea is real.

We do love the “Hayden-isms” in our house, and John and I frequently slip into Hayden-speak with each other.  It turns out this is contagious.  We were out in Denver a couple of weeks ago visiting family (my cousin Gena got married in England and we were there for her reception, and tacked on a little family vacation).  We were telling Gena and her husband Simon about how Hayden says OK at the end of most of his sentences.  Apparently after that conversation they started talking to each other that way, and in her thank you card to us she ended it with, “See you when you move here, OK?”

Update from John – My favorite Excuse Me comes when we approach roundabouts and there are cars on the roundabout.  “Excuse Cars we are coming through.  Move cars!”.    He cracks me up!

All aboard the Hayden train

I think we’ve talked about Hayden’s train obsession.  We he thinks everything is a train.  We’ll get in the car and he’ll want to know where the train is going.  He’ll be playing with his trains, and then he will shout at me, and ask “DADDY are you on the TRAIN”.  There is only one acceptable answer to this – “yes” – he will scream until he gets a response.  Then once I admit I am on the train, I’ll get more repeated shouts of “are you still on the train DADDY?”, “Do you have a ticket!” and so on…

He has train tables in his room and the basement.  He has geotrax sets all over the house.  He lives, eats, breathes Trains.   Trains are not a matter of life or death – they are far more important than that!!

Happy 1st birthday, Lay! June 1, 2011

Layla turned one!  The year really flew by – it’s hard to believe it was already a year ago that she was born.  We had a nice party for her, and it got to be on her actual birthday since it happened to be on a Saturday.  We had all her local family here – grandmas, grandpas, great-grandpa, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Even a special guest from London, Nanny, was here to celebrate!  We also had our neighbors over.  We had great weather so we were able to be comfortably outside for most of the party (which was noteworthy because of all the rain we have had, and it did rain when the party was over).   Layla got some fun presents including a few dolls which she gets excited over and likes to kiss, and plenty of food-related gifts to go with her big present from Mommy and Daddy of a play kitchen.  It has been fun watching her and big brother play with that.  Hayden has been good about the fact that the new toys are her presents and trying to get her to play with them when he wants play so they are sharing.

It’s been a great year.  Layla is a really sweet baby.  She has never been much of a crier.  We know something really is wrong when we hear her cry.  She is getting more and more communicative.  She still only says Mama, but she jabbers a lot and seems to really be wanting to be heard when she does that.  The other day it was so funny because John came home and she just started jabbering so loudly!  She seemed very excited to be seeing him and had all sorts of things to tell him! I am pretty sure she won’t crawl.  She’s got her scooting down pat and she can get everywhere that way, so why make the lateral move to crawling?  She pulls herself up onto her knees, but hasn’t worked up to a standing position yet.  We are working on that with her.  She loves the animals.  She will often be seen leaning over to give the dogs or cat kisses.  She has six teeth now; two on the bottom and four up top.   She is a great eater.  I call her my bottomless pit at least once a day.  Before she goes to sleep I will stand by her crib and bounce her a little, and she will lay her head on my shoulder and it melts my bones.  She is a very special little person; I couldn’t be happier!