MY! April 29, 2012

Layla is into “owning” things right now, and letting us know what is hers.  She will say, “MY Mommy,” “MY drink,” “MY baby,” or more often than not, she will simply hold something tightly and say, “MY!”  There is a very big emphasis on the word “my.”  Sometimes she is asking the question, like when she is playing with something of Hayden’s she will say, “MY Elmo,” when she knows it is Hayden’s, but she’ll listen when I tell her it’s Hayden’s.  Usually she will move on to something else to see if that is hers.

It’s interesting because it took Hayden a long time to get the difference between “me” and “you.”  For a long time he would say things like, “Carry you,” when he meant, “Carry me.”  Layla does not seem to have been confused by the you vs me concept, which is funny because we found it a hard thing to try to explain to Hayden.

MMmmm, Chocolate! MMmmm, Chocolate? April 25, 2012

John is not a fan of chocolate.  I know, it’s weird!  I don’t know how many times I have had the conversation, “Yeah, he doesn’t like chocolate actually.”  “He DOESN’T LIKE CHOCOLATE?  There are people who don’t like chocolate?”  “I know, it’s weird!”  I think there’s a small part of me that wonders if he really does like chocolate but decided one time that his “thing” would be that he is the one person in the world who doesn’t like chocolate, and he stuck to it.

Well, imagine my surprise that Layla doesn’t seem to like chocolate!  I know!  This is a KID who you can give a BROWNIE to, and she will spit it out.  SPIT IT OUT, I tell you!  So now I guess I have to believe that John really doesn’t like chocolate.  This is an actual thing that can happen to humans.  And when Hayden and I end up to be 400 pounds each you will know that we enjoyed every bite of Layla and Daddy’s share of dessert.

Excuses April 23, 2012

Hayden was a little backed up this week but just didn’t want to go. He was well prepared with a couple of his excuses that I wanted to share:

I think I am going to sneeze if I poop

Well I know why I’ve been picking my nose a lot, its because I had to poop.

Disney! April 12, 2012

Wow, well I don’t even know where to start with this one.  We took a family trip down to Orlando to do Disney.  John’s mom and sister have a time share down there so we stayed with them and Michelle’s boyfriend, James.  It was such a great time!

We decided to drive the van down there.  We knew we would save money in the long run because apart from saving money on flights (somewhat offset by the price of gas and hotel rooms), we would not have to rent a car that sits 7 plus rent a car seat and booster seat.  Some people do the drive from Indiana to Florida in one day by waking up in the middle of the night and getting there late at night.  We didn’t think this would work for us with the kids’ ages – particularly Layla.  When Layla is asleep the person not driving can get some rest, but if she is awake there is no sleeping for the non driving person.  She wanted to be entertained.  I can’t blame her – it was a looooong old drive, and I’m sure her car seat was not the most comfortable for all day sitting.  We decided that we had a fantastic time on our trip and can’t wait to go back when Layla is old enough to appreciate it in a different way and Michelle’s (as yet unborn) baby can ride some rides, but we will fly next time and stay in a Disney resort for a number of reasons, mostly because we can get to and from the airport, resort, and Disney parks with no need for a car!

We did all the Disney parks – Magic Kingdom three times, Epcot, Animal Kingdom, and Hollywood Studios.  Hayden did the roller coasters!  I couldn’t believe it, because he is normally so cautious.  He started with space mountain.  It’s completely dark in there, so I’m not sure how much he really liked it.  He never wanted to go on it again, but he really didn’t show any emotion about the ride afterwards one way or the other.  At Animal Kingdom he went on Everest, which was very fast and goes backwards and in the dark and all sorts, and he seemed to really like that.  Everyone loved the Star Wars ride at Hollywood Studios, as well as the Buzz Lightyear ride there.  In fact, those were 2 of the group’s favorite rides, although overall Hollywood Studios was my personal 3rd favorite of the 4.  We did tons of rides, but we tried to have shorter days at the parks so we could also have some down time at the condo.  Michelle is pregnant, Madeline has a leg that gives her trouble, and the two kids – well, need some downtime!  So most days we had pool time as well.  One evening we drove down to my aunt’s house to see my aunt, uncle, cousins, their kids, etc.  My brother and his family were also in Orlando at the same time, so they went to my aunt’s as well.  We also ran into them at Magic Kingdom on the way to Tom Sawyer’s island!

I was really so proud of the kids.  Going into the trip, I thought for sure there would be at least one meltdown from each of them every day.  The parks are just so over stimulating, and there is so much potential for crying – heat (which wasn’t too bad while we were there), hunger, thirst, waiting – that I thought we would have a few battles.  But really, they were very patient and good.  Which is good – because they should be allowed back in. 😉

It was really such a great trip, we can’t wait to do it again sometime!  Madeline came back with us and is staying with us for 2 weeks, so for her and Hayden the vacation continues!  Madeline is watching Hayden on my work days.  She was going to watch Layla, too, but Layla couldn’t get her head around the idea of Mommy trying to work, so she went back to day care.  That’s good for her anyway, as she really has a good time there.

That’s The Problem

Hayden has really mastered the whole talking thing.  It’s few and far between that I have to translate for him anymore – most of the time people can understand him even if they have an untrained ear.  He talks quite a bit, and it cracks us up to hear some of the things he comes up with.  For instance, at the moment he ends many sentences with “…that’s the problem.”  He has an excuse for everything.  Any time we ask him to do anything he will have a reason why he didn’t do it or can’t do it, and he will round things off by saying, “that’s the problem.”

“Hayden, you didn’t take your allergy medicine.”  “Oh!  I forgot that it was there.  I didn’t hear you tell me it was there.  So, that’s the problem.”

“Hayden, you need to put your shoes on.”  “Well, where are my shoes?  See, I didn’t know where my shoes are, that’s the problem.”

Watch me!

John or I have probably posted before that Hayden likes to tell us to watch him do things.  Most often it is when he is eating, oddly enough.  It’s usually when he is going to eat something he is excited about, like dessert.  “Watch me!” (Big bite)  Well, now Layla has taken a page from her big bro’s book, and she will say, “Washie” while she is eating.  Last night she was eating chicken soup with pasta shapes.  She had this huge spoonful of pasta, and she said, “Mama, washie!”  So I laughed and told her I was watching, and she looked across at Hayden and said, “Haddie, washie!”

Mummy’s out of town April 9, 2012

It was about three years ago it seems the last time Kara left town and left me for the weekend with the kiddos. Well back then there was just one – now of course there is two – I thought (and considering I’ve sucked on blogging of late) it might be fun to keep track of the little munchkins.

I had to work on Friday so I had to unfortunately drop them at preschool for most of the day. That was fun for me a little though as Kara always does that. So they seemed to enjoy the change and Layla was a real sweetie when I took her in and she gave me a big kiss after i put her down. Hayden seems to like going to his class these days which is good – he had a period back there when he didn’t like it. He was excited also about me dropping him off but was also ready to go play.

When I got to pick them up it was nice to hear such nice reports from the teachers. Hayden had a new teacher there that didn’t know him very well and was so complementary about him and how nice he was, how interested and good he was at reading his books and how nice he was to the other kids.  It was nice for someone to be able to see this so instantly.

We planned to go to a new place for dinner but the wait was over an hour. Hayden wanted to wait but there was no way in the world I was going to do that – so he had to put up with some tears while i convinced him to go somewhere else -it ended up being BW3s where to two of them demolished the Mac and cheese and then started to eat my chicken wings. With Kara being a veggie bw3s is not a common location but they seemed to like it.   Layla stayed in her chair the whole time (something that had been difficult recently) and Hayden was just overwhelmed by the TVs!   Once Layla had stolen all my wings i kept catching her trying to chew up my celery!  Its funny what they eat when its not on their plate.

All day she has been wanting her ‘glassie’ (her sunglasses).  As we were getting ready to leave dinner she wanted her sunglasses on while inside.  So I obliged and she was very funny and she got lots of laughs as she strutted out with her sunglasses and snow hat combo!   We got ice cream and then to bed!

The kids were cute when they woke up on Saturday. Layla wanted to play on her Rocking Lion. The lion makes a lion type roar and every time she gets on it she makes the noise “raaarrrr raaarrrr” herself.  It’s very cute of course.  She knows to press its ear makes the noise but she struggles with it.  Hayden came in, saw her on the lion and immediately got on the rocking horse next to her.  Then he realized what she was trying to do and like the nice big brother he is, he took her hand and tried to show her how make the lion roar.  It was very sweet on his behalf.

Saturday was spent at the children’s museum.  Kids did a great job there.  They play so nice around other kids and also made it pretty easy for me as Hayden didn’t run too far away from me.  They had a new Lego exhibit which Hayden loved building some cars and boats and Layla just enjoy climbing on everything.

We left around 2sih knowing that Layla was fall asleep in the car. In fact she was asleep before we left the car park! She’s a pretty predictable sleeper!  She does great with her naps and also so good at going to sleep.  We are so lucky with our kids on that front.

Rest of the day we messed round playing and then headed out for dinner again just to keep them entertained. This time is was Puccini’s and they did a solid job of eating and behaving.  When I was getting her ready for bed, as I took off her sock she was waving her foot around and saying piggy piggy – she basically wanted me to do ‘this little piggy went to market, etc’! The weird thing is she can’t really handle it. I get to like the second toe and she is rolling over in what looks like agony! Then she laughs and presents me with her other foot!

Then of course she run off – shouted “ni ni Haddy” at the top of her lungs and went straight to bed like the brilliant little sleeper she is!

Sunday was a beautiful day. Which meant we cold burn off some energy outside! I had told Hayden that we would take them to the park. We want to one of bigger parks in Fishers as I knew they hadn’t been there in a while and I really wanted to see how Layla got on, and also how Hayden did now he is more adventurous.  As we arrived he said to me “Oh yeah! I have been thinking about this park everyday”. So sweet! They played really hard, ,especially Layla who just has no fear and goes on everything.

Before the park we had headed to breakfast at Einsteins. On the way there I was changing the radio as it was some Bruno Mars song that I didn’t care for – Hayden does not like me changing the radio mid song “I like that song” he will declare in a grumpy accent. Which basically means put it back on or I will be complaining for the rest of the trip. Well I had changed it to a Lisa Leob song, a bit of retro indulgence. Well Hayden put me in my place “this a girl song!”.  So what choice did I have but to change it back.

Something else important about Sunday was that it was daylights savings! The clocks sprung forward. I had no intentions of accepting it and presumed the kids would sleep to normal time which would just be an hour later than normal for them and we would deal with the clocks on Sunday morning. Well…. Hayden’s clock just happens to adjust itself automatically. He got up at 7 like normal it’s just it was 6am to my body clock! So I had to try explain to a four year at 6am about daylight savings time. That didn’t go too well so basically we just got early!

We were talking to nanny on the video later on Sunday and I had to run off and check on Layla, I come back in the room and Hayden is standing on the chair with his pants down mooning nanny on the web cam! OMG! Of course nanny was laughing and he was thinking he was the funniest boy in the world!

During the weekend anytime we were doing something cool I would try to take a picture to send to Kara. Hayden caught on to this but didn’t quite understand the types of pictures she wants. He was out into garden and Layla was sleeping and he needed to go potty so I told him to just against the fence to avoid waking her. He then asked “daddy can you take a picture of me whizzing and send it to mum!”. What do you do with him!

We were all very glad that mummy got home liked planned on Sunday night. I think Layla was the most grateful so her hair could be rescued. She had three bad hair days – I think it’s impossible for a man to do a little girls hair. It didn’t matter how many hair clips I used!