Layla Likes It! March 5, 2011

I think this has been said a lot recently, but Hayden and Layla are getting on really well.  He’s being really patient with her (considering he is 3 and she doesn’t understand any of his orders (i.e. “don’t touch that Monster truck Layla it’s not for babies”)).  He often will just bring her toys if he comes across what he defines as a baby toy.  He loves giving her things and then he’ll tell us “Layla likes it” and it brings great satisfaction to him!  You never know how kids are going to develop and pay attention to their siblings so it’s fun to see how much he cares about her.  Hopefully gives us an insight into what a wonderful and caring man he will grow to be!!!

He does a similar thing regarding making her laugh.   There was a time when he played peek a boo with her in the car and she found it hilarious.  Since then it’s old news to her and she wants a new trick.  Well Hayden will still try peek a boo even though she is over it and then he’ll tell us “Layla’s laughing!”  ( even though she is just starting out the window!! – we just agree and encourage Hayden – we don’t want to hurt his feelings!

Let Me Entertain You February 18, 2011

Hayden is really into singing.  He is constantly either singing a real song (like Ba Ba Black Sheep or Yellow Submarine), making up a song with words, or “do-do-do”ing.  Often he will be doing a “music show” for us, which is him doing one of those things for a long time while he sort of wanders around us and asks us if we like his music show.  He likes for us to also “sing it,” which can be difficult when he is making up the song as he goes.  We have CDs in CD towers in our family room, and he loves to pick out a CD and put it in the CD player himself, and then he usually demands that we sing the song with generally no regard to whether we even know the song. 🙂  I can’t remember if I wrote this before, but the sound for the CD player comes from our surround sound, so to hear the music you have to turn that on in addition to the CD player.  It is low to the ground, so I usually touch the on button with my foot (since I’m usually holding Layla and it’s easier to do that than bend down).  Hayden now knows that the sound comes from the surround sound box and he, too, will try to turn it on with his foot!  It cracks me up to see him steadying himself on one foot to try to turn it on.

He also loves making Layla laugh.  He shakes his head back and forth and makes this loud noise to try to make her laugh.  It used to really get her giggling, but she seems relatively immune to it now, so he does that and asks why Layla’s not laughing.  He also likes to play peek-a-boo with her when they are in the car, and that will get her laughing.  This morning I was trying to put his shoes on him and he said, “Wait, I can’t see Layla, I want to make Layla laugh!”  He is often trying to come up with something new to get her laughing.  Usually as long as he is paying attention to her and laughing she will giggle.  She is very interested in where he is and loves getting attention from him.  It’s cute seeing them in the review mirror in the van, because lately they are having a lot of fun back there together.

A Whole Different Baby February 3, 2011

Layla has reached the age where she is very active, interactive, taking everything in, and learning every minute.  It seems like she was just born, so it’s funny to me to see what she is like now and think that she’s totally different now to the little baby who pretty much just used to sleep all the time.  Let me count the ways that she is “new”:

1. Her hair is coming in thick and fast.  It was just a few weeks ago that the sides and back of her hair had fallen out and most of her hair that was left was just on top.  Every day I can see she is getting more and more hair and it seems to be getting longer quickly.  When Hayden was her age his hair had fallen out but was coming back in very light blonde.  This does not seem to be happening to her; I don’t think she will ever be blonde.  I don’t think it will be long before she starts getting some baby curls. 🙂

2.  She is an eating pro.  She gets three meals a day, and she’s an eager eater.  My stepdad said it best: “She eats with her whole body!”  Her little hands and feet move in excited circles as she eats.  Cutest. Thing. Ever.  I guess I will have to qualify this by saying that she is a very eager eater as long as I have added some yogurt to whatever I’m giving her.  She will open her mouth like a little birdie when there’s yogurt mixed in, but otherwise she’s not as keen.  The last couple of meals I have forgone the yogurt and she has still eaten it, but in the past she wouldn’t even open her mouth if it didn’t have the good stuff in there!

3.  She is finally taking naps in her crib.  This has been a looooong time coming.  I only have myself to blame for her nearly hitting the 8 month mark before she would sleep in her bed during the day.  I didn’t push it because 1) when I work it was easier to let her fall asleep on her nursing pillow while I worked than try to get her to nap upstairs and then have to manage going up and down the stairs continuously with the real possibility of her never falling asleep.  I knew if I kept her with me she would definitely fall asleep and it would be, well, easy!  And 2) the times I did try to let her “cry it out” in her bed she would start getting in a habit of crying whenever I put her in her crib, even at night.  If I didn’t bother with it during the day, then the nighttime routine wasn’t negatively impacted.  Obviously this approach wouldn’t work for most families, but it was fine for us.  But now that she is taking naps in her bed it just feels like she is so grown up!

4.  She has been sitting up very steadily for a while now.  She’s not crawling, but she does kind of wiggle herself in the right direction when she is lying on her belly and wants something.  But no scooting or crawling or anything like that.

5.  She LOVES laughing at Hayden.  She is very interested in him.  He loves making her laugh, too.  He will shake his head back and forth which usually gets her laughing.  In fact, he was doing that this morning when we were taking him to preschool, but she hasn’t been feeling well and she was watching him but not laughing.  He was telling me that she needed to be laughing because he was doing that.  lol!  When she and I have been home on a workday and Hayden’s been at preschool, she gets visibly excited when I put her in her carseat when it’s time to go get him (and she doesn’t get excited when put in her carseat any other time).

Development January 2, 2008

This has been a big development month for Hayden.  I think we’ve seen the most development in the last three weeks versus any other time in his short life.   He has really starting to use his hands.  He can hold things now and pulls on things.  He can recognise and react to mine and Kara’s voices.  He has started to laugh and he smiles just all the time.  He is a really happy baby! (well normally – I think he is just starting to teethe so that is probably challenging for him!).  He is also starting to master the roll over – of course this type of development means we have to keep more of an eye on him as he can get up to more mischief!!!!

Laughs!

Hayden has moved on from just smiling, now he has his own little giggle.  He had done it a couple of times when Kara was playing with him a few weeks back but I hadn’t really heard it.  Then we were in the shopping center a couple of days back and he was starting to get a bit tired (I think we had been out shopping for 3-4 hours trying to track down some bargains).  I was left with him while everyone else was trying things on, and trying to find ways to amuse him.  There was some random rock music playing so I started to rock my head while singing along to the beat.  Hayden decided this was the funniest thing he has ever seen/heard.  He just burst into giggle fits that went on for 20 to 30 seconds.  Kara even heard it in the changing rooms a few metres away.  It was very cool.  I managed to keep him in this fit of hysteria for about 20 minutes.  His laugh ranges from a chuckle to a high pitched squeal when he got really, really excited.  Now I just try to find new ways to make him laugh as it was so rewarding!