Where the Wild Things Are

Hayley almost got us kicked out of Barnes & Noble today. We stopped in to kill half an hour while we waited for another store to open in the same shopping center. I figured that looking at different books would be a great way to pre-occupy Hayley so we headed back to the children's section. When we arrived we were greeted by a little children's play area, complete with a train set and other children to play with. "This is not going to be good," I thought to myself as Brian set Hayley down. See Daddy hasn't seen Hayley "experience" a new, fun environment the way Mommy has. I do belive that after yesterday's experience Daddy fully understands why Hayley has been annointed with the nickname "Hurricane." There were two little boys playing with the train and a little girl who was quietly sitting on her Mommy's lap. We all made small talk and found each of the children were within 3 months of each other. Hayley began her usual project of hoarding every toy in sight, specifically the train cars. This did not make the little boys happy. She then adopted a stuffed owl that evoked a shriek if taken away. It only took a few minutes before the little girl became terrified of "Hurricane" and cried if Hayley went near her. After Hayley tired of the train set, she decided that running through the aisles yelling and carrying owl was the best way to spend her time. Suffice to say that Hayley was not happy once we caught her. Red faced, we exited Barnes & Noble leaving owl behind as fast as we could. I will say the one word that comes to mind when I think about my little Hayley now... determined.

Below is a video of Hayley running around the house the way she did Barnes & Noble. We have no plans to visit any libraries in the future and my apologies for those of you who end up on a plane with us someday.

You can count on Hayley's vote!

We think Hayley has been doing some sneaking around behind our backs. We're not quite sure if she has just been logging onto the Internet, or actually sneaking out of the house during naptime, but the other day we received a piece of mail revealing her secret activities. The letter was addressed to Hayley Roberts with a return address of "Tancredo for a Secure America." The salutation said "Dear Fellow Conservative." While we're pleased by Hayley's political activism (and relieved that the letter didn't say "Dear Fellow Liberal"... hey, we must be doing something right!), we can't quite figure out how Hayley's name has ended up on Tancredo's mailing list, particularly since Mommy nor Daddy received the same piece of mail! Looks like we may have a little Alex P. Keaton on our hands... she must get it from Daddy!

Another Thursday means another morning of PlayAway. This morning when we pulled in the parking lot Hayley started laughing and clapping her hands. She was apparently aware of where we were going and was so cute I just wanted to squeeze her!

Daddy just returned from a four day business trip and all his girls were excited to have him home. We sure do miss him when he's gone!

Daddy's Little Helper - Trying to show Daddy how to use the drill

A Trip to Marina Jack's

This morning Brian and I took Hayley to one of our favorite pre-Hayley places, Marina Jack's. It's a great park that jets out into Sarasota Bay with lots of grass, shade trees, and beautiful views of the bay. We used to love to just sit and read on a Sunday and watch the boats go by.

Now that we've entered our Hayley era, Marina Jack's is still one of our favorite places and I think it will probably be one of Hayley's, but for a different reason. After all, there are no lazy days, SITTING, and watching the boats go by anymore! (At least we can still enjoy the ocean view, right?) Not when there is a splash park and lots of room for a little Hayley to run around! I took a TON of pictures, but it is virtually impossible to get a non-action shot of Hayley at this point in her life.

Marina Jack's Splash Park

Hayley Boot Camp

Little did I know that when I gave birth to Hayley, I was giving birth to my own personal trainer. She gives me a good cardio workout all day long chasing after, and when I'm actually in the midst of a scheduled workout she's relentless. Hayley has always been fond of going for rides in her jogging stroller. She's made it quite clear that the faster I push her the better. For the past few months she's literally started yelling at me if I stop my run to take a walk break. I'm not quite sure exactly what she is yelling, but it doesn't sound very nice!

Since we're in the middle of a hot summer, I've started doing some workouts in the pool while Hayley is in there with me. I'll do pushups on the sun deck and count out loud. She thinks this is absolutely hilarious until I get to the end and she starts yelling at me to do more. I've tried to explain to her that they're hard and she should try some, but she won't take any excuses. After pushups, I stick Hayley in her swim boat and use it as a kickboard while I do laps in the pool. I know it doesn't sound hard, but believe me, it's harder then it looks (ask Brian) and really makes my legs burn. As I kick-push Hayley back and forth across the pool, she's now started yelling "kick, kick, kick" at me! "Yes Drill Sergeant Hayley!" Sheesh!

We've had a busy week as I've had clients in town and Hayley has spent time at Nana and Papa's. We did make it to PlayAway today. Hayley is starting to get a better feel for the flow of the class and is participating more in each of the activities. She absolutely loves bubbles right now. Despite being very active, Hayley is usually very sweet and gentle with the other children. Except for yesterday when that darn "Gregory" came over and started popping the bubbles that Hayley was going for. Gregory is about an inch taller than Hayley and he could reach the bubbles first. Of course Hayley didn't try to push or hit "Gregory," but if looks could kill... I'm afraid by the end of our class Hayley is going to let "Gregory" know not to mess with her!

Romper Room

This morning I added an extra scoop of protein powder to my usual morning smoothie, dressed Hayley in one of her sweeter, more innocent looking outfits, put a girly pink bow in her hair, and we headed out for another adventure at PlayAway. There were a lot more moms seeking toddler entertaining refuge from the summer heat this week, and our class was packed with about 20 babies. As we walked in the front door, Hayley took one look and nearly lept out of my arms. Unable to contain her, I set her down and "Flash" took off across the room, yelling. "Hurricane Hayley" likes to make an entrance you know, much to her introverted mother's dismay.

Luckily, Hayley seemed a little more interested this week in the group songs. However she was certain to embarass me with her new found desire to steal all things round and being enjoyed by another child. Yes, Hayley has developed a strong fondness of balls. She runs around our house playing soccer now and despite the fact that there must be over 50 different balls at PlayAway Hayley wasn't about to let any other children enjoy the balls. I was mortified as she kept walking off and taking balls out of the hands of the floor ridden crawlers. I chased after her, apologizing to the victims mother and I know they were thinking, "that woman needs to get her child under control." And believe me, I will, just as soon as I can catch her!!

Hayley ran up to two of the 18 month old boys who were playing with a ball. They were bigger than her, but definitely not faster. And intimidated she was not. She snatched the ball right out of Gregory's* hands. (*names have been changed to protect the innocent) He looked at her, yelled "mine," and promptly snatched the ball right back. Hayley stepped back stunned, gave him "the look," and attempted to take the ball back which led to a Hayley and Gregory tug-of-war match. By that time I had reached my little thief and directed her attention elsewhere. I'm pretty sure Hayley would have ended up with that ball had I let the tugging continue. She might be little, but boy is she tough.

All in all, we had a good hour of organized play and arrived home in time for lunch and a few rounds of "Chase Chloe with the biscuit" before naptime. Speaking of biscuits... I'm not sure who enjoys eating them more at this point, Chloe or Hayley... but that's a whole other story!

What am I in for?

Hayley is creating quite the reputation for herself and I'm not certain it's a good one! Today was the second time someone mentioned the term "hurricane" with my daughter's name behind it! Of course by this point I've realized that "Hurricane Hayley" is a little busy body, which was why we decided to try a class at Play Away today, a gym for the little ones just down the road from our house. It's a lot like Gymboree, but they offer a lot of fitness and dance classes to the preschool and elementary age as well. The facility is great because there are mats everywhere and tons of things for the kids to play on. Hayley obviously loved all the equipment, so much so that she pretty much refused to participate in the class! Oh she'd come to the circle and join us for a second or two (literally) before running off to find something new. I tried to make her sit in my lap and sing songs for a bit, but of course that only made her mad which was actually more embarassing then just letting her run wild around the room. And below are the answers to the standard question that every mother asks me upon observing Hayley for a few moments:
1.) Is she always this... energetic (wild is what they really want to say)? Yes
2.) Does she only have one speed? Yes, extra fast
3.) What age did she start walking? Hayley never walked, but she did start RUNNING at 10 months - Yes, it's been 5 months now that I've been trying to keep up with Speedy Gonzalez here. I'm considering getting myself a trainer because it's becoming obvious that I'm going to need more than a few protein shakes to keep me one step ahead of my little speed demon.

So in light of Hayley's adventurous attitude, lack of fear, and speed, we've determined it necessary to enroll Hayley in ISR classes. As we've mentioned before, Hayley loves the water and has no hesitation about jumping in our pool. Scary. Luckily, we have a great instructor close by that teaches these survival swimming lessons for 6 month to 6 year olds. It's amazing because this program really teaches babies to first survive and then swim. Basically, the babies learn to swim - back float - swim. It's a very big committment as we have to attend a lesson every weekday for 10 minutes for a period of 4-6 weeks, but the peace of mind will definitely be worth it. We start class at the end of August and are looking forward to the new skills Hayley will develop.

In an effort to help teach Hayley the sounds that each animal makes, I bought her the magentic Leap Frog Fridge Farm. Little did I realize that not only does this wonderful toy make animal sounds, but Farmer Tad also plays the banjo. The good news is that Hayley loves this toy so far. The bad news is that Hayley has decided that she isn't interested in the animals and would much rather hear Farmer Tad play the banjo all day. I'd like to personally thank the creator of this toy!!


Daddy and Hayley after the SOCOM Change of Command

Uh oh, Cheerios!

Our good friend, Army Rob, was in Florida last week and drove down to visit Hayley (and Mommy and Daddy) on Friday night. Hayley was quick to introduce Rob to life with Hayley and amazed him with the amount of food she can eat.

So this morning Hayley was finishing up her morning Cheerios and just babbling away all the while. I grabbed the video camera in hopes of getting some of her talking on video. The second I turned the camera on, she started dropping Cheerios from her high chair. This food dropping trick has been going on for quite sometime and we've been trying to let Hayley know that dropping food on the floor is a no-no. We're certain she knows that dropping food is a no-no, and this video proves it! We haven't used the term "uh oh" for much other than just trying to get her to make sounds, so were surprised that she related "uh oh" to something she knew she wasn't supposed to do!

Keeping Cool in the Pool

Of course we spent part of the weekend in the pool! Here's some video of Hayley's new found trick of jumping in the pool. This baby has no fear!

Thirsty Girl

Two weekends ago we headed out to Lowe's in search of some supplies for our latest project, the guest bath. A new Jamba Juice had just opened up in the same shopping center and much to our delight they were giving out free smoothies. Brian and I each got one and were excited to share some with Hayley. Knowing that this was Hayley's first experience with a straw, we figured she wouldn't know what to do. You can imagine our shock when she immediately stuck the straw in her mouth and proceeded to suck down half of our smoothie like she's had all the practice in the world! Of course the next day I headed out to buy the sippy cups with the straws in them and Hayley can't get enough.

As we swam in the pool this past weekend, we set her straw sippy on the side of the pool. Hayley would walk off the sundeck and Daddy would swim her across the pool and back (what we call a "Hayley Lap"). Once she was back up on the sundeck she would immediately walk over to her sippy and take a big swig like she'd just spent the past five hours running a marathon with nothing to drink! Apparently "Hayley Laps" are very strenuous in this hot Florida sun!

So, at this point in time, Hayley just can't get enough water to drink. I'm not sure how long the novelty of the straw will last, but for the time being Hayley is
well hydrated and we're allocating a little more money towards our Pampers budget!

As far as our guest bath goes, we're pleased to say it is almost complete. We have just a few decorative finishing touches to complete over the next week and we're still planning to frame the vanity mirror, but here is a picture of what we've completed so far. Unfortunately, we forgot to take a before pic, but those who have visited us know that this is a BIG improvement! :-)

Eye Surgery Update

Hayley's eye surgery went very well this morning and we thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers. Mommy and Daddy were a little nervous about the whole thing, but luckily Hayley was a champ. We arrived at the surgery center at 7am, quite apprehensive about Hayley's attitude since she wasn't allowed to eat anything before the surgery. Luckily, she met a little boy to play with in the waiting room which seemed to keep her mind off food until we had to take her back for the procedure. She did great with the doctors and seemed very comfortable with the anesthesiologist... she didn't even cry when her took her from us and carried her off into the surgery room. Of course when she woke up from the anesthesia, it was a different story and she was sure to introduce all the nurses to the power of her lungs. The nurses told us that it was normal for babies to wake up from anesthesia very upset, however they still seemed shocked by the sheer strength of Hayley's vocal cords. After about 15 minutes, a cup of juice, and a few Cheerios, we managed to get Hayley calmed down and we were ready to head home. She napped for three hours once we got home and was ready to play hard the rest of the day!

Her eye already seems to be so much better. We think this is the first time we've ever seen her right eye look "dry." Because of the excessive tearing the blocked tear duct caused, her eyelashes were always clumped together. The next few days will tell whether the surgery successfully opened both eye ducts, but so far so good! What a relief to have this done!

We bought Hayley a water table to play with out on the lanai. She loves to splash in the water and we thought this would be fun for her to play in without us having to get into the pool all the time. So far she has had fun playing with it empty! Seems like a good toy purchase so far!

Here's some video of Hayley saying "ball!"

Loving on Dabin

Hayley knows who Dabin is, she named him after all!

Hayley is "SOOOOO BIG!!!"

Here's a video of Hayley holding her arms out to show how big she is!

Pictures

We had a fairly uneventful week filled with the usual errands, playing, and work (for Mommy of course). Hayley is scheduled for eye surgery next Friday. She has had a blocked tear duct since birth and usually these clear up on their own, but Hayley just happens to be in that 2% that requires surgery to open her tear duct. The actual procedure will only take about 5 minutes, but she will be anesthetisized so the entire surgery will take about an hour. We aren't looking forward to this, but are looking forward to not having to deal with the recurrent eye infections that have plagued our little princess. Here are some pictures from the week.

Warning: One of the benefits of having our own private pool is the option to swim sans a suit. Hayley is exercising her right to swim topless, so if you are offended by baby nudity, do not scroll down!

Hayley's "space girl" pajamas

"What's for dinner?"

A sponge bath in the sink after dinner before heading out to the pool

"Get this back float off me!!" (And wipe the dinner off my face while you're at it!)

Proof that Hayley says "duck!"

A little update

We've kept busy the past few weeks with several miscellaneous projects around the house. Over the Memorial Day weekend my wonderful, handy husband installed some cabinets for me in our laundry room. I spent the following week painting and putting the finishing touches on my beautiful new room! Other exciting projects have included toe kick lighting under our bathroom vanities, painting the office and guest bath, and installing various hooks for hanging "things" throughout the house. Most of these are simple projects that we intended to do after moving into the house, but Hayley put a little kink in our schedule last year and so we're getting around to some of these items now. I did learn a valuable lesson that trying to paint a room with my little Picaso on the loose just isn't smart.

Laundry room cabinets

Of course in our free time, Hayley has kept us pleasantly entertained. She's a busy little bee and a handful to keep up with! Trying to snap a picture of Hayley is like trying to catch a jack rabbit! I have lots of pictures of her backside as she runs away! Hayley has always been a babbler (okay, she's a downright chatterbox), but she's now saying things that we are able to make out as actual words. Her favorites are "duk" (duck), dee-dee (Daddy), Hi-da (Hi Daddy), bah (book), baw (ball), and dah (dog). She knows the sign language for several things, but still isn't real big on actually doing it herself. She gives me "five" on command and we're slowly learning to give Mommy "ten." Hayley is not one to sit still, but she is absolutely enthralled with books. She'll go into her room by herself and sit for minutes (an eternity in Hayley time) looking through all her books.

It's funny to drag Dabin through the house!

Hayley's Austin Powers pajamas!

Having fun with good friend Pooh

I told you Mommy... blow more bubbles!

I LOVE reading my books!

One Year Checkup

We visited the pediatrician for Hayley's one year check-up today. She measured in at 29 inches long and 17 pounds, 14 ounces. She checked out just fine other then the doctor's concern about her weight as she's barely in the 5th percentile now. The fact is that Hayley can practically out eat Daddy... it isn't a lack of food that is causing her svelt figure, but rather the inability to sit still is what I suspect to be the culprit. If she isn't moving (like when I've strapped her in the carseat), her mouth is moving. Suffice it to say that this baby is an active little handful! I'll be upping her daily dosage of avocado and will try mixing some olive oil into her meals to see if we can't "fatten" her up a bit! Unfortunately, Hayley received three shots which she protested quite loudly. When I say that Hayley screams, I mean literally, she screams. It isn't just a loud cry. It's a blood curdling scream. After Hayley was done shocking the nurse, the nurse turned to me and said, "Wow, she's got quite the set of lungs! She's louder then our five year olds!" Yes, Hayley is VERY advanced!

We're finally getting some much needed rain here, but it sure makes for a gloomy day that causes us Floridians to mope around and complain endlessly. It's all I can do to keep myself from wanting to spend all day laying in bed. I don't know how people who live in places like Seattle function! Anyhow, we braved the rain this evening and headed out to the Mexican restaurant down the street from our home for dinner. Much to Hayley's delight, the live Mariachi band was there. Brian and I usually spend our dinners out with Hayley alternating spoons. We each take one of her spoons and alternate feeding her from our plate. As simple as this sounds, it really is a complex manuever that we have perfected as Hayley DEMANDS a continuous and rhythmic motion in order to keep the entire restaurant from hearing her dismay. It takes a lot of skill (and practice) to time our bites in between hers. As relieved as I am to not have had to cook a meal, eating out is far from relaxing at this point in our parenthood adventure. Which is why dinner this evening was so enjoyable as Hayley was absolutely enthralled by the Mariachi band. She'd never seen anything like this group of guitar yielding, tight (and I do mean TIGHT) white pant wearing, shiny shoe singing Mariachi men! She laughed, she danced, she tried to sing, she yelled Arriba (okay, just kidding), and she really checked out their shoes. I'm kicking myself that I didn't have the video camera!

Celebrating 1

What a nice, wonderfully long weekend we had! Brian and I enjoyed spending lots of time with our big, birthday girl. We had the family over for a cookout and birthday party on Sunday afternoon. Hayley donned her party dress and entertained as she always does. Chloe dressed up for the occasion too and wore her pink sundress and new pearls that Uncle David and Carolyn had given her! (No, I'm not crazy!!)

Hayley LOVES all of her presents! She got a big, soft, stuffed dog to roll around on and promptly named him "Dabin." She got some toys to play with and some new clothes. Most importantly, she had her first bite of cake! Okay, so maybe it wasn't "real" cake, but the apple cake actually tasted pretty good as Brian ate some for breakfast and if Brian will eat it.... :-) There was a small amount of sugar in this cake, and Hayley's reaction after eating the cake is precisely why this little girl will not be getting sugar on a regular basis. Her sugar high was obvious to all in attendance!

Yes, Hayley got almost everything a little girl could want. The only thing she didn't get was... hair. We've got high hopes that Hayley will be flaunting a head full by birthday number two!

Happy Birthday Hayley!

Today is our little girl's very first birthday! We can hardly believe that it was a year ago that we welcomed her to the world. Our time with her has gone so fast! (At least after the first four REALLY long months!) Luckily, Daddy has a four day weekend for Memorial Day and we are enjoying getting to spend the day with him. We plan to have a small birthday party on Sunday for Hayley and she'll get to enjoy her very own homemade, organic, apple cake! We'll post an update at the end of the weekend along with some birthday pictures.

A Visit to Colorado

Hayley and I have spent the past week visiting Mimi, Grandpa, and G-Grams in Colorado. We flew in on a VERY long flight last Saturday in an effort to surprise G-Grams for her 89th birthday. I haven't blogged in awhile because I was a little stressed over preparation for the flight, after all, it is a 4 hour flight and Miss Hayley isn't one to sit still for 4 seconds. Daddy had to stay home and work and this was my first solo flight with Hayley. Luckily, we had booked a direct flight on Frontier and we were fortunate enough to sit next to a 15 month old boy named Austin and his (also) stressed out Mommy. The flight started out well. I like Frontier because they have the little tv screens in the headrest and they show you real-time flight tracking. As the hours went by, I began to notice that we were taking a very "southern" course. As we headed towards San Antonio I began to get very nervous that either our plane had been hijacked and we were headed to Mexico, or worse, we were still going to Colorado and were going to be flying for a lot longer than anticipated. Seconds later, the pilot came on and confirmed my fears... we would indeed be spending an extra hour flying due to the massive thunderstorms over the Midwest. As I looked at the fellow Mommy sitting next to me, I think both of our eyes welled up with tears and we both sighed heavily. When we finally landed it was 11pm eastern time and WAY past Hayley's bedtime. As frazzled as I was, she did very well through the flight and received several compliments on her good behavior. Thank goodness for portable DVD players and Dora the Explorer. Now I just have to survive the flight home tomorrow!

We've had a very good visit however and I think we gave G-Grams a good surprise. Hayley has loved all the attention and even got to go swimming with Grandpa!

Getting to know the cousins

Hayley's cousins, Nate and Caleb, were in town this weekend and so we headed down to Nana and Papa's for dinner on Saturday night. Hayley had an absolute ball playing with her cousins! She was particularly mesmerized by her oldest cousin Caleb who crawled around like Spiderman and let Hayley crawl on top of him. She loves watching the "big" kids and wants to be smack in the middle of their playing. Caleb and Nate brought Hayley a Dora the Explorer car to ride on and Hayley gave her two favorite cousins a Go Diego Go pool toy.

Nana and Papa have a swimming pool and it's an unwritten rule that if there is a pool then Hayley is going to get in and swim! She DEMANDS to get into any pool she sees. We couldn't even let her out on the lanai before dinner because she was so determined to get in the water and she fussed when we would restrain her from getting in. After we ate dinner we put her swimsuit on her and she immediately knew what it was for as she made a beeline for the pool.

Hayley is walking very well now. She can stand up by herself without holding onto anything and has become very skilled at squatting down to pick up a toy and standing right back up. She loves to explore and chase after Chloe!

I need to rant

Little did we fully comprehend that when we decided to become parents we would be open to scrutiny by the general public. Until now, we had only noticed friendly smiles and quick waves when dining with Hayley, but lately for some reason, those smiles have turned to looks of disapproval each time we've strapped Hayley into the highchair. We shrugged a lot of this off as just being paranoid and nervous about not wanting to disturb others with out talkative (yet VERY well behaved baby). (Besides, it's not like we were ruining someone's candlelit anniversary dinner at the fanciest restaurant in town. Think kid-friendly before 7pm dining type establishments!) However, last weekend was the straw that broke the camels back. Keep in mind that Brian and I have taken extreme measures to follow the "rules" of parenting. Being the germaphobes we are Hayley's little buns have never touched a highchair because we smother every inch of the chair with a cloth cover. We then cover the table in front of her with a Tabletopper so as to keep her "plate" as clean as possible. I suppose this looks neurotic to some, but if neurotic keeps me from having a sick baby then so be it!

Since Hayley's arrival, we haven't had many family dinners out, but we are trying to go and enjoy ourselves a little more now. My beef begins last weekend as we went through the above prepping process at one of our favorite breakfast spots. We did notice the annoyed look of the woman at the next table, but shrugged it off as something unrelated to us. Of course when she started badmouthing us as parents to her dining partners loud enough that we could hear it, I took it personal. She just couldn't understand why we "didn't just get a plate for our baby?" Right, because most 10 months old eat their Cheerios off of a plate!! When our meal came, she really got fiesty. Apparently she was appalled and disgusted by the fact that we were feeding our baby the same food we were eating!!!! Now, in light of the dirty looks we've repeatedly received, this seems to be disturbing to a lot of people. From the looks we get we might as well be feeding her a big vat of chocolate rather than the veggies, chicken, and ground beef that are part of our meal.

One of the many benefits of making your own baby food is that it always has some "chunks" and never gets as runny as jarred baby food and so sometimes the transition to table food can be a little easier because babies are already used to the consistency. Hayley had absolutely no trouble adjusting to table food. She's not picky and leans more on the side of being a bottomless pit rather than finicky. In short, she likes to eat, she knows what she wants, and she's not afraid to tell you what she wants! If she wasn't happy eating what I was giving her, she'd let me know. At home, we sit down and eat dinner as a family with Hayley eating cut up bites of what Brian and I are eating. Why should it be any different at a restaurant?

Perhaps it is because Hayley is small for her age and people assume she is younger than she is. Maybe many of these people passing judgement have never had children of their own or had them so long ago that they've forgotten what kids do at each stage. Either way, I've learned a valuable lesson about passing judgement and we're doing our best to not let other peoples' opinions upset us. We're also trying to teach Hayley to spit soggy Cheerios at the "offenders" on command. How's that for taking the high road??!! :-)