The Daily Haleigh

Haleigh and Hayden - a new blog site!

2007-08-27T20:52:00.001-05:00

I thought the kiddos should have a separate blog together, and leave this one as just Haleigh's life before Hayden. The new address is:

http://haleighandhayden.blogspot.com

Very original, no?

I won't be posting here anymore so please change your links :o)

Pics!

2007-08-20T12:17:00.001-05:00

His onesie says 'Tax Deduction'... thank you Kristy and Kevin! (from one accountant to another haha)

one week old!

"helping" me with my work this morning... hey, I can type with both hands if he lies there like that!

2007-08-16T06:23:00.001-05:00

these are kind of out of order, but you can figure it out :o)

last night was a dream, much better than our first night home (when I wished we had stayed in the hospital that 2nd night!). Hayden took formula every 3 hours starting at 8:30p, and promptly fell asleep after each feeding so I could catch an hour or two every time.

But then he woke early for a feeding at 4am while Chad was getting ready for work, so we loved on him a little and I decided to try nursing him as an in-between. My milk came in! He was in heaven. And he's still sleeping it off at 7:30a!

Drinking formula makes him sneeze.

proud daddy

our little family, about 6 hours after delivery - Haleigh's expression cracks me up

Haleigh getting ready to come to the hospital to meet her little brother

my last *before* pic, in the hospital at 38w 6d and totally in labor

relaxing before we get our permanent room

Baby Hayden is here!

2007-08-15T15:35:00.000-05:00

Hayden Robert was born on Monday August 13, 2007 at 12:33pm, weighing in at 9 lbs even, 20 inches long. We came home Tuesday around 3pm, and we're all doing great! Haleigh loves her little brother and has been so helpful. She even held his hand in the car this morning when we took him to the dr. for a well check. That went well also, but he has to go back Friday for a weight check and in case he becomes more jaundiced.

I'll post a birth story soon, just thought I'd get some pics up here now :o)

Just over 24 hours old, chilling at home

Relaxing Wednesday afternoon with big sis after a yummy ounce of Similac lol. We're supplementing formula right now until my milk comes in and he looooves it.

Hayden Robert

a close up!

Horseshoes

2007-08-04T19:48:00.001-05:00

First we had to show you the newest obsession - Care Bears stickers!

It was a parade of cicada exoskeletons! They were naturally lined up like this, and also in another spot on the same tree. This tree had about 25 on it.

Also, on two different occasions this summer, we've seen cicada killer wasps. Have you seen these things? I can't believe we've never seen them before this year, but they're almost 2 inches long and the females have nasty stingers they use to paralyze cicadas. She takes them back to her nest alive, lays an egg on/in it, and when the larva hatches it eats the cicada alive.

2 1/2 years old!

Say cheese!

My angel

No baby yet... still waiting, and walking, and timing contractions that never last... back to the doc on Monday, and I have a sizing ultrasound on Tuesday. They don't want me to deliver a baby as big as Haleigh was again (9lbs 3oz) so if he's measuring over 9lbs 8oz at the ultrasound, they'll schedule a cesarean automatically. Don't want that, so hopefully he's smaller than Haleigh! My due date isn't until the 21st, but I had Haleigh 2 weeks early so they're just keeping an eye on things.

I look at her now at 2.5 years old and I think there's no way she was born that big. As of her ear tubes recheck last month, she's 36 inches tall and a whopping 25 pounds (the shorts she has on in the pics are size 12 months).

Oh, and that doc is concerned about the size of her tonsils and how they're affecting her breathing at night. So he's going to re-evaluate that in six months when her tubes come out, and she'll likely have her tonsils and adenoids removed shortly after. Not excited about that, but if it helps her sleep/talk/breathe better, then let's just do it.

Tea Party!

2007-07-30T07:21:00.000-05:00

2007-07-22T16:51:00.001-05:00

she loves sour gummies

ooo don't be scared

probably just told her 'no'

Quickie

2007-07-16T20:38:00.001-05:00

It's been absolutely too long since I've updated this. Haleigh is doing great, talking a mile a minute and voicing her opinions on everything from which shoes to wear to which color cup she would like. I have a few new photos, but we've been so busy getting things ready for baby that I've barely picked up my camera since our vacation.

Baby is doing well, and I'm really ready for him to come any time now. But I've still got 4 more weeks until my due date. I'm getting so big none of my clothes fit, but I've still only gained 19 pounds. Haleigh is really getting excited about the baby coming. I got her a 'big sister' tshirt from Cafepress.com and a matching 'little brother' onesie for the baby. As I was folding them in the laundry tonight, she picked hers out and said, "This is my monkey shirt!" then found the onesie and said, "And this is my little brudder's shirt!"

Hmm what else does she do now... her favorite phrase is "It's not fair!" followed by stomping and crossed arms. Wonder where she picked that up.

Anyways, here's some new photos :o)

loving her new pjs and lotion after a bath

making a mud mess at Mimi and Poppa's last weekend

enjoying the hottub with Mimi - too hot for me to get in!

she was 'helping' move the wheelbarrow full of wood for our little bonfire

Pictures

2007-05-16T21:24:00.000-05:00

Ready to go on vacation!

This is how she spent the majority of the week.

Oh, the SUNSHINE!

Checking out the big fish at Coligny shopping plaza.

Finally a nice sunny day. Trying to get her to hop in the baby pool.

My mom decided it was time for Haleigh to just get in the pool and enjoy it.

Then she marched right over to the fence, grabbed on and wouldn't even look at anyone so they couldn't put her back in the pool.

The next day, she still wasn't sure about that pool.

Well it was warmer Friday, so she decided to check it out. Another little girl ended up joining her, so she actually got in and walked around for a while. Then we went to the beach.

Wow, she actually walked 1.) BAREFOOT, and 2.) more than two inches from me.

My beautiful parents enjoying the beach.

What a great day :o)

The Family - we love HHI!

We're Baaaack

2007-05-15T10:54:00.000-05:00

I will have more pictures soon, but I wanted to post about our vacation. We had such a great time last week in Hilton Head. The weather could've cooperated a little more (thank you SubTropical Storm Andrea), but the villa where we stayed was amazing and Friday's weather was perfect.

Haleigh was a great traveller the first day driving, but woke up with a sour stomach the 2nd day and was pretty miserable until we arrived at the beach. Then she didn't want anything to do with the sand or the water, or really anything at all until it was her own idea. Her excitement over the whole trip caused her to have some stomach issues (read: the worst diapers I've ever dealt with), and she has apparently realized that she is two years old (meaning she now screams incessantly for what she wants). But at least she slept great, so though I was stuck at the condo with her most of the week, I was able to sneak out and enjoy some sun on the balcony overlooking the pool and beach.

Friday the storm moved south so we had perfect sunny weather to enjoy the pool and beach. Another little girl was in the baby pool, finally convincing Haleigh to get in and have fun. Once we conquered that, we all walked down to the beach and she played with sand for a bit with me on the towels. My parents returned from playing in the surf and told me to just start walking down that way; Haleigh would follow me. Sure enough, after a week of hating the sand and the shells and everything about the beach, she walked barefoot in the sand all the way down to the tidal pool. I took her out into the surf with me where she would eagerly watch the waves and say, "Here comes another one!" so I'd jump as it hit us and she'd just squeal and laugh because it was so fun.

Soon I couldn't carry her anymore, so she sat on my lap in the warm water of a tidal pool for a good 20 minutes, just talking about the sand and the shells we could see. She fell in love with some hermit crabs in a little shop in town so she's convinced that all shells have "a crab in it."

Saturday we ended up blowing right past our motel room reserved in Virginia, choosing to not stop for the night and driving straight through to get home. Haleigh handled the ride home extremely well, and we only had to watch Monsters Inc. and Happy Feet once each.

We relaxed Sunday, then went grocery shopping and to the park, where I was reminded again that I do in fact have a 2 year old. It literally took me 10 minutes to get her back into her carseat once my 6.5 month pregnant self chased her down off the playground equipment. She screamed the whole drive home, all the way up to the apartment, and all through her bath.

As Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote:
There was a little girl
And she had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead,
When she was good, She was very, very good
And when she was bad she was horrid.

The Park

2007-04-22T19:08:00.000-05:00

I haven't had a real day off work since January, so we really enjoyed the warm weather this weekend and went to the park.

She figured out pretty quickly how to climb the steps up to the slide. She really got involved in what the other kids were doing (playing tag I think) and kept repeating whatever they were yelling.

Swinging on the big girl swings - but only for a minute because the slide looked more fun I guess.

Deciding if she should try this slide. It ended up taking her quite a while to gather the courage to slide down. But once she did it, she wanted MORE.

The slides are BIG, and wavy! I had to catch her halfway and slow her down so she didn't tumble off the thing because she's so light.

At the bottom of the slide.

I told her "one more time" about 10 times before I finally carried her off towards the car. She was so angry with me she even slapped me in the face. I ignored it and just put her in the car. She was really tired and didn't put up too much more of a fight, but I snapped a pic as we were leaving the parking lot because she was still yelling at me about leaving. "I want tooo sliiiide! Riiight nooowww!"

So then we get home and she had to have another bath because she was absolutely covered in playground dirt, but it was still too early to go to bed. As soon as I got her pjs on, she took off running for her room, and I knew exactly what she was going to do:

The little monkey has figured out how to get her binkies out of the drawer.

Rockstar Baby

2007-04-04T18:43:00.000-05:00

After her bath tonight, Haleigh wanted a turn playing with the guitar from our new Guitar Hero game. Chad popped in a DVD and she looked up and said "Nine Inch Nails!" which was absolutely correct! She dances and "plays" the guitar with the guys. I can't believe she knew the group's name.

Also painted her nails tonight :o) As I painted, we blew on them so they'd dry faster, and to distract her from touching them, we counted them too. I found out she can count backward from five! She amazes me every day.

When I got home from work, she helped me make ham 'n cheese croissants, and we made some Jello pudding. She poured the milk and helped stir. Then we cleaned some strawberries; well I cleaned them and she kept stealing them. Finally had to move the 'cut-up and clean' bowl to the other side of the sink out of her reach, but then she took a big bite out of a whole one! The girl loves strawberries.

It feels like we've all been constantly sick this year, but surprisingly she's healthy right now! I'm the one with a sore throat.

Ultrasound

2007-03-31T12:27:00.000-05:00

Profile shot of our baby boy! Looks like he's blowing bubbles.

Front-on face shot. We could see his little mouth moving and everything.

A close-up of his left hand.

Health and other things

2007-03-27T19:48:00.000-05:00

Well everybody is finally healthy around here again, and for once, I didn't get it! Chad came down with the fever that Haleigh had and even developed pink-eye. We're hoping she doesn't get it back again, but it's looking good.

AND... had our formal ultrasound today for the baby and... it's a...

BOY!

Yikes!

No doubt about it either, he wasn't shy :o) and he's so darn cute already! We got to see him for half an hour while the tech measured and poked at him. That made him very active. And he's still measuring a week ahead, so hopefully he decides to make his appearance early, because I'd rather not have another 9 pounder! But I'd do it all again in an instant of course.

Pics soon if I can get my scanner to work!

So tired... and it's cold again

2007-03-16T12:39:00.000-05:00

We've been battling Haleigh's fever since Tuesday now and it better just go away today because I'm not going back to the ER tonight. I mean we will if we have to, but c'mon this is long enough. The poor thing is so miserable.

Tuesday night she had a low fever so we gave Tylenol and she slept fine.

Wednesday the sitter gave Tylenol every 4 hours to keep it down, and when I got home at 6pm it was 103.7 under the arm, so really 104.7? (don't you add a degree to under the arm?) Another dose of Tylenol failed to get it down past 102 so off to the ER Haleigh and I went. They had to give her both Motrin and Tylenol to get it to come down, then her heart rate shot up to 185 so we had to stay for monitoring to get that down. It was still 140 when they let us go home (should be 120?), and it was 1am before we got to bed. They said it's very rare for a 2 year-old to get a sinus infection (despite the green ooze coming from her nose) or strep throat, so it's just a virus in their opinion.

Thursday she was great in the morning so I let her have a little milk, which she threw up all over herself in the car on the way to the sitter's. I wanted to keep her home, but it's just not possible for me to miss work right now. So Chad left work and picked her up from the sitters. I did end up leaving work early in the afternoon though to go home and assess the situation because Chad said she didn't look so hot. Her doctor is in the hospital herself, and the office said just to take her back to the ER if the fever won't stay down again. Yay.

She ate better yesterday, and even asked for a PB&J with bananas. She was okay until bedtime last night when it shot up again, but she was due for a dose of Motrin and that brought it down so she could sleep. We were up a few times during the night with her, but she wasn't hot at all. Then at 6am it shot back up to 103.5 so I gave her both Motrin and Tylenol to try and get it down. It was 102 when I left her with Chad to go to work.

We're supposed to return to the ER if she still has a fever 48 hours after the original visit, which would be tonight. Hopefully she's kicked it today and we won't have to go. Her only other symptom is a runny nose.

Fevers scare me.

It's warm!

2007-03-11T15:24:00.000-05:00

Haleigh has decided that she needs to tattle-tale on anybody who merely tells her "no" that they HIT her. Generally we use the "re-direct with a stern NO" when she's behaving inappropriately, unless she's doing something dangerous (like pulling a cord out of the socket, climbing the bookshelf, pushing on the tv...) then she gets a swat on the bum. We believe there's nothing wrong with spanking when used appropriately for discipline, but she hasn't gotten a swat in quite a while.

So I led her to her room to play the other night when she was just getting into everything she wasn't supposed to and she wasn't happy with me. She came out to the living room and told Chad, "Mommy hit me." And it's only gotten worse all weekend. Merely tell her something she doesn't want to hear, and she runs to the nearest person to tell them that you hit her.

This "phase" has really got me baffled on how to handle her. I don't like that she lies about us hitting her, but I know she doesn't even know what lying is so how is she to know it's wrong?. I'm sure she sees the older kids at the sitter tattling on each other all day and is just joining in on this behavior. I'm just going to chalk it up as a "phase" and keep telling myself it's temporary. But, as my mom says, I'm not going to wish for it to pass quickly, because the next phase might be worse!

Girly hat, made by Aunt Sarah.

Daddy and Haleigh with the hat!

Walking to the swings to see what kind of shape they're in...

Pit stop to climb the picnic table.

Are those the SWINGS?!

Oh no! They're flooded and broken! We need to find a new playground :o)

2007-03-04T19:36:00.000-05:00

um... how many binkies does a girl need?? Count 'em... SIX. All completely different styles and sizes too, but the purple one is her favorite.

She woke me up at 6:30am today on my only day off calling through the baby monitor, "Mommy? Mommy, WAKE UP! Wake up PLEASE." And those binkies go straight into the drawer when she gets out of bed. Makes it a little easier to say my 2 year-old still takes a pacifier if she only gets them in bed :o)

Pictures!

2007-02-25T19:15:00.000-05:00

I know it's been forever! But today was my first day off in two weeks, so forgive me :o)

Every day I find myself saying to Haleigh, "Where did you learn THAT?" because she comes up with the craziest things all the time. She's just amazing right now. They call her "little mommy" at the babysitter because she helps take care of the two infants all day long. She's going to be a great big sister.

Counting change for her piggy bank

Really concentrating!

Excuse the crazy hair... I'm thinking of trying to grow her bangs out and this was right after a bath.

According to Haleigh...

2007-02-20T13:03:00.001-05:00

Computer = pah-cute-err

The T-Shirt

2007-02-16T13:26:00.000-05:00

I let Haleigh sleep in a little this morning, as I had a prenatal appointment and had some extra time to get ready. She was in a great mood, and sat on the couch eating cheerios while I finished getting ready. Lately she's been getting angry with me when I bring her clothes out to get her ready to leave. She just wants to lounge around in her pajamas (and I don't blame her!)

So I get her face washed, diaper changed, and long-sleeved onesie and pants on. I had bought her a new t-shirt from Old Navy that's green and says "Dad's Lucky Charm" for St. Patty's day and wanted her to wear it today just because it's cute. She even said it was cute when I took it out of the bag last night to wash it. But this morning, she didn't want to have anything to do with this shirt. I finally got it on her, after she screamed "Noooo! I don't like it!" over and over; I just assumed she was mad about getting dressed in general.

She had a huge meltdown about the shirt and tried to take it off herself. I finally caved and took it off and left it on the floor to go find a sweater or something she'd wear. When I came back, she had balled up the shirt and was headed towards the kitchen. I asked her what she was doing, and she said, "Throwin' it away... in the GARBAGE..." and she stood by the trashcan, scowling at me, threatening to open the lid and toss the t-shirt.

Where did that come from!? I offered her two choices of sweaters and she chose one finally after a bunch of NOs, and we put our coats on and left. She was polite and pleasant the rest of the morning. Like she flipped a switch or something. I think Chad rescued the shirt, and it's in the laundry again. We'll see how she reacts next time. It's a cute shirt!

2 year-old checkup

2007-02-02T20:18:00.000-05:00

Haleigh had her 2 year-old checkup today, but it wasn't just a well-check. She's got a nasty sinus infection. But at least her ears look good! Those tubes are doing their job. She got a strep test but that was negative, so we ended up with antibiotics and a cough syrup. She should feel better soon.

Dr. is concerned though once again about her weight. She's 34 inches tall, and in the 50th percentile for both height and head circumference, but she only weights 22 pounds. The sitter tells us she eats all day long, better than the other kids, but she doesn't eat much of a dinner with us. She just picks and drinks her milk. So the dr. said to offer her Pediasure after dinner to get some extra calories into her. I think we should just have some ice cream :o)

But we'll try it and see if she can pack on a few pounds. They want to recheck her weight in a month, and maybe give her the Hep-A vaccine. Have to do some research on that, because it's not yet required for school and I'm not sure if she needs it.

She totally remembered the place from the last time we were there and they flushed her ears for 45 minutes. She wouldn't even let me put her down and freaked out when anybody even looked at her. Poor thing I felt so bad but I had to lie her down on the table so the dr. could do the physical and then again so they could get the strep culture and she just sobbed and sobbed. That made her even more congested and miserable. She wore herself out so much she almost fell asleep on me while we were waiting for the test results.

But afterwards, we went to the pharmacy to drop off her prescriptions and she got to ride in a cart. The highlight of the day :o)

Two Years Old

2007-01-31T08:00:00.000-05:00

Haleigh-Bugg,

You are two years old today and I haven't kept up with this blog very well lately, but I wanted to be sure and write today. I can't believe you are already two. You're definitely not a baby any longer, and more and more a little girl every single day. You freely express your own thoughts and feelings, you make up songs to sing to me in the car, you ask us to be quiet when you're playing with your babies because they're sleeping, and you can eat with a fork or a spoon now with no problems at all.

The other night we were eating dinner together and you began to repeatedly stab the table with your fork. I asked you multiple times to please stop that, you're hurting the table, but you pretended you didn't hear me. After I threatened to take the fork away, you looked straight at me with the attitude of a teenager and said, "I'm just makin' noise, MOM." I laughed so hard I couldn't finish dinner.

But then in other ways you are completely opposite and act like my little baby. You love to get all warm in your jammies after a bath and cuddle in the rocking chair with me. We snuggle under a blanket and watch that funny home videos show. You point out every baby and animal in the videos and giggle when you decide something is silly. It doesn't last long though; you get tired so early because I wake you up in the morning before people should even be allowed to get up.

Eventually you look up at me and ask for your binkies and your bed. You sleep with five pacifiers; one in your mouth and two clutched in each fist. I've left the bumper in your crib because it keeps the binkies contained and maybe you can find at least one of them at 2am when you wake up. We count them together as I tuck you in, and you always count them at least twice, making it to thirteen, but skipping eleven every time.

On the drive to Kiki's every morning, you snack on Cheerios and milk, though you will eat two full breakfasts with the kids when you get there. One with the big kids that go to school, and another with the little kids when they wake up. On our drive, you point out every school bus, TARTA bus, garbage truck, big truck and Jeep Liberty. Busia and our neighbor drive Libertys and you have come to easily recognize them apart from all of the other SUVs out there.

It's tough to drop you off every morning, even though I know you have fun all day playing with the kids. They're all sleeping still when we get there, so it's hard to leave you to sit by yourself until they wake up. I wish I could stay and play with you all day. When it's time for me to leave, you cling to me like Velcro, and I finally have to surrender you to Kiki's arms. Your lip quivering, and your eyes welling up with tears, you break my heart every morning. I wish I could trade with your Daddy a couple of days a week and be the one picking you up in the afternoon so I can be your hero instead.

Before you know it though, it will be springtime, and we will be headed down south with Busia, P-Paw, Uncle Rob and Kendra, down to the beach. I can't wait to see you explore the sand and the tidal pools, and just enjoy you for a solid week. I really can't wait.

Don't grow up too fast, Bugg...

Love,
Mama

Haleigh's favorite birthday present... thank you Uncle Rob and Kendra! Busia and P-Paw got her a play microwave that is so much like a real one it's scary. Haleigh 'heats' up the baby's bottle first :o)

Her cousin Brittany got her a life-size Barbie doll! and Mimi and Poppa gave her a Precious Moments doll and the kitchen set for her dollhouse :o) She also got some cool clothes (Elmo!) and a Nemo cell phone! Thank you everybody.

Goin' shoppin' Mommy

First photo of Haleigh's little brother or sister

2007-01-30T09:51:00.000-05:00

So... I'm growing a baby bird in there?? That's the baby, head down and back curved over the top of the picture. S/he was having a party in there so we didn't get a very good photo. This was just to give me a good due date (still August 21st) and make sure everything is where it's supposed to be, and make sure there's only one baby in there. Yep, only one baby.

2007-01-27T12:37:00.000-05:00

Haleigh had her ears rechecked yesterday and a hearing test done. She passed the hearing test way above average, which is great because the Dr. estimated that she had a 30% hearing loss before the tubes. So now they're perfect. He checked them out and they look great - she doesn't need to go back for 6 months.

I've been trying to get her to walk more holding my hand instead of carrying her everywhere. It takes a while to get up and down the stairs at home (and it wears her out!) but she did great and held my hand like a big girl yesterday at the doctor. She showed off her new shoes to everyone at the hearing test appointment, and in fact the lady that gave her the test had to keep asking her where her new shoes were for the test because Haleigh wouldn't respond to "where's your nose? your belly? mommy??", she just stared blankly at the woman. But as soon as she asked "where's your new shoes?", Haleigh would look down and grin at them.

We ended up not seeing the doctor after that until 3, when our appointment with him was at 2. We were a few minutes late getting into the office because we had to walk out to the car, get a diaper, and stop for a diaper change on the way back in. She decided to stink up the hearing test booth pretty bad :o) I'm glad I changed her before the doctor appointment though, I wasn't going to because I thought we'd be in and out quick enough. She would've been pretty angry with me if she had to deal with that for an hour.

I haven't taken any pictures of her since Christmas I think. I'm back to working 6 days a week now, about 50 hours a week from now through April. Haleigh and Chad gets lots of quality time together now :o)

New Words

2007-01-12T09:27:00.000-05:00

Haleigh's had so many new words lately that I cannot possibly keep track of it all. Here are some highlights:

Diarrhea - "DIE-ah-REEEE-ah" said in a sing-song voice as she lays herself down on the floor for the 13th diaper change of the day.

Gatorade - "Apple Juice? No... it's Gatorade!" What we were forced to introduce to her after we ran out of apple flavored Pedialyte. Did you know that when you freeze Gatorade only the water in it freezes? So you're left with a nice syrupy liquid full of sugar that we thought was just melted Gatorade. So into the sippy cup it went! Luckily I watered it down significantly so she didn't get too crazy off the sugar buzz.

Thank You - the girl says thank you so politely after EVERYTHING now. I am so proud.

This morning she was playing with her doll house in her room and Chad and I heard her yelling: "LAY DOWN! DIAPER CHANGE! LAY DOWN NOW BABY!" I think we're all ready to be done with this stomach bug.

Expecting #2!

2007-01-06T09:30:00.000-05:00

We found out over Christmas that we are expecting a little brother or sister for Haleigh in August! Since we've told Haleigh about the baby, she's been obsessed with her baby dolls. She changes their diapers, feeds them, burps them, rocks them, and calls them "baby seee-ster" and "baby brudder."

I think she'll be a good age when the baby comes this summer. Hopefully we can get her on the potty by then and I hope to start working more from home. We will see!

I've been feeling great the past week or so, just a pretty tired. Over Christmas I had morning sickness really bad, but it's mysteriously gone away. I hope it stays away too; with Haleigh I was sick all day every day for six months. Makes me think this one could be a boy!

What we feared...

2007-01-04T12:01:00.000-05:00

This is long, and mostly I'm writing it here so I can remember it. I didn't expect the situation to be this extreme, so I just want to remember how things went.

Haleigh had an ear infection a few weeks ago, and at the recheck appointment her doctor couldn't see the ear drums clearly to be sure the infection was gone because of some wax. She sent me home to use drops and flush them myself. A week later, the wax was still there so they decided to try flushing them at the office. I don't know if I posted about this before, but for 45 minutes the MA flushed and flushed and Haleigh screamed and screamed. It was rough and I had to finally stop the nonsense and ask what else could we do.

We were referred to an ENT to check her ears and he is the greatest doctor I've ever met. Very good with kids. Haleigh loved him. He easily pulled a hunk of wax out of her right ear in 10 seconds with only minimal discomfort to her. The left ear though, the one that was flushed at the other office, was so impacted and the wax was millimeters from her ear drum. He didn't feel comfortable trying to remove it there in his office because if she merely flinched, he could damage her ear drum. Haleigh was fine with that, as she was already trying to open the door and get the heck out of there.

So this morning, my mom and I took her in to the surgical center to have the ENT examine her ears under anesthesia and remove any wax. She was upset that she couldn't have any milk this morning, but overall she was in a GREAT mood. She was so excited about our matching paper bracelets, said hi to every single person that looked at her, said thank you to anyone who talked to us, and was just very pleasant. As I stood in the prep area with her, her little naked self dressed in yellow scrubs and hospital socks that were too big, she started belting out the ABCs for all of the staff and the few other patients waiting to be wheeled back for surgery.

One by one, doctors and nurses and the anesthesiologist stopped by our little area to say hello and explain what all was going to happen. She listened to each one so intently; I knew she didn't have a CLUE what they were talking about, but she was so polite anyways. A nurse came by to take her vitals, and after trying the oxygen sensor (pulse ox?) on my finger myself, she eagerly stuck out her finger to try it on too. Finally a young male nurse came over and knelt down to her level. He listened to her heart one more time and asked if he could hold her. She shocked me by putting her arms out for him and giving him a big hug! He picked her up and collected her blankie and pacifier from me and began to leave. I kissed her and said I'd see her in a few minutes. She didn't cry, as far as I could tell, just watched me as if she'd never see me again.

A few minutes later, the doctor called me back to chat. He said he got the wax out fine, but in both ears there's gummy mucus. They're not draining correctly, and he'd like to put in tubes. He said with that mucus in there, she has probably been experiencing at least a 30% hearing loss. I couldn't believe it, but I see her every day. She doesn't sound or act any differently to me. But upon relaying this info to my mom in the waiting room, she admitted that she has noticed a change in Haleigh's speech over the past couple of months, pretty much since the first ear infection. She doesn't speak as clear any more. I feel bad for not noticing that.

She was still under anesthesia so he went ahead and put in the tubes. A few minutes after that, he called me back to chat some more, give me a script for ear drops, and just explain about not getting water in her ears for the next year while the tubes were in. He said her hearing will be normal immediately, so keep things toned down for the rest of the day. (figures as we left a huge tow truck was running next to my car and it was sooo loud, but it didn't seem to bother her) While I was waiting for him to see me and go over all of that, I could hear her waking up. She screamed and screamed and I just wanted to run back there of course.

We finally were able to join her in recovery and she was cuddled in a chair with a nurse, just sobbing her little eyes out. They said she wasn't in pain, and probably wasn't even scared, it was just the effects of the anesthetic making her feel crummy. She went to me immediately, but was just uncomfortable and had bouts of screaming for about half an hour. We just talked to her and offered her a popsicle (nope), tried not to laugh at her because she was having a tough time staying awake. Then she'd get angry about it and cry some more.

Finally got her dressed and in the car. She just stared blankly on the drive home and cried some more once we got inside. I gave her a half-dose of tylenol and some water and we laid down on the couch to watch Nemo for a bit. About 1/2 hour later, we got up and had some peanut butter toast, played with Legos, and now she's down for a nap. Seems like she feels back to her normal self now. I think I need a nap now too.

2006-12-25T19:35:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas!

Haleigh's reaction to the little crib that lights up and plays a lullabye.

Showing Daddy how it works...

Our little lefty...

Yay! Thank you Santa!

Mostly Pictures

2006-12-16T21:12:00.000-05:00

It's either Shrek, Monsters Inc. or Nemo...

This is about the most climbing she does... it's the ottoman for the rocker. She plays with her hair, makes funny faces and has conversations with herself.

That's another thing, the cell phone conversations she has with herself. She'll go through this everytime and pause after each line as if listening to a reply:

Hi, how are you?
giggle
hmm watchin' Shrek (or Nemo)
babble babble something
giggle
whatcha doin?
okay hold a sec, mommy for you! so I have a short pretend conversation and say it's for her again...
hi
yeah
okay
k bye

Then she hangs up and says "crap!" and I don't know why! All I can think of is maybe I once dropped a call and said crap when I flipped the phone shut. But I don't know why she'd remember that.

This was at 9pm tonight. Yes, 9pm. Her usual bedtime is 7pm, but she indulged in a bowl of ice cream at the restaurant around 7pm and this is the peak of the sugar high. Thank you Busia! She actually jumped off the couch once.

Hopefully she sleeps in tomorrow.

Look at that crazed look on her face. She's holding my baby's 1st Christmas ornament and thinking, "This? Put this back? Back where? How about YOU put it back after I fling it at you!"

Don't worry mom, my ornament is safe.

I'm not touching it! I'm just looking at it!

2006-12-10T14:54:00.000-05:00

Haleigh loves Belle!

The Cutting Room Floor

2006-12-03T16:59:00.000-05:00

A few of the 42 shots that didn't make it onto the Christmas card:

Getting bored with this...

Please look at me Haleigh, please...

This is the best smile you're getting lady...

A Tooth Brushin'

2006-11-27T20:12:00.000-05:00

She loves to brush her teeth.

Tonight, we had NO meltdowns. Not once did she scream "NO" and refuse to do something for a few seconds until she could suggest it happily as her own idea. She ate well, played nice, took a bath without insisting on anything, gave me the toothbrush back when I asked for it, and went to bed easy. Well, she goes to bed easy every night because she gets to have three pacifiers. Gotta have one for each hand, you know. We had a great night.

She was "reading" the back of a DVD while trying to convince us that 7pm was a fine time to watch "Donkey" (= Shrek) or Nemo (= "yeah, the clown-fish?" because apparently she feels the need to clarify that for us) and she started counting. She counted from one to ten perfectly, then said twelve and thirteen. Pretty cool.

She also likes to sing her ABCs... kinda. She'll start with A B C D... I J... Q R S... DOUBLE-YOU (her favorite) X Y Z!

We bought her Christmas gift, a dollhouse, over the weekend and it's taking all of me to not put it together until Christmas Eve. I want her to wake up in the morning and have it all set up in the living room. Just to see her face. But I always wanted a dollhouse as a kid and I just want to play with it now!

The fever last week? Roseola. Again. But much better now. Thank you daycare.

Turkey Day

2006-11-24T17:05:00.000-05:00

This is what my poor bugg looked like on Thanksgiving... she's had a 102 fever on and off since Wednesday. I think it's a combo of some molars coming in and that cold we've all been fighting for two weeks.

She looked much better this morning. We were planning to travel to Chad's parent's place 3.5 hours north, but decided to just stay home and let Haleigh veg out for the weekend. She hasn't eaten much, but I finally got her to eat some strawberry applesauce. It looks like she's wearing most of it, but she did eat some.

Yum!

Our little tree... with Shan about to pounce on it.

Big Update

2006-11-16T15:25:00.000-05:00

It has been forever since I updated this thing. I've been working on a few big projects at work, limiting my blogging time during the day, and I've been making my Christmas gifts in the evenings! Trying to stay within the budget this year, ya know.

So, what is new? Haleigh is a terrible two year old. She's gone from an easy baby to a difficult toddler so fast. but it doesn't help that lately we've all had head colds; the ones that make you feel miserable, but don't totally incapacitate you. I kept her home from the sitter last Monday, but other than that we've been doing okay. She complained about her ears, so I decided to take her in, and she had a round of antibiotics. I'm supposed to flush her ears now and they'll recheck them this coming Monday, but I'm not really excited about doing that. I think it will just make her poopy attitude all that much worse.

So yeah, she's been expressing her wishes rather loudly. Yes, that's a nice way to put it. She doesn't want to do anything unless it's her idea. If you suggest something you know she loves, she will say NO just to spite you, then seconds later think it's a great idea because it's HER idea. When did she become a teenager??

But she's still the sweetest baby I know. And the easiest to get to bed for the night ((knock on wood!)). We have our routine: bath, lotion, brush the hair, clean the ears, diaper and jammies, brush the teeth, drink of water, give Daddy a kiss, and into bed! She doesn't complain about any of that, unless I mix it up. Look out if I clean her ears BEFORE I brush her hair out... oh my! So she's already showing us that things have to be JUST RIGHT or it will set her off.

On a better note, I moved her little table and chairs into the living room so she can sit and color/draw whenever she wants. She sits at that table all of the time now. I even let her eat breakfast there. She likes to draw with the crayons, not so much color. She makes circles, and asks for help, "I help you?" when she wants me to draw a flower or a pumpkin (the only two things I can draw). We found out this past weekend that she knows some letters. If we write her name out on the paper, she can identify the H-A-L. Sometimes she thinks hard about one and taps her finger on it to help her, but most of the time she remembers what they are. She also knows what squares and triangles ("tri-rangles") are, but can't quite draw those straight connecting lines. She prefers circles.

What else? Oh, she can sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star pretty darn well. I'll have to get it on video. One line at a time, she'll say:
Twinkle twinkle starrrr
How wonder you arrrrrre
Bup above world so hiiiiiigh
Diamonds in the skyyyyyy

In the car, she identifies every single school bus, every Jeep Liberty (her grandma Buscia has one), and she's the ONLY one who likes it when there's a train. I got stopped the other morning, and happened to be the first car in line. When the train came by, really slowly, I put the window down a little so she could hear it. Then they blew the whistle and her eyes got real big and she said "Didja HEAR dat??!!"

2006-11-02T22:36:00.000-05:00

Halloween 2005

Halloween 2006 - the cutest Piglet ever!

the cup is from Buscia and P-Paw and she wouldn't put it down.

2006-11-01T20:30:00.000-05:00

Well ladies and gentlemen, we have quite a case of the 'terrible twos' hitting us REALLY hard right now. That, plus the time change (why do we do this anyways?), has Miss Haleigh just all stressed out. She cries for milk, she throws her milk, she wants to draw, she throws the pen... all I can do is sit back and let her have it out. I don't know what else to do :o)

Everything is all good with the sitter. She's made friends with all the kids and even remembers their names. Yesterday morning when I dropped her off, she stole a chocolate donut from a sleeping preschooler, hopped up in the recliner, took a bite of the donut, said "see ya Mama," and turned her attention to Playhouse Disney on tv. So I guess she's going to be just fine.

She now can have a complete cell phone conversation with herself. She'll get my phone from my purse, bring it to me so I can lock it (she knows she HAS to do this), I give it back to her and she opens it up (flip phone), says "hi, how're you?" waits a second, says "yes, mmm-hmm," pauses, says "okay, one second," and when she goes to close the phone, she even says "crap" like I do when I lose a call. It's the littlest things you do that they pick up and copy, you know? I'm trying not to make a big deal about it or smile, but it's so funny because she says it in the same tone and everything.

I will post Halloween pics when Blogger decides to cooperate...

Success!

2006-10-25T15:29:00.000-05:00

We had a successful drop-off this morning. Haleigh didn't cry in the car, in fact she had a smile on her face when I got her out of the seat. I sat with her while she watched cartoons and chatted with C. When it was time for me to go, Haleigh just walked over to C and threw me a goodbye kiss and that was it! No crying! I feel so much better. She has made friends with one of the girls, A, and they eat breakfast together before A goes to school.

Haleigh was relatively well behaved at the little wedding. We arrived at the courthouse about the time I would normally put her down for a nap. So she was pretty wound up and wanted to run and shriek at the top of her lungs because wow! listen to that echo! I had brought snacks for her, and the only time I really had any control was when I was feeding her Princess fruit snacks, one by one, hoping they would last until my parents were done signing papers and the ceremony would start. They did, and I opened a second packet while the minister was marrying them and I was snapping pictures, and Haleigh was so good and quiet. But when we left, she wanted to walk to the parking lot herself (miss independent!) but it was sooooo cold and windy that we couldn't wait for her. It took probably five minutes to walk to the parking lot, and the entire time she was this one big muscle, trying to make me put her down. Screaming too. It was rough, and we had to break down and give her the binkie in the car just to be able to buckle her in the seat.

We met my grandparents for brunch afterwards, and by then she was okay and ate a ton of pancakes, toast and potatoes with ketchup. She was very well behaved at the restaurant and the drive home, and I expected her to totally crash but she got a second wind once we got home and played for a while. Around 2 I finally put her down, and by then I was so exhausted too that I took a nap myself!

Congratulations Mom and Dad!

2006-10-23T19:40:00.000-05:00

On October 24th 1975, my parents were married. And tomorrow, on October 24th 2006, they will be re-married to each other. I’m so ecstatic they found themselves and each other again. It took time, but they’ve chosen a new beginning, a new life together, and we couldn’t be happier!

I had instructions from my brother to find an incredibly mushy congratulations card to make them cry so Haleigh and I set off for Target tonight after dinner. I also needed to buy her some tights to go with her dress, as the ones that came with it are big enough for a 4 year-old.

I thought we'd get the card first to get it over with, since I knew she wouldn't tolerate sitting still for more than a few seconds. Even though the CART is her most favorite of all things that have to do with shopping. So we found the wedding cards and she wanted to touch them and hold them and taste them, but I asked her to please settle for naming everything on them. Butterflies, flowers, cakes, and birds... yeah that took about 4 seconds, not near enough time for me to find a suitable mushy card. I ended up grabbing a cute one with daisies on it and a quick glance at the message told me it would do. At the time, I didn't notice the card is this awful springy shade of light green, and my dad absolutely despises all things green. Oh well, on to the fun part.

Haleigh wanted to hold the card. MY card, the one I so carefully picked out (haha) for my parent's wedding-part-deux. She wasn't satisfied with the envelope, she wanted THE card so she could open it. I could've given her another off the shelf and then ditched it later when it was shredded to bits, but my conscience said no, that's bad! so i gave her MY card. Open, close, open, close... then it was stuck! and the world exploded into shrieks of OHHPENNNN!!! in the middle of Target. Yikes.

We spent a few minutes spent searching the baby aisles for off white (not white) cotton (not lacy) tights in baby size (not 2T-4T!), and finally made it to the checkout with our two items. The poor card was almost unrecognizable, and the checkout kid looked at it like it might be trash lol. I guess Haleigh just gave it her own touch, and it will be that much more special. I hope lol.

2006-10-18T07:35:00.000-05:00

How do I make this easier for her? Tuesday she was better during the day, and when I picked her up at 6p she cried again. She was in a great mood all evening, and went to bed okay, but she woke up around 9p and wanted me to sleep with her. It just breaks my heart. So I rocked her for a while until she was asleep, then put her in bed but she woke up and cried for a minute, and then slept all night. At one point, when Chad’s parents were over, she asked “Hay-dee crybaby?” So she must have overheard one of the little boys calling her a crybaby?

This morning (Wednesday) on the way to the babysitter, she started crying in the car before we were even halfway there. Just saying “mommy… mommy… I hold you?” So she was a wreck by the time we got there. I sat with her and watched cartoons for a minute, then told her she was going to stay and play today, and Daddy would pick her up early after lunch. I know dragging the good-bye out just makes it worse, so I gave her a kiss and told her I love her and I left. Her caregiver, we’ll call her C, gave Haleigh her stuffed frog and tried to get her interested in something else as I was leaving. I’m sure she stopped shortly after I left, but hearing her cry for me is just the worst thing in the world.

I feel so bad...

2006-10-17T08:22:00.000-05:00

Well, things went better than I expected yesterday morning with the new babysitter. Haleigh was a bit shy to begin with, but perked up when an 8 month old baby girl woke up and wanted to play with her. They played with a little basketball for a while, then I told Haleigh that okay, you’re going to stay here today and play with the kids, and I’ll see you later, okay? She didn’t even think twice before she said “okay, see ya!” So she threw me a kiss as I was walking out the door and that was that.

I called around noon and apparently she realized I wasn’t just stepping out for a minute, and she was periodically crying for me. I think she may have been overwhelmed by all the kiddos. Her caregiver told me Haleigh clung to her stuffed frog most of the day, but played well with the other kids, and ate and napped really well too. When Chad and I showed up in the evening to pick her up she was cuddled on the couch with a school-age girl who she made friends with. She saw me and immediately started bawling and generally freaking out because she was just so happy that we were there to get her. On the drive home, she chatted non-stop with us about her new friends.

Last night, she didn’t want to go to bed; she kept crying for me. Like really crying hard. She’s such a good sleeper that I’ve never had to let her ‘cry it out’ so it’s really hard for me to just let her cry. She knows that if she needs me, she just says so and I’ll go in her room and see what she needs, but that rarely happens. But since it was 1 ½ hours past her bedtime, I just let her cry, and two minutes later she was asleep. It must have had to do with being at the babysitter; she didn’t want to let us out of her sight.

This morning, she cried. I presumed that it would be harder this morning, and I was right. Now she knows what's going on. It’s going to be a long week.

Little Chatterbox

2006-10-14T19:52:00.000-05:00

In the car on the way to Target, stopped at a light:

Haleigh: Hi!
to some construction workers in a parking lot.

Haleigh: Hi-iiiiii...
like hello, don't you hear me?

Haleigh: HI! How are you?
at this point I look at her in the rear view mirror and realize she's having a conversation with these guys, even though they're completely oblivious to her.

Haleigh: I'm good, how are you?
I clap my hand to my mouth to stifle a giggle...

Haleigh: Yes
??

now the light changes and cars start to move

Haleigh: Bye!

Haleigh: BYE! See-ya!
and she waves goodbye to them.

The only thing that would have made that more strange is if she had thrown them a kiss or something. Weird!

Random Updates

2006-10-13T19:33:00.000-05:00

Well, no more potty-ing, which is okay with me. That was just crazy though how it worked out that one time.

I broke Haleigh's crib last weekend. I literally tore the dropside right off the thing. It had gotten stuck in the down position and, in my attempt to yank it hard enough to make it go back up, I ripped it off. I was too annoyed to try and put it back on, so I just left it off. Haleigh was so excited to have a 'big girl' bed and immediately asked for her binkie (uh big girl?) and climbed in her bed to take her nap. It only took 10 minutes and me telling her to get back in bed and stay there about 15 times before she finally curled up and fell asleep. I kept the door cracked and stood there watching for her to get up and she finally caught on. She would get out of the bed and stand there staring at the door for at least 2 minutes to see if I was coming in to make her get back in bed, kind of daring me. When she though she fooled me, she'd go over to her table and start to play. So she slept well then, but later she wouldn't stay in the bed so Chad had to put the side back on. She didn't seem to mind about that either.

The sentences, oh the sentences. It's crazy. She'll pick up a cell phone and start with 'hello', then 'how are you?' then she'll listen, then say 'okay hold a second' and hand the phone to one of the cats, me or chad. The other night she was sitting across the room from me and asked me 'how are you?' I said 'I'm good, how are you?' and she repeated it 'I'm good, how are you?' That went on and on...

We attended visitation and funeral services for Chad's great-grandpa this past week and we took Haleigh to the visitation in the evening. She was great to begin with, introducing me and Chad to everyone; she likes to make sure people know who we are lol. She spotted her great-grandpa (Papaw) across the room and ran over and let him hold her, which she rarely does, so we were very proud of her. She was struggling to see up in the casket, so I picked her up and held her at a distance and told her 'that's Papaw's daddy.' She pointed out that he had a 'pillow' and a 'hat' (Detroit Tiger's cap) and 'glasses' and a 'shirt' and on and on... Then we discussed the colors of the flowers and pointed out the different people wearing glasses... phew! Then she got kind of crazy, to the point that fruit snacks and animal crackers wouldn't keep her still. It was just late in the evening and she was on people-overload I think. So we left kind of early and didn't bring her back for the funeral the next day. She stayed with my grandma and they enjoyed each other I think. It all worked out okay. While we were dropping her off there, I went to use the bathroom and she completely freaked out that I was leaving the ROOM and oh-my-gosh what a scene she made. So I was nervous about leaving her there, but when the time came to go to the funeral, she just said 'bye, see ya' and that was it! But I hear she did pick up a magnet that she pretends is a cell phone and said 'I call Mommy? I callin Daddy okay?'

Friday was the last day that Mimi (Chad's mom) watched Haleigh during the day while we work. Monday she starts with a new in-home daycare with some other kids and babies. There are two three-year-olds that I know will keep her busy, so I'm trying not to be nervous. I know she'll be fine. But we will miss you Mimi and Poppa!

Eating pizza with a fork like a big girl. She actually does really well with a regular fork and spoon. She gets frustrated sometimes, but usually can figure it out.

She rubs the soap bubbles on her cheeks and says 'oh gorgeous.' She also does the sign for 'beautiful' and says that and calls people 'adorable' and 'cute.'

20 Months - Potty Talk

2006-09-30T19:30:00.000-05:00

Haleigh is 20 months old today. This evening she announced what she was about to do in her pants, and I asked her if she would like to sit on the potty. A firm "NO" is what I got in response, so I said okay and didn't press the issue. We haven't done any training except letting her sit on her potty when we do and making a "tttssssss" sound.

So a minute or so after she said NO, she asked about the potty and I asked her again if she wanted to go sit on it, and she took off running for the bathroom. I followed and got her diaper off and sat her on her little potty chair.

WE HAD A POO-POO IN THE POTTY.

Oh she was so good. I praised her up and down and all over and cleaned her up and got a diaper back on, then we cleaned up the potty and I let her flush the big potty... I am so proud.

Then she strutted around the apartment for a good 10 minutes in just a diaper, so full of herself it was perfect. She'd glance at me as she walked by and get a big grin on her face, then say to herself "poo-poo in potty, a big girl!" and keep going, back and forth into the kitchen, then back into the living room.

This at 20 months? Probably a fluke, but I'll take it!

First Bump-on-the-Head

2006-09-30T16:49:00.000-05:00

Haleigh stumbled over my shoe as I was getting her a sippy cup and fell into the corner of the fridge. She cried for a minute and it swelled up all purple the size of an acorn immediately but I iced it and she seems to be okay.

Giving Daddy a kiss...

She looks so old in this photo... like a little girl now.

Ah, this is how the rest of the day went. Very grouchy and moody about everything.

Pumpkin Patch

2006-09-25T19:53:00.000-05:00

The clown-lady made Haleigh a pink puppy balloon!

We bought a baby pumpkin and some apples...

... but no big pumpkins.

Stand still please!

There was just too much excitement for her little body to stay in one spot for more than two seconds. She was constantly looking for something else to go investigate.

On her pony, Peanut. Of course, she can say 'Peanut' perfectly now.

A cute baby cow. Haleigh learned the word 'adorable' on Saturday from Pepaw, so this calf was named 'ah-dow-ah-buhl'.

In the mood for some cider

2006-09-24T21:21:00.000-05:00

Haleigh and I went to Erie Orchard Sunday afternoon. We went with my best friend, her sister, and her sister's two little boys. Haleigh thinks her 3 year-old is hilarious, and she busted out giggling when he would do ANYTHING.

Anyways, it was one of their Kids Weekends and there were lots of KIDS. Big and small, there were lots of 'em. Near the parking lot, there was an older couple manning a kind of pumpkin patch, where kids could pick out a pumpkin for the parents to purchase, at ridiculous prices, and take right out to the car.

We weren't buying anything, but we wanted pictures of the kids in a "pumpkin patch" so I let Haleigh sit on a pumpkin and then stand by the big wooden bin with the little pumpkins. My friend's 3 year-old decided he was going to test out the muscle these pumpkins had and he kicked a large (sad-looking already) pumpkin repeatedly with his little three year-old foot. My friend immediately scolded him that we don't kick the pumpkins and of course he stopped; he wasn't trying to hurt the thing, just test its weak spots maybe?

Anyways, the owner-lady (= mean old witch woman) gave us the evil eye and shook her head disapprovingly at his behavior towards her sad pumpkin. She then stared us down until we made our way down the path, away from her pwecious pwumpkins. C'mon, he's THREE and he couldn't have hurt one of them even if he really tried to.

I guess what I'm getting at is why participate in a KIDS Weekend event if you aren't into kids? My friend got snapped at when she asked the pony-ride lady where you pay, as if it was really that hard just to point us in the right direction. I mean, jeez we're asking where to pay for YOUR attraction...

But all in all, the kids had fun. The magician had me bored though within the first five minutes (we stayed 10 I think) and I don't know how he managed to captivate the attention of all those kids. The food and drinks were overpriced a bit, except for the cider (yum). Haleigh liked the bouncy house shaped like a pumpkin, but she refused to go into it any farther than the entrance, and bounced and laughed hysterically while holding on to the mesh door the entire time.

And she loved the pony-ride, on her pony named Peanut, which came out "Peanus" everytime she would shriek his name because she was just having too much fun to worry about spelling.

Photos soon! I used my mom's camera and I don't have the cable :o(

Chocolate Pudding

2006-09-23T17:54:00.000-05:00

I let Haleigh feed herself chocolate pudding for the first time today. She did pretty well!

2006-09-19T21:24:00.000-05:00

I gave all of my "My Little Ponies" to Haleigh this past weekend.

She loves to "count" them. Well, she points to them randomly and says the numbers one through six perfectly, then comes eight and ten, maybe four again...

They are so cool! She carries at least two with her most of the time now.

Cooking with Buscia

Ohio State is still #1!!!

2006-09-18T21:07:00.000-05:00

What are you looking at?

Listening to Daddy's iPod

Mommy loves Haleigh!

2006-09-10T16:20:00.000-05:00

Super Girl!

Yay OSU!

Dip-Dip-Dip and Another Video

2006-09-07T19:12:00.000-05:00

She has mastered the art of dipping her food. A few weeks ago we were eating dinner out with Chad's parents and Grandma, and Haleigh was served tater tots with her grilled cheese. She was being extra picky with her dinner, so I squeezed a dab of ketchup on her plate. She immediately put her fingers in it and sucked the ketchup off. "Mmmm!" was her response, so I showed her how to pick up a tater tot and dip-dip it in the ketchup, and then eat it. She loved it and ate every single tater tot, but no grilled cheese. Now she will dip-dip anything (by the way, she says "dip-dip" out loud when she does it) in her ketchup; last night it was green beans, and even string cheese tonight.

She had a rough weekend. I already posted about the doctor's appointment and I'm sure that's what her night terrors have been about lately, but that's not all...

She woke me up screaming one morning again (yes she's done this before), so I rushed into her room and she's standing there, one knee stuck between the slats of the crib. It must slip right in there, but somehow gets stuck and she panics, making it swell up. But that's not all...

One night over the weekend I was making grilled cheese (again!) and Lori was over and we were chatting in the kitchen. Chad was puttering around somewhere in the apartment, and Haleigh was "cooking" on the kitchen floor. She kept making me move out of her way so she could get into the cabinets to get her cooking pans and stuff I generally let her play with. She is usually really good about staying out of the cabinet under the sink with the cleaning stuff in it. (See where I'm going with this...) All of a sudden, she is standing just inches from me, and she screams, and it's one of those "I'm in pain MOM" screams. She had gotten out the orange cleaner and sprayed herself in the FACE. I rushed her into the bathroom and rinsed out her eyes and her mouth and all was alright. She was just very angry. I'm sure it didn't taste very good. So guess what I spent the rest of the weekend doing? Yes, rearranging the cabinets and making sure that stuff is completely out of her reach. I know, I know... bad mommy...

Then today! She skinned her knee is all. It's scraped and probably will bruise. She points at it and calls it her "boo-bie" instead of her "boo-boo."

This morning was extremely foggy here where we live, and as we walked to the car I said, "Wow, it's really foggy." Haleigh looked at me, so proud of herself because she knew what I was talking about, and said, "wibbit wibbit!"

I finally finished editing the videos of her from 8 months to 12 months. It includes Halloween, Christmas and her first birthday party, where she offered everyone bites of her cake. Special thanks to Haleigh's Uncle Rob for taking the video of her party... however he was laughing so hard through most of it it's kind of shaky. But you will laugh too because she seriously tries to share her cake with everybody. Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzqOKImYEl0

Checkup

2006-09-01T20:49:00.000-05:00

Haleigh had her 18-month checkup today, even though she's 19 months now... I guess both the receptionist and I can't count. But anyways, she's doing ok. Height is right on track at 33 inches but her weight hasn't changed since her 15-month appointment. She's now way down at the 8th percentile at 20.8 pounds. Almost need to turn her car seat back around! Dr. is not alarmed, but slightly concerned, and we need keep an eye on her. She eats really well; she's just really active. We can offer more snacks and try to get her to "eat one more bite" a few times when she says she's finished with a meal.

*****

Just a short vent about the horrid MA at my doctor's office.
Start. THIS time we had a student MA doing her externship and she did a great job with height, weight, head circumference and all that. Then it came time for the one shot and the MA I do not like came in to supervise the student's administration of the vaccine. I noticed when the Dr. had Haleigh lie down to feel her belly, it helped if I laid her down on the pillow, instead of flat on the table; she just felt more at ease when she could see what was going on. So I laid her down on the pillow at the top of the table for the shot as well. She was ok with it.

Then mean MA took over and showed the student how she prefers to administer a vaccine to a child. Now, she's NEVER done this before, so I was totally unexpecting it, but she stood at the end of the table and grabbed Haleigh's ankles and slid her down the table toward her until her legs were hanging off the table. Then she pinned them down with her body so all I had to do was hold Haleigh's hands and she was completely immobile so they could give the shot. Well Miss Haleigh lost it. A stranger pulling her by the ankles away from her mommy and then pinning her down? I've never seen her so unnecessarily scared. She's not a thrasher and there was absolutely no need to pin her legs down, especially for just one shot. This MA should have known that because she's previously given Haleigh shots herself. Of course ASKING ME if completely pinning her down was necessary would have been the EASIEST thing to do.

Well it all happened so fast and the student was able to give the shot very quickly, the band-aid was on, and they were gone before I was able to get a word out of my mouth to them because I was focused on my screaming child. I was just in shock and so was Haleigh. I know the idea is to get it done as quickly as possible, but next time I will have to slow it down and things will be done my way. The best way for Haleigh. End.

*****

Not much else has been happening. She's saying more and more full sentences every day and she's saying the right words in the right context. Like she understands the "you" and "I" thing. If I ask her "Do you have your shoes?" she says "I have my shoes!" It's something new every day and I need to write this stuff down because right now of course I can't remember anything.

Video

2006-08-27T10:11:00.000-05:00

I've finally got around to uploading the videos I've made of Haleigh from birth to 8 months. They include video and still photos set to music. If you have a slower connection, hit pause as soon as the video starts and wait for it to load before you hit play, to eliminate stopping and starting as it loads.

Here is the link for Birth to 4 Months:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7ls_2ZAuus

And the link for 4 to 8 Months:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svBLWBT1_-g
About 2/3 of the way through, Haleigh has a message for you... make sure your volume is turned up! This video includes her first bonfire, her first swimming experience, and learning to walk.

I'm working on video from her first birthday party, where she offered everyone bites of her cake, but I need suggestions for music to add to it.

Happy Birthday!

2006-08-20T19:03:00.000-05:00

Monday is my birthday and my little brother's was at the end of July, so we celebrated with family Sunday at a really really good Italian restaurant downtown. Thanks Mom for taking some beautiful pictures!

Mommy and Haleigh before dinner. A white top was not the best choice for an Italian restaurant outing. Hopefully the marinara sauce will come out, but she really enjoyed the food!

The family.

Haleigh being silly at the restaurant. This was her response to "smile!"

Saying "cheese!"

Haleigh and Uncle Rob walking the Riverwalk after dinner. We let her just walk around and she just loved the independence. She even saw some ducks.

The family in beautiful downtown.

Watching the boats and the seagulls. She kept calling the river a pool.

Geese and Doctors

2006-08-17T21:48:00.000-05:00

Haleigh and I had dinner at my parent's house tonight. She was good, and nothing major happened except I didn't fit the lid on the sippy cup properly, and cold milk went all over Haleigh, myself and the floor when she went to drink it. All she could say was "Ooohhhh nooooo... oooohhhh noooooo Mommy..."

After dinner we played some frisbee and looked for bunnies in the backyard. Their house happens to be in the flight path of a large group of Canadian geese that take a break in a huge field down the street. Every evening, they move from that field to another down the street and fly directly over the house. After we showed Haleigh a few groups and she heard what they sounded like, a group flew really low directly over our heads. We told her they were ducks though, just to make it easier for her to understand. She would watch them until they disappeared over the trees and she'd say "bye ducks!" and then ask and sign for more! We thought they were all gone to the other field, when Haleigh heard some more honking and looked up and here there were more flying over us! So exciting.

She woke up yesterday with one eye all red and puffy and constantly tearing up. It looked horrible; like someone had popped her in the eye. I called my mom, who used to work for an eye doctor, and she said it sounded like pink-eye. I got her in to see the doctor yesterday afternoon, but her eyes looked better by then. When we got inside the exam room though, they were both red and puffy. The doctor noticed her throat was a little red, so she wanted a rapid strep test done to rule that out first.

I was very disappointed with the way that the MA administered the swab for the test. She was very nice to Haleigh and asked her to open her mouth. Um, excuse me? There's no way Haleigh was going to be pinned down to an exam table and then open her mouth willingly so a stranger can stick a cotton swab in there and scrape off her tonsils. But whatever, it was nice of her to ask Haleigh first. But she asked again. And again. I was holding her hands, and Chad was holding her head so she didn't jerk forward and jab the swab into the back of her throat so that was all the help we could give. And this lady is a professional. It just bothered me that we had to wait for Haleigh to get so scared from being pinned down and a stranger in her face that she screamed for me with her mouth wide open and then she hurried up and did the swab. This is the same MA as this post at her last appointment, three months ago.

So anyways, I was excited to have her stats checked, and we were happy to find out she's now at 21 pounds and 32 inches! Finally she's gained another pound. The strep test was negative and she had no fever, so the doctor decided to treat her for conjunctivitis but said it could just be allergies. If the drops don't help in 5 days, it's probably allergies. Her eyes look better today, and we were outside for quite a while and they didn't get worse, so I'm hoping it was just a mild case of pink-eye and we won't have to deal with it again.

New words/phrases lately:
Dr. Phil - "DAHK-ter FEE-uhl"
apple juice - not fruit juice or grape juice... must be apple juice lately
cute
pizza - "PEE-tahs!"
cooking - she likes to pretend to cook with a pot and a wooden spoon while I cook. She adds a few fridge magnet letters and a few legos...
clean - she likes to Swiffer for me, and dust for Mimi
Hey hey, JoJo's Circus - she knows how to turn on the Tivo to watch JoJo's Circus
horsey - she thinks anything you can "ride" is to be called a horsey. People let her play horsey on their leg up and down, and she can pretend to "ride" my mom's labrador like a horse because he's bigger than her... but when she repeatedly sits on my poor, handicapped kitty (Belle) and shrieks "HORSEY!" I have to draw the line.

She likes to list things off. She'll start with Mimi, then go through everybody... Poppa, Trudy, Heidi, Butt... butt? Heidi has had a medical issue with her wittle bottom lately, and Haleigh always mentions it when we talk about Heidi. It's part of the family now.

So that's what's happening right now. I'm sure I've missed something because it seems like she's doing 10 new things every day by the time I pick her up after work. She wants to know what everything is called, and she locks it away for reference later. Now she's starting to string those words together. She's growing so fast it's scary!

First Haircut!

2006-08-12T19:52:00.000-05:00

Haleigh had her first little real haircut Friday. She sat on my lap and was such a good girl. She couldn't take much off, but trimming it like this, a little at a time, will make it thicken. Thanks T!

Chad took video of it, so the shots aren't that clear. Here's some pics from Saturday. She had on an outfit that I love, so I snapped some shots going to get the mail in the morning.

Getting mail out of her own imaginary mailbox. She pretends the bottom ones are all hers and goes to each one, jiggles the lock and collects her invisible mail.

Trying to catch the attention of a squirrel.

Monkey imitation. I call her a monkey sometimes and she responds with this and "oo-oo-ahh-ahh" and lots of giggles.

Random Shots

2006-08-09T18:50:00.000-05:00

She can't quite figure out the licking part...

Helping Grandpa add warm water to the pool... she wouldn't get in because the water was too cold!

Watering Grammie's plants...

I finally got a picture of her crossing her ring- and pinky-fingers. See it on her left hand? She does that all the time. I wanted to remember that. Also, this is just a great summer picture.

Listening to Grandpa as he explains the fine sport of Horseshoes.

Helping get the heavy shoes out of the pit for Grandpa. She was so excited to help! As soon as he was done throwing, she would run down to the other end as fast as she could.

She's got her arms back like that, pretending to throw just like Grandpa. She even would say "ringer!" when she heard them hit the post.

She doesn't wear a lot of dresses, so I took a lot of pictures that day!

That's my girl...

2006-08-06T08:14:00.000-05:00

Dancing Baby

2006-08-02T11:04:00.000-05:00

Haleigh was gettin' down to some Mystikal the other night in the living room. Anything with a beat makes her go crazy.

Happy 18 Months

2006-07-31T08:38:00.000-05:00

I can't believe you're 18 months old today, Haleigh Bugg. Time has really gone too fast. I have a letter to you buzzing around in my head, but it will be posted a few days late. There's been a lot going on and things are just going to get crazier.

But just remember I love you.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Haleigh's Version

Krinkle krinkle... star!
Twinkle twinkle little star

HOW-EYE
How I wonder what you are

Bup ba bov!
Up above the world so high

Like-ah!
Like a diamond in the sky

Krinkle krinkle... star
Twinkle twinkle little star

How-eye
How I wonder what you are

Like-ah!
(over and over...)

She says the first words of each line as I sing it to her. She also sings about the Rock-bye Baby and a Treetop, but I refuse to sing that lullaby to her because it is disturbing.

More soon!

2006-07-23T10:47:00.000-05:00

Well the weather finally cooled down and this weekend has been really nice. We didn't do much though, just a few errands. Haleigh's friend Liam has a birthday party this afternoon, so we'll be going out for that. Happy Birthday Liam!

I was trying to get a good pic of her teeth. She cut THREE just the other night, but she was so good. She actually slept from 7:30p to 9:00a, then went down for a nap from 11-2! So now she has seven little chompers. Yay!

Also wanted to get a pic of my attempt at pigtails... we'll see long they stay in. Hopefully they'll make it to the party. They actually look pretty good lol. I had to set her on the bathroom counter and turn on the water for her to play in for a minute so she would hold still long enough for me to do them. Her hair is finally long enough for it all to go in one ponytail, but she takes it out every time.

Modeling her new summer dress and shoes... or maybe just trying to escape Mimi's house and play outside.

No more high chair! It's been packed away, and now we use a booster chair attached to the kitchen chair. She loves sitting at the table with us.

Yummy scrambled eggs and "toast with budder!" She blows on each piece of egg before gobbling it down because, you know, it might be HOT!

2006-07-17T20:32:00.000-05:00

Fish-face? A duck? Want a kiss? Who knows!

March march march march...

Selecting a fine blade of grass...

She will choose empty cups over any of her eleventy billion toys...

That water is COLD!

Oh, sleepy baby...

2006-07-14T12:08:00.000-05:00

It's hot here. Too hot. And it's going to be in the 90s and muggy through the weekend and way into next week. Yuck. We live on the 3rd floor and our air conditioner only cools one corner of the living room. The fans don't even help. Ugh.

My parents are keeping Haleigh tonight so Chad and I can have a real "date." We're going to go see the new Pirates movie and I'm so excited. I think we are going anyways... we have PLANS to go. Somehow though every time Haleigh stays over somewhere, we end up not doing what we planned and just sitting around, halfway enjoying the quiet. But since Chad's been on vacation all week, he hasn't done much but relax all week BY HIMSELF (ahem I think I had Haleigh ATTACHED TO MY HIP throughout most of my vacation last week... not that I'm complaining, but still... ) so hopefully our plans will stick tonight.

Not much to report with Haleigh lately. She is picking up words like crazy though. She says "Shanny" now so clear (he's one of our cats) and she helps me yell at him to "get down!" from the top of the birdcage! She says "see ya!" now when people leave, and "Skittles" (the bird) is very clear now too.

One thing she will NOT say, however, is "I love you." She won't even try and say part of it.

Me: "Bye!"
Her: "BYE!"
Me: "Take care!"
Her: "Kake tare!"
Me: "See ya!"
Her: "See ya!"
Me: "Love you!"
...
Her: "BYE!"

And if I say it again she's gets bored and goes off to play.

Oh, Poppa taught her to "march" and she stomps all over. I hope to catch some video of that soon.

She climbs up on their couch all by herself but hasn't tried it seriously at home.

I've been giving her a small fork with her dinner the past few nights. She really couldn't figure out how to stab anything so I would do it for her and set the fork back down. She could easily pick it up and get it to her mouth. I even alternated which side of the plate I set it so she had to use each hand (still don't know whether she's a lefty or a righty.) But last night, she had these tiny meatballs cut up on her plate and she was stabbing them with the wrong end of the fork. But at least she was trying to do what I had showed her! The funny thing is, I tried to show her to use the other end and she got really mad at me like I was messing her up or something. Just have to let her do her own thing I guess and she'll figure it out someday.

2006-07-11T19:26:00.000-05:00

Getting a little more brave here in the hot tub. She's got her feet on the next step.

The MovieStar herself.

Playin' baseball with Daddy.

Dipping the bubble-blower in the empty cup.

This is the cottage - it's so cute! My favorite swing hangs from that huge oak in the background on the right.

2006-07-11T11:02:00.000-05:00

So a little about our vacation last week. Chad’s parents, Haleigh, and I went up last Saturday (the 1st) to Chad’s grandparent’s home near Muskegon, Michigan. Haleigh did great on the trip (about 4 hours) and only got fussy during the 2nd half when she refused to give it up and close her eyes for a nap. So 45 minutes after she fell asleep we were there.

They have a beautiful house on a large piece of property, back off the main road quite a ways. They actually live on a dirt road and there are only maybe 3 houses near them. The back of the property slopes down to a little creek. It’s so peaceful and relaxing and I love visiting there.

So we arrived Saturday afternoon and really just relaxed until Thursday when other family members started to arrive. Chad’s grandparents hosted a family reunion over the weekend after the 4th. So in between relaxing and more relaxing, we got things ready for the party. We would set up some tables or a swimming pool, then sit in the shade and have a glass of tea for a bit. It was great.

I forget which day it was, but we drove into Muskegon to go to Meijer and Gordon Foods to get reunion stuff. It took 4 hours. Yeah, they took a little time and drove down by the lake to show me the beaches and sand dunes, but really to hit up only two stores took half the day. There is a Wal-Mart in a closer town to where they live, about 15 minutes away, but Meijer had the better sales.

Besides the hot tub shown in the previous post, Haleigh and I spent a lot of our time swinging on a big swing hung from a huge oak tree next to the cottage. Yep, they have a cottage on the property too, like a guest house. The cottage is where they vacationed for years, and then lived in until the house was built. Actually, the cottage is a mini version of the house; it seems that they liked the design so much they copied it in larger scale when they built the house. So we read books and swung. For hours.

She probably doubled her vocabulary last week as well. With all the new people and things to do and food to try, she learned a lot. For example, she actually remembered people’s names. She used to call anything in a sippy cup “jooce,” but now it’s “mee-ulk” and “wah-der” and she’s putting words together like “more mee-ulk” or “my wah-der.” I was so proud of her; she was even saying “please” and “thanks” unprompted! She tried lots of new foods too, including kielbasa in the hobo dinner. I didn't mean to have her try kielbasa, believe me, but I was cutting a piece for myself on her plate and when I took a bite, she reached out and snatched the other half! It was gone before I could even do or say anything. She just looked at me and said "mmm!" like she does so often now with new things. She also tried avocado (yum), black olives (yuck), strawberries (double yum), cherries (yum but not easy on the belly), watermelon and canteloupe (eh, ok), lake fish (loved it), and black beans & rice (not so much). She definitely ate more than just peanutbutter sandwiches and macaroni & cheese!

Chad didn’t come up until Thursday because he didn’t take the week off from work (he has this week off instead, for his birthday, tomorrow.) Haleigh really missed him and asked about him frequently. Grandma has a low table with picture frames, and one is of Chad and I. She carried that photo around all week, talking to her Daddy and telling him stories about who-knows-what in her baby babble. When she gets excited about seeing him, she says “My da-da-da-Daddy! Where?”

So other family members started showing up Thursday, and most were there by Friday afternoon. There were lots of kids, including an 18-month old boy, a 19-month old girl, and a 23-month old boy for Haleigh to play with. She gave hugs and kisses, but mostly played by herself and watched the other kids run around. They were definitely better on their feet and better climbers than she is, but she enjoyed every minute of it. At one point we got out some bubbles and she just watched for a while, but then wanted to do it too. I didn’t want her to get all sticky, so I gave her an empty cup and a dry bubble blower to play with. She carried that around all day, dipping the blower in the empty cup and putting it to her lips to blow. She may have been able to do it with real bubbles, but I wasn’t brave enough to find out.

So it was really a great vacation. Not one of those that you need a week to recover from because you did too much. Haleigh did great, slept all night every night, and took a 3 hour nap every single day. Couldn’t ask for a better baby.

Pictures soon!

We are back

2006-07-09T20:58:00.000-05:00

We had a great vacation and are back to normal this week. I'll write more soon about how much fun Haleigh had.

Here are some still shots from the video I took in the hot tub. She really loved getting in the "wah-der" and sitting on her little step. She wouldn't go much farther in; she preferred to sit on her "chair" as she called it. I like taking shots from video because it really captures her personality. She doesn't have to sit and smile for the camera and she can just be herself. And I don't end up with 100 so-so photos, just lots of video to edit!

Cool Toy

2006-07-01T07:11:00.000-05:00

We are leaving for vacation today! Not going far, but at least it's away from home for a whole week! Time to relax.

I probably won't be posting while we're gone but I may throw in a surprise. To tide ya over, here's some more sugary sweetness in the form of video. Watch for the part where Haleigh tries to beat me over the head with a birdcage perch.

Have a good week everybody!

This Little Piggy...

2006-06-27T20:22:00.000-05:00

Lately Miss Haleigh is obsessed with her feet. She will look at her toes over and over, move them apart, and wiggle them back and forth again and again. I have no idea what the fascination is with her toes. Her Mimi (grandma) did tell me that yesterday (when this all started), her feet were dirty after playing outside and she didn't like that so they had to go and specifically wash her feet off. Maybe she's just checking them again tonight. See the pics below from AFTER her bath... so there's no dirt in those piggies!

It's not always that foot either... she switches back and forth between feet over and over.

and again a little later while watching tv...

Oh yes, she pulls her own hair when she's frustrated. Nice.

Tidbits

2006-06-24T08:49:00.000-05:00

See Haleigh count to ten... with just a little help from me!

While I was editing that video, the bird kept hearing himself and totally freaking out that there was ANOTHER! LOVEBIRD! And Haleigh kept saying "all right!" She also says "alrighty" but it sounds like "alrooghty" or something.

Chad and I were both home yesterday but he had to work this morning, so when I got Haleigh up today she immediately went to our bedroom to look for Daddy. She spoke her first full sentence today! She looked at the empty bed, turned to me with her hands in the air and said "Where's Daddy!?" I wish I had the camera out for that. She uses "where" a lot now to ask about things.

Yesterday Haleigh and I went to lunch with Kristy and then visited Kristy's sister and her boys. I have a camera photo of Haleigh and Liam (almost 3 years old) on the swingset but I can't get it to the internet because I guess I cancelled that feature on my plan. Anyways, they had tons of fun and Haleigh had her first wagon ride. She was so excited to play with Liam and he just kept cracking up laughing at her. She was such a good girl, and she even left Conor's binkie alone (he's almost 2 weeks old! a little peanut!)

I can't believe how much she sleeps. Yesterday, she woke up from a full night's sleep at 6:30am (kinda early for her) and went down for a nap from 8:30-noon! I don't like to wake her because she can be a grouch so I let her sleep. I got a lot of cleaning done! But then she napped again from 4:30-6:30, and went to bed easily at 9pm! She didn't get up this morning until 7am. She just likes to sleep I guess; we didn't do anything too high in activity level yesterday (just the wagon ride?) but she is still cutting those teeth on the top.

Hot Hot Hot

2006-06-17T19:37:00.000-05:00

Today we went to Grammie & Grandpa's for a small cookout and to lie around and bake ourselves in the 94F sun. I got quite a bit of sun, but I needed it. Haleigh had fun all day, playing in the water, eating crackers, eating ice cream, eating hotdogs... the girl likes to eat. Grammie gave her her very own cup of ice cream, and let her have at it. She did a good job!

Here you can see the latest bump and bruise... well it will be a bruise tomorrow. The mark on her forehead happened this morning when we went to get the mail. Her feet just got going too fast for her sandals to keep up and she went down. To go with this we have a bump-on-the-knee and a scraped shin. She almost fell in slow motion, but still managed to crash her head into the sidewalk.

bein' goofy with Mama

bein' dramatic

It was a great day!

Oh-kaaaay Break My Heart

2006-06-15T07:40:00.000-05:00

This teething thing can end any time now. Haleigh has been working on the two teeth on either side of her front two on the top for weeks now. Last night was the worst. I was warned by Mimi when I picked her up after work that it was going to be a fun night. She had been grumpy all day, but she actually wasn't bad in the evening. She ate well and we played with the bird, then she had a bath and was in bed by 8.

I woke around midnight to a tiny voice in the baby monitor.

Oh-kaaay... oh-kaaaaaaay in the most pitiful, sad voice. She says okay to reassure herself when she's scared or upset. I always say it's okay to her to calm her down, so she's learned to say it to herself when she's alone.

She had lost the binkie. Luckily I found it in the dark relatively quickly and rocked her for a minute. Back to sleep.

Around 2:30 am she did the same thing. Found the binkie again (under the same blanket) but she didn't want to rock. She just sat on my lap, staring at me. Kinda freaky.

I got out the Orajel, and once she realized what I was doing she spat out that binkie so fast it shot halfway across the room. Strange because I think I've only used Orajel on her one other time. But she seemed to like it and she settled right back down.

At 5:00 she woke up again. This time however, I could not find any of the 30 binkies that should be in that crib. Okay, maybe 5, but where did they all go? She was getting increasingly upset that I wasn't doing a damn thing to help her so since I couldn't remember if we had any binkies anywhere else in the apartment, I moved her crib away from the wall a few inches to look.

I couldn't squeeze back there enough to bend down and feel around for a stupid pacifier and I wasn't about to move the chair and everything. So I felt around with my foot. And found something! A tiny rubber duckie that I threw across the room into the toybox. Then, a binkie! Actually one of her favorite ones that I thought was gone forever and ever.

Haleigh had watched me through all this and even in the dim light she exclaimed binkie! But it was really gross and dusty. I couldn't give it to her like that, even in this extreme situation. So I left her room to go across the hall to the bathroom to clean it. Just across the hall. You'd think I went to Africa to clean the pacifier. I was gone 15 seconds but by the time I delivered the clean binkie, she was all sobbing and dramatic. But I rocked her for a few minutes and she passed out again.

Surprisingly when I went to wake her at 7:00, she was in a great mood and seemed well rested. Must be nice.

New Addition

2006-06-12T10:15:00.000-05:00

Chad and I celebrated our 5-year Anniversary last Friday (5 years together.) Sunday he took Haleigh and I to the new big pet store to get cat food for the cats and crickets for the geckos. Haleigh was having the best time running to one end of the store to look at the fish! and back to see the kitties! then the goggies! where she would bark at them and get them all wound up again. It was loads of fun chasing her around. Yep.

We looked at the fish, which I decided were way too boring, and we already have two aquariums with geckos so we don't need another glass box. I've always wanted a rat, because they're smart, but Chad wasn't interested. We looked at the birds for a while, and held a Conure and a Cockatiel and I asked Chad if he saw the Lovebirds. I thought they were very cute and friendly, but they were really skittish. I thought the Cockatiel was ugly, and the Conure cost way too much (but it can learn to talk!) About that time, Haleigh decided to bolt for the fish again, so I left Chad with the birds. I honestly thought we were just window-shopping.

Then all of a sudden, Chad comes strutting down an aisle towards us holding a cardboard pet carrier with a big cheesy grin on his face.

Me: What did you do?

Him: *grin* (hands me the box)

Me: ... (skeptically looking at potentially very expensive box)

Him: Happy Anniversary!

Me: Which did you pick?

Him: Just look!

He picked out the most beautiful of all the Lovebirds (the kind I wanted.) We don't know if he's a male or a female (DNA testing is the only way to be 100% sure?) so we are pretending he's a male because when he spreads his tail feathers, they're dark indigo.

And his name is Skittles, because he's colorful :o) and hopefully sweet! He's a month and a half old. He hasn't bit anybody, but he's not trained to step-up or anything yet, so we have to work with him. And keep him away from the cats. He doesn't like them much. They want to be friends with him. Yep.

Chad let him roam around the room today for a while (sans kitties) and when he went to check on him, Skittles was sitting on the windowsill singing with the birds in the tree outside.

And Haleigh says "birdie birdie birdie!" at any random moment when she happens to remember that there is a real live bird in the house.

Play Date

2006-06-09T20:19:00.000-05:00

We had a play-date with Averie and her mommy on Friday! The weather was funny though. It was hot. It was cool. It was hot. It was windy. But we had a nice time and Haleigh only tackled Averie once. Okay, it was just a hug-gone-bad I think because they both lost their balance and ended up on the ground. But for some reason Haleigh had Averie in a head-lock...

But Averie was cool with it and they played on. (I really think she was trying to get away from Haleigh and her 306 hugs and didn't know how else to get the mommies' attention.)

Sharing the veggie crackers.

Haleigh whispers: I'm not as innocent as I may appear. In fact, this look is probably the result of getting caught doing something I wasn't supposed to do. Like take all of the tissues from Mimi's box (I'm allowed to take one, and I know this because I point and say 'one.' But they're all right there just staring at me, begging to be shredded to bits on the living room floor.)

New words/phrases of the week:
bye-bye, take care!
ya morrow! (see ya tomorrow!)
cool bike cool bike cool bike, oh no (I have no idea why she throws in 'oh no' at the end)
oh my gosh
bunnies
fish face (Grandpa Jimmy squeezes her cheeks so she looks like a fish and says 'fish-face!')
get down! no no no (while shaking her index finger at whichever cat is on the counter/table/desk)

Laurie Lu, A-Z

2006-06-08T08:18:00.000-05:00

I've seen this one going around for a while, and I'm sure everyone's already done with it. But I wanted to do it anyway. :o)

Accent i'm from ohio, so i'm sure i say pop instead of soda.
Booze i am a lightweight, so i can sip stuff like malibu rum with pineapple juice, and my mom has just introduced me to coconut rum with lime and diet pepsi.
Chore i do the dishes and clean the bathroom, we both do the laundry and pick up after haleigh, and chad vaccuums. nobody cooks. working on that.
Dog/Cat we i have two cats, belle and shanahan, but i prefer dogs! (probably because shan is on a barfing-on-my-shoes streak again.)
Essential Electronics cell phone and my mp3 player when i can get it away from chad.
Favorite Perfume it's more of a body spray: love spell from victoria's secret.
Gold/Silver always silver or white gold.
Insomnia no way i sleep great. only when i was struggling to nurse haleigh (first three weeks) was when i didn't sleep. since then she has slept and we have slept!
Job Titles Mommy, Staff Accountant.
Kid(s) Haleigh Rose, born 1/31/05. hopefully one more.
Living Arrangements nice 3rd floor apartment with chad and haleigh, two cats and two geckos.
Most Admirable Trait i'm a good listener i think.
Number of Sex Partners not that many.
Overnight Hospital Stays only when i had haleigh last year.
Phobias spiders, snakes, all the normal girly stuff... oh and confrontation.
Quote right now it happens to be "don't put that in your mouth!"
Religion i do not participate in a religion.
Siblings one little brother, almost 6 years younger than i, but almost 6 feet taller.
Time You Usually Wake 6am during the week, 8am on the weekends if i'm lucky.
Unusual Talent it's not that unusual, but i learned to pick up stuff off the floor with my feet when i was pregnant.
X-rays a few, but only at the dentist i think. maybe one when i was a baby?
Yummy Foods I Make enchiladas yum.
Zodiac Sign technically leo, but i am two days away from virgo. my personality is as far as it gets from a leo, but i am a fine virgo so i'll go with that.

New Contests

2006-06-06T20:43:00.000-05:00

I've added the latest photo contests to the sidebar. You can vote for each once per day.

Shutterfly's First Year of Life - through August

I think I've used this picture before for a contest, but it's one of my favorites. Hal is 9 months old here.

Shutterfly's Glad to be a Dad - through June

Haleigh is about 10 weeks old here.

The links will be in the sidebar until the contests are over so please vote every day!

Thank You!

Heh I just noticed I got her birthdate wrong on the first one. Oops! I need to go to bed...

Bedtime

2006-06-06T07:00:00.000-05:00

Haleigh and I have a nice bedtime routine right now. After dinner, we play for a bit with Chad or go outside, then have a quick bath at 7:00. She's not too interested in playing in the tub, so we pretty much just wash and get out.

After I get a diaper on her, the lotion-monster comes and gets her (a.k.a I lotion her up while tickling her and growling like a goofy monster) and then I chase her around the apartment a few times to put her pajamas on because she's a great escape artist and doesn't like clothes too much (and she's a bit slippery from all that lotioning), and then we brush our teeth. She would let me brush her teeth for an hour; it's just the coolest thing to brush your four teeth like a big girl, you know.

After the tantrum settles, caused by putting the toothbrush away, we read Goodnight Moon in the rocking chair in her room. Two or three times at least. I point at each thing as I read and now she's starting to point with me. So fun to watch her learn.

We put the book away, and after she shows me where my teeth, tongue, mouth, nose, eyes (ouch), hair, and ears are a few times (that's her favorite thing to do when she's up close to someone... poke their eyes out and honk-honk their nose), we grab a binkie and put her in her crib. I also turn on the aquarium because having some noise in there helps her block out the sounds from outside, and me peeking in the door to check on her every 5 minutes :o)

So I lay her down and blow her a kiss. She blows me a kiss (from behind the binkie) with a smile and a bye-bye. Then I kiss the bottom of each foot twice (don't ask, this is a new one and I have no idea why she likes it) and throw her another kiss. I tell her to close her eyes and she squeezes them shut but opens them real quick (squinting, like I won't notice they're open) to see if I've left.

As I'm going towards the door, I tell her good-night. She lets out a little whine, but once she sees I'm seriously leaving, she rolls over and curls up with her tush up in the air. She's out in less than two minutes.

This is a typical evening during the week because we are on a pretty good schedule. On the weekend however, things are so far from schedule it's exhausting. She sleeps in late usually, and we go places so her naps get all messed up, so she may not just roll over and go to sleep like the angel she normally is. But hey, it's just more time I get to spend with her so I'm really not complaining!

Something funny she does when she's pretending to be not tired is she'll throw her binkie out of the crib into the middle of the room, then stand up and just sob 'binkie, binkie' in the most dramatic, pathetic, weak cry. She wants me to think it just fell out of her mouth and ended up there, but I've seen her fling it and then collapse against the rail sobbing because she knows I won't let her cry. Oh the drama.

Sometimes I go in, pick it up, put it in her mouth, say good-night and leave again. The moment I walk in, she starts saying 'hi, hi, hi, hi' with her arms in the air for me to pick her up, trying to get my attention.

Sometimes I stay and rock her, sometimes I don't. That's just what works for us.

Changes

2006-06-03T23:04:00.000-05:00

Sorry I had to change the design again. I don't have any new interesting content, so I have to do something to make things appealing around here. So it's back to pink, because after all, that would be Haleigh's favorite color if she could tell me. I just know.

I was planning to start another blog just for myself and my own rants and memes, as to not poopy up Haleigh's site with my ramblings. But most of the other blogs I read incorporate both writing and baby stuff all into one, and I realized that really anything I would write about would have to do with Haleigh in some way, so it may as well be on her site.

So I'm going to try it here, along with commenting more on the blogs I read, and see what happens because I do like to write and I don't have time to keep up with two blogs. I'll try to keep things interesting here. Thanks for reading.

2006-05-31T20:56:00.000-05:00

This was the smacking of the lips and saying "ahhhh!" after a drink of Grammie's iced tea.

Getting sprayed by the sprinkler.

That's cold water!

Happy 16 months Haleigh Rose!

2006-05-28T19:52:00.000-05:00

Some random shots from the weekend - sorry they were taken with the camera phone and the quality isn't the best. We took some good ones tonight with the digital and they will be up shortly!

We went to a little tiny mall and they had a nice play area with lots of these houses and jungle gyms with slides and stuff. All she wanted to do was go in and out of this one house. Open door, shut door, open door, push buttons on phone, say hi to me, open door, close door. It was just tragic when we had to leave.

Swinging at Grandpa's house. We determined tonight that Haleigh's name for him is Pa-Poo. And her name for my mom is Ma-Moo. She totally came up with that on her own. Ask her to say Grandpa/Grandma or ask her 'who is that?' and she says Pa-Poo and Ma-Moo. Chad's parents are Mi-Mi and Poppa, also chosen by Haleigh.

At my grandparents' house last weekend I think. She didn't want me taking her book away from her to pack up and leave.

Back at Ma-Moo and Pa-Poo's house, Haleigh got to ride on the golf cart! In my lap of course because we don't know what she has in that cup - no drinking and driving!

She likes it when I put lip balm on her. So to keep her quiet for a minute in the car, I gave it to her (the cap is on). At first she was pretending to use it, but then she started chewing on it! The four teeth on both sides on the top have been working their way in for a while now.

More pictures soon!

2006-05-23T20:16:00.000-05:00

Lately when we go out to eat, Haleigh gets to play with crayons a little. But I'm still worried she'll take a bite out of one. Monday night I dug out a box of chunky size Crayolas from when I graduated (gag gift) and let her have at it. She wasn't too into marking on anything though, she just wanted to play with the paper (she can say paper) and hand the crayons to uncle Rob and take them back over and over. She tried to hold all 8 in her hands at once and that was funny watching her because she was so determined to do it. We were working with her on her colors too with the crayons, but all she would do was repeat what we said. It's so fun watching her learn.

deciding which color to give up

2006-05-22T12:41:00.000-05:00

I'll be back this week with an update and some pictures for sure (I promise!) but in the meantime, I went to the BabiesOnline.com site to check out the final round of that last photo contest Haleigh was in. She didn't make it to the finals, but one of the photos of another mom and baby is just amazing and I wanted to post the link to vote.

http://www.babiesonline.com/babycontest/votepage.asp?page=2001

It's the photo on the bottom row in the middle... Baby S.

Just amazing.

2006-05-15T12:26:00.000-05:00

Not much for an update, but we had a nice weekend. Friday I was off but the weather has been so crappy here we just stayed inside and played and took naps on the couch.

Saturday we went to a baby shower and Haleigh had so much fun with the other kids. She didn't care if they were girls, boys, 2 years old, or 7 years old - she wanted to play! She thought playing was sitting down I think because she would screech "Play!" and run up to one of the kids and plop down on her butt. They would take off playing tag or something and she would get up and chase them. She interrupted the boys playing with little tractors at one point and scooped up a couple and took off with them. They were kind of peeved but understood. I think she just wanted them to get up and chase her. The whole time I kept standing up at my seat to watch her little "bug" pigtails bobbing up and down all over the room. People would see me looking for her and say "she's right over here!"

She was good with the gifts; only stuck her hand in a bag once to get a baby doll. My mom and grandma made the mom-to-be a diaper cake (three-tiered "cake" made of rolled up diapers) and they had strung toys and pacifiers all over it. Hal saw the binkies and really wanted one. She's been asking for one a lot this weekend. Last night we were tickling her on the bed and saw two new teeth on the top almost poking through. Explains that.

Other than that babyshower, nothing much to report. We had dinner Sunday with my parents and brother, which was soooo good, and played and played with Haleigh. She makes funny faces now, and plays pretend sometimes. She makes slurping noises with her doll's sippy cup. She also loves to unpack things. Like purses, drawers, boxes of DVDs... anything. And she's quick.

Oh, some of her new words include paper, clothes, diaper, heroes (Higgly Town Heroes) and farmer.

A new Haleigh-ism is Mickey Mouse = MA MOOSE!

Haleigh-ism

2006-05-10T12:14:00.000-05:00

The Wiggles = GOOGLES!

New look?

2006-05-09T14:31:00.000-05:00

Hmmm... I will be tweaking with the new layout for a few days I'm sure. We needed something new. Something not pink... :o)

2006-05-07T20:05:00.000-05:00

Thank you all for voting in the photo contest!

I took Haleigh to the little ~~park~~ set of swings tonight after dinner and we played and played. After about every little girl in the complex had a turn pushing her in the baby swing, she asked to go home and get ready for bed.

HAHAHA - Okay, what really happened was I had to slow her down and ask at least 10 times if she was ready to go. Each time was answered with "SWIIIINGG!!" and monster grips on the swing's chains. She could even make her feet get caught so I couldn't lift her out. So we stayed quite a while.

After promises of a bath, seeing Daddy, and a snack, that might be pudding (yes I sometimes bargain with my 15-month old), we said goodbye to the swing and her new friends, and tearfully made our way home. On the way, she looked up and saw the bright moon in the sky and said "balloon!" I told her that no, that is the moon, like in Goodnight Moon. She thought for a second, looked around, and said "cow?"

Her favorite part of the book is the cow jumping over the moon.

Was she looking for him?

Photo Contest

2006-05-03T21:29:00.000-05:00

Please vote for Haleigh! She is on page 5, and voting is May 1 - 7. I think you can vote once per email address per day. Thanks!

http://www.babiesonline.com/babycontest/votedo.asp

15 Month Check Up

2006-05-03T19:29:00.000-05:00

Haleigh had her 15 month check up today and everything looks good! She weighs 20.5 pounds and is 30 inches tall. That's only 2 pounds more than her 12 month visit, and she is the same height! But she seems so much taller to me now. The dr. isn't worried though. Haleigh started out a the top of the charts (9 lbs!) and then slowed way down on weight but kept getting taller. Now she's evened out at the 35th percentile for everything - weight, height and head circumference. So it's all good.

She also got two shots - one at a time because the MA couldn't find anyone to help her give the second simultaneously. That's torture I think to drag it out, but what could I do? Oh, yes that's a sting there, but hold on and let me put this empty syringe down, and now I'll pick up the next one, and get the cap off, then oh, there's another sting... yeah I don't like that part probably as much as Haleigh doesn't like it. But she stopped crying as soon as I told her she could carry the copay up to the desk and hand it to the lady. That made her smile.

When we got home, she pulled her bandaids off herself and threw them in the trash like a big girl. We had some juice and watched JoJo (I love TiVo!) and then dinner. After that we went outside and took some pictures. My camera ate more than half of them (I'm using an old memory card for now) but here's what was left:

Tall and skinny!

We love sandal weather! and painted toesies!

a little musician...

She loves sitting on her chair and playing at her table!

2006-04-28T19:21:00.000-05:00

Happy 15 Months Haleigh-bug

Bubbles!

2006-04-27T19:31:00.000-05:00

Uncle Rob came over for dinner tonight and we busted out the bubbles from Easter. Too much fun!

Let me do it... oh-kay, oh-kay, oh-kay!

It's not 'Tru-eee' and 'Hei-eee' any more, it's 'Tru-DEE' and 'Hei-DEE'... she's finding all her letter sounds!

We have the Fridge Farm Animal Magnets and Haleigh's finally figured out how to work them. In the past she would just carry the thing around, pressing the Farmer Tad button to play the music like a little DJ, but now she actually tries to put the animal halves in the spots. But she gets reeeally frustrated if they don't pop right in. And everything was a cow tonight. She knows what they are, but we would ask her what each one was and she'd say 'cow.'

And the last thing I needed to update on is this: she puts things away! She loves cleaning up her toys! Chad is in heaven! (if you don't know him, he's just a touch OCD-ish and can't stand clutter) When she's done eating, she'll even hand me her plate nicely now instead of flinging it on the floor! And then wipe her mouth! I may be too excited about this, but she's like a little lady and it's so cute.

Balloons and Lollipops

2006-04-25T14:31:00.000-05:00

Mommy had the day off today so we went out to Daddy's work to say hi. Haleigh got a balloon!

it was a HUGE balloon

Just couldn't take it anymore...

Then we went and saw puppies and kitties had lunch with aunt Kristy! The lady at the restaurant gave us lollipops and Haleigh got to have her first sucker. She did well and didn't get things too sticky. She even kept it out of her hair.

misc pictures playing outside, in the car etc.

2006-04-21T19:36:00.000-05:00

two cute little bottom teeth...

plus two huge top teeth... (that's quite a gap there?)

= the cutest baby ever!

Her nose has healed pretty well... still somewhat red but it's still healing. We are very careful now outside; she likes to hold Mommy's hand!

Haleigh's great-great Aunt made this poncho and hat (among many others!) this past Christmas. They are still a little big, but I couldn't resist playing dress-up with them.

she got her hand stuck

threatening the Disney channel with her stolen nipple brush? last time I bought a new bottle brush (good for sippy cups) she thieved the mini brush that came with it. she carries that thing around "cleaning" everything with it, or trying to brush her hair with it, and saying "oh pretty pretty"... too funny.

2006-04-16T19:37:00.000-05:00

2006-04-14T18:22:00.000-05:00

not enough time to go to the park tonight, but there's swings at our apartment complex!

be careful!

2006-04-13T19:31:00.000-05:00

Yep... it was just too quiet in there...

That took her about 30 seconds. But then she helped me clean it all up; she handed me each shirt or pair of pants and I folded it and put it back.

Yay for Spring!

2006-04-12T19:49:00.000-05:00

Didn't think I'd have any pictures or stories to post until after tax day, but we took pictures tonight at Grammie and Grandpa's with the flowers:

Well we're smellin' all the flowers... does this light smell too?

she wasn't eating them... just smellin'

camera phone pics - click to make bigger, then click the box in the bottom right to make fullsize

2006-04-05T19:51:00.000-05:00

Who told her she could grow up so fast? 14 months?!

Ah, the remote... and she knows how to use it!

workin on getting rid of that binki... she's gotta have her "dinty"

2006-04-03T21:02:00.000-05:00

So yeah, that's the cat's bed there that Haleigh has kinda adopted as her own... something, I don't know what she thinks it is. The the cats are looking on confused as ever as to why a baby would want to play in their bed. I don't get the fascination either but she kinda plays pretend in there. She moves it around the living room and gets out to get some toys, then gets back in.

Then Sunday we had a mishap. Haleigh is walking so well now that she tries to run. She thinks it's funny when she tumbles on the carpet, but when she's outside on concrete and she trips over her big feet, THAT is what happens. Look at that nose! She landed face first on the driveway. Luckily though she didn't hit her mouth because those new teeth are sharp! (we found that out LAST week when she took a dive on a the hardwood floor at baby Michael's house) She got two teeth now; her top right and bottom left. Funny to watch her work them together to chew because they're on opposite sides.

A better view of the damage while eating dinner Monday. She scraped her forehead too but it's hard to see because of her birthmark. I just had to show you all these pictures because everyone else is doing it... like here! and here! Yay for spring!

Haleigh-isms

2006-03-31T20:52:00.000-05:00

Until today, I didn't think Haleigh had her own words for anything. She pretty much uses the right words, once she says "DAT!" and you tell her what it is. But while reading other blogs about baby-isms yesterday, I realized that she does have at least one weird "Haleigh-ism."

When I picked her up after work Wednesday, she pointed to the porch and said "wee-wee" It took me a minute to figure out what she was saying. Her toddler swing is on the porch and she calls it a wee-wee because she says "weeeee!" when she's swinging in it!

Someone - but I won't say who - taught Haleigh that sticking her finger in her nose was something funny to do. So she would do it just to get a laugh. Well that's just gross, so now when she sticks her finger in her nose, we say "beep beep!" and she squeezes her nose instead and says "beep beep" and we laugh about that. But then she has to go around beep-beeping everybody's nose for them.

She's gotten really tall lately, but is still skinny in the waist. Her 12 month pants fit great but are too short, and her 18 month pants fall down constantly. I guess she'll wear overalls until it's warm enough for capris and shorts! She's so tall she can get off the couch by herself like nothing. Soon she'll be climbing on everything.

2006-03-30T20:49:00.000-05:00

pebbles pony tail

outside playin' - gotta have TWO balls, and her mardi gras necklace

don't try to take one away

and another carseat shot for Holli - she was hamming it up for the camera

2006-03-29T21:10:00.000-05:00

A little bit of cuteness...

Haleigh will point at something or hold it up to you and say "DIS!" (this?) so you can tell her what it is, then she tries to repeat what you say once or twice before saying "DIS!" about something else.

She knows what a cup is, but she can't say "cup" - she turns it around and says "puck."

One from the car yesterday - loving my camera phone!

dinner the other night...

This one is from last summer - I went back through some old ones and played around with Picasa on them. Look how chubby her cheeks were!

And some hands & feet at different ages :o)