Wednesday, May 14, 2008

First Mother's Day!

Sorry I let so much time go by since my last entry. Our life has been very full these past few weeks with family in town visiting, and a heavy work load, so I haven't had much time to update this blog. In fact, I haven't even really taken many photos lately, which is really out of character for me. But now that my family has flown home, I finally have some time to take a breath and write a little note. As nice as it is to have some down time, I do miss having family around. It's always so lonely after everyone leaves, and Hayden just looks around like "hey, where did everybody go?". He is used to constant entertainment, so spending time with just mom is pretty boring in his world.

Sunday was our first Mother's Day and it was so much fun. Hayden (aka Nate) bought me some beautiful plants that I am going to pot this weekend and put in my backyard. He cooked a wonderful brunch of eggs benedict for all of us (my Aunt Kathy and cousin Matt were visiting from Wisconsin, and my mom was here from Ohio), then we spent the day by our friend Kneila's pool. Hayden had a blast floating in his raft in the hottub, and we all got some fresh air and sun. I had some time to reflect on how amazingly lucky I am to have such a great family, and such a beautiful, happy and healthy son.

Although Hayden may be bored with his newly quiet household, he is anything but boring! He keeps Nate and I laughing all the time with his new tricks. His new thing is to say "kitty" whenever Evi comes around. I never thought that I would be writing "kitty" as his first word in the baby book! But it is clear as day and he only says it when Evi is around (although he will occasionally call Dallas and Lilly "kitty" too). We live right in the landing pattern for DFW airport so we always have planes flying low overhead, and my mom would sit outside with him in the morning and point to them. After two weeks of this routine, he has learned to point at airplanes too, although he has not yet mastered that word. He also will point at cars when they pass outside and say "car". It's so funny because now when he is in his carseat he will point out the window and repeatedly babble with an occasional "car" in the mix. He clearly likes his "k" sounds. He says mama and dada but I'm still not sure he associates the syllables with Nate and I, whereas he says "car" and "kitty" at the appropriate moments that make me believe he is actually making a connection.

He is also a solo stander these days. He did it for the first time on Saturday. I was holding his hands and encouraging him to walk towards me. He just got this very stubborn, confident look on his face, and he shook off my hold. Then he stood there, very steady, for about 10 seconds! I was shocked. Now that he is has done it once, he can't stop. He'll pull himself up on our coffee table, grab a toy (or lets be realistic - the TV remote), and just stand there playing with the toy with no support. Last night (and I wish we had this on film), he grabbed his sippy cup and started drinking with his head thrown way far back and both hands holding the cup. He started to get tipsy like he was going to tumble backward, and then he overcompensated by lurching forward and spitting all his water out in this huge arc before tipping over. He never cries when he tumbles - he just looks dazed for a moment and then it's right back to crawling, pulling up and standing. He is such a boy :)

Here are some photos of my busy baby:

Playing in the sand at Life's A beach


Hanging out with his Aunt Kath and Cousin Matt


At the pool on Mother's Day






With his grammy


With his friend at Going Bonkers