New Taste Sensation

I remember when I was so excited to feed Hailey solid foods, so excited that she could eat on her own. Ha…what was I thinking???? Meal times are becoming a struggle between what I am serving and what Hailey wants, which is almost always one of three foods – grapes, yogurt, and quesadillas. Since when does she know what she wants to eat?

She’s also enthralled with anything that is a dip – mustard, ketchup, salad dressing. This morning I was making sandwiches while Hailey ate her oatmeal. Not a minute later, she was demanding mustard on her oatmeal. So, she had mustard oatmeal for breakfast. Sure, I could have not given her the mustard, but what fun would that be?

Easter Surprise

Yesterday the Easter Bunny brought us the miracle of our first poop on the potty. Just thought you should know.

Pictures from Hailey's first Easter Egg Hunt are forthcoming.

Toddler Translations

Eating ketchup with a fork...mmmm.

Hailey's language skills are improving exponentially everyday, but in the meantime, we still have to do a little interpretation when she speaks. Here are a few of my favorite Hailey phrases along with their adult translations:

"I spilled" - Mommy, while you stepped away for a second to grab a diaper, I took the opportunity to pee on your carpet. Please spend the rest of your morning cleaning it and me up. Thanks.

"Up, up, up" - Actually, I'd like you to put me down in the middle of this crowded store so that I might run away from you, pull things off the shelves, and throw a tantrum when you ask me politely to stop.

"Poopie potty" - Please take off my clothes and my diaper so that I can sit on the potty to let out one tiny toot.

"Bubbles" - I would like you to hand me the bubbles so that I can turn the bottle upside down, take the cap off, and watch the bubble stuff spill all over my legs.

"Brush teeth" - Please put some water on my toothbrush so that I can suck the water out without the brush ever touching my teeth.

"Tub" or "Shower" - I would like to get in the tub or the shower so that I can play with my toys in the water. Do not, however, attempt at any time to wash my body, let alone my hair. The consequences for this will be dire (and wet).

"Mine" - Whether or not you are holding the object or I am holding the object is inconsequential because that object is now mine. Whether or not you've owned the object for your whole life or five minutes is also inconsequential because that object is now mine, and the most important possession I've ever owned.

"Clean up" - I've dumped many rubberbands, crackers, letters, etc on the ground. I will now sing this song as I pick up two of them, hand them to you, and then leave the rest for you to clean up yourself. You can thank me later for teaching you how to clean up.

"Dip it" - I would like you to squirt a huge dollop of ketchup onto my plate so that I can dip my fingers in it and suck it off. Do not try to trick me by squirting anything else, like mustard, on to my plate. I will sit here and refuse to eat until this task is complete.

Lucky Stars

The extent of our damage. Our downspout is now a horizontal spout.

This is the house diagonal to ours. I took this from my porch.

Damage to a business near our house.

Lots of windows smashed out all around us.

As you may have heard on the news, Atlanta was hit with a series of tornadoes last night. Living so close to the city, our neighborhood also experienced some serious damage. Luckily, our house only lost a downspout, although we haven't gotten on the roof yet.

Just to recap, we heard the locomotive noise typical of a tornado at around 10:00ish. Luke and I were on the ground floor when he said that I should run up and grab the baby. I ran up the two flights of stairs, but was trying to carefully lift her without waking her. As I was lifting her, I heard him on the ground floor yelling for me to hurry. The noise outside was getting louder, the house was shaking, debris was hitting the windows, and I was struggling to see down the steps as I raced down with Hailey in my arms. In the meantime, Luke had opened the front door only to realize that he could barely get it closed even while throwing all of his weight against it. The three of us (plus Josie) crammed into the downstairs closet which Luke had quickly cleaned out. We waited for it to go by, but didn't understand the extent of the damage until the next morning. What struck me afterwards was just how little time we had from the time we figured out what was going on to the point at which it was really dangerous. If we had been watching tv and heard the warnings, it would have been different. GA might also consider investing in some tornado sirens.

Several houses in our neighborhood lost their aluminum chimneys, but the real damage was sustained on the streets that have older homes and trees. About 5-6 of the houses on the street directly across from us were crushed by trees, some of which had been completely uprooted. The damage was extensive, but I believe there were no injuries. Here are a few shots we snapped while driving around in the morning. We didn't get many of the houses because that road was basically shut down. Now that we have power, I thought that I would drop a quick blog to let everyone know just how lucky we are feeling today.

First Day of Pig Tails

We're already losing them by this point, but you get the idea.

She likes eating dry tortillas, don't ask me why!

Ok maybe "day" is an exaggeration. It was more like pig tails for 3 minutes on the side that Mommy did and 6 minutes on the side that Daddy did, but it was a start! Of course, we had to resort to plopping her in front of the TV watching Little Einsteins while we deftly maneuvered the microscopic rubber bands into place. At least she was sitting on the potty the whole time. I call that multi-tasking at its best. So, here are the fruits of our labor or what's left of them about 2 minutes into it.

Hitting a Nerve

Hailey and Josie snoozing on the way back from Nashville

Hailey "washing dishes" at the Children's Museum

Trip to Target

We do not hit Hailey – no spankings, no swatting her hand, no light swats on the butt, nothing. We do not hit each other. We do not hit the dog or the cat. So, where in the world is my child learning to hit????

For Hailey, it’s becoming a natural way to emphasize her disapproval; for me, it’s becoming a painful reminder of my failures as a parent. Ok, maybe it’s not that bad, but she is starting to hit whenever she disagrees with a current Mommy policy. She clearly thinks that it’s a game. I put her in timeout whenever she does it, but she doesn’t really understand the whole timeout concept yet. Any advice on how to stem this hitting before we get too violent?

Oh, here are some pictures from the past few weeks. I should have some from our weekend trip to Nashville on Flickr soon.

Car Sick

From time to time, our little angel baby gets car sick. It’s happened maybe four or five times, usually while driving on winding roads or with a coat on. Since Luke, Hailey, and I carpool every day, I knew that at some point, we’d have an incident. Surprise…today is the day!!!!

I’ve often thought that I should put some towels in the car so that I could be prepared, but I never did find the time. I paid for that today when the inevitable happened all over Hailey, the car seat, the car, etc. I guess that there was just a lot of starting and stopping this morning due to the rain and the ridiculous Atlanta traffic.

All things considered, it wasn’t that bad. She recovered very quickly, Luke and I changed her into her extra outfit at school, and life went on as usual. Well, except for the stench that is stuck in my nose, on my hands, and in my car. Oh well just one more adventure in parenthood. Thank goodness Luke and I were together or I might have had a little meltdown, but Daddy is great in these crises.