15 Months

There’s a part of me that hates writing entire posts about Hailey. Sometimes I very strongly dislike the fact that 90% of our blog is about Hailey. I love Hailey, and everything she does (well, almost everything.) But I also realize that not everyone loves Hailey as much as I do. And Hailey is not the only member of our family. I need to be better about documenting more about me and Kyle’s lives. With that said, yes, I am writing yet another all about Hailey post. I do it because I need to. For a few reasons. The biggest being, I am a terrible, terrible journal writer. I do better than Kyle (I don’t think Hailey or I yet exist in his journal), but I still don’t write enough. Especially with all of the new things Hailey is doing everyday. I just know that if I don’t write it down here, it won’t get written down, and someday Hailey is going to ask me what she was like as a baby and I won’t remember all of the fun (and not fun) details anymore.

So, on to Hailey.

Here we are at 15 months, so, so, so looking forward to 18 months. Because that equals nursery, which in turn equals a break while at church and happiness for all of us, Hailey included.

I really try not to look forward too far. I try to enjoy Hailey just the way she is. But sometimes I get a little antsy for her to grow up just a little bit. (Like in this post.) For instance, I really look forward to the day that Hailey begins to say real words, not just “ba-boo” or “thsss” (interpreted as “this”, I think.) Hailey talks, all the time.  On Sunday, we didn’t even make it through the sacrament. I had to take her out to the foyer because she was talking so loud. (There was a baby sitting in front of us and she kept announcing “day-dee, day-dee” to everyone. And then began to throw a fit if I turned her away from the baby or attempted to distract her attention with books.) I spent the rest of sacrament meeting hanging out in the foyer with her, and twin boys who are just days older than her. I guess we’re not the only ones with difficulties at church. Except for at church, when it’s super distracting to others, I really enjoy listening to Hailey babble on, and on, and on. I just wish I knew what she was saying. She has her words for some things, which I sometimes understand. Like baby, banana, cheese, book, ball, bird, light, bye-bye, hi, mom, dad, this, apple, football, and downstairs. These are pretty unrecognizable to anyone but me and Kyle, with the exception of baby, banana, bye-bye, hi, mom and dad. If she doesn’t know how to say something, she often refers to that item as “this”. Which can get super frustrating for both of us when I can’t always tell what she’s pointing at. For now I’m trying super hard to be happy with the few words that she does have, and definitely look forward to those to come.

Hailey still eats pretty much anything. On occasion she’ll pull something out of her mouth and hand it to me, because she doesn’t want to eat it. Gross, I know. Anytime I ask Hailey what she wants to eat, she almost always responds very promptly with “mmmm…. banana.” If she has already had a banana that day, or has eaten our whole supply of bananas, I ask her what else she wants. She then replies with “mmmm… cheese.” If that is also not an option, she then replies with “this”, and points to the cupboard where I keep her food and snacks. If I ask her if she wants a snack she responds with “sss”, and heads for the kitchen. She knows exactly where the things are that she wants the most.

She has started to feed herself with a spoon or fork. It makes a mess when she does it, and she still needs my help to scoop it up. Anytime I try to feed her she grabs for the spoon and tries to do it herself.

If she had her way, she’d forego the utensils and dig in with her hands. This is what happens when I’m not looking.

Hailey is starting to mimic more and more of what she sees us and others do. It’s so spontaneous that it’s often pretty hilarious.

She loves the song “If You’re Happy and You Know it”. She loves to clap along. She also really likes what we call “the bees”. I don’t know what it’s really called. It’s a little game about the beehive, with 5 little bees hidden, that one by one appear and tickle her. We started doing these recently after seeing them done at storytime at the library. In the welcome song they always sing they have the children roll their arms. Just this last time we went Hailey started to pick up on how to roll her arms.

Occasionally Hailey is a good helper. If I ask her to, she will put away her shoes, or throw things in the garbage. She also likes to take things out of the garbage, but that’s another topic, filed under motherly frustrations. She still has a nighttime pacifier, or three, but those stay in the crib all day long. In the morning when I get her out of her crib, if she has a pacifier she will take it out and throw it in the crib and sign “thank you”. She also likes to reach into her crib and pull out any pacifiers within reach. If I ask her to put those away, she very obediently puts them back in her crib. It’s the things like that, that she does that make me most happy.

Hailey loves books. We read books a few times everyday. She loves pulling out books, bringing them to me, and sitting down in my lap to read. When she’s done with that book, she gets up, grabs another one and sits back down. We also catch her reading alone in her room pretty often. I think she looks at books more often on her own than playing with her toys.  She points out letters, and sometimes recognizes the letters A and O.

She kicks a soccer ball like a natural. Kyle is really excited for it to warm up outside so he can take her down to the park and kick around the ball with her.

Hailey has started to show a little bit of some tantrums. If I ask her to do something she doesn’t want to do, like put her books away, or give a toy to another child, she often throws herself back or on the ground and puts up a fight. Other than those few times she is a really happy and friendly child.

Hailey is so outgoing. She always has been. She smiles and says hi to people at the store, or people we see outside. She even waves to cars as they drive by down the street. She loves other children and immediately goes up to them to say hi. I get a lot of comments on how fun and happy she is. It’s true, she really is.

Our child has the odd abilities to turn her tongue over 180 degrees (and chew on it), and blow spit bubbles.

Anytime Hailey wants to get down from somewhere she signs “all done”. We went to the doctor last week and poor Hailey was still traumatized from her stitches. She cried and cried and repeatedly signed to me that she was “all done”. At the store today, Hailey also signed to me that she was “all done” when she wanted me to let her out of the cart to go and explore on her own.

She continues to be extremely easy to put down for naps or go to bed. If I ask her if she’s tired, wants to sleep, or wants a nap, she quickly waves and says “bye-bye” and heads for her crib. The same goes for bedtime, she happily blows kisses as she walks to her room. We’re really happy she’s become such a great sleeper.

Hailey is sporting six teeth, four on top, two on bottom. Brushing has been a struggle, until I figured out to sit her on the counter and brush them. It’s still not easy, but at least we don’t get any tears anymore.

We love our Hailey and her craziness, and are exciting to see what’s in store for us in the upcoming months.