Happy Birthday, Jingle Bells!

Hayden's ears don't work very well.  We all know that by now.  What we don't know is how well they *do* work.

Hayden's showing some serious interest in music.  He likes to play guitar, recorder (Dad's favorite) and he likes to sing.  On a few recent birthdays, we've phoned up some friends and asked Hayden to sing 'Happy Birthday' to them.  It's a lot of fun and Hayden really gets excited about it.

This morning, he came into our room at 7:15am singing Jingle Bells.  So what do you do when your 3-year old comes in and wakes you up that way?  You turn it around and let him do it to someone else!!

We phoned up Uncle Dave's office and left a Jingle Bell voicemail.  Uncle Dave LOVES getting to his office only to see his voicemail light going blink-blink.  He just assumed it was his nemesis, but as it turns out it was Hayden.

It put a smile on Uncle Dave's face, and made us feel good at the same time.

We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Hayden's teacher Kim for really sparking this level of interest in the various holidays Hayden's been experiencing this year.  Halloween, Thanksgiving and now Christmas are MUCH more enjoyable when your child is allowed to participate in the discussion and preparation for them at school.

Where Santa comes from.

Thanks Kim...and THANKS HAYDEN!!

Travelling to ILMOOKTXARMOIL...Long Drive = Long Post

 THANKSGIVING 2010

Foolishly, when Uncle Adam and Aunt Kara asked us if we'd like to join them at their home just north of Houston, TX for Thanksgiving, we agreed on the spot.  It was June.  November was miles away and we were drunk on sunshine.  Then on the 17th or so of November it dawned on us that we couldn't back out.  So we loaded up the car and headed off down the road.

Day 1 - Urbana, IL to Nixa, MO - 400 miles

We were expecting to leave at roughly 11:00am.  We didn't leave until 1:00pm.  Pretty typical, but also pretty frustrating, since we need to be able to make some stops to help Hayden burn some energy. 

The trip was quite smooth.  We made great time all the way, and about 30 minutes from Grandma and Grandpa's house, we asked Hayden if he was excited to see them.  He FREAKED out!  There aren't sufficient words to describe just how loudly he squealed when he heard the news that all of his grandparents would be in the same place at the same time.  It was pretty flippin' loud.  Hayden loves him some Grandparents.

Day 2 - Nixa, MO - 20 miles

Mom and Grandma Hayden decided to hang Christmas lights in a hurricane, so Dad and Hayden went to a place to see some fish.  Bass Pro Shops in Springfield, MO.  It's pretty awesome, even if you're not the greatest hunting/fishing fan in the world.  They have stuffed bears, stuffed deer, stuffed snakes, living turtles, living alligator, living gar fish and living alligator gar fish.  It's quite a spectacle.

Hayden at Bass Pro Shops - Springfield, MO

Hayden was VERY excited.  He even got to drive a truck (remote controlled) and eat some popcorn (not remote controlled).

Dad decided to buy pizza for dinner for everyone.  Nixa has 11 pizza places....give or take.  Luigi's gets the best reviews on Google, so we decided to try it.  We called the number listed for them in Nixa, MO and they took my order, credit card info, the works.  Dad got in the car to go pick it up and after driving around their Nixa address for about 15 minutes with no luck, Dad decided to call them again.  'Oh yeah - we closed our Nixa restaurant and only have the one in Branson (30 miles south) open now'.  That's good information.  Information Google could use.  Bastards.

So Dad went to Big Mikes Pizza and Crab Shack or somesuch.  They bought the building from Luigi and kept the pizza ovens, recipes, etc.  They just changed the name of special items from things like 'The Luigi Special' to 'The Big Mike Special'.

So, long story short:  Kids like Bass Pro Shops and Big Mike's has decent pizza in Nixa, MO.  If you're in Branson, we'd probably recommend Luigi's.

Day 3 - Nixa, MO to Ft. Worth, TX - 480 miles

We got started today about 30 minutes late.  Not too shabby.  We took Grandpa Hayden's 'secret route'* out of town to cut time off of our trip. We didn't really stop until we got to Claremore, OK.  A little over 150 miles which is pretty good.

*a note on 'secret routes':  NOBODY has a secret route.  If they did, it would be the standard route.  It's a secret probably because you have to drive behind farm equipment and smell pig manure for 30 minutes or so.  Anectodal evidence: while trying to keep the peace with my brother's girlfriend in college, I decided to defer to her suggestion on a 'shortcut' to Chicago from Lake Geneva, WI.  I swear it took over 4 hours to travel that 80 miles.  I never listened to her advice again.  In part because my brother broke up with her, but mostly because she was an idiot.

We ate lunch in Claremore, which may or may not be the birthplace of Will Rogers.  Then we hopped back on the road towards Oklahoma City, OK.  We were going to stop at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, but they were closed that day.  Bastards.

*aside*
At this point, we'd like to share a little something with anyone who is potty-training a little kid.  You do your best.  You ask the right questions and you watch for the signs.  You'll never win them all, but you hope for a winning record.  Hayden's job, it appears, is to foil those plans.  We asked and asked in Claremore at the clean McDonald's with legitimate toilets if Hayden had to go potty.  "Nope.  Nothing right now.  I'm good."  So we had to take his word for it.

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him poop.

Literally 7 miles down the road, we got the call: 'Uh-oh...gotta go potty!!'  So we pull over just past a bridge.  Get out of the car in the moist (sprinkling) November air and get started.  Dad was support crew, Mom was too busy laughing to be much help at first, but she did come running with the wipes and a collapsible ziplock HAZMAT containment unit when called into action.

We did our job, and Hayden did the job of roughly 5 normal toddlers.  Kudos to you, buddy - I wouldn't want to have experienced that from your side of the transaction.
*end aside*

We got to Uncle Drew's house in Ft. Worth at about 6:00pm and then went to dinner.  Hayden was a little trooper, but the events in Claremore, OK really took it out of him.  He slept from roughly 2:00pm to 5:30pm when we stopped to fill up with gas.

Day 4 - Ft. Worth, TX - Approx 50 miles

We spent the day in the Ft. Worth area visiting Dad's cousin Kathy and then went to downtown Ft. Worth to see the Stockyards area.  The visit with Cousin Kathy was very pleasant, and it was good for Hayden to see her again (last time he was a micro-nipper).  Hayden fell asleep after having a bite to eat on the way to the Stockyards.

The Stockyards is an area of Ft. Worth that has had a place of prominence in the US for about 150 years.  Lots of cows have moved through Ft. Worth on their way to ranches and dinner tables all across the world.  Every day at 11:30 and 4:00 they have a few cowboys on horseback ride through the Stockyards area moving longhorn cattle from here to there.  It's odd, but we noticed that these bovine parades seem to coincide with the start of lunchtime and pre-dinner drinking time.  And do you know what else?  These clever buggers have put up tons of shops and restaurants right next door to all the action.  Either that or it's an unbelievable coincidence.

Sheriff Hayden

It was good fun.  Hayden got a cowboy hat, a Texas Ranger (unofficial) badge, and rode not only a horse named 'Bullseye', but also a longhorn steer named 'Big Jake'.  He told EVERYONE about his badge and showed them a squished penny.  We felt kind of bad for the construction crew who seemed nice and friendly, but with their earplugs probably couldn't understand a syllable of Hayden's excited jibberish.

Afterwards we went back to Drew's house and had dinner and watched a movie with Drew and his friend Laura.  Today was a very good day.

Day 5 - Ft. Worth, TX to Spring, TX - 270 miles

We got on the road to Uncle Adam's house at about 10:00am.  The trip was almost completely uneventful except that there were some pretty crazy billboards along the way talking about some place called Buc-ee's.  It's a chain of convenience stores, but they had billboards that said things like BEAVER NUGGETS and SAUSAGE ON A STICK.  Apparently one billboard near the Louisiana border reads ONLY 262 MILES TO GO...YOU CAN HOLD IT!

We got to Adam's at about 3:00pm.  Plenty of light left to head over to the playground and give Hayden a run.  He had the place all to himself.  His only competition - if you can call it that - was Uncle Drew.  We had a great time and spent a lot of that built-up energy from several days in the car.

Adam made a tasty pizza and we were all happy to be together as a family.

Day 6 - Spring, TX - 0 miles

Today was Thanksgiving Day!!  We had delicious croissants and eggs and bacon and whatnot.  After breakfast we did a mix of things.  Played with toys/watched Detroit lose to New England/played with toys/played at the playground/watched Dallas (actually Roy Williams) lose to New Orleans/ate a crapload of Turkey/ran up and down the hallway a million times/watched 'Bolt' a million times/went to bed.  It was all very low-key and enjoyable for everyone.

Thanksgiving Dinner at Adam and Kara's

We got some decent pictures of the family eating dinner, everyone had a laugh or two and a great time.

At one point in the meal, Hayden looked up and said (loudly) 'I LOVE TURKEY!'  It was very funny and made Chef Adam feel pretty good about the meal selection.

Day 7 - Spring, TX to Houston, TX - 60 miles (round trip)

'Black Friday' and we decided to roll the dice and head to one of the biggest shopping malls around - The Houston Galleria.  They have a Lego Store, we have a 3 year old boy.  When you think about it, it was destiny.

Hayden built 3 little Lego men from a series of buckets that look like a tiny Frankenstein laboratory, and we bought those along with a 700-piece bucket of generic bits and pieces.  We're pretty excited to see how far his imagination takes these toys.  His first attempt at building a house turned out like this:

Lego Construction Project - Alpha

On our way back to Adam and Kara's we stopped off at a couple of other stores.  One of these stores was dedicated to fishing and other outdoorsy pursuits.  Dad got a hat for Mom and Mom got a sweater for Dad that he isn't supposed to know about until Christmas.

Hayden looked at the fly fishing equipment.  He was fascinated by it, but the fishing rods are too big.  He wanted a chopped down version that was hanging on the wall so he could hold it...it was just right.  Hayden's really into Goldilocks and The Three Bears right now.  Hayden continued to walk around the store looking at the fishing stuff and then made a vow: "I want catch ALL fish!"  That's a pretty tall order, and I'm sure Greenpeace would have a thing or two to say about it, but we're happy to let him try.

After that, Mom wanted to look in a kitchen store, and we thought we'd let Hayden run around a bit.  It was chilly, but Dad taught him how to dodge the 'random' fountain gushes.  He was super thrilled.  We may have planted the seeds for a future running back here in Texas...Hayden is VERY good at water dodging.

We had a great time spending the day with Uncle Adam and Aunt Kara.  They seemed to have fun too.

Day 8 - Spring, TX to Nixa, MO - 630 miles

When possible, we like to do the return leg of a trip via a different route - that way we're not seeing the same thing over and over again.  This might have been a mistake in this particular instance.  We left Adam and Kara's at 10:00am on the button.  Very happy with that, but we really had no idea what we were in for.

The trip from Spring, TX to Little Rock, AR went by surprisingly fast.  Good roads, good speed limits, pretty countryside and low traffic.  That last 200 miles to Nixa, MO though - holy CRAP did that take forever.  It felt like Nixa was moving north at about 50 miles an hour while we were driving 65.  Hayden was an absolute champ.  Not a single complaint the entire time.  He took advantage of our 'out of car' time and soldiered on with his coloring book, stories, cheese sticks, etc. all the way to Grandpa's house.

When we got there at 10:45pm, he was a little amped up.  That lasted for about 10 minutes and he collapsed on Dad's arm at about 11:05pm.  Mom was done by 11:05 and 3 seconds.  She had taken some NyQuil to help stave off a cold she'd been fighting for the bulk of the trip.

Day 9 - Nixa, MO to Urbana, IL - 400 miles

We woke up and had a good breakfast at a place that had literally only been open 3 weeks.  It used to have a different name, and Grandpa said the food at the old place was junk...but we gave the new place a go and it was quite tasty.  Nobody died.

We hopped in the car at 10:30am and began the trek home, expecting fairly robust traffic.  We were right to expect that, but we made good time and got home by 5:45pm.

We stopped along the way for gas and a potty break...we made it a good long energy-burning stop at Exit 272 along I-44 where they have something for everyone.  Gas, Diesel (if that's your thing), Starbucks, McDonalds (with giant habitrail for little kids)...the works!

We probably spent 45 minutes there and relaxed a bit.  Dog got a decent stretch of her legs, Hayden got to crawl around the McTubes and he got two Happy Meal toys - a robot and a bunny watch.  He was very excited.

He was asleep about 30 minutes after we got back in the car and didn't wake up until we pulled in the driveway.  We couldn't have been more grateful to be home and finished with our drive.  We had a great trip and it was fantastic to see everyone.  There was very little drama, and everyone seemed to have a good time with everyone else.

Next time though, we're staying put.  After roughly 2300 miles, our butts are tired.

Is Hayden A Long Lost Relative of Pavlov's Dog?

Our boy appears to have developed some pre-programmed responses to certain things.  He's been around for a little over 3 years now - some habits are bound to form here and there, but some of these things are just ridiculous.

Daddy plays soccer a couple of times a week.  Every time Daddy puts on shorts, Hayden says "Daddy playing soccer!".  And then, when Dog barks in that 'HEYSOMEONEISAPPROACHINGMYHOUSE' sort of way - no matter what's going on or who might be sitting or standing in the room - Hayden will say 'OH! Daddy's Home!!'.  One time he shouted that Daddy was home while he was sitting on (actually, he was jumping on) Daddy's chest.  Perhaps being a front-line news reporter or a career as a forensic detective isn't in his future.

Another funny/odd/interesting/embarrassing thing Hayden does is his programmed response when he hears Mom or Dad burp.  There will be the customary guttural noise which will be immediately followed by '(parent) burped!  Disgusting!!'

His teachers have heard him say 'disgusting' before, but they interpreted it as 'that's nasty' - which is equally funny.

Other things that are important to know in the Hayden Lexicon:

• The garden where mom volunteers is always known as 'Mommy Work'
• One of his fake uncles is always known as 'Touchdown'
• Like a little redneck boy, when he finishes a cup of milk, he has a tendency to throw the empty.
• At bedtime, 'my arm' actually means 'your arm'...as in, "Father, would you mind terribly if I asked you to extend your arm so that I may use it as a pillow?  Thanks ever so much."  Hayden only says 'my arm', though.
• Also at bedtime, if he's not completely (and we mean COMPLETELY) asleep and you try to sneak out of the room, he's likely to beat the pillow like a marine who isn't pulling his weight.  This means you need to lie back down and do it now, because Hayden wants to snuggle.

We may add more here in the future, but so far it's been very interesting to discover the minutia that Hayden latches onto and adapts to his own lifestyle.

Our Boy Is NOT A Robot

While Hayden looks very much like his father, he does share some traits with his mother.  Examples of this can be seen in his 'hide-and-seek' prowess (ask him where he is and he'll tell you...even though he's supposed to be hiding), he defaults to running into a corner when playing 'chase' or 'tag', and in his tendency to cry at sappy parts of movies.

We've watched several Disney Classic, Pixar and DreamWorks movies and in those that we *know* something bad might happen, we're very careful with our little guy.

Our good friends' son couldn't watch the first 5 minutes of Monsters, Inc. because the opening scene is too scary.  Our little guy just laughs and screams as if he, himself scared a little boy and then tripped and landed on a pile of jacks.  It's quite funny, and a little nerve-wracking at the same time.

Last week we watched 'Beauty and the Beast' for the first time.  The 'bad guy', Gaston, storms into The Beast's castle and shoots him with an arrow, then continues to fight with him.  Hayden began to get teary-eyed and sat in Mom's lap.  And then, when Gaston finally gets what's coming to him, Hayden burst out with a huge YAY!! and applauded the fact that the 'bad guy' didn't win.

We also watched 'How To Train Your Dragon' and although we hadn't seen it before, we knew the basic formula of the movie and explained to Hayden that the main character isn't going to die in the first 17 minutes of the movie...it just doesn't make any sense (unless it's a bit more of an artsy movie and the entire film is a flashback).  We also explained that the dragon is hurt, and the boy is going to help the dragon get better and that they're friends...that this is a NICE dragon.

Hayden liked this idea quite a bit.  And he began to interact with the characters in that way for the rest of the movie.  At the end, the main character and the dragon have a very close call and for a minute Hayden was distraught...tears were welling up because he didn't know what was going to happen to the dragon and the boy.

When it was finally revealed that the main character did NOT die, Hayden was very excited and let out another YAY!! to rival the 'Beauty and the Beast' yay.

It makes us very happy to see Hayden get emotionally involved in these stories.  He genuinely cares about what's happening to others and wants to help and make sure they're alright.

We love our little guy.

YAY!!

I WANT ALL!

At school, Hayden's teachers and speech therapists write up little charts and send them home with the hearing/speaking goals they have targeted and achieved.  One of the sections of these forms is reserved for what they call 'Spontaneous Language'.

Another way to put it would be 'Miscellaneous Ramblings', but some of them are really quite funny and we'd love to know what's going through his head just before these blurt out.

One of these is in the title of this post.  He was in speech therapy with Kristin and I think they were discussing the differences between 'one' and 'some'.  In a serious breech of etiquette, Hayden decided to cut right to the chase and said 'I want all!'.  Apparently it took Kristin a minute or two to stop laughing because it was so unexpected.

At any rate, here are several examples from the last couple of months with absolutely no context to help make sense of them (since we didn't have any...they're just things that were written down on the forms).

* The snake is swimming.
* Bug is outside.
* That a ghost and spider.
* I want fish.
* I need blue.
* I pick this one.
* I stuck.
* The ghost is on.
* I calling daddy.
* Daddy, mommy and Hayden eat popcorn.
* That mommy holding a baby.
* I eating animal.
* Incredible is flying. (probably talking about Mr. Incredible)
* It so yummy.
* Mommy and daddy and Hayden football team.
* Look at my shoe!
* Daddy and Hayden swimming.
* Cow flying mooooooooo.
* Pumpkin eat my popcorn!
* I not eating cookie.  It's yucky!
* My mom a woman.
* Jump over rock.
* I want three eyes.
* Don't eat that boy, it's yucky!

That last one we actually do know about - we were watching 'How To Train Your Dragon' and at one point there's a dragon that looks like he might eat the main character.  Long story short, that dragon's breath stayed minty fresh because he listened to Hayden's advice.

TIME OUT FOR YOU!

Following an example Hayden's teacher uses for discipline at school, we printed off an outline of a little hand filled in with red ink.  This is taped on the back door at Hayden's shoulder height.

This is the spot for Time Outs.

We tried sending him to his room, but there's too much to do back there - time outs weren't much of a discouragement for bad behavior.  We also tried sitting him on a chair, but he can sit on a chair for days without being particularly bothered.

Finally we saw this sign in his new classroom and our collective lightbulb went on in our brains.

Since we've put it up, Hayden's only had one real time out.  It lasted 2 minutes (until an egg timer went off) and he's never been back.

Mom, however, has been ordered to time out repeatedly.  Mom play-punches Dad's arm, steals food off of Dad's (and Hayden's) plates, as well as being a general miscreant.  Hayden will not tolerate this (as well he shouldn't), so off Mom must go to Time Out.

At first we thought he was kidding, but then he got this very serious look on his face and said 'Mom - TIME OUT!'  Mom said she was sorry for whatever transgression pushed Hayden too far, but The Judge's sentence was final - TIME OUT!

She wasn't there long because Hayden is a benevolent magistrate, but now we're living day to day walking on eggshells never knowing what might set him off and land us a 2-minute minor or even a 5-minute major (those are references to a sport called 'Hockey').

We're not thrilled about being put in 'The Sin Bin', but he's learning about actions and consequences, using new language, putting pieces of mental puzzles together and that makes us very happy.

We love our little tyrant.

Who's Watching the Watches?

Dad has a watch.  Mom has several.  They usually just sit in a dish or in a drawer, but recently Dad changed his routine and wore his watch one day.

Hayden noticed immediately.  He wanted to know what it was and why he didn't have one and could he have *that* one that was on Dad's wrist because, after all, it most likely belonged to Hayden anyway and Dad was just borrowing it and Hayden thought he made himself perfectly clear by invoking the claim of MINE!

It turns out that it's a pretty nice watch and Dad didn't want to lose it - especially to a 3-year old.  So rather than deal with an incident of escalating magnitude each time we left the house, Dad decided to plunk down some money and buy Hayden his own happiness in the form of a watch.

 

This watch, as you can see, has Woody from Toy Story and all the numbers from 1 through 12.  We're not yet to a point where we're telling time, but we're definitely counting and Hayden's VERY happy with it.  He shows it to everybody who sits still long enough.  

And others who don't.

Hayden Is Cool. And In Other News, Dinosaurs Like Popcorn

While we were sitting at dinner tonight, Hayden was eating his food...and some of Mom's...and he stopped at one point and said "Hayden is cool!"

Mom and Dad had just been telling him what a good job he did for this or that when he dropped that little nugget of news on us.  If, at age 3, he's already telling us he's cool we must fear for our future as parents.

---

The other day, Grandma and Grandpa (the Wisconsin ones) sent Hayden a little prize in the mail.  A flashlight shaped like Rex - the dinosaur from Toy Story.  It looks like this:

We recently discovered that Hayden is a certifiable popcorn junkie and tonight when he was cramming his ration down his gullet, he stopped for a moment and picked up his new battery-powered friend...and then his voice changed (but only for the dinosaur's lines).

Dinosaur: Hayden, may I have some popcorn please?
Hayden: Here you go!
Dinosaur: (om nom nom)...Thank you, Hayden!
Hayden: You're welcome, Dinosaur!

Hayden was pretending to feed the dinosaur popcorn - even going so far has having Rex chew on it for a bit before saying 'thank you'.  This kind of abstract pretend play is apparently some kind of a big deal for little kids.

We don't know all the technical terms about what kind of neurons (or neuroses) this type of play triggers, but Mom and Dad were very excited to see it.

Our son is so cool!

REHSIUGNITXE ERIF Backwards is WALL-E

Hayden has finally gotten all the letters of the alphabet.  He's known them for a while, but only by sight.  He hasn't been able to re-create the sounds because he couldn't hear them.

Today we went swimming - one of Hayden's favorite things to do.  We had the pool to ourselves for at least 30 minutes.  It was great!

After we go swimming, Hayden likes to walk around the exercise center and watch what other people are doing.  Racquetball and Basketball are his favorites.  Today after we finished with swimming, we walked around and we passed a fire extinguisher access panel in the wall.  Hayden's been associating fire extinguishers with the Pixar movie WALL-E for a while now, but again only pointing and saying WALL-E because he couldn't hear all the components of the words.

Today he spelled FIRE EXTINGUISHER letter by letter...backwards (from bottom to top) enunciating each letter almost perfectly - including the S, X and F which are particularly difficult for him.  It was awesome!  After getting through all the letters, he pointed and yelled (no kidding...YELLED) WALL-E!!!

It turned some heads, but he was so very proud of himself for doing it there wasn't going to be any way of containing his enthusiasm.

It would be great if we didn't have to deal with hearing issues with Hayden, but it seems to be prolonging the stream of new experiences that we get to share with him and from that standpoint, it's actually a gift rather than a hindrance.

Our Child Can Be Bought

Many parents, I'm sure, have found it essential to be able to bribe children in order to help guarantee said child will behave for a few minutes longer or will perform a chore or whatever.

One of the more popular bribes, based on our extensive research on the topic, is something sweet.  Cookies, cake, ice cream, etc.  Well, not with out little monster.  From day one, he's refused to eat sweets...except for one time when we were able to get him to eat a fudgesicle.  That was one filthy little experiment.

For some reason or another, he seems to think that chocolate *anything* is dirty.  He's probably scarred for life.

Well, at his new school his teacher had a project where they decorated a drawing with marshmallows and because this art project was not done on his teacher's first day, each child was given a MASSIVE pile for decorating...she assumed (quite correctly) that there would be some marshmallows that wouldn't make it past the final phase of quality control and they would have to be eaten by children.

Until he saw how much the other kids were enjoying these little wads of puffed sugar, Hayden wanted nothing to do with them.  Now he's a junkie with a serious habit.  We're sure that before too long he'll graduate to the hard stuff - gummi bears - but for now we're content to have anything we can use as a carrot on the end of a stick. 

Something other than an actual carrot, that is.

Piggies, Pumpkins and Ponies

We took advantage of the University having a home football game and headed to the local pumpkin patch with our friends Jesse, Michael and their mom Liza.  The weather was good and we thought we could get some good pictures taken.

Everyone had a good time, but here are the highlights:

Fed goats.  We got 75 cents worth of what looked very much like dog food, but it was labeled GOAT FOOD so I'm sure it was fine.  The kids had a lot of fun trying to get the goats to pay attention to them.  These goats were trained to detect small children, so the boys didn't have much trouble getting the goats to look their way.

Rode a pony.  These guys have a pretty good scam going at the pumpkin patch.  They have 8 miniature ponies walking around in a circle all day long.  You fork over 4 tokens (the non-legal tender equivalent of $4) and they let you ride a pony for 5 minutes or so.  Hayden was SUPER patient and waited his turn in line after asking very nicely if it would be ok to ride the pony.  He was a little champ and didn't complain at all when the ride was over - he just took it all at face value and put the memories in his pocket and we moved on to the next activity.

Picked pumpkins with his friends.  Hayden really seems to enjoy spending time with Jesse and Michael.  They took turns pulling the wagon all the way out to the pumpkin patch from the main building (more than 1/4 mile) and they had a great time running around the pumpkins in the dirt.

It's become a bit of a tradition for us to head out there every year and although it's kinda campy and has that feel of an antique store mixed with a carnival, it's a good bit of fun for an hour or two and we're happy to do it as long as we have a wonderful little pony rider, goat feeder and pumpkin picker to take out there.

Breakfast for Dinner - Take Two

We're smack-dab in the middle of teaching Hayden right from left.  And we're desperately trying to do it without the use of tattoos.

The other day, Dad was running behind schedule for the end-of-the-day pickup from school, so he bypassed Mom's office and went straight for the boy.  That went smooth enough, but when Mom eventually did get in the car, Hayden had decided he wanted to go to Perkins for dinner.  He wanted eggs and sausage and pancakes.

It was a good idea, and it was Tuesday.  That has nothing to do with anything, but Mom and Dad were drawing a blank for dinner ideas, so Perkins it was!!

We got to the restaurant and Hayden had to go potty.  So he did.  He just didn't tell anyone he was doing it and he wasn't wearing a diaper.  We had to take Mr. Tinklepants home which meant we had to scrap the Perkins Project...or so we thought!

The next day, pulling out of the parking lot at school, Hayden played the role of backseat driver.  Right, Daddy!  Right, Daddy! Straight, Daddy!  RIGHT THERE!! (He also knows STOP and Turn around, Daddy!).

We ended up right back where we were 24 hours earlier (Perkins), but this time we went straight to the bathroom to avoid any repeat performances.

Dad let Hayden direct traffic once before and after driving around town for about 20 minutes, Hayden finally ended up directing us down the street where the swimming pool is.

He's a crafty little bugger.

So Hayden finally got his eggs, his sausage, his pancakes, some melon and some milk.  He had a great time and Mom and Dad got to talk a bit about some future plans for the boy's schooling.  We laughed a bunch and we all enjoyed it very much.

I don't know how often we'll be able/willing to let Hayden guide us around from A to B...especially when *his* B is different than *our* B...but it sure is fun every once in a while to let Hayden choose where we go and what we do.

Good Manners...In Dad's Face

This morning, Hayden woke up and had some breakfast.  He spilled a little yogurt on his favorite pajamas.  It was quite an ordeal.

After getting him all cleaned up (and restoring the PJ's to a suitable state of cleanliness) he continued munching on waffles dunked in yogurt.  We left him a spare napkin just in case there was another catastrophe.  He promptly began tearing the hell out of that little napkin - turning it into napkin confetti.

Dad went over and collected up all the little bits of napkin shrapnel to try and avoid our house sinking further into hovel-hood and as the little bits were going into the garbage, Hayden said, "Dad here more!"

Dad went back over to collect the rest of the napkin remnants and Hayden said, "say peeese!"  It is both awful and awesome at the same time to have your 3-year old gently suggest that manners count.  Of course, once Dad said 'please' the napkin bits were handed over and Hayden said "Hayden happy!"

Mom and Dad happy too.

A kinder, gentler Hayden

Over the past several months (probably 18, if we're honest) Hayden's been relying on his experiences with James P. Sullivan, Mike Wazowski and the rest of the gang from Monsters, Inc. in order to help express himself at times.  If he got angry at something, he would typically growl and yell and make 'angry hands' which looked like claws.

Since Hayden's been at his new school, he's being strongly encouraged (read: forced) to deal with his anger more appropriately.  He has to use words, he's not allowed to run away from the situation and he has to apologize when he's wrong.

Today while his class was gathering in the school's foyer before heading upstairs, a little girl said 'Hayden has a red hat!'  That little girl took that red hat.  Hayden's hat.  A month ago, that girl might have possibly gotten a shove, a scream, a shove and a scream, or at the very least 'angry hands'.

It's really great to see him making progress in so many areas: behavior, speech, socializing.  It's a shame we couldn't have made this change sooner, but we're really excited about how quickly (and how positively) Hayden's developing now.

The Lion Rears Its Head Again

We picked up a Halloween costume for Hayden a year ago. The costume has been a big hit time and time again for playing and pretending. I thought we had seen the last of it a while ago, and then today I managed to capture a snippet on video. It makes me happy and laugh every time I see it, but I really like how it doesn't fit over his bum any more.

2,5,6,9...10

Hayden's been counting for a while.  He knows one through ten.  He KNOWS them.  But for one reason or another he hasn't been counting sequentially.  Perhaps he never had the motivation.

Well, on Saturday the 14th of August at roughly 7:00pm, lighting struck.  The planets were all aligned just so.

Dad was standing close enough to a low above-ground pool, and Hayden seized this opportunity to see how wet Dad could get without actually getting in the water.  He dunked his hand in and scooped water out in Dad's general direction not 2, not 5, not 6 or even 9 times.  This was a full 10.  He counted all of them out loud and made Dad very happy.


And very wet.


He's come a LONG way in a very short time and we're eager to see this progress continue.

Singing with the Grandparents

Grandma and Grandpa Hayden stopped by just for the night. Hayden got to wake up and see them here. He was very excited. After a big family breakfast at home, he picked up the guitar, sat in a chair and serenaded the family with all of the things around him. We'll see if we can post a quick snippet. It was really fun to hear.

Stop: It's potty time

Day 5 at school, and another good day. Hayden made a big choice today and was completely supported by the staff. He decided he no longer wanted to wear pull-ups. Upon picking him up at school, he had gone the entire day with no accidents, and that continued into the rest of the night with only a wardrobe malfunction. When this kid makes a decision, he is all in. I like that.

We've been working on potty training for over a year now.  Kind of easing into it like an old man getting into a hot bath, but the daycare place Hayden was attending was unable to sufficiently reinforce our attempts at getting Hayden out of diapers.

Perhaps that's the biggest change here: Hayden goes to school now, not Day Care.  And at this school, they focus on the children.  Everyone actually wants to be there because they're passionate about helping these little kids.  The old place seemed (in retrospect, anyway) to have a fair number of 'teachers' who were basically punching the clock and little more.

Sometimes the grass really is greener.

New School - New Experiences

Well, Hayden started his new school (CAOS) a few days ago. He's been doing really well. In two speech therapy sessions he's cruised through some testing which we're told normally would've taken roughly four hours to complete. He's a really excellent little worker. (it probably helps that he *really* likes his speech therapist)

He's already had some new fun too - making Kool-Aid and he made some art on his 3rd day...a finger paint tree where his forearm (with brown paint) was the trunk and his hand (with green paint) was the tree's canopy. It was really cool!


This is such an enormous difference compared to his old school. The old place was great, but when we confirmed his hearing loss in February/March we needed them to step up to the plate and help with Hayden's development. They didn't and couldn't do that, so we had to make a change.

So far, when we've brought him to the school building he's had nothing but smiles on his face...we even got a WOO HOO when we pulled up to the building on the 2nd day. We couldn't be more thrilled!