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.