Weekend Festivities

This was a busy weekend for us! On Friday night we went to Luanne and Dave's house and had a wonderful meal and half watched the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Hayden wasn't really in a sleeping mood so we let her stay up and "eat" with us. She actually did pretty well licking food. She didn't eat anything, but she gnawed and licked in ways that made me think that progress will be made sooner or later.

Then, on Saturday we went down to Somers, CT where I grew up to visit my "other family" from childhood. You know, the house where you're always at as a kid when you're not at home? My oldest friend, Jaime, was there with her husband and beautiful new son (well, six months...new-ish). It was just so surreal almost to be in the same living room together so many years later as parents with "big kid" lives now. There's something about old friends that is just so comfortable, even though I've only seen Jaime twice in almost 20 years, it didn't feel like time had passed. Well, I guess that's not really true, since so much has happened and changed in both of our lives, but we fell back into an easy friendship in a way that felt right.

On Saturday night we stayed with Dad and Bonnie and then on Sunday we went to Caroline's first birthday party (Brian's goddaughter). Ben and Michelle have two labs, Jaime and Dom have two Boarder Collie mixes and Dad and Bonnie have two little white fluffy pups. So, this was the weekend of dogs for Hayden. The verdict:

A bit scared of the boarder collies, but I think that was just because she was playing her usual game of "crawl into another room and then turn around and laugh when mommy comes in after me" only to crawl into another room, turn around and see a big doggie face in hers. She warmed up to them a bit, but only from across the room.

Not loving the fluffy white yippers all that much right now either, because she was being changed on the floor and one ran over to her to say "hi". She's okay with them as long as she's taller, but she doesn't like the surprise factor that comes with the little ones.

The labs? Loved them. Almost too much for my comfort level though. Her way of saying "hi" to Ghengis involved putting her hand in his mouth and trying to grab his tongue. This I did not expect. Apparently Ghengis is used to it from life with two babies, but still, we spent a lot of time working on "gentle", which finally amounted to her feeding cake to the dogs with a fork.

The good news? She can use a fork. The bad news? Apparently, it's little more than a doggie toy right now.

Figuring Out the Food

I think I mentioned the whole Hayden not eating thing. Well, we've been trying to incorporate food for a while now, with mixed results. She really, really likes holding food and touching food and mushing food now, but the eating is still not all that great. We've been working on cheese lately, and that's the best we've done so far. If I feed her little bits of cheese, she'll eat them, but the self feeding is still a struggle.

Yesterday, I decided to just take little bits of cheese and put them on her tray, with the thinking that if she decided not to eat them, she'd just go cheese-less. She was very excited to have cheese on the tray, but she got frustrated when I didn't feed it to her. She looked at it, wailed, held her hands up to me, held cheese out to me, but she wouldn't eat. She kept reaching for the big slice of cheese on the counter instead. Finally, I fed her a little bit of cheese and she pushed it out of her mouth. I tried again, and she pushed it out again, reaching for the big slice on the counter. I figured, "what the hell" and gave her the big piece.

She took a bite out of it, chewed and swallowed, just like a big girl. Then she looked at me and smiled, as if to say, "see, mom, this is what I've been trying to tell you." I realized then what part of the problem has been. We got into a bad catch 22 where the more she gagged, the smaller I cut her food, but because she's only functioning with five teeth, she couldn't get a good chew on the little bits, so she had to swallow them whole, like pills. Thus, the gagging. Bigger pieces allow her to gum the food and then she's able to get it soft enough to swallow.

So, slowly but surely, mommy is learning. Hayden is doing her best to teach me, but "no" "uh oh" and "bye bye" only get a kid so far.

Will Walk For Play Dough

Hayden has been *thisclose* to walking for a while now, but other than a few safety steps to get from one piece of furniture to another she really hasn't done much in the way of actually walking. But, tonight she decided that she HAD to have a container of play dough, and I decided that she really did not need to be licking a play dough container, non-toxic though I'm sure it is.

So, I put the play dough up on the bar in the living room and Hayden went into full on baby meltdown mode, which is the normal response when I take anything away from her. Only this time, instead of crumpling up in a ball on the floor and sobbing, she stood up and walked, mummy style, toward the play dough, stepping over toys as she went.

And yes...I did let her play with the play dough after that. I mean, come on..... :)

Brian's Birthday

Last year Brian kind of got shortchanged in the birthday department. I still couldn't drive, and could barely walk after the c-section, so there were no gifts. Maybe a handmade card compliments of Vicidin, but that was about it.

So, this year, I figured we'd do it right. I got Heidi, Hayden's fabulous daycare provider, who has been offering to babysit forever, to come over to watch the kiddo. Then, I got reservations to an amazing restaurant in Haverhill (who know, right?). They were even kind enough to honor an amazing weekday special for us, even though it was a Friday night. We decided to go early so we could have a whole evening to ourselves.

Heidi came over at about 5pm and Brian and I took off to the restaurant, where we had a 2 hour meal, complete with martinis, amazing wine, and some of the best food I've had in years. It was great to just catch up. We did pretty well with the "don't talk about work or kids" thing. Not a word about work, and we didn't even talk about Hayden all that much. We toasted our 20 year anniversary of knowing each other, and we reminisced about living in San Francisco, and what an amazing period of our lives that was. I couldn't have asked for our lives to have turned out any better. (OK, a bit more financial security would be nice, sure...but aside from that...) life is just very good to us.

After our fantastic dinner, we called Heidi to make sure she could work the tv remote ok. This was our big concern. We knew Hayden would be fine, she adores Heidi and the feeling is mutual. Besides, Hayden goes to bed pretty well in general. No, we were really worried that Borat, which we had scheduled to record, would switch on and she wouldn't be able to get back to what she wanted to watch. Or, worse yet, it would pick up an episode of Real Sex or Cathouse or something else that would forever color her impression of us.

But, the tv situation was under control and she had all the snack food she would need for a while, so Brian and I came back to Epping and went to The Holy Grail, a restaurant/bar we've been meaning to check out for a long time. It's an old church that was converted into a restaurant, and it represents a piece of our shining hope that Epping is di-hicking itself just a bit. Not that Epping is totally backwoods, but any town that's known for its racetracks is going to have a tough time breaking into the fine dining scene.

We loved Holy Grail. The owner used to teach at Exeter High, and we talked about the school, the politics etc. for a while while Brian and I enjoyed a good scotch. The atmosphere is really comfortable and interesting, and the food looks good. Plus the drinks were "Epping priced" rather than "Boston" priced. Always a good thing.

We got home at around 10:30 and then we talked to Heidi until well after midnight. I love having people we can trust our baby with. It just makes it so easy to go out, and Brian and I really needed some time to ourselves. It was wonderful to have a meal that didn't include the words, "Honey, could you..." in any context other than, "please pass the rolls".

I think we're going to see about date night once a month. I'm sure between Michelle and Paul, Heidi, Jenn and Patrick, Luanne and Dave, and any number of our friends we can work out some kind of trade. I feel like this really recharged my batteries.

Hayden's birthday party

The party last Saturday was a rousing success. We had 40 people and luckily the weather cooperated so we weren't all crammed in the house all day. Instead it was hot and muggy and the kids played in the two kiddie pools and a few of the Tweens hung out in the "big kid" pool. Hayden was a champion super-baby, going to everyone, smiling and playing and mutilating her birthday cake in proper one year old form. I have to post photos soon (problems with this computer) but there are some on The Wheeler's blog (a link is on the right of this page).

I can't believe my little baby is a toddler now. It's just crazy. Crazy, crazy, crazy. And the questions have begun in earnest..."when are you having another?" Man, how time flies.