Just one more

I forgot Hayden's NEW favorite thing to do...push buttons! It started in our hotel, with him pushing the buttons on the elevator. His little face just lights up when he sees the button turn red after he pushes it. In Germany, they don't leave the lights on in stairwells, hallways, etc. all day and night. Instead, you push a button to turn on a light when you need it, and it automatically goes off a few minutes later. Even in the parking garage of our hotel, which was unfortunate the night I was packing the car and had to finish it in the dark because they aren't motion sensored! Anyway, there isn't much fun for a kid to do in a hotel room except push buttons, so he got a lot of practice. Now he wants me to let him turn the lights on and off when he gets up and goes to bed, and he loves to play with the light switches he can reach. Which, in Germany, is the majority. I have to trick him in the bathroom and turn on the one above the mirror to avoid putting on my makeup in the dark!

Zebra zebra!

Blowing kisses

Look what Hayden can do now!

Growing, growing...

My new favorite thing is to watch Hayden eat. He has developed this amazing independence which will not allow me to feed him anything other than yogurt or the occasional apple sauce for breakfast. All other meals are nearly impossible to get through without a spoon in his wee little hand. Meal times are now mess times and require more constant bathing, but I love it! He has gone from this a baby to this assertive, confident little boy who wants to do things for himself. He loves the spoon, and requires it for all food, even bread. However, when eating rice he holds the spoon in one hand and eats his rice with the other hand. I love this developmental stage and I love watching him be so proud of himself when he can do it all on his own.

He is also starting to enjoy coloring. He does pretend to eat the crayon about every 30 seconds so that I'll say excitedly, "Don't do it!". Then he giggles, colors a little more and then repeats the process. I love watching his little hands move, and the fascination on his face when he's created something. I'm not one of those parents that sees his first drawing and declares him Picasso, but I gotta tell ya...it melts my heart to see little scribbles on a piece of paper courtesy of my very own probably-left-handed baby boy.

He is also terrible smitten with his dog as of late. He wants to hug him and hold him and lay on him, none of which are much fun for Oscar. He takes it in stride, but I find myself having to separate them at least once a day by putting Oscar on the other side of the baby gate to get a break. Hayden means well but sometimes Oscar can't take all the poking, prodding and pulling. He's a good sport.

Well life seems to be returning to normal around here. My birthday was this past week and I got to celebrate on Friday, thanks to Parents' Night Out at the CDC. We dropped the kids off at 6:30 and headed to dinner at Habanero's. All my friends were there, the food was great and the margaritas were just as I remember them...from two years ago. We haven't been in a loooooong time and the last time we went I was still nursing Hayden, and the times before that I was pregnant. So I haven't had a Habanero's margarita since my birthday party in 2008.

This weekend Hayden and I finally got a break from sickness and too much to do, and we just hung out together. We still have some stuffy noses, but it was nice to just relax, sleep in and bum around the house. Today we left to get gas, groceries and lunch and I finally tackled my mess of a bedroom while Hayden took his afternoon nap. We seem to be back on his schedule of 2 two-hour naps and 11-12 hours a night, along with meals and snacks and playing, he is enjoying his normal routine. But not as much as I am!

We are still struggling with the issue of childcare for my job. My friend Cassandra is watching him at home still, but I have a pretty full schedule in March so we've been working on other options. None of them seem to be panning out yet but I'm not giving up hope!

This week will hopefully be a normal one for us. After work on Friday we're loading up three cars full of girls and kids and heading to Belgium for the weekend. Let's hope for good weather, and at least the end to snow for a bit!

Finally, a normal and lazy weekend for us. We really needed it after our two weeks of craziness. We got home Friday afternoon and did NOTHING. We just hung out around the house, unpacked a bit and got settled back into home life. Saturday was a quick trip to the commissary which turned into a long one. They had a lot of bulk items out and veggies on sale, so I stocked up for our next round of packages for Jay. Then we took a ride through the car wash to get off two weeks worth of snow and salt. Hayden is fascinated by the car wash, so we had a blast. It's been a challenge to get him back on track but for now I'm just concerned with getting him back to 100% healthy and then we'll work on sleeping like he used to!

Today we were up early and had to run to the PX for a few things. Our mouse stopped working so I bought a replacement, only to get home and find that it was working again! So now at least I have a backup. We made dinner and watched movies and had a few emails from Jay, not bad for a valentines day at home!

On our last night in the hotel, I let Hayden run amok and he took full advantage of it! He turned the bidet on and let it run, and pulled all the toilet paper off the roll so he could play with the empty roll. He looks like such a big boy with all of those teeth!

So maybe it was pinkeye, maybe it was a viral infection. Either way, it also produced hives on Monday and kept Hayden out of the CDC on Tuesday. So we made a trip to Schweinfurt on Monday to drop him off at Megan's for the night. Aka, my first night away from my baby boy. Also my first night without baby, husband or dog since April 2008. I handled it, I won't say well but I made it. Now he has a wee baby cough, and it took us 4 hours to make our 2-hour trip today. But we are all home, including Oscar, and training is over. It went well, at least! I have never been so happy to see a dirty house...