So last night Hayden made what appeared to stand up on her own in the middle of the floor. She was up on all fours playing with her little piano and lifted her hands off the floor only to fall back on her butt. She attempted this several times before retreating to the safe confines of the entry way to play with the door stop and all of it's wonderful "doingzzzzzzzzzzzz" that it makes. She played with it for about five minutes until I got frustrated because I was unable to think straight. My thoughts were reverberating through my mind like the doorstop.
I went to the kitchen to get something to drink while we were being a big happy family (ok, little happy family) playing on the floor and watching TV. When I came out of the kitchen I said "Hi" to Hayden and she smiled and made this noise that strikingly resembled a "Hi." Katie and I both looked at each other and said, "Did she just say hi back?" Whoa... That was scary. What made it scarier is that the other night I said "hi" to her and I swore up and down she said hi back. It had been in my mind playing over and over during the last couple of days and I had just come to the conclusion that she just happened to utter something that resembled a hi back to me. But Katie and I have noticed that she's starting to put sounds together, last night she was really big on the "B" sounds. So now I'm thinking that she probably doesn't know what hi means but I wonder if babies can mimic what their parents say or things in their environment. Hi is probably the most common word Katie and I say to Hayden because anytime she disappears for a second and comes back into view we both say hi to her. So if you want to get a parrot to talk you just repeat the phrase over and over and eventually they pick up on it and mimic the noise when prompted. So does that work with babies too? If you are always saying hi, will the eventually say hi when you say it? Or whatever word you want to use. Thank goodness she didn't pick up on the f-bomb or the $h!t that gets frequently dropped when Daddy cooks.
The weather has started to approach acceptable standards for me. Now I just have to remember that when it's 45 degrees out like it was this morning I have to dress Hayden nice and warm and she can't go without a jacket like Daddy and I have to turn the warm air on in the truck and have to wait to roll the windows down until after she gets dropped off at daycare. No more nanny sucks, but I'm kinda glad she's gone. Hayden has tons of fun at her new daycare and now if I'm late for work it's all my fault and I have a little more flexibility as to what time I leave in the morning (as much as you can with a baby).
