"I think he's going to be really smart"

That's the sentence Grammy uttered a moment ago.

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And then our little Albert Einstein/William Shakespeare/Leonard DaVinci did this:

I'm sure after he takes the bucket off his head, he'll discover the cure for cancer.

Our New Favorite Place

The Ft. Worth Museum of Science and History has a great Children's Museum. We became members and Hayden LOVES it. He never gets tired of it, even though we've been going once a week. I'm glad because it gives us a chance to get out of the house and play with new toys.

This is the first time we've gone where Hayden actually got a shopping cart to push around. As much as he liked the shopping cart, he much preferred picking up food and putting it in his mouth (really clean, I know).

Hayden's girl Edie came along to help shop. After all the shopping they could handle, Hayden and Edie went to explore the dino dig.

Hayden turned 15 months old on Saturday. I know everyone says this all the time, but I truly cannot believe how much time has gone by. It's hard to believe this was Hayden this time last year:

I also love this phase. It's a lot of work because he's so busy! He walks/runs everywhere and is always getting into things. His favorite thing is take something (ex. remote) and hide it somewhere else (ex. his toy mailbox). He loves being outside playing in the sandbox or chasing after his dogs. It's just so fun to watch him discover new things and laugh about them. One negative development is ... biting. I debated on whether I should mention this or not, but I figured in the interest of full disclosure -- I should. Hopefully this will not discourage anyone from letting their child play with Hayden.

Hayden plays really well with other children and loves his friends at daycare. However, we're gotten to an age where he knows something is his and he doesn't want to part with it until he's ready. Usually he expresses his anger by screaming really loud and crying -- typical. However, last week I got an "incident" report from school. "While Hayden was playing with a friend, the friend took Hayden's book away. Hayden bit his friend on the arm." Oh my gosh! What a little criminal! I felt terrible! There's really no way to discipline him for it -- because trust me, the kid doesn't understand no. Deciding I would deal with this by denial, I decided that I could chalk this up to teething. Surely, my child didn't purposefully bite someone! The next day, another incident report. This time, Hayden was the victim, not the defendant. I was relieved. I figured if another kid bit him he wouldn't do it to someone else, because he now knows how it feels.

WRONG.

What followed was a series of incident reports where Hayden alternates between being the biter and the bitee. The worst came on Friday when Hayden was a double offender -- biting 2 kids within an hour! Unreal! Now he's a serial biter. I'm still not sure how I'm going to handle this. He has never attempted to bite me or Clark and it's not like he's old enough to sit down and have a heart to heart with about his behavior.

I'll have more updates as to height and weight in June. Hayden goes to the doctor on June 2nd!

Such a Boy!

Hayden loves dirt. I mean, the kid could play in it all day.

He really likes to move dirt from one place to another (the pot to the ground).

All this dirt makes for one dirty boy. He doesn't seem to mind, though. This seems to be his preferred state of being. Notice the scratch on his head? He fell down on the daycare playground and cut his head on the wood chips. Such a boy thing to do.

The cut isn't slowing him down any. Yesterday we took a friend's advice and purchased a sandbox. It's a hit.

Yesterday we went to Joe Ts with the Souths, Lyssys and Horns. The Horns are heading to Tulsa next week so Tommy can begin his psychiatry residency. We will miss them SO much. I have a feeling we'll be making a few trips to OK soon. We'll have to meet Baby Horn as soon as he arrives!

The best part of this picture is that it wasn't staged at all. That's Clark's reaction when Hayden is about to do something bad.

There...that's better! Look how handsy Hayden is with Edie. Eric assured Hayden that he had "pre-approval" but I think Eric was hoping they'd wait until they were older....like 30 or so.

We had another big reason to celebrate this weekend. The Lyssys are expecting! We are SO excited for them. Hayden loves Uncle Tony and Aunt SJ so much, and we know he'll love the newest member of his gang when he or she (just a guess) arrives. Anthony and SJ are going to be great parents!!!

Lastly, today is Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day to my wonderful Mom who helps me be a better mom! I'm no expert at this Mom thing, but I know I love my little guy more than I can ever express and I'm blessed to be chosen to be his mother. I mean, just look at him:

How can you not love this guy?

Goooooo Rangers!

An unprecedented amount of blogging is going on in the Meador house this weekend. I can't promise this is a trend that will continue. We had an action packed weekend (as you can gather from the zoo pics).

The Ranger game was a success. We had a lot of things in our favor though. The weather was okay -- slightly cool and overcast. There was plenty of room (good for us, bad for the Rangers, I guess), so we were able to spread out. The way we figure it, we'll have to get Hayden his own seat, because Mr. Wiggles won't sit on our lap for longer than, oh, 2 seconds. We lasted until the 8th inning when we decided to head home since the Rangers had a 6 run lead. It's been nice having Clark home so much and spending time all together!

** Clark actually took that picture of Josh Hamilton. Our new camera is awesome, especially when Clark is taking the pictures. The camera is not awesome enough to make me a good photographer.

Zoo -- Part Deux

I just love this age. Hayden is so much fun. Allyson and I took Hayden and Maggie to the zoo back in January. Hayden wasn't walking yet and not nearly as vocal as he is now. While I think he enjoyed to the zoo then, it was nothing compared to our experience yesterday.

Only 3 months have passed, but Hayden has changed a lot in those 3 months. Yesterday was an absolutely beautiful day, so we met Jason, Kassidy and Anna at the zoo for an afternoon of fun! We pulled Hayden in the wagon he got for his birthday.

Hayden got to put his pointing to good use on Saturday too. He LOVED looking at all the animals.

I'm not sure what we were looking at here, but what I can tell you is that Hayden was definitely calling whatever he saw a "dog." He would yell out "dog dog dog!" at every animal. It was pretty cute.

We were looking at some orangutans/"dogs" here and Hayden thought they were hilarious. Lots of big smiles today.

The Ft. Worth Zoo has some fun interactive activities for kids. You can walk into a giant "bird cage" with a stick with bird seed on it and feed the birds -- for $1. I wasn't sure what Hayden would think about this, but we tried it anyway. Clark was tall enough to reach some hungry birds, and Hayden laughed and laughed. Until he decided he should be scared. If a bird flapped over his head, he'd duck his head onto Clark's shoulder. No tears though...I think it was an "this is so scary it's fun!" scared.

I can't say that Anna gave the zoo an enthusiastic thumbs up -- as she slept through most of it. However, she was definitely the cutest baby there in her sweet outfit. Anna was very patient as we stopped multiple times for Hayden to look up close at "dogs" and feed birds. We can't wait until Anna can do all of that with Hayden. They will definitely be handfuls then!

I think the highlight for Hayden was the ice cream.

He and I shared a cone and he was a big fan.

I think that is a face says it all, right?

Hayden was such a trooper. He basically had no nap to speak of all day long. You could have never guessed it by his attitude, though. He was so into looking around at the animals and the people (and there were some weird people at the zoo yesterday).

I think we'll be looking into a zoo membership in the near future. Today we're headed to a Ranger game. I'm not too sure how that will turn out, but we're going to give it a try!

What is This Face All About?

We're not sure either...but it's funny!

Happy Easter!

I just love this picture. He's so pleased with himself. It was really fun to watch Hayden experience Easter this year. The downside was that Daddy couldn't be there to share in all the fun. Being a resident intern can be no fun -- especially when it requires working nights during a holiday. Since Clark was working nights, Hayden and I headed down to Lumberton (near Beaumont) to visit with Grammy and Grandpa.

The 5 1/2 hour car ride is no better with a toddler than it was with an infant. Ugh. Add to the fact that I was by myself and it was kind of worse. Hayden slept for maybe an hour total for the first leg of the trip. Then we stopped at McDonald's for a little Happy Meal action (remember -- easy trumps healthy in these situations)

This pic is actually from our return trip -- yes, we went to McDonalds twice in one weekend. Trust me, it hurt my thighs far worse than it hurt Hayden's development. Hayden was an eating MACHINE all weekend. He ate entire pack of nuggets (4) and some fries. That is just out of control to me. He also had a blast watching all the weirdos that came in and out of the Huntsville McDonalds. He spent a lot of the his time turned almost completely around in his highchair with a fry hanging out of his mouth, people watching. The second leg of the trip (Huntsville to Lumberton - approximately 2 hours) was considerably rougher. Hayden managed to throw every toy he owned out of arms reach in a matter of about 3 minutes. This resulted in crying. I refused to pull over for this. In my mind, if I pulled over and gave him toys back, I would be stopping every 5 miles. Therefore, I turned my music up and did my best to ignore him.

When we got to Grammy and Grandpa's the spoiling began. We went out to eat at Pappadeuxs where Hayden made short work out of corn dog bites (okay, so we don't eat healthy, like, ever) and some green beans (seriously, I'm not just lying about that to make myself look like a better parent -- he truly likes vegetables). Hayden loved playing with Grammy and Grandpa! The Easter Bunny visited and Hayden went on the hunt for some eggs!

I, I mean the Easter Bunny, got these cool big eggs that had Fisher Price Little People toys inside of them. Little People are cool little figurines that Hayden really likes. I highly recommend them. They seem to be great for teething b/c Hayden constantly has one in his mouth.

Dad's fancy camera has a serious flash on it, however Hayden tried to persevere through the picture taking. He wasn't always successful.

In teething news, one of Hayden's molars finally broke through -- the bad news is the molar on the other side is starting to really bother him. As a first time parent, you're woefully unprepared for so many things -- and I think you definitely have to include teething tantrums on that list. I don't even know if teething tantrums are a real phenomenon or something I've completely made up. Regardless, they happen. My child is usually pretty sweet natured. Sure, he cries when he's hungry, tired, thirsty, etc. He's a baby. That's what they do. However, today I felt like I had a glimpse of what the terrible twos are going to be like. Mondays are rough transition days for Hayden anyway, so Monday afternoons are usually a little rough before bedtime. Today was a WHOLE new ball game. When Hayden and I get home, I try to convince him to do "chores" with me. Happy, well adjusted Hayden, likes these chores. These chores include, helping Mommy get clothes out of the dryer (he really does like to take clothes out) and playing in the dishwasher while Mom tries to load it (while avoiding knives, etc), and watering the flowers (H's fave). Well today, our chores weren't really working out. He tried to pull a wine glass out of the dishwasher so we had to promptly close that up. Crying ensued. Then, Hayden tried to eat some baking powder that he found on the lower shelf in the pantry (I can't believe I even typed that sentence, but it happened), so I quickly put the kibosh on that, since I don't think it should be ingested by babies (or anyone). Well, what ensued was the worst fit I've ever seen. Hayden stood in the center of the kitchen, screaming uncontrollably until he turned red and was hyperventilating. What the heck?!? He was sweating he was crying so hard! He had clenched his little fists up so hard they were shaking! I'm blaming this evil molar on this behavior, since I don't think my laid back kid would act so wheels off otherwise. Needless to say we had an early bed time (plus a squirt of Tylenol)!

Clark has a weekend off -- so hopefully the weather will be nice so we can do some fun outdoor activities!