Sigh...

We're stuck with this chipped tooth until this baby tooth falls out....when he's freaking 6 years old. Good one, Kelly. Good one.

What's up at 16 months

A lot has been going on! Clark and I took our first trip without Hayden this month -- to Jamaica! We had such a great time -- but I missed Hayden more than I could have possibly imagined. As much as I miss the laid back week I had in Jamaica, I missed my little guy more. Hayden had a great time with Grammy and Nan and was spoiled absolutely rotten during the week. I don't think he missed us all that much.

Hayden has to be the busiest kid ever! He is constantly on the go!

He likes to push around the computer chair....

Hayden also learned that Sohpie has many uses. Not only is she man's best friend, she's also an excellent chair:

We're lucky Sophie is such a tolerant pup! Sam, on the other hand will have nothing to do with those shenanigans.

Hayden also recently figured out what a telephone is for:

He's also multitasking. He's chatting on the phone while he watches his truck. Whoever is on the phone must have something funny to say!

This weekend we visited with one of our favorite girls -- Anna James! Last time we saw her she had no neck control -- so it was fun to see her sit up!

Not the best pic of Hayden -- but Anna looks so cute and big-girl like!

Anna got a little handsy, Hayden was confused....

So she gave him a little kiss on the shoulder!

I hear all the time how much Hayden looks like Clark (true) and how similar their personalities are (also true). However, Hayden inherited his love of reading from me. The kid cannot get enough books. He loves "Mommy Hugs" by Karen Katz and Baby goes to the Farm (also Karen Katz). I know because he hands these books over and over to me to read to him. Tonight I got him reading a classic all by himself:

Hayden's vocabulary is growing every day. He says, "mama" "dada" "ball" and "dog" pretty regularly. He says "book" (or a more pronounced baaaaaa) he'll repeat "uh oh" (but doesn't use it appropriately) and will also repeat "bye bye." He's also working on "no" but it just sounds like "naaaa." He will shake his head "no" and he's trying to nod his head but hasn't quite gotten it down. He's always working on his "cheese" face for pictures, as you can tell. I'll say, "say cheese" and it's usually "eeeeeese" that comes out. Not always, but when it does, it's pretty stinking cute!

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

That's the sentence Grammy uttered a moment ago.

.

.

.

.

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!