dinner time

hayden is a horrible eater. just horrible. he has about 4 things that he will eat and if you put anything other than those 4 things on his plate, he freaks out. he loves frozen waffles. and by frozen waffles i mean that they are still frozen when he eats them. usually covered in applesauce. and when we can get him to eat frozen chicken nuggets, those are also still frozen. i make him allow me to heat up the frozen baby corn dogs for a couple of seconds seeing as though he would never be able to bite through them otherwise.
we really don't even know when and why his pickyness started. as a baby he was a great eater. when we started him on the jarred baby foods he ate all of them. and by all of them, i mean he even ate that gross disgusting meat. then he moved to solids and he still was a pretty good eater. then little by little he started refusing foods that he used to eat all the time. and now we are in the position we are currently in.
and even though hayden hardly eats anything all day long and he is in constant motion, he still is a total brick house. well over a year ago we cut out all snacks throughout the day so that he would be hungry for mealtime. but he doesn't care. his will power is much stronger than that.
finally the other week i had decided that it was enough. i was tired of making 2 different things for all of us to eat and i was tired of the same old fight every nite. how would he ever try anything if we didn't make him. so i decided to start making him eat what we were having. and by that, i simply mean i would put it on his plate and the rest would be up to him. i still will give him some applesauce and about 5 crackers but he gets nothing else for the rest of the nite if he doesn't eat what we're having. it has gone exactly the way i knew it would go. he had a freak out fit when i put it on his plate and then refused to eat it. and him not being allowed to have anything the rest of the nite usually doesn't effect him.
until last nite. i made a chicken dish that consisted of chicken, tortillas, onion, cream of chicken and cream of mushroom soup, cheese and some spices. he had a fit. typical. but suddenly he was really interested in getting to eat some pop rocks. so he started bartering with me. 3 bites? how about 5 bites? all of it, really?! but bit by bit, he did it. he ate everything i put on his plate. now sure, it took him about an hour to do it and we were long gone from the table but he ate it. and didn't really complain.
think it'll go that well tonite? i doubt it. but he'll eventually realize that this is the way our house is running now. so he'd better suck it up and eat. if he doesn't....i'll just continue to save money for when he's in high school and i can't get him to stop eating.

thomas the tank engine

a couple of weeks ago gramdma, papa, jenn, rainah, dave, hayden, talan and myself all headed to greenfield village for "a day out with thomas." this was our 3rd year, and let me tell you....it gets more and more exciting each year. at least it does for hayden. this is probably his favorite day of the year. it was rainy, windy and cold but we still enjoyed singing along to the thomas cd that we are made to listen to on a daily basis during our 20 minute train ride. there were lots of other festivities as well. here are some highlights from the day.


hayden and thomas. last year he treated this photo op as if thomas was the easter bunny. this year he couldn't wait to stand up on the wooden block and have his picture taken with him:
on thomas and going about 2 miles an hour:
hayden really needs to follow the directions on this sign:
we used to stand in line for concert tickets. now we stand in line in the pouring rain just to see thomas. but this is the look on his face, so it's worth it:
we're hardcore parents so we let him get a tattoo at the age of 4:
hayden loves to get as close to the trains as possible. one day, his hair WILL get stuck in the wheels:
thomas, a cow, and hayden:
just waiting to get run down by a train:
time to leave. we'll be back next year though. and we can't wait:

hayden's week

hayden is busy counting down the days until we go to greenfield village to ride on thomas the tank engine for the 3rd year in a row. just 6 more days. but he also had some time to pose for some pictures.


who needs batteries to make the swing work? hayden would rather push it himself:

my babies. one is just a little bigger than the other:

hayden hasn't been too interested in holding talan as he has many more important things to do. finally the other day he agreed to hold him for about 7 seconds. and of course i had the camera. and no, talan's head did not fall off after this:


one of hayden's favorite things. swinging around in circles. and being outside. what a day:

crusty eyes

so yesterday hayden had some gunk coming out of his eyes. by the end of the nite is was so bad i wanted to vomit. they weren't red or itchy or hurting. just gross. today would have been his first day back to school since spring break, and since becoming a big brother, but we kept him home since people most likely would have avoided him like the plague. i called the dr. to ask if he should be seen or not. they said he should be since it could have been pink eye, even though it was red. or itchy. or hurty. so i ventured out for the first time with 2 kids. and of course, it's not talan i need to worry about, it's hayden. but even he did ok. for a bit.
hayden actually told me he wanted to go to the dr. i had been asking if his eye hurt and it was always no. i told him that in the morning if it was still bad we might have to skip school and go to the dr. well, this morning, he couldn't open his eye. which i figured would happen since it was so bad last nite. but he was really calm about it. but when we started to get dressed he would say "MOM, you can't put my shirt on, my eye hurts." "well, mom, you can't put my socks on, i have a hurt eye." and he kept saying that we just had to go to the dr. so i'm not sure why when the dr. came in and simply touched him he FREAKED OUT and started screaming. and that didn't end until we left the room. our pediatrician is great and looked in both of his ears really quickly while we both held him down. and after about 2 seconds she said, "yup, he has an ear infection in this ear." she said that about 80% of the time if there is gunk coming out the eye, it's an ear infection. hayden actually has only ever had 1 i believe. and that was the time we ended up in the ER for 12 hours a few weeks before his first birthday. so once again. if the junk wasn't pouring out of his eye making me want to vomit, we never would have known that hayden had anything wrong with him.
he should be back in school tomorrow even though his eye still looks pretty bad. and we have to make him drink this medicine twice a day for 10 days and then put drops in his eye 3 times a day for 5-7 days. yeah. right. i've done it once already with my mom helping to hold him down. and i'm dreading the next 10 days.

the big brother

hayden has done really well adjusting to life after the arrival of talan. it makes it easier that talan is so easy going and that he doesn't want to play with any of hayden's toys. i asked hayden one of our first days back home if he was going to share his trains with talan when he got older. haydenok, so the trains are off limits. for the most part, hayden has continued to go about his life the way he always has. usually not paying any attention to talan. but there have been some moments that have melted our hearts and almost put tears in our eyes.
a few days ago, dave was trying to involve hayden and asked him if he would go watch talan while dave went to the bathroom. many times hayden just says "no" but this time he decided to do it. guess nothing much else was going on. so he goes into our room and after a few minutes, talan started to cry. dave was just getting out of the bathroom and we heard "oh, i know what i can do. i can give him some milk!" then i hear talan stop crying and hayden saying "look! i'm doing it!" hayden had decided the way to get him to stop crying was to feed him the leftovers from a bottle that was sitting there from the nite before.
then, the other day, talan was in his bouncer seat and hayden went over and started petting his head and just said "hi. it's me. hayden."
and just this morning, talan started to make some noise and hayden went over to him and said something like "it's ok. i will go get you some milk and feed you and you can stop crying." it was one of the sweetest things i've ever heard.
as tough as hayden is, he has never been an aggressive kid. he's always been really sweet and sensitive. anytime he hears a baby crying, he's always acted very concerned. hayden has always been very protective of me and dave has said any kid that messes with talan is gonna get it from hayden. it's really the sweetest thing to see hayden interact, even just a little, with talan.

the easter bunny

so hayden hasn't had to best relationship with santa or the easter bunny. he gets all excited about going to see them and then suddenly we get there and it's total freak out. each year he's cried but we've managed to somehow get him up on santa's lap and get some pictures. some that actually look good. this year was the first year that there was NO WAY he was getting up on santa's lap. or even near him. i thought this things got better with age, not worse.
so we talked up the easter bunny this year for awhile. tried to tell him that he needed to show his cousin rainah just how to sit on the easter bunny's lap and all of that. the day we decided to go he was excited about it. kept saying how he was going to sit on his lap. then right before leaving he says to me "mommy, how about you sit next to the easter bunny and i'll sit next to you" i figured we were doomed. we get to the mall with the whole family and hayden basically walked right up to the bunny and sat right next to him (well, there was some space between them) and smiled for pictures. hard to believe, i know. but here are the pictures to prove it:

hayden's room: old and new

so i finally took the time to download these photos onto dave's laptop so i could post them for all to enjoy. for whatever reason we can't get our camera to download to our home computer. one of these days i'll (meaning i'll get someone to) figure it out for me and the posts will be much more current and organized. until then, take what you can get.

so when we were getting the new office and nursery put together, there was a lot of shifting of furniture from one room to another. we had to take some of hayden's furniture and give him new stuff. he pretty much already had a "big boy room" so i guess this would just be the new and improved big boy room. here are the results.

before the great furniture exchange:






after the great furniture exchange:




here is what hayden thought about his new and improved room: