Hayden’s Recent Firsts

Hayden has hit a few fun milestones recently that I’m excited to share!

Body parts. No, he doesn’t have new body parts, but while we were in NC, we discovered that Hayden already knew many of his body parts—eyes, nose (which he always has to pinch), mouth (which is sticking his tongue out), belly (which apparently means “chest” to him), feet, toes, teeth, tongue. You know, the good ones. After we discovered that, we taught him ears, hair, hands, fingers and bummy (you have to see that one!) and are working on knee and chin. (Just add shoulders and we got a whole song!)

New signs. He’s recently picked up some new signs: “cheese,” and “piggy” (the animal, not the toes). He’s also gotten more consistent with his old standbys. His current favorite (by a long shot) is “more,” followed by “kitty,” “milk” and “doggy” (which still looks exactly like “birdie”). Updated to add: “candy.” Taught him that one this week. Big mistake.

Animal impressions. Although he’s still not interested in saying “meow” or “ruff,” Hayden does a spot-on impression of a bunny. Just ask him what a bunny says. (He pushes his bottom lip out as if pouting and then wiggles his pursed lips up and down. Bunnies don’t say much of anything, silly.)

First “phrase”. Hayden strung two signs together for the first time over the weekend. He said, “More cheese.”

Those fine motor skills!. Hayden rebuilt the carburetor yesterday—er, This morning Hayden came up to me while I was on the computer. He held my cell phone in his hand. He’d managed to plug in the tiny adapter to my charger (it’s like 1/8″ of an inch in diameter!). This evening, he successfully plugged in a USB cord!

Manners! Yesterday Hayden learned the sign for “please.” Please?! Holy cow. I was impressed.

He did the sign again today with almost no prompting—he signed “more.” I asked, “More what?” He signed “please.” (This sign is rubbing the palm of a flat hand in a circle on your chest—at first I thought he was telling me he dropped a Cheerio down his shirt!) As sweet and polite as that was, I would rather him tell me what he wanted…

Letting go. I’ve resisted giving Hayden a more thorough haircut than simply trimming his bangs and cutting the hair above his ears (although it’s been a month since even that one). In part because his hair is very fine and light and it took him so long to get it this thick, but also because, as my friend (mother of 6 sons) told me, “They don’t look like little boys anymore when you cut their hair.” A couple days ago, I looked at Hayden and knew it was time to cut his hair. He was already a big kid.

Hayden and I both have a tenacious head cold, so I may lay low for a couple days. We’ll see.