Tuesdays with Hallie

I love Tuesdays.

I look forward to that second day of the week.

Mondays don't seem near as bad.

I miss Tuesday once it passes.

Here's to having Tuesdays every day of the week.

Are ya with me?

Ok, probably not.

I am guessing that's a pretty rare day to take off work.

But nevertheless......

I LOVE TUESDAYS!

And this is why.......

Morning stroll in the friendly weather

Porch playtime was a must after our walk. Did you know that it is loads of fun to walk up the steps to the door and back down the steps over and over and over? I've analyzed this activity and I'm still trying to figure out the appeal of it. Maybe Hal has some insight she'd like to share. In between her stair climbing sessions I captured a picture that happens to give me goosebumps everytime I look at it. This garden cross is a symbol of my mom (a gift given to me from a family member). I just love how precious this picture looks.....

Grammy & Hal

The "stairmaster" worked up quite the appetite and got her fix for food at the hospital with dada. We've been holding out on Riley for ten months now. I've been avoiding the cafeteria for this long and I had run out of amunition this morning when I suggested we do lunch and he said "ok, meet me in the cafeteria"....I maintain that it was much too early in the morning to come up with a clever reason as to why we needed to eat somewhere else....perhaps somewhere better. :) God bless his heart....he's a sucker for a lunch line cheeseburger and fries. I settled for the salad bar which I thought was a safe bet and Hallie enjoyed an assortment of things that we handed her......

I am not saying that the cafeteria food is bad. My distaste for this type of food comes from months and months of relying on the Integris cafeteria for breakfast, lunch and dinner while my mom was taking up residence in el hospital. We had a good lunch together....Hallie entertained others nearby....made a mess in a three foot diameter circle around her chair....flirted with passersby....and got to spend time with her favorite person in the world....dada (said in a whisper voice which is her new favorite thing to do).

Quite the pair

We had missions to accomplish after lunch with dada. First on our list: the church bake sale/silent auction dropoff mission. We finished packaging up the yummy fudge she helped me make and wrapped up our ribbon tying on the auction basket. Mission accomplished five minutes later. We left the church and headed to mission #2: the park. She logged some serious playtime minutes and even managed to do a little flirting with a much older boy who wanted nothing to do with her. He would slide, so she would slide. He would climb, so then she would climb. I was hoping he wouldn't do anything dangerous because I knew she'd be watching and trying to mimic him. After her new crush left the park we had a little mommy/daugther bonding sesh under the playgym at a little picnic table.....

"He left without saying goodbye...."

"I wonder if I'll ever see him again mom?"

That is until a wasp decided to crash out party. I'm pretty sure I made her pee her pants a little when I snatched her away with cat-like reflexes. We left Mr. Wasp in the dust and jumped in the swing. Our once avid swinger now enjoys a good thirty second swing and is usually ready to head for much more dangerous and daring activities.....

"This is fun....for now."

Naptime was rapidly approaching and I wanted to get back home before the pre-nap meltdown began. She was my singing partner on the way home and happy as a lark. But it was a different story when I first told her it was time to go home.....

"Yeah, I'll go...but I don't have to be happy about it."

While my feverish lady (yes, she went down for a nap with a new friend, Mr. Fever) napped I thought it was high time to organize my Halloween party stash. Painting, cutting, glueing and planning.....

My idea of a perfect afternoon

While I crafted away I looked up to notice the mail lady dropping off a box on my doorstep. We made eye contact and I watched as she raised her arm to do something so terrible it would make any mother cringe. She rang my doorbell. Cue the loud barking from both dogs and the screaming of a tired and feverish baby. Really girlfriend? Really. We made eye contact. I saw you. Now come back here and please entertain this sweet girl who obviously still needs to be sleeping. I have to confess that I am still a bit ticked off about this whole doorbell incident. This is why......

"Why do you hate me?"

Not only did she wake up my baby....but she also brought a box that contained that oversized, ten pound heap of a lamb costume. I have been waiting anxiously for Hal's costume to arrive. It was finally here. I almost thought about forgiving the postal lady being that she had delivered something so exciting. That is until I opened the packaging and held it up only to realize that it could quite possibly fit an NFL lineman. Holy oversized costume. The really silly part is that they don't accept returns for costumes that have been removed from their plastic wrapping. Tell me this costume store place..."how do I realize that your costume is grossly oversized if I don't get to open your packaging?" Riddle me that. I'm going to have to say extra prayers tonight in order to be able to forgive postal lady and costume store. But on the bright side, it looks like we already have Hallie's costume for next year...oh wait, I mean when she's in 5th grade!! She wasn't meant to be a lamb this year I guess so our second choice costume is now on it's way. :)

My Tuesday sidekick and I did a few more crafty things and soon realized we needed to make a run to pick up some more supplies. One detour to work later and we found ourselves roaming the aisles at Ace Hardware. I'll show you why she loves this place so much......

"Beep beep!! Move it or lose it!"

She was hilarious in the car steering our way through the store the entire time. Honking when necessary. She let me do the driving home while we had a nice chat on speakerphone with great grandma. Once we got home it was dinner time and then we were soon greeting dada. Someone's fever had returned by this time. We are thinking it's caused by some teefers beginning to make their way through because it's very low grade and goes away pretty quickly. Nothing that a little bit of Tylenol, milk and snuggle/cartoon time can't fix.....

L.o.V.e.  x  2

So back to the reasons why I love Tuesday......

I get an entire day to discover all of the new things my daughter is doing, learning and saying. Which is quite a lot with each passing week. She has been expanding her vocab since she's been around her little friends at Miss Paula's. We now hear her sweet voice say "dog" and "yeah" and "uh uh" on a daily basis. There is nothing sweeter in this world that the sound of your baby's voice trying to make words. When she jabbers in my ear I can't help but have one of those "I love you so much I just want to squish your face and give you a billion kisses" moments. This morning as I was cleaning up the kitchen I noticed that she had left my sight and I began to hear her rustling around in her room. She must've been hitting her drum because I could hear the ever familiar beat playing. I hollered out a big ol' "HAAAAALLLLLLLIIIIIIEEEEEE?" She responded with something that sounded much like what I'd yelled......"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH?" Same inflection, same tone. That little smarty is already mocking me. What's next?! We continued this game until I really began to get curious about what she was doing in there....I found her sitting on the floor brushing her hair with a toothbrush that she'd dragged out of my bathroom drawer and taken into her room. Never a dull moment. And I can't be too sure but I could've sworn she said something that sounded like "I love you" when I said it too her this evening. Still pondering that one....

A girl who once loathed wearing shoes now loves to take a stab at putting them on. Cutest thing ever! She grabs the shoe and puts it up against or foot, on the bottom of her foot and sometimes tries to mimick how I'm putting her other shoe on. The same thing goes for the rest of her changing table activities. She loves to rub her lotion in when I put it on her belly and she prefers to brush her own head, er, I mean hair. Socks are still a bit tricky but she watches me do this like she wants to give it a try. Such an observative little girl she is. When it's time for a refill on milk or juice she brings her cup to me shaking it like a begger....it's like she's saying "will work for juice." What kind of work? Well she was doing some mean scooting this morning on the tile. She'd get down on her belly and push herself backwards and then spin in circles. My breakdancing baby....she's finally learning all these moves I've been trying to teach her. ;)

Highlight of the day: Rocking in the recliner for nearly thirty minutes this morning with a cuddly, warm pajama-clad baby on my lap watching cartoons. I'm not sure what cartoon it was that kept her attention so well but she seemed genuinely interested in it. All I cared about was the fact that it wasn't Spongebob Squarepants and that I had her right where I wanted her. In my arms.....

Here's to Tuesdays.