Excuse the Absence

I haven't written any entries for October yet (except the one with Harper's new "So Big" trick) because last week my parents were visiting, aka, keeping me sane, while Jesse was here:

Well, he wasn't exactly at this place, but he was in South Beach, Miami for a "I Heart Hurricanes" Conference. This is a picture of where he and I spent our first vacation as a married couple 10 years and about 5 months ago. The Penguin Hotel is right on Ocean Drive and their "Front Porch Cafe" is one of the tastiest restaurants ever. Every morning they served fresh baked (still hot) muffins, and outstanding coffee. It was quite fun to sit at one of the tables and people watch as we had a meal. So it was fun to see a picture of the place we stayed and remember the fun week we spent there.

And now, 10 years later we have these two little pumpkins to keep us company:


There have been a few observations I've made that I'd like to share. I'll start with Harper.

You might notice in the above picture as well as the one before that, that Harper is not wearing shoes and socks (or just has one on). Harper hates wearing shoes and socks. The minute I put them on, she will take them off. And if she can't get them off, she gets very, very mad. My mom noted that she is like her Daddy, who can't stand having socks on when his feet are hot, but I would argue that she is like her Great Grandma Ayanoglou who in the dead of winter wore capris and no socks (Grandma wore capris before they "came back.")

The other change in Harper is that she is a crawling queen. I used to be able to put her in our little playroom and she'd hang out there for quite awhile. This is not the case anymore. She takes off and roams around our condo, making it a bit of a challenge for me to focus....on anything. However, I know when she is crawling because she makes the exact same noise her sister did when she learned how fast she could go. It's sort of a huffing and puffing mixed with pure glee that she is moving as fast as she can. So at least I know she's on the loose when I hear her "let's get this party started" chant.

The last thing I have learned about Harper is that she knows what "No" means. This is a huge difference from Hadley. When Hadley was Harper's age, I would listen to moms talk about how their children understand "no" and will stop doing whatever it is they were doing. I would nod and agree, or say, "Oh yea, Hadley does the same thing. She totally understands 'No.'" But the truth is that Hadley could've cared less when we would tell her "no." It's not that she didn't understand the word, it's just that she didn't care we were saying it. Harper, on the other hand, will stop what she's doing, look at one of us, and start crying as if the world ended. It's awful. It's gotten to the point where I second guess myself before I say the darn word.


Like any toddler, Hadley does several things every day that make me want to laugh, but I have to be careful not to embarrass her. For example, she has become interested in doing everything by herself these days. One of these tasks is pulling up her pants after she's finished using the bathroom. We try and encourage her to do this, but she forgets to pull up her underpants first. As you can imagine, this makes it difficult to walk.
Another thing Hadley has started is making up words. She only seems to do this when we are arguing over something. Take today, for instance. We were walking into the condo, and Hadley picked up a stick. When I opened the door, I said, "Hadley, you need to keep the stick outside." She told me, "But this is my trampoline joko stick, Mama. It's not a stick." I told her the trampoline joko stick needed to stay outside.

So there are a few tidbits for the readers of NFN.