A few words....

Hayden is becoming such a terrible delight to have around. Not that he wasn't a delight before it's just that now he can interact more and is just plain more fun. When I look at him now, I see a kid or toddler 100% in him - No baby at all! He is trying to do more stuff for himself, he can do more stuff for himself. He is back to himself in his "try, try, try again" mind state, which I love but when it comes to disobeying it can be killer on me to chase him around or have to continuously remove him. His tantrums, where he calmly lies himself down and begins to kick and scream, are narrowing down a bit, but he still has a hard time listening. Instead, I have to remove him and remove, redirect, or tell him "you can't play with this but that." They all never work all the time, but one out of all them usually works for him.
Hayden's persona is coming out more, and I'm really starting to see who he is. And truly love him for who he is. His interests are shaping, his moods are stabilizing more as I understand him more, his limits, boundaries, likes, and dislikes.
He enjoys instruments (so for his b-day I plan on letting it rain music), he is getting more artistic and drawing is one of our favorite together activities besides reading and singing. (I am gonna have to post a video of this kid singing, he totally has soul). He loves trucks and trains, so I'm thinking about maybe getting him that Thomas train track thing or maybe that village table.
And what I'm excited the most to share is: Hayden can talk! It started earlier in his 21st month with a few new words popping up about every so often, and now has peaked! He can say certain sentences, piece words together and has been learning between 1-2 words a day. I am so excited about him talking, I really am starting to become happy that he is growing up. VERY HAPPY. And here is a video of not even a fraction of the words he knows. Enjoy, I know I love videos

Potty training and speech

I am over the moon to say that Hayden is 50% potty trained. He will go up to the potty standing up like a big boy and pee if he has to go he'll just stand over the potty and go! I am beyond glad that potty training has been so easy because PT was one of the things that completely scared me to death. I didn't think I would be able to do it at all or that my child would be one of those children that took forever to train.
But so far so good. I will be making changes: bye bye disposable diapers! Not when we go out and not when he goes to bed. I'm all cloth, all the time. Yay!!! Hayden will be transferred slowly (slow being the key term here) into big boy underwear to drive home that he has to pee in the potty most of the time now, expect when he is napping or going places he'll be strapped in cloth.

For the last few days, Hayden has been a talking machine- surprising us so much with his extending vocabulary. He now is trying out two word sentences here and there and may a 3 word phase. Two days ago, the hubby went to my Mom's to drop off something, Hayden was with him. When it was time to go Hayden promptly told Daddy "I stay!" Daddy's eyes widened then he tried to tell him he needed to go to help him check the mail. "I stay here!" is all my toddler had to say as everyone in the room looked at one another. Go figure he loves Grandma's house! Yesterday he told Daddy "lay down" so he could race cars on his stomach. And he loves saying "got it" when playing ball. He will even babble on conversational like and then laugh, coo "ooo" before tumbling over in laughter. Speech I have so much fun with because it is amazing to me how much they pick simply by listening and you communicating with a toddler.