The Joy of Routine

So the holidays are over and I am back to work.

I took the week after Christmas off and I was alone with Hailey for most of those days. It was a great time - wonderful, funny, sweet.... and I am SO glad to be back to work!!

Huh?

Oh yeah... I'm thrilled to be back to work. While I really did love spending time with her...when you have so much time off, your whole pattern of living (and everything else) goes down the drain. I am not a schedule freak, but when your two year old is still screaming and awake at 11:00 pm, you long for the days of planned events and alarm clocks. Other things spiral out of control as well... the bit of television she gets to watch turned into a week long, drawn out 'Spongebob video-fest' that literally destroyed our DVD player. She just runs you absolutely ragged, she is a non-stop play machine. Some days, the only thing I could muster was enough energy to watch her from the recliner as she laid waste to the living room. It looked like Mrs. Potato Head had exploded in the microwave there were so many pieces of 'things' everywhere. If it was a toy.... and it had detachable parts...they were on the floor in the highest traffic areas possible.

Plus, you would think with all that time I am spent with her, she might have gotten over her Daddy fixation, but it was not to be. Sure...she's better about it than she has been, but there are still nights when Momma gets punches instead of kisses at bedtime, or she won't let me get her out of the car seat. Heaven forbid I should try to get her out of bed on a Saturday...unless I long to be met by screams of 'NO MOMMA, NO...DADDY WHERE ARE YOU?

However.... I do get my moments every now and then.

• She graces Momma with the game 1,2,3,GO! (she runs down to the end of the hallway and yells "1,2,3,GO" and then runs into my arms). It's an AWESOME game, I love it!

  
  

  I have gotten a lot of good snuggle time in lately, some is a little too wiggly, and she steals my chair from me whenever she gets a chance - but it's still good.

  
  

  She has been a great deal of fun, having tickle fights, shaking our 'tails', making faces, playing with toys and doing the booty dance, she's such a silly kid.

The holiday itself was wonderful, we had a great time with family and Hailey was really good. We tried introducing the concept of Christmas this year, but 'Christmas' just became the word she used to describe the tree... "Hailey Don't touch the Christmas...just look"! She did understand the word 'present' and Hailey really got into opening gifts this year. All Hailey's toys were great, but I think the winner gift this year was her stuffed SpongeBob Squarepants...she loves that thing.

She also brought down the house by playing Rock Band with her Uncles and Cousin on Christmas morning. She did it all, drums, guitar...but the best was when she grabbed the microphone and started singing. What a little diva! Some family member has that on video, and I'll post it as soon as they send it to me... *hint, hint*

Her vocabulary has increased so much lately, I find myself stunned at some of the things she says....'No thank you' is my favorite - and yesterday she put a freezer size Ziploc bag over both feet and walked around the house like a penguin. She makes me laugh at the goofy things she does.

My favorite story from this holiday started out on a not so funny note. We were having a terrible time getting Hailey to sleep at night (because we were sleeping in and didn't really want to stop...our fault, I know). We would put her to bed at 8:30 and she would scream and jump until 11:00. This built up, night after night...and we were getting really fed up with it. One night Nathan went in to tell her for the eleventy-hundreth time to lie down. Instead, she put her first two fingers over one eye, looked at him and said "Arrgggh.... I'm a pirate"! If it had been me, I would have doubled over with laughter and Hailey never would have gone to sleep!

So while it was definitely a gift to spend so much time with Hailey this past holiday, returning to the familiarity of the work routine has felt like a little present to myself today - although in a week I'm sure I'll want to return it...but I don't think I have the receipt.

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There are new pictures up on my photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/theyspot/

Which reminds me, oh family of mine....if you took pictures on Christmas, could you send those to me? I would love to see them before next holiday season!