In The Night

There is a sound that I dread. 

It startles me when I am downstairs and I hear it upstairs.

When I hear it in my living room or my office it means work for me.

When I hear it at 1:30 in the morning, like I did last night, it is down right frightening!

It is the sound of Haley dumping all of the toys out of her purse.

At 1:30 a.m.

After I got over the initial shock I dragged myself out of bed and opened my bedroom door.  There she was rifling through the contents of her purse. 

"Haley, what are you doing?" I whispered.

"Pumba."

Now I was sleepy and a little disoriented so my mind was not swift.

"Is that your hyena?" I asked, knowing full well that it wasn't, but I couldn't remember what it was. 

I knew it wasn't the warthog from The Lion King.  I knew that she had chosen that name for a different kind of animal.  And I knew at the time she named it that it was probably not a good idea to let her use that name.  Not because it would confuse her, but for this very reason. 

That it would confuse me. 

That at some point I would be asked to find said animal (in the middle of the night) and I would not remember which animal it was because the name attached to it brought up memories of another animal which it was not.

She said "yeah," even though that was clearly not the animal she was looking for. 

We both knew that.  We were both tired though.  And it was dark. 

I tried in vain to help her shuffle through the toys looking for an animal that neither one of us could see and that only one of us really knew that we were looking for.

I smelled something.

"Haley, do you need your pants changed?"

"Yeah."

"OK, let's go do that."

She got up and I followed her in to the bathroom.

Afterward I gently persuaded her to go back to bed.  I didn't say that we would look for Pumba in the morning, but it was implied.

About an hour later (after I heard her shuffling around the house) she came in to my room.  I got up and put her back in bed again.  There was no mention of Pumba this time.

In the morning it started, after she had breakfast and got dressed, thankfully.  I looked around the house, but I didn't find it. 

I do remember now that it is a lion cub.  The one she got at the zoo the last time we went.  I spent a good hour looking for it this morning after she went to school, but so far no luck.

The bummer is that about a week ago I did a thorough cleaning of her room and I bagged up a bunch of toys that she never really plays with and I donated them.  I am pretty sure that Pumba was not amongst those toys, but the thing is that I organized everything in her room.  I don't remember seeing it, but if I did I would have put it with the other plastic animals and it is not there.

So like her Big Sis said, it is probably in a weird place that she put it, but she doesn't remember. 

Her Big Sis also said that she imagines her mind is like a log book where she catalogs all of her toys, where she played with them last and where she left them.  And when someone moves them (like I did when I cleaned) her log book gets all messed up.

So I messed up her log book.  And Pumba is missing. 

And I have about four hours to find her.

Rain Went Away

After Haley got dressed this morning she started looking for Rain.  Rain is one of Haley's favorite Schleich horses.  She was looking around her bed.  Her room is fairly clean though, and it was obvious that Rain was not on the floor.

Haley started to get upset.  As she does when one of her many horses goes missing.  I did not want her to be upset right before she left for school so I assured her that I would help her look for Rain as soon as she was ready for school.  We still needed to fix her hair and brush her teeth.  She complained as we did that (meaning that she grunted and moaned the entire time.)

Then she followed me around as I looked for Rain.

I had just cleaned the house a couple of days ago and I remember carrying a lot of horses from downstairs upstairs, but I didn't specifically remember Rain among them. 

Rain was not with the horses that are lined up on the half wall at the top of the stairs.  She was not in the stable, which for some reason was in my bedroom.  She was not with the horses that were napping on my desk, so gently tucked under the table cloth.

I looked under the couches.  I looked under the pillows and blankets on the couches.  I was convinced that she was not downstairs, so I went back up to Haley's room.  Haley didn't follow me.  She sat down on the couch to watch Beauty and the Beast.

Haley seemed to think that Rain should have been around the bed.  I flipped the covers.  Then I pulled the mattress away from the wall and there she was.

I carried her downstairs and when I walked in to the room Haley looked up.  She smiled.  "There she is."  she said.  I handed the horse to her and headed to the kitchen. 

"I happy now."

*What?*

"You are?" I said.

"Yeah."     "Smiling."     "Laughing."

It was like she was saying.  Duh, Mom, this is what it is like when I am happy.  I am smiling and I am laughing.  She said other things too, but it was hard to hear her over the sound of the angels in my head singing the Hallelujah Chorus.

She said a full sentence.  A sentence that I had never heard her say before.  A full sentence.

I happy now.

Me too.

My Morning Surprise

When I walked up to my desk this morning I was greeted with this.

Apparently my desk is now a bed for Haley's horses.

And dolls.

Quiet Play

My daughter spends a lot of time on the computer.  I don't mind, obviously, because I think she is learning things.  She is learning skills about the computer, but she is also listening, which I think is a useful skill.  I would like her to do something else every once in a while, however.

It would seem that she has found something else to do.

 

She took her new stable into our bedroom to play with.

She has been at it for a while now. 

We can hear her talking. 

It is a wonderful sound.

I Couldn't Resist

Heather is the cow that lives behind Haley's Grandma and Grandpa's house.  Haley loves Heather.

Haley can never get very close to Heather.  First there is that electric fence in the way, then there are those horns, there is also the fact that Heather is just not very friendly.  Heather only likes you if you have food in your hand for her.

When we went to the feed store to look for Schleich animals we were really hoping to find a Heather.  We didn't.  We ended up with a different kind of cow.  She was a cream color and she didn't have the long hair that Heather has, but she did have horns. 

Haley wasn't too concerned.  She was a cow so she name her Heather. 

Well, I tend to be picky. 

Call it perfectionism. 

I thought Heather should look like Heather so I went for a search online, and look what I found.

I found Heather.

So now Haley has a Heather that she can touch,

...and hold,

...and love.

Bless You

I have been busy lately, and a little distracted.  I am working on a project that keeps me at my desk and on the computer.  Haley has been keeping herself entertained, for the most part.  She has really been playing with her toys, which I think is kind of a reaction to losing so many.

She took a break from playing toys and wanted to watch a movie.  She brought me the DVD and then she wanted to be covered up with a blanket.  If you know Haley you know that only means she wants Shadow to join her too.  I got her all set up and then she wanted popcorn.  After I made her popcorn I went back in to my office and sat down.

Every now and then Haley would grunt.  She chose to watch the "extra stuff" from Monters, Inc., which means that I have to push a button every five minutes or so.  I didn't have the patience for that so I tried (yet again) to get her to use the remote.  I showed her which buttons to push and I asked her to push them.  When the show actually started playing I made a big deal out of it and told her that she had done it.

She actually pushed the button a couple of times, I could hear the different segments starting.  I was really proud of her and really surprised.  Then I heard the grunt again.  I came around the corner to see what was going on.  There was a lot going on.  Haley's Big Sis is good at setting the reminder on the cable box to the shows that she wants to watch, but then sometimes she isn't even home and the TV reminds her anyway.  That reminder had come up on the screen and Haley had started pushing buttons.  The setup screen was blinking.  I finally had to turn everything off to get control of it again.

So that kind of backfired on me.  Haley was no longer interested in pushing the buttons.  I told her that she needed to watch the movie, so that I didn't have to keep getting up.  I got that going and went back in to my office.

A little while later she had put in a VHS tape, the silly player that we have plays both VHS and DVD's.  It will play them both at the same time, so if she puts in a tape it starts playing it (sometimes) while the DVD keeps running.  I heard the Pixar short Tin Toy start up. 

If you haven't seen it, it is cute.  A baby gets a new toy that makes music, but the baby is not gentle with it's new toy.  We soon learn that the baby isn't gentle with any of it's toys.  Anyway, in this short the baby sneezes.  Right after the baby sneezed Haley said "Bless You." 

It made my day.

The Other Shoe

Shortly after I posted the last blog post Haley's Big Sis decided to go over to her friends house.  Shortly after that Haley seemed agitated.  She wanted to know where her sister had gone.  I told her and then she got upset.

I asked her if she missed her sister and she said "Yeah."  Then she said "Haley. Day. ent."  She said it a few more times.  I finally clued in.  She was saying "Haley's Birthday Present."  I asked her which present she was referring to.  She repeated herself.  I repeated myself.  Then she said "One. Two. Three." holding up finger for each number. I said "Do you mean all of them?" and she said "Yeah."  I said "Are you missing your birthday presents?" and she said "Yeah." and started crying. 

It was then that I realized what was in those purses.

Haley and I decided to go shopping.

We went to Target and found a new Polly Pocket to replace the seven or eight Polly Pockets that were in those purses, including the one that her Big Sis had given her for her birthday.  We also found a new Lightning McQueen to replace the two that were in those purses.  We looked for a fawn to replace Raina the Schleich fawn that was in those purses, but we didn't find one.

We then went to the Feed Mill where we found another deer (not the same one she is missing) a new draft horse, two baby horses and a cow that has horns like Heather.

I know I can't replace everything that she lost, but I feel better.  She seems to really like her new toys and she isn't crying anymore.

Smile

Haley had my camera.  She was taking pictures of her horses and dolls.  I caught her.  Then she wanted me to take the photos while she posed.