Moments Like These

Friday, Bailey and I got out of the house after a week of recovery and cabin fever.  It was must deserved and much needed.  We headed to the mall, had a very late lunch at McDonalds' where Bailey insisted upon dipping her fries into ketchup (and she doesn't even like the taste) and then off to Kohl's to take advantage of their weekend sale.  While at Kohl's, Bailey shocked me by doing something out of her character.  She sat down in the toy section and played with the pop-up pals toys.  You know those things?  You push a button or pull a lever and the things pop up out of a door?  Anyway, she played with two different versions and then would say, "it's UP!"  She knows the concept of up!!!!
She's a genius.  A brilliant genius.
Anyhow, she sat there for the LONGEST time playing with these.  It was amazing.  She's never been like this in toy aisles before.  I was so excited, I ended up buying her one of them for Christmas.  Luckily, she's forgotten about it, so it'll be a surprise all over again.

Saturday, we had to go do some shopping for our neighbor Quinton's birthday present.  Bailey did it again!  She sought out the toy aisle and played!  Daddy was just as excited as Mommy was.  She was loving every button and touched everything she possibly could.  She's never been this interested in toys before until now...
Just in the knick of time.
Our Christmas shopping has just suddenly gotten a lot more interesting.

Yesterday evening, Bailey spent some time with her wonderful grandparents.  How lucky are we for them, honestly?  Daddy had a work Christmas party to go to, so they watched her at the last minute (we waited that long to make sure she was healthy enough).  Sure, it was kind of odd driving all the way to Independence from Ottawa, and to Bonner Springs for the party, and back to Independence and then home to Ottawa all for an hour at a party, but hey...we don't have a lot of access to babysitters, or at least we never ask anyone besides her grandparents.  She sure does love them.  Grandpa Hudson is possibly her most favorite person in the whole wide world.  He blows bubbles indoors with her and lets her beat him up with an inflatable sword.  What's not to love?

It was humorous because she hadn't slept anything longer than fifteen minutes yesterday, stayed awake the whole drive to Independence, so we expected her to nap for at least part of her visit with them since we'd be back late.  So we show up past ten and has she slept?  No, at least nothing longer than a thirty second tease to make Grandma and Grandpa think maybe they'd get a break.  They must have worn her out though because slept the entire drive home without a fight. 
She definitely loves her visits with them though, and as she should.  They leave right after Christmas for Arizona for their yearly hibernation.  Luckily, she gets to see them next Sunday too so Mommy and Daddy can see Chronicles of Narnia.  Until recently, Mommy and Daddy never really left Bailey much, but they realized they better take their chance now before Grandma and Grandpa are away in the desert sun.  She's going to miss them so much...


We finally bought our Christmas tree today.  This Mommy has been getting antsy.  In fact, she was getting down right nasty about it.  We were in search of a tree with the best bristles for a Bailey, ones that wouldn't prick her like the spindle in Sleeping Beauty.  Although, sometimes we wouldn't mind her getting some sleep...

So we got our tree and tonight we started decorating it and the child is just truly intrigued by this thing.  She'd do her fake sneezes and then we put on the lights and now she just glows when she looks at it.  She actually glows.  She was trying to help us hang up ornaments too.  She's really loving the Madame Alexander ones.

Ask us in a week just how much we hate this thing, because it's pretty new right now.