I had thought that after 11 years and 5 kids, I’ve seen all the hilarious things babies get up to, but I will say that baby Hayley has managed to surprise me.
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Last week, Theo was having a particularly emotional day after being told that he wasn’t able to have a third round of afternoon snacks. You know how it is when they start talking and increasingly feel all of the feels and their speech escalates into a high pitched “butIonlyhad3snackspleasemomI…hadfhefafkjhjeshkjfha”
I was about to give him a hug and ask him to take a breath for a bit when a baby voice quipped, “It’s ok kor kor Theo, there’s no need to cry. Just talk like a normal person.”
We were all like “wait a minute, did that come from baby Hayley??” and indeed it did and the big kids (even Theo) all cracked up like it was the funniest thing ever.
It’s one thing to know how to tell someone to take a chill pill, but to nail the timing and delivery with such finesse? That’s something else.
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I’m not sure how this developed but Hayley now speaks like a valley girl and I’m so here for it.
“Mom, can you like, bring me to like, the playground or something?”
“I’m like a bit like, y’know, hungry…can I like have a snack?”
That’s way too many likes in one sentence and I like cannot. I don’t know what it means to like have a snack. Does that involve having an actual snack or just pretending to have a snack or having something that’s like a snack but not actually one?
It’s so adorable though and we have a running tally of how many likes she uses in a day. 53 is the record so far.
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I also have to tell you about the time this baby hatched an elaborate plot to sneak in some candy during bedtime because this one is impressive.
We had come back late one evening after a long day out and it was an “everybody wash up and go straight to bed” situation, which usually translates into a fair bit of mayhem. Amidst all the baby showering and pre-bed routine, nobody noticed that a pack of skittles had gone missing from the dining table.
So everyone went to bed and Hayley was climbing around my bed for 20 minutes when she was suddenly all like, “I think I want to sleep down on the mattress by myself now.” This is where I started getting suspicious because Hayley never volunteers to sleep on her mattress. She wants to be in our bed every chance she gets.
“Do you want mommy to lie down with you on the mattress?”
“No need!” she replies hastily.
“Alright fine, as you wish.” I’ve learnt not to question it when a baby decides to do something uncharacteristically mature such as wanting to sleep in her own bed by herself. “It’s progress and I’ll take a win when there’s one,” I told myself.
All was quiet for several minutes and then I start hearing a rustling from the mattress. I turn on the light to check and sure enough, this baby was trying to open the bag of skittles as quietly as she could. I was like “Is that a bag of skittles? How did it even get here and wh…”
“Sorry sorry, mom! I was like trying to…um, you can keep this in the fridge!”
Okay, many things had to line up for us to get here. First, she needed to plant the bag skittles strategically under the side table to keep it just out of view or she would have been busted straight off the bat. Then she had to bide her time on my bed and find an opportune moment to relocate herself to the mattress while playing it cool and convincing. That’s forward planning, delayed gratification, reading situations and improvising on the fly all happening in her brain and she might just have gotten away with the whole thing too if she had been more skilled in opening a bag without rustling.
To be clear, I don’t encourage candy-sneaking or sneaking of any sort, but I do recognise resourcefulness and this is next level.
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On an unrelated note, here are some photos of Hayley enjoying a shake shack (took us 40 minutes in the queue) and a delicious beverage.
And this, this is what I call the just-got-busted-but-trying-to-figure-her-way-out-of-it face. I love this face.
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