One of Hailey’s favorite new words is “outside”. She says it when she stands at the gate to the stairs and at the sliding glass door to the balcony. Her daddy has been taking her on little walks around our building during the evenings when it’s nice. We’ve also been leaving the door to the balcony open so she can come and go as she pleases, weather permitting.

Today, we spent the majority of our day outside. Earlier this morning, we met Kerry and the boys (Jacob & Brett) downtown Naperville to check out the ducks and geese and have a little lunch. The kids are starting to recognize each other and enjoy mimicking each other. Jacob calls Hailey “wee-wee” and Hailey calls Jacob “ga-ga”. Sounds like two bff’s in the making to me! When asked what a bunny does, they both blurted out “hop-hop” in unison. It was pretty darn adorable if you ask me.

After having a long afternoon nap, I took Hails out for a wagon ride. We stopped off at the park for some swinging (to which she responds, “weeeeee”) and some sliding (which generates giggling). We then made our way around the complex and back by our wetlands. I’ve always thought our subdivision’s wetlands were pretty ugly. Right now, however, they’re not looking too bad.

Sometimes there are ducks floating around in there and when Hailey sees them, she’d like to rush toward the water. Little does she know it’s like a complete swamp so we’re pretty stern with her to stay in the wagon or on the path.

She decided she wanted to get out of the wagon and walk home tonight. She was very good about staying on the path. As were were walking, hand-in-hand, I caught sight of our shadows. How sweet it looked.

“My heart outside of my body”. That’s one of my favorite sayings. That’s exactly how I felt. There was plenty of babbling going on during our walk and I can only imagine what she was saying.

Maybe things like, “Mama, this is all new to me.” or “Mama, are we there yet? I’m hungry.” I’m thinking the latter because when we got home, she downed an entire pb&j. I really took in this moment because I know all too soon, she won’t take walks with me. She’ll be all grown up and there won’t be time for these special walks.

We arrived home and I let her go out onto the balcony and make a huge mess of sand on the floor. Then, her daddy got home and took her out for one last wagon ride before bath and bedtime. What a pleasant day.