If I were a superhero...

...I would not be The Amazing Blog Woman. Because I've not been blogging at all. Not that you don't know that. Sorry.

(Just in case you're wondering, if I were a superhero, I'd be able to fly. That would be awesome. No more waiting in line at the security checkpoint at the airport. With a stroller. And a toddler. And 500 pounds of baby-related gear.)

Anyway, we've been so busy this summer, I've hardly had time to record it all. I keep a journal for Hadley--full of more personal stuff--that I started when I was pregnant, and I try to maintain this little corner of the Internet, but really, I spend most of my time just trying to keep up with Hadley, which is a full-time job. And I also have a full-time job. Sheesh.

We've been having all sorts of good adventures lately. Every Tuesday morning, we go to music class, which Hadley loves. She prefers the up-tempo songs, and she always asks for "more?" when we're done. If I sing the first note of any one of about six or seven songs, she starts doing the motions. (Most popular is "Itsy Bitsy Spider," which our music teacher calls "Eensy Weensy Spider," but Hadley and I know that is not correct. Silly music teacher.)

If Hadley had her choice, we'd spend all day outside, coming in only briefly to watch one of her three "Elmo's World" DVDs. She's not allowed to watch much TV, but we do allow one viewing per day of Elmo. Then, it's outside again, where she 1) digs in the dirt, 2) picks up rocks and says, "rock?", 3) barks at dogs, 4) points at bugs and says "bug?" and 5) wants to touch the bugs. She also likes to sit on the front porch steps. She turns around and backs up s-l-o-w-l-y as she sticks out her little bum. Then she sits down and looks very satisfied.

There's goodness in being happy just sitting on the front step, isn't there?

I just love Hadley's age. She understands so much--nearly everything I say, I'm convinced--and she responds with such earnestness and humor. I let her touch the microwave buttons the other day because there's just nothing more fun than pressing buttons, right? Well, she turned on some sort of special alarm that I couldn't turn off. She could not stop laughing at me trying to get the stupid microwave fixed (and I wasn't being funny, I assure you). Now when we walk by the microwave, she points and smiles her little mischievous smile at me. "Look out, Mama, or I'm going to use my special powers to make that microwave go crazy again."

And she talks! All the time! She loves "b" words best: balloon, bubbles, ball, back, bye-bye. But she also says hello, no-no, mama, dada, woof-woof, please ("peas!"), cheese, juice, more, apple, walk, book, shoes, Elmo ("Melmo!"), yes (we're REALLY working on "yes" to counter the facility she has with "no-no")--I can't even remember them all. I love seeing her brain just grow and develop and learn new things. It's amazing to see first-hand how a little person grows and changes each day.

And THAT, fair readers, is why I haven't been blogging. I'm helping a little person grow and develop, for heaven's sake! What more can you ask of me?

Kidding. I'll try to do better, even if it means just throwing some photos of Hadley up here for you to see. Speaking of which...

We make a lot of forts on the couch. Forts are very important for hiding things...

and for climbing in...

It's also very important to clean off the bookshelves once a day...

...in case there are any titles you no longer want to read...