Full Sentences

Hannah is now speaking in mostly full sentences. Usually her sentences are 4-5 words long and often grammatically correct, but every now and then she comes up with a doosey that really catches me off guard. For example, last week we were playing outside and she looked up at me and then pointed to the sidewalk behind me and said, "I see a girl riding on a bike." I turned around and sure enough there WAS a girl riding on a bike. One of her favorite new phrases to use is "I want some. . . ." She uses this A LOT now. In the beginning it was cute and actually very helpful, but she can get VERY sassy and bossy about it when she thinks we aren't moving fast enough or when we tell her that she can't have some. Along with the sassing using "I want some" Hannah has also started to just generally sass back if she's in a bad mood, tired, or not happy with the outcome of the situation. Consequently we've been spending lots of time in time out for not talking to mommy nicely.

Hannah had a good weekend with Mamaw and Papaw. I don't think she wanted to go home. She'd much rather be spoiled by them than obey us! While there she got to help feed the horses and feed Zeke and visit with her Great Grandma Frye. Grandma Frye had this really cool Lion that sang "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" that Hannah got a big kick out of.

Potty training continues to go well. Hannah is now totally bowl trained. I haven't had to change a poopy diaper in almost 3 weeks which I LOVE! She is pooping in the toilet 2-3 times every day and always holds it until she is on the potty. Urine training is taking a little bit longer. Either it's harder to hold because her bladder is so small or she just doesn't always slow down enough to listen to her body telling her that she needs to pee. If we take her to the potty she always pees in the toilet and sometimes she will tell us that she needs to go pee in the potty. BUT if you ask her if she needs to pee she will always answer no even if I know she needs to go. She does really well staying dry in the the morning and we usually have very few if any accidents until after her nap. Once she starts to get wore out in the afternoon and once Daddy gets home she seems to have more accidents. The good thing is that she HATES having accidents and will usually tell me either as soon as she has wet her pants or often even while she is peeing. Hopefully this is a step in the right direction and we will be able to give up diapers for good soon. Last week Hannah peed in a public toilet for the first time and she hasn't looked back since. I was a bit worried about how it would work and if she would be scared of the big hole and the automatic flushes, but she did really well. We were playing at the play place at the mall and she told me she needed to go so I took her in and she was still dry and she went on the toilet. She asked to go 3 times that trip and each time she was dry and went on the potty. She has since used lots of different public toilets and did great. After two scary incidents of falling into the potty (once with Kyle and once with Mamaw) I am really surprised that she's doing as well as she is with toilets that aren't hers, but it hasn't seemed to have affected her much at all, though she does mention the incidents from time to time.

Further evidence that we have a very clever little girl is the fact that the other night in the bathtub she spelled her name for Kyle! I haven't witnessed this feat yet, but he said he wrote the letter H on the tub with her tub crayons and said, "H for Hannah" and she said, "A N N A H" He immediately screamed for me to come into the bathroom to tell me about it and see if she would do it again, but she wouldn't do it for me. Another thing she did the other day was while she was in time out while Grandpa was here. I knew she would want to talk to Grandpa if she could see him so I moved her timeout mat to another room so she couldn't see him. She got up from her mat so she got a spank and I told her to not get off of her mat otherwise she would get another spank. SOOOO, she instead pushed her mat (while keeping her bottom firmly planted on it) all the way across the room until she could poke her head around the doorway and say, "Hi Grandpa!"

I'm finally caught up on uploading videos to Google. You will actually be seeing some videos that where shot in the month I posted them!

Here is Hannah sleeping in a pile of books. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1700261361283996005

Hannah riding her rocking horse. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6352894557630971711

Yet more singing of Jesus Loves Me. Can you tell that it's one of her favorite songs? http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3103739513243965899

Hannah loves to put on shoes and walk around the house in them even if they aren't her shoes. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4991832622610802384

Hannah pretending to be an elephant. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-620977543241417026

Hannah still enjoys playing her harmonica. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9039278633584431556

Here's Hannah being the tickler this time. She's tickling her sister Kayla. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4709846652047116653

Gotta Go

Potty training is going very well for Hannah. In fact, she is almost potty training herself. The past 2 days she has been telling me when she has to pee and hasn't had a single BM in her diaper and very few pee accidents. Almost all of the times she has peed in her diaper have been either at night or early morning before I wake up and she's just hanging out in her room reading or while she's sleeping during her nap. Today she didn't have a single accident and even held it 3 different times when I told her that I couldn't take her to the bathroom right then (we were driving back from gymnastics, at the park, and jogging with Kyle). She only went through 2 diapers the entire day and the only one that was wet enough for me to tell it was wet before I took it off was the one I changed after her nap. I probably didn't even need to change the second one when we put her to bed, but it had been taken off and on so many times that day that I thought the Velcro might not be in a good enough shape to last the night so we put on a fresh one. She didn't wear big girl underwear today because we were out and about away from bathrooms so much today, but tomorrow we plan to get back into them. She's been wearing them pretty much all the time now unless we are away from home. The poor thing really DOES NOT want to have an accident and gets practically frantic if she thinks that she's going to have one. I rush her to the bathroom thinking she's already peed, but then she's dry as a bone and then goes a ton in the toilet. If she really does have an accident she starts to cry and says "change the diaper, change the diaper" in a hysterical voice. I've never scolded her for having an accident, but somehow she gets that it's not a good thing. She has so much pride each time she goes to the potty and her big girl underwear is dry. She sings a little song (which she made up herself that is a variation on the song I sing to her when she pees or poops in the potty) each time she's dry that goes like this, "Hannah's dry, Hannah's dry, Hannah's pants are dry! YEAH!" and then claps her hands. It makes me smile so big!

Hannah has a big occasion coming up this weekend. She's spending the night at Mamaw and Papaw's house and she's seriously pumped about it. She's positive they are going to take her outside to play in the woods with Zeke (their dog) and she keeps telling me this every chance she gets. Today she asked me over and over if she was going to sleep at Mamaw's tonight. She's not quite got a grasp on the passage of time and the future yet so I guess we'll have to just keep going through this dialogue until Saturday rolls around and she actually DOES get to sleep at Mamaw's. Hopefully all will go well and she actually WILL sleep.

Here's a head's up for all of you planners out there like me who like to "save the date" for things. Hannah's party this year will be the weekend before her birthday because her birthday falls on 4th of July weekend (I'm sure this will happen often) and I know that would be hectic for everyone. The party will be on Saturday June 28th from 2-3:30. We are having it at the gym where she takes gymnastics this year and I think it will be a lot of fun. The best part is that I won't have to do ANY clean up or set up at all. They will take care of all of that and they even provide an hour's worth of gymnastics instruction and games for the kids. I'll get everyone directions and stuff when it gets closer to time. Interestingly enough, Hannah has become keenly interested in birthdays lately. Our neighbor is having his 5th birthday party this weekend and he's been talking about it for weeks. Every time he sees us he tells us about the Sponge Bob party he's going to have and that he will be five. Hannah has just randomly been saying that Zach's 5 and Hannah's 1 and Evelyn's 1 ever since the first time Zach told us about his party. Then today at gymnastics it was one of her classmates' birthday and we sang her Happy Birthday and Hannah loved the song. She kept wanting to tell Sam Happy Birthday and then tonight at dinner she just randomly blurted out, "Happy Birthday Sam!" Her party should be really fun because she'll get it this year and she will have just gone to a party a few weeks before for her friend Addie so the idea of a birthday party should be fresh in her mind.

Today we took Hannah for a walk with the dogs for the very first time. Neither of our dogs are great on the leash (Abby lags behind and often has to be drug along and Ella sprints ahead choking herself!) so it's not a huge shock that we weren't keen to try to handle them with a toddler on the lose or even with a stroller. Tonight both dogs were in usual walk mode, but we put an extra leash on Abby for Hannah to hold and decided to give it a try. She had a blast and so did we. It was funny to see her getting pulled back by the leash as she wandered off course completely clueless about what was holding her back!

Here are some more videos that I finally got uploaded to Google.

Hannah is so ticklish! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3620203422170354640&hl=en

Hannah and Addie coloring. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3412103643176809925&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7612057443526193488&hl=en

Hannah is reading a book when she is supposed to be sleeping. If you listen closely you can hear her saying, "How many kisses do you want tonight? Mommy kiss. ~smack~ How many kisses do you want tonight? Just one. ~smack~" http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-224267902175712086&hl=en

In this video Hannah is singing Old McDonald instead of sleeping. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6412166977236602850&hl=en

Numbers

My little girl just blows my mind. Tonight I about fell into the bathtub as I was washing her hair. She was playing with the water and I wasn't paying much attention until I heard her say, "I see a number 4." Before I could even process what she had said she pointed at it on the measuring cup she was holding. Then she said, "I see a number 2." Then she pointed to it on the cup. I ended up asking her if she could find other numbers and she pointed to 0-6, and 8 on the measuring cup (there wasn't a 7 or a 9) all in random order. At first I thought maybe she was somehow counting them and she was guessing the numerals that way, but then I realized that the side she was looking at was counting the ounces by 2s. Then I flipped the cup over and started asking her the numbers 0-5 in random order from the (100-500) ml side of the cup. The reason I'm so amazed by this newest feat of hers is that I HAVEN'T taught her or worked with her on numerals except for 0-2 from her home preschool program. She has either learned them from her Baby Einstein/Sesame Street DVDs or from her counting books. I'm not sure which did it, but it's certain that any of the learning was simply soaked up and not directly taught. I think it's just crazy how easy numbers come to her. They don't come easy to me. If Hannah wasn't adopted I'd say she got her number smarts from her daddy the engineer, but Kyle's gene's had nothing to do with it! :) My little girl's just smart.

Yesterday we had a nice visit with Tiffany, Hannah's birthmother, and her twins and Tiffany's mom. We had Easter pictures taken with all of the kids again like we did last year and it went much better this time. Last year was a complete and utter disaster as far as the pictures were concerned. Chase was so excited to see Hannah that he was invading her personal space which is never a good idea with Hannah, we had a male photographer who wasn't good with any of the kids, and Hannah was experiencing severe stranger and separation anxiety. The combination was not good. We didn't get a single good picture of the 3 of them. This year we had a much more successful time. Tiffany and I were laughing as we were looking at the proofs because the pics we were immediately dismissing this year were as good as or better than the one we eventually ended up buying last year! Hannah had a blast running around chasing Chase and tickling Kayla. She even warmed up quickly to Tiffany and let her hold her and gave spontaneous hugs, kisses, and "I Love You"s as we were leaving. I was so proud of my little girl for making her birthfamily feel so happy.

Potty training is going fairly well. Hannah pees every single time I sit her on the potty almost as soon as I get her up there. She definitely knows how to pee at will. We got her some big girl underwear and plastic covers and have had two full days (not in a row though!) wearing them. The first day we started out strong and then quickly fell apart. We went through every single pair of underwear before it was even 2:00pm! We also went through almost all of her pants! Part of the problem was that I wasn't very organized and I really had no idea exactly how often she really needed to pee since diapers are so absorbent that you can't really tell they are wet until they are very wet. Consequently, I had no way of knowing if she peed a lot all at once or a little bit at a time until it all added up to a wet diaper. I found out it was the latter that fist day. Today I had a better plan of action and set a timer to take her to the bathroom every 30 minutes. She actually peed every single time a significant amount. We had only had one accident by 4:00pm! Then as she started to get tired and cranky things went down hill and we had 3 more accidents before it was time for bed at 7:00pm, but I still think that it was a successful day considering it was only her second time ever wearing big girl underwear. She even managed to poop in the potty 2 separate times today too!
Another sign that my little girl is growing up is that she has officially ditched her highchair. We got her this really cool thing that boosts her chair at the table up. Instead of a booster seat that sits on top of the chair and then Hannah sits in the booster, this is a device that the chair sits on top of and lifts the chair up so that Hannah actually sits on the dining room table chair just like Kyle and I do. It's called a Kaboost and it's really cool. Kudos to Kyle for finding it on the Internet.

School continues to go well. Tomorrow will be the end of our 4th week. The theme this week was eyes and Hannah as usual got really into it. The theme for next week is lighthouses which I'm not super excited about so I'll be interested to see how much Hannah likes it. I can't imagine lighthouses will be very interesting for an extremely active 21 month old girl. Maybe I'll be surprised. Today when we worked on our alphabet the only letters Hannah failed to identify (in random order) on the first try were N, U, and X. She called N "z" and X "y" I thought that was really pretty good. The sounds she currently knows are A, B, C, D, E, I, H, J, M, P, R, S, T, W, and Z. She has A-D, M, W, and R mastered. The other ones can be hit or miss sometimes.
Here are some videos from the last few months that I finally got uploaded onto Google. Enjoy.

Hannah reading books. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4767920472411038267&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6115836828758160927&hl=en

Hannah and I playing Super Grover. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5298892368292382119&hl=en

Hannah splashing in her first puddle. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6569501497617515300&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7218410685235990009&hl=en

First Ear Infection

The cold I mentioned that Hannah was getting in my last post turned into her first ear infection. She's now on a 10 day course of antibiotics that she has to take 3 times a day. I'm extremely glad that she is good about taking medicine because I don't even want to think about having to give her meds multiple times a day by myself if she didn't cooperate. The fact that Hannah is so good about taking medicine is probably partly just her personality, but I'm sure the fact that she sees me take so many meds has something to do with it too. I didn't know quite how in tune she was to my physical health and my meds until one day when we were in the grocery store and I put a bottle of vitamins in the cart and Hannah tried to take it from me and said, "Hannah hold medicine." She will also try to diagnose me whenever I deny her requests to pick her up, dance with her, or play the "get you game" (chase her). The first thing she will say is "Mommy hurt" and then once I confirm that she is right she will then try to decide what hurts. She will guess my back, head, or legs. It makes me sad that she is not even 2 years old, yet she already has a good grasp on my pain and it's limitations. If I say that I am hurting she will usually give me a hug or kiss and say, "feel better Mommy."

Potty training is going fairly well given that we aren't very serious about it. I try to take her to the bathroom at least a couple of times a day, but that doesn't always happen. She's not asking to go sit on the potty yet, but she has been telling us when she pees every now and then and she pees almost every time I sit her on the toilet now. She's also pooped four times. Today I took her in to sit on the potty when she had a dry diaper and then she peed as soon as she sat down. I'm not sure if she was actually holding it or not, but I'll take it as a good sign. She's also asking to stay on the potty for longer and longer periods of time ever since that first time she pooped. Even though she's not asking to go in and sit on the potty, I wonder if these other things are a sign that I need to get a little more serious about the potty training. I don't want to push her too quickly, but if she's ready to be rid of diapers then I certainly don't want to prolong the process! I'd love to have that money we spend on diapers to use for other things.

Today we took Hannah to the gym where she takes her gymnastics class for their Saturday open play program. She had an absolute blast and completely wore herself out. By the end of the hour she could barely haul herself up onto the trampoline or even walk straight! She was so cute running down the room long trampoline bouncing all the way. Speaking of gymnastics, next month Hannah will be performing in her first gymnastics meet. The gym has a preschool gymnastics show to raise money for St. Jude Hospital every year and this year Hannah will be participating. I can't wait to see her show off for everyone.

Recently we got a pleasant surprise. Mike, Hannah's birthfather, was in town for work and he called to ask if he could drop by. We hadn't seen him for awhile so it was nice for Hannah to get the chance to spend some time with him and get to know him better. Next week we also have date set up to see Tiffany and the twins so we can get Easter pictures taken of the kids again like we did last year. We haven't seem them since before Christmas so I'm anxious to see how the twins have grown and for Tiffany to see how much Hannah has changed.

So Smart

My little girl is so smart. She continues to soak up things faster than I can even process what she's learning. Her new letter identification count is A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, M, P, Q, R, S, T, W, Y, and Z . She can sometimes get L, N and X. She also has a new letter sound both the long and the short A sound courtesy of that new home preschool curriculum I started last week. She's starting to be able to identify some numbers although she's not mastered any of them completely yet. So far the ones she's been able to get at least semi regularly are 1, 2, 3, and 4. The coolest thing that has happened in her learning lately is that she now really pays attention when she is counting to be sure she counts only one number for each object that she touches (or that I point to) and then stops once she runs out of objects. Once she gets above about 7 she starts to lose track a bit when she's counting on her own. I think that as the number of objects to count increases she gets confused about which ones she's already counted. BUT if I point to the objects then she will wait for me to point to each object before she says the number and can go all the way up to 13 which is basically as far as she can count. "School" has been a huge success. We are on our second week and she couldn't be happier. The theme this week is jungle and she's just as into it already as she was the cow theme last week. We introduced her to the Disney movie version of The Jungle Book and she loves the song where the elephants march around the jungle. I bet we've watched that scene a dozen times already since Saturday! A cool benefit to Hannah's school is that she enjoys me giving her "homework" to do and this allows me to get some chores done like unload the dishwasher, make a shopping list, etc. Her homework consists of me assigning her the task of searching the house for everything that's green, square, etc OR searching through her books to find all the cows, letter A's, jungle animals, etc. It's so funny to hear her shout out from another room, "I found one! I found another one!" Along with a weekly theme, letter, number, and shape/color, the program also has a weekly nursery rhyme that usually goes along with the theme at least somewhat. You are supposed to recite it at least once each day. It took almost no time at all for Hannah to memorize last week's nursery rhyme-Hey Diddle Diddle and she's been going around saying it constantly. This week's rhyme is not as catchy (at least I don't think so since I'd never heard it before) so I'm not sure if she'll memorize it or not. I'll keep you posted!

At the moment Hannah is sick. She started getting a cold on Thursday and then on Sunday she had a fever of 100.8 degrees. It came down with Tylenol and then stayed down until about 6pm tonight and then it shot back up. She's got a ton of thick green mucus and the poor thing is coughing constantly. I'm positive she has already got me sick since I've been blowing my nose all day and am starting to feel really run down. I just hope I don't get too sick since I'm not sure I'd be able to keep up with her! Even though she's sick she's still pretty energetic and then you have to add to that needy because she doesn't feel well.

Despite being sick, Hannah had a big moment today. She pooped on the potty for the first time and also peed four separate times while she was up there. She got SO EXCITED. She kept asking me to put my hand out so that she could give me high fives. Her eyes got as big as silver dollars when she heard the splash in the toilet. It was pretty funny to see her and then hear her gasp and say, "I did it!" She had to call Kyle and leave him a message and then call Pap and Mindy and leave them a message and then call Uncle Kevin, and then finally call Mamaw and Papaw. I didn't think the phone calls would ever stop, but I didn't want to rain on her parade so I let her talk herself out.

The new bedtime and nap routine is still working very well. Hopefully this will really be the breakthrough we've been waiting for. She just seems so much better rested and less cranky which is so nice. I get a lot more done too since I can guarantee that I'll have at least an hour (sometimes more if she doesn't go right to sleep and reads for awhile) to get chores done. It is so nice!

Big Girl Potty

Hannah has been showing some definite interest in the potty for quite some time now and it really ballooned about a month ago. We didn't really have room for a separate potty chair so we ordered a new toilet seat for our guest bathroom that has a little kids' seat built in that hides up in the lid when not in use. It's a definite space saver and Hannah doesn't mind one bit. So far she hasn't actually asked to sit on the potty, but she always wants to flush and wipe. Sometimes when we ask her if she wants to sit on the potty she does and sometimes she doesn't. We read a special potty book while she sits on the toilet and the little girl's name in the book is even Hannah which she thinks is pretty cool. We've been using a sticker chart and a stamp on her hand as an incentive to sit on the potty and the 3 times she has actually peed on the toilet we've given her two stickers and two stamps. When she fills up her chart she can cash it in for a surprise (she LOVES surprises!). One day she peed both times that I sat her on the toilet and she got so excited that she wanted to call everyone she could think of. She called Kyle twice, Mamaw, and Sarah. She wanted to call Grandpa, but there was no answer and then she changed her mind about calling Aunt Heather as I was dialing the phone. It was pretty funny to hear her singing everyone her potty song that I made up.

Sleeping at night became a real problem again and we were back to long periods of screaming and bargaining for another song or anything that would keep Kyle and I in there for longer. She was so tired all the time because she wasn't napping and wasn't sleeping very long at night. We HAD to do something different because what we've been doing for the last year and a half or so obviously wasn't working. So, I checked out a book about toddler sleep solutions from the library and read it through. We picked several things to try and started them on Sunday at bedtime. I know it's really too soon to tell if any of this is going to work given how we have been faked out before, but so far the results seem promising. She cried for only about 5 minutes Sunday night, 3 or 4 minutes for nap yesterday, 30 seconds or less Monday night, and no tears at all today at nap time and each and every day I left the room with her awake! We changed her bed routine pretty drastically and are working harder to get her in bed sooner and keep as much light as possible out of her room to help her fall asleep and not wake up too early in the morning. When she moved to her big girl bed she lost her crib music machine and her fan so she no longer had any white noise. We didn't want to have a fan running with her loose and able to stick her fingers inside it. Her CD player hasn't worked for almost 9 months, but the radio still works so I tuned it to static and turned it up loud. That part seems to work because she really can't seem to hear us with it on when we are walking around the house. We also started closing and latching the top part of her dutch door to keep out sound, sights, and light. In the beginning that really made her angry, but she doesn't seem to mind now. I've got some drapes ordered for her room so that as it stays lighter and lighter outside at night we will be able to make her room as dark as possible at bedtime. She has a blackout shade, but a lot of light sneaks in past it through the edges of the window. The drapes should fix that problem since they will extend well past her window frame. We swapped her singing and reading order at night. Now we sing first while cuddling in her chair and then move to her bed and let her choose 3 books to read before bed. She REALLY likes this part. Then we sit on her bed while she lays on her pillow and read to her. Today after reading for her nap she didn't even try to get out of her bed until I was well out of her room. This is a HUGE change. Now she did get out of her bed eventually because I heard her reading later. I do wonder where I'll find her when she wakes up. She's been getting awfully fond of napping in that rocking chair! But, I don't think I mind it too much if she actually does nap.

Hannah has been craving things to learn lately and I have been finding it really hard to satiate her desires. So, I decided something had to be done about that too or we were both going to go crazy. A friend of mine pointed me towards a preschool curriculum designed for kids who are home schooled for ages 2-4. I checked it out and it was great. She has EVERYTHING you could imagine on her website and it's all free. I got everything organized and we started yesterday. Hannah is loving it and is already obsessed with it. She wants to DO SCHOOL all the time. The first thing she asked about when she woke up this morning was school! I think it's going to work out really well for her (and me too). She'll get some structured, but fun learning time, we'll get to spend some quality time together, and I get to get my teaching fix without actually having to go back to work! Everybody wins!

Hannah Do It!

Hannah is officially Miss Independent. I hear the words, "Hannah Do It!" dozens of times each day and while I know that she must practice new skills and I fully appreciate that I will like it once she can dress herself, brush her teeth, etc, those words are getting old VERY quickly. The problem is not that she wants to do things herself, but the fact that she refuses any suggestion that she might need even a shred of help. She's so close to being able to dress herself and if she would just let us help her a tiny bit she would be able to do it, but the merest of suggestion that she might like some help is enough to send her into a wild tantrum. However, if she isn't helped then she gets more and more frustrated the longer she tries and cannot do it on her own and then she still has a tantrum. It's a Catch 22. One day last week it took us 45 minutes to get dressed! I had to constantly stop myself and take a deep breath and pray for God to grant me patience throughout that whole ordeal. I thought the dogs were going to explode from waiting so long to get out of their crates and both Hannah and I were near tears by the time it was all said and done and we were eating breakfast. A funny story about Hannah and dressing herself happened the other day while she was insisting that she put her coat on herself. I was getting so frustrated because we really needed to go that I just had to walk away to the other room for a second. Then all of a sudden I hear, "I did it!" and Hannah comes stumbling into the living room with her coat on facing the wrong way (zipper to the back) and the hood up over her face! She was so proud of herself. :) It was one of the funniest things I have seen in awhile. It was a nice reminder that I need to stop and smell the roses every once in awhile and not try to rush her too much if I can help it.

As Hannah continues to learn new things like dressing herself, I am reminded of how far she has come and have been a bit nostalgic lately for some of her baby days. The things I think I miss the most are her mispronunciations of words when she was first learning to talk. I'm kicking myself now for not writing them all down, but here are the few that I remember that have long since passed away and then some of my current favorites that I'm sure I'll be sad to see go someday.
Old Mispronunciations: bup-puff, hamel-camel, Eva-Evelyn, RoPocack-Rose Spontak, Hera-Sarah, Neeky-Uniqua (Backyardigans character), mammies-jammies/pajamas, Nona-Noah, noonal-noodle, peapot-teapot

Current Mispronunciations: nerroscerus-rhinoceros, zookie-zookeeper, welcome-Malcolm, Tifanwee-Tiffany

The other day it was really warm outside so Hannah and I went out to play. The snow was melting very quickly and so it was puddled in the street near our house. Hannah and I put on our rain boots and went out to splash in the puddles. She had SO MUCH fun and so did I. It was such a blessing to be able to experience something as simple as stomping in mud puddles for the first time with her and to see her joy. It was infectious.



Hannah has now pretty much mastered all the basic colors: red, blue, yellow, green, orange, purple, brown, black, white, and pink. She can point to something that is the right color or name the color if you say, "what color is this?" She loves to dig through her crayon tub and say, "What color I want? Um, pink" or red, or brown, etc. She's got the shapes of circle, square, heart, and triangle mastered, but she still has trouble with star, oval, and rectangle. She's still just counting to 13 consistently, but every now and then she gets farther and she loves to pull out all the other "teens" up to 20. She's getting better at her alphabet and recognizes more and more letters when she sees them as well as signing the alphabet song. She's also beginning to learn some of the sounds which is pretty cool. So far she can identify A, B, D, E G, H, M, R, S, W, and Z pretty much all the time. She can sometimes get C, L, N, T, and X. She knows the sounds for D, E, I, H, J, M, P, R, S, T, W, and Z although I wouldn't say she's mastered them yet.

We were having a really good run in the big girl bed as far as bedtime was concerned and then on Thursday she decided she wasn't going to just peacefully go to sleep anymore. So, Thursday-today (Monday) she's cried herself to sleep. Well, Saturday she didn't cry the entire time. She eventually decided to read instead and read herself to sleep. That was the first time she had actually got up to play or do anything else besides cry at bedtime since the introduction of the big girl bed. We get playing pretty much every day for naps, but it was a revelation for her I think that she could do the same thing at bedtime too! Today at nap time she did something hilarious. She cried for an hour and then decided to play. I heard her reading books and putting on her shoes and clothes. Then I heard her climb into her chair and start rocking and singing to herself. She started to sing "Jesus Loves Me" which is the song we always sing to her before bed or nap time. Then she started singing Jesus Loves Ernie, Hannah, and Addie (her friend that she was going to get to go play with AFTER her nap). Then the singing stopped and I thought she must have finally gone back to her bed and fell asleep. When I went to check on her I found her passed out in her chair with her books around her. The little stinker rocked, sang, and read herself to sleep just like we used to do! I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to take a picture of her even at the risk of waking her up with the flash and I'm so glad I did because the results are too cute.
Here's a video of her singing Jesus loves Addie and Ernie while she is supposed to be napping today. Just ignore the picture and turn your volume up full blast to hear her singing. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6261353705563139079&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5209033611762779934&hl=en

Hannah dipping her strawberries in BBQ sauce at Chick Fil A. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=898351964555032961&hl=en

Hannah playing on our bed.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4277248220973103479&hl=en


Hannah dancing on my shoulders. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4209925073627639956&hl=en


Hannah cooking. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1004617479716504576&hl=en


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=516056137834796898&hl=en


Hannah vacuuming. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1296023938352004694&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=699040265840766788&hl=en

Big Girl Bed

We got Hannah's new big girl bed and she's been sleeping in it for about a week and a half now. The transition has actually gone MUCH smoother than I expected. In fact she might even be sleeping BETTER in the big girl bed than in her crib! She's at least doing just as well. She really likes her bed and finds reasons to sit and lay on it during the day and doesn't even put up much of a fuss when it's time to go back to her room for a nap. Now, she still cries usually when we leave the room and gets out of bed and goes to the door, but she usually gets back in her bed on her own and falls asleep on her own. Yesterday she even covered herself up with her blanket! Today, however, she didn't nap at all and alternated crying with dragging all of her onesies out and putting them on over her head! Consequently she fell asleep during her bedtime routine with Kyle tonight because she was so tired. So far we've been able to keep her in her room by simply closing the bottom half of her dutch door, but that may not be enough soon. Yesterday while playing in her room with a friend she managed to open her door by turning the doorknob by herself twice in a row. I watched her do it with a sense of panic that our easy transition to the big girl bed was about to end, but so far she has not duplicated the feat today even when she was attempting to get out during nap time. I also remembered last night that when Kyle put the second door knob on the door he reversed the bottom knob so that the lock is on the outside. So, if we have to, we can lock her in at nap time and bedtime and still leave the top part of her door open for emergencies.

Last week Hannah stayed with her friend Addie for the first time alone and she did great. I was nervous since she hasn't had very many babysitters (pretty much just Evelyn's parents and Mamaw and Papaw since she's been old enough to realize we weren't around), but I shouldn't have worried at all. She's getting a lot more flexible and she loves Kim (Addie's mom) so even though she'd never stayed at their house or been all by herself with Kim for more than a few minutes she stayed pretty relaxed and even went down for bed at a reasonable time!

Hannah's big girl bed has been helping her perfect a new skill, jumping and actually getting both feet off of the ground. She's been working on jumping ever since she started gymnastics back in October, but she hasn't really been very successful at getting both of her feet off the ground at the same time. Since she got her big girl bed she has learned that she can stand on the mattress and hold onto the foot board with both hands and bounce up and down. She's gotten some serious airtime and that has helped boost her confidence I think and help her learn what it really feels like to jump. She's been practicing a lot on the ground and can now actually manage to get both feet off the ground about 30 % of the time. Whenever she does it she gets this huge grin on her face and tells herself "Nice Try!"

The more Hannah learns how to do things herself the more insistent she gets about doing them herself EVERY time. So, I've been trying to use this to my advantage by giving her more and more responsibilities around the house. She's had the job of helping feed the animals and been responsible for helping put her toys away for quite some time now and she's always loved helping push the laundry baskets to the living room so that we can take them downstairs to the laundry room, but now I've started giving her some things that she is responsible for doing all by herself without my help. For example, we put up a coat hook for her that she can reach and taught her how to hang her coat and hat up. Now she is responsible for taking off her coat and hanging it up by herself whenever we get into the house. She's also responsible for putting her dirty clothes in her clothes hamper and for putting away her clean onesies, socks, and PJs in the right bins in her Nemo organizer. She knows where everything goes and puts things away as I'm folding. It's actually a big help because it eliminates a step for me and then we can get back to playing sooner. She's also responsible for taking her dirty clothes hamper into our room once it's full and sorting out the whites and colors into the appropriate laundry basket. This may be her favorite chore of all because once she's done she ALWAYS asks for more and sometimes gets upset if I tell her there isn't anymore laundry left to sort.

Speaking of clothes, Hannah's starting to strip off her clothes whenever she gets a chance. She's mastered taking off her socks and pants and and any jacket or sweater that has a zipper and just the other day she surprised us by taking a shirt completely off by herself. It seems like as soon as I get her fully dressed she starts the process of undressing. Fortunately she hasn't figured out how to undo the snaps on the bottom of her onesies yet otherwise I'm convinced I'd be finding her stark naked and peeing on the carpet quite regularly since she really loves being naked. To be fair, she's also quite interested in dressing herself as well as undressing. She's able to get her head in the right hole of a shirt or onesie pretty much all of the time and can sometimes even get her arms in the right holes as well. She knows the theory of how to put on socks and shoes, but gets quite frustrated as she attempts it and usually ends up chucking a sock or a shoe across the room because of her impatience. Pants are pretty hit or miss. She can often get both legs in the right holes, but lacks the coordination to stand up and pull the pants up over her butt without falling and doesn't quite understand why they won't pull up while she's sitting down! Now, if she already has pants on and has pulled them down while she is standing up then she can usually pull them back up on her own, but that's about as far as she can go with that.

Mini Martha Stewart

Hannah is fast becoming a miniature Martha Stewart. She is REALLY into doing arts and crafts at the moment. We made a Valentine's Day card for Kyle and that basically got her hooked. Now she's not only into coloring, but also scrapbooking, stamping, and various other paper crafts! She's got her own stamps now since she's none too gentle with them and I bought her some non toxic ink since I couldn't keep her fingers out of her mouth. She's been stamping pretty much every day and works on her own scrapbook about every other day. She thinks that it's the best treat EVER to get to do those things. Once she is able to be a little bit more trustworthy with her supplies and a little more independent then maybe I can get back into scrapbooking and making my cards and we can do it together. That would be fun. I really look forward to it.

Besides crafting, Hannah is also really into cooking right now. She LOVES to cook with her daddy and even has her own apron. She looks so cute all decked out ready to cook. It's a good thing that Kyle is a good cook otherwise Hannah might never learn how to do it!

Hannah just started pointing out letters and singing pretty much the entire ABC song this past week. It all started when we were out buying her stamps. We were getting into the van and she started saying "M, Mommy" I didn't see a "M" anywhere so I asked her to point and sure enough she pointed right at a big sign that had an upper case "M." I thought that was pretty neat, but thought it could have just been a coincidence since "M" is one of her favorite letters on her letter mat and with her fridge phonics. Then we were stopped at a stoplight waiting to pull out of the parking lot and she started shouting, "Z, Zeke!" and pointing straight ahead. We were looking right at a huge Lay Z Boy furniture billboard. By that point I was getting a bit freaked out and managed to calm down and not wreak as we pulled out of the parking lot. Then we were stopped at the next stoplight and she got really excited and pointed out the window and said, "W, water." She was staring right at the Lowe's Home Improvement store sign! Of course I had to call Kyle right away and tell him what a smart little girl we have. Then a few days later she started singing the ABC song and just kept right on going past ABC and she wasn't even singing along to the song or anything. She was coming up with the letters all by herself. She's been practicing on her own a TON this week and she can consistently get up to R before she starts skipping some letters. She ALWAYS skips "X" and DOES NOT like to be corrected. If you try to tell her it's wXyz she will shake her head and say "NO! WYZ." and that's the end of that conversation! Since that first day of pointing out the letters on the signs she's continued to point out the letters W, M, and Z on signs, shirts, and in books. She's also correctly pointed out G, H, S, and D. She's got quite the little eagle eyes and loves to point out any letters she can find.

She still loves to count and can now consistently get to 13 and she also randomly starts doing the other teens after she hits 13! Up until a few days ago I was sure that she was only repeating the sequence of numbers she had memorized, but had no real concept that numbers actually stood for a one to one correspondence to objects, but then she blew that theory out of the water. Whenever I vacuum it is Hannah's job to move all of the stuff on the floor out of the way so I don't hit it with the vacuum and then put it back once I'm done. She was returning some shoes to our entry way the other day and she decided she was going to take them one at a time. She picked the first shoe up which was one of Kyle's and put it back and said, "One Daddy," and then went back to get another one. The next shoe she picked up was one of mine and as she set it down she said, "One Mommy," and then went back again. She came back with another one of Kyle's shoes and said, "Two Daddy," as she set it down and after returning with my final shoe she said, "Two Mommy." I was pretty impressed, but then she is my little girl and I think EVERYTHING she does is brilliant! :)

Another pre mathematics skill she's been working on is sorting. The other day she dumped out all of her mega blocks (like Legos only much bigger for little kids) and then sorted them all out into two piles. One pile had all the blocks that have only one peg and the other pile had all the other blocks. She didn't make a single mistake at all. Then she put all the multi peg blocks back into their basket and made a tower using only the blocks with one peg. We've worked on sorting those blocks before, but NEVER based on how many pegs they have. We always sort based on color. I figured number of pegs would just be too hard for her. Apparently I thought wrong. While all of this was happening I was just sitting on a chair watching amazed. I couldn't believe that she just decided to sort them all on her own and then did it correctly. Apparently she must have been planning what she wanted to build and she knew exactly what she wanted.

Hannah is still memorizing song lyrics and has now moved on from memorizing children's songs to the songs off of her Hannah's Dance Mix play list on the IPOD. Some of the songs that she knows partial sets of lyrics to are: Yellow Submarine, Jump in the Line, Day-O, The Theme Song from Ghostbusters, Can't Help Myself (Sugarpie, Honeybunch), and Call Me Al. She loves to listen to her songs and dance and sing along.

Hannah finally outgrew her first pair of tennis shoes and when I took her to have her feet measured we found out the she has two different sized feet! One foot is still a 6 1/2 and the other is a 7. So, we bought her new shoes at the second hand kids store while Mamaw and Papaw were visiting that were size 7. I wonder if eventually her feet will end up being the same size or if one foot will always be a half size bigger?

Speaking of outgrowing, it seems as if Hannah is outgrowing a lot of things lately. She recently decided that she was too big for her crib by attempting to climb out of it! She probably would have made it all the way out had she not announced what she was doing as she was doing it. She was in her crib and was supposed to be napping, but in true Hannah style she WAS NOT sleeping. She was at her old tricks as usual, but since they weren't working she apparently decided she would have to take matters into her own hands. She said, "Climbing!" and then proceeded to climb over the railing. Fortunately I heard her make this announcement and sprinted to the nursery in time to hear her say, "Foot, stuck, help" She had her leg all the way on top of the railing and had hooked her ankle over the top. She was basically doing the splits standing up. The next morning when I went in to get her up out of bed I found that she had pulled one of the bins from her toy shelf into her crib (she does this often so that part was not surprising) and was standing on it like a step stool and was holding onto the end of her crib! She proudly announced "Standing!" as I walked into her room and she was indeed standing. So, we decided that it really was time for her to be done with her crib and we went out and bought her a twin bed this past weekend and some new big girl sheets. She helped pick out her new bed. We found one that is basically like the one I had when I was in college my freshman year and is used in thousands of universities across the country. It's infinitely adjustable as far as height goes and can be basically a mattress on the floor to bunk bed height that a dresser can be slid underneath. If we ever want to buy more pieces and she still has a tiny room that needs more space then we can add two extra end pieces and turn it into a full sized loft that can fit a desk underneath. For her new big girl sheets she chose Diego from the Nick Jr show Go Diego Go (which she has never seen, but she LOVES Diego from multiple "readings" of a fisher price catalog that has several Diego toys that feature him doing fun stuff with animals) and a set of Little Mermaid sheets. Since we are also going to get rid of her changing table when we take down her crib and that means she'll have a bit of extra space in her room, we got her a child sized table and chairs which she absolutely adores. She got to color on it for the first time today and was absolutely enthralled. I think she really felt like a big girl sitting in her own chair with the box of crayons right on the table with her coloring instead of sitting strapped in her highchair with Mommy handing her crayons. We'll see how the actual transition goes to the big girl bed. She's all pumped about it now, but since she's not a good sleeper to begin with I don't have high hopes of this going very smoothly. We could be in for a rough month or two (or maybe 3 or 4, but let's hope not that long!).

Here's one final story to make you laugh as I finish up this blog post. On Valentine's Day Kyle took Hannah and I to Chick Fil A for dinner. Hannah loves to eat there and play in their play place and we love how friendly and clean it is and how great the food is. Anyway, Hannah has recently discovered that she loves to dip chicken nuggets into BBQ sauce courtesy of her friend Addie. While we were at the restaurant Hannah was dipping away with her chicken and then all of a sudden picked up a strawberry and held it poised over the BBQ sauce and then gave me a sly little look that clearly said, "So, are you gonna stop me?" I just looked back at her and said, "Do whatever you want. It's your strawberry." Hannah then proceeded to dip strawberry after strawberry into her sauce and eat them. I don't know if she actually liked the taste or if it was just a novelty. We'll see if she remembers about it the next time we go to Chick Fil A. We got some cute video of her doing it so I'll try to post it here sometime in the near future.

Here's a video of Hannah and I playing Doggies. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5648654377899733494&hl=en

Here are two vidoes (really they are only adudio) of Hannah NOT napping. I'm standing outside her bedroom door so just ignore what you see and listen carefully. You'll probably need to have the volume turned up pretty far to get the full effect of what she is saying. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8132646263450320055&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4886042778991888279&hl=en