18 Months Old

Hannah is officially a year and a half old! Last weekend someone asked me how old Hannah was and I was taken aback when I had to say 18 months. That just seems so old for my little girl! Some good things are coming with her new age and maturity. Some of her stranger anxiety is lessening-FINALLY! We went to a family Christmas on Saturday to see family Hannah hasn't seen since last Christmas and she did great. After 15 minutes or so to warm up she was running around like she owned the place. That made me so happy. She's also been using 3 and 4 word sentences a lot to express herself which is really nice. For example she will say, "Mommy do it please," when she wants me to do something she is pretending to do like be a cow and "eat" the "grass" on her play mat. Or "Daddy's chair move it," when she wants me to pull out Kyle's chair so she can stand on it to look out the window. Every day I am amazed by something she says. Lately it seems like she has a one track mind. If I try to distract her from something she wants or wants to do and I think that once I get her down for a nap or interested in something else she will forget about it, it almost never works. If I tell her we will do something after her nap it is ALWAYS the first thing she asks about when she wakes up, even before I get her out of her crib! One day I told her we would be going to the bookmobile after her nap and I heard her saying on the monitor when she woke up (I wasn't even in the room yet!) "more new books please." She even surprised Sarah when she was asking for a cracker and Sarah told her she would have to ask me about it when I came back into the house. The moment I stepped through the door Hannah asked, "Mommy, cracker?" Sarah was shocked. Her memory is always cause for my amazement. She seems to just know so much that I don't even intend to teach her. For example, one day she was in her crib and supposed to be taking a nap. Well, she wasn't sleeping and hadn't been for 40 minutes. She was alternately crying and just randomly talking and then all of a sudden she started asking every person, animal, and object she could think of to get her down. She went through mommy down, daddy down, Abby down, Ella down, Sadie down, Penny down, Pap down, Kevin down, Grandpa down, Mamaw down, Papaw down, Zeke down, Toby down, Sarah down, Evelyn down, Jason down, Sidney down, Heather down, Kristie down, Jake down and on and on using duck, zebra, lion, elephant, etc. The crazy thing was that she naturally grouped all the things/people who went together into family groups or equivalents. For example she did Kyle and I and all of our pets together, she did Kyle's family together, she did Sarah and her family and dog together, etc. She even put all the random animal names together and furniture together!

It's been interesting lately to see her learning from other people. For example, her friend Evelyn says "upy" when she wants picked up. Hannah has always just used the word up and then up please to indicate she wants picked up, but all of a sudden she started using upy after spending a day with Evelyn. It was funny because we knew she knew that wasn't the right word to say because if we pretended not to hear her she would completely change her tactic and say "Up, please!" :) Another example is sneezing. When Hannah sneezes or when someone else sneezes we always say bless you, but we had never instructed Hannah to say it. Now she ALWAYS says bless you to anyone who sneezes or coughs. It's very cute. She has also learned how to say excuse me properly. Instead of just saying, "excUse" she says, "Excuse Meeeeee". It sounds a little snotty at the moment like she's back talking, but I'm pretty sure she's not doing that yet! We'll work on the delivery after she gets the idea of it a little better!

Lately she's been much more affectionate and has been giving spontaneous hugs and kisses and I love yous. She's even started asking Kyle to turn his head from side to side so that she can kiss each cheek over and over again. It makes me smile when she asks for kisses!

She's really getting into being a "Big Girl" and doing absolutely everything for herself. She can now feed herself exclusively, even soup or other liquids such as cheerios with milk. This actually makes things difficult sometimes because when I try to stop her from dumping something when she's not paying attention she gets really angry and throws a tantrum. Speaking of eating, she has two more new teeth that finally came in. Now she has pretty much all of her teeth except for her last set of molars. I will be so happy for teething to be completely over. She's not been a good teether and it will be nice to be rid of at least one more thing that can potentially make her cranky!

Hannah spends a lot of time talking about Jesus. She's been praying a lot on her own and reminds me to pray at meals sometimes. We've been working on bowing our heads and closing our eyes (along with folding her hands which she's mastered) when we pray and the other day she just climbed up on the couch and said "Pray Jesus" and folded her hands, closed her eyes, and bowed her head and then sat silently for a brief moment and then said "Amen" I was so proud of her.

We finally took the rocker off of her bike and have been letting Hannah push it around the house with her feet. She can almost reach the pedals now, but can't quite extend her leg all the way to actually pedal. I'm sure this spring she'll be able to reach them and will be rearing to go!

This winter our family has been plagued with our share of colds, sniffles, and stuffy noses. Hannah finally had her first doctor's visit with no tears and she even bravely let them take her temperature and look in her ears and mouth! Her congestion forced us to get the dreaded aspirator out again and by the end of it Hannah had actually stopped struggling while we did it. In fact it was as if she was putting up with it just so she could get to the good part which this time was twisting the cap back on the saline solution that we squirt up her nose first! She is also honing her skills at blowing her nose and is very interested in everyone else blowing their noses too! Speaking of doctors, today I had a doctor's appointment that I had to take Hannah with me to and while the doctor was entering some information into the computer she get very excited because she wanted to see the "pishurs" on it. Because we do so much digital photography, Hannah thinks computers are made for nothing but displaying pictures of her and she is very surprised anytime there is a computer somewhere else that doesn't have a picture of her on it!

Back before Christmas we went to visit Tiffany and her family and Hannah got to see Tiffany's brother Robert for the first time since May. Every time Robert has seen Hannah since she has been born she has screamed bloody murder whenever he held her. BUT for some reason this last visit was different. Hannah really warmed up to him quickly and they became fast friends. I wonder if it's the facial hair (Robert recently let his beard grow much longer) since Hannah seems to have a thing for men with facial hair. We got some great pictures of them together and when we were walking into the church to see the twins' Christmas play, Hannah wanted to hold Robert's hand! It was really cute. Ever since Hannah has been asking about Robert constantly and completely fixates on his picture in her photo album. I know it made Robert feel good and I'm happy that Hannah is developing closer bonds with all of her birthfamily.

Ever since Hannah had her last bout with pneumonia and the x-ray tech gave her a sticker, Hannah has been very intrigued by stickers. Then, she started going to gymnastics and she gets either a sticker or a stamp on her hand after each class. That pretty much sent her into full fledged sticker obsession. This is pretty much a pain in the butt since she likes to take them on and off of the various things she chooses to stick them on and then they lose their sticky and they get lost and she has a fit when she can't find her sticker, but I have managed to find a bright side to the obsession and use it for my benefit. Lately Hannah has been asserting her independence which has caused some serious obedience issues. Consequently we try to praise her like crazy whenever she does obey without a fight. So, here recently, I've been saving all those crazy stickers that charitable organizations send me (like Easter Seals for example) and using them as rewards/incentives when Hannah obeys. She is so proud of herself when she earns a sticker and sometimes even wants to call Kyle at work and tell him about it! I'm thinking that if this sticker obsession continues until she is a little bit older then I may have hit the jackpot in the discipline department because she is also devastated if she loses a sticker for being disobedient or naughty. Maybe, just maybe stickers will be the key to a quick and painless toilet training.

Hannah got several new art related supplies as gifts for Christmas and she's really been enjoying trying them out and releasing her inner Picasso! She got some Crayola first markers and paints and some new crayons from her grandpa and she LOVES to use them to color the pages she gets at gymnastics and at the bookmobile. She also got this cool little magnetic drawing lap desk from Kyle's aunt and uncle that she is crazy about. It even has these little magnet "stamps" that are animal shapes that she can stamp on the desk and then it all wipes clean with one swipe of the ladybug lever and you can start all over. It's really cool. Even I like playing with it. The best thing is that it's designed for kids 18 months and up so I don't have to worry about safety concerns like I would have to with a normal magnadoodle or the equivalent. Hannah loves to pretend she's writing her name on the screen and even pretends to spell it out. She knows several of the letters in her own name although she doesn't usually get them in the right order when she says them out loud as she pretends to write. I can't wait to try this toy out in the van the next time we need to take a road trip. We let Evelyn borrow it when they took their trip back to Minnesota for Christmas and we heard it was a lifesaver.

Hannah has always loved to be tickled from since she was really little. Once she learned the signs for more and all done and then the words more and all done she also loves to get you to start and stop tickling her on command repeatedly! For the past few weeks she's branched out in the tickling department from just being the tickled to now also being the tickler. She loves to tickle me and of course announce what she's doing by saying, "tickle, tick, tick!" as she's tickling me. She's also started trying to tickle the pets which is pretty funny to watch. I'm not so sure that the dogs or cats really get it, but they've been good sports about it so far.

To update everyone on Hannah's love of numbers, she has officially mastered counting to 6 and has even counted to 10 a few times on her own too. It's been so exciting to watch her just explode with knowledge the past few weeks. She's had a color learning explosion as well. She can now accurately name red, blue, green, orange, and pink about 95% of the time. She gets yellow and purple only about 75% of the time, but I think that's pretty good for an 18 month old. It seems like her favorite thing to do these days is to count or play the "color game" which is pretty much either me pointing to something and asking her what color it is, me saying "Hannah find the (insert color) (insert object)", or her matching colors. She likes to have me pull out a green block and then ask her to put all the other blocks of the same color by it. She loves to do that sorting game. To her everything is a game and she just soaks it up and constantly asks for more. She's just so bored when she's not learning that she gets herself into all sorts of trouble.

Off and Running

Now that Hannah is pretty steady on her feet, she can really put some speed into her traveling. It's definitely safe to say that she is now off and running. This new found speed however is a bit hazardous to her health. She's constantly running into walls, doors, pets, and just about anything else you can think of because she can't slow herself down fast enough to avoid a collision or because she's moving so fast that she misses her turn! Yesterday she took a serious header outside on the sidewalk and has a big bruise and road raspberry to show for it on her cheek. Really she's falling and conking her head so much that I'm worried they're going to think we are abusing her at her well baby appointment next week!

WARNING!!!! THIS POST IS RATED PG FOR BABY NUDITY If you think you might be offended by the following pictures then scroll through quickly!

Lately all Hannah wants to do is play outside. Back when it was unseasonably warm we had been taking multiple walks a day, going swimming in her pool, and playing in the rocks pretty much all day long. We spent very little time inside. Now that it's cold Hannah still wants to be outside just as much, but I've had to rein her in a bit because I don't want her getting sick. She already has a bit of a cold and cough and I'm scared it might progress if she gets too chilly outside or sweaty while she's playing out there.

Speaking of colds, I'd been giving Hannah this cough suppressant/decongestant per doctor's orders and today I read in the paper that they have pulled all infant cold medicines off the market! The one we had been using was on the list as well as just about every other kind I saw in the store. I'm taking Hannah into the doctor today to talk about what to do about her discomfort now that there are no over the counter meds that are deemed safe for her to take. It's quite scary to know that I've been giving it to her for the past few days and now the FDA says its not safe for any child under 2 years old!

I'm back later this afternoon and Hannah's doctor's appointment was an adventure. The doctor heard wheezing in Hannah's chest and suspects a possible case of pneumonia so he sent her to have a chest x-ray done again. This time I watched through the window as the 2 x-ray techs struggled to get Hannah into the baby torture device. Once it finally seemed as if they had succeeded it turned out that they couldn't latch the thing because Hannah was too big for the device! So after she was all worked up about that they wanted her to sit perfectly still on a little step stool with her back up against the film and hold her hands above her head. Yeah right! Like that ever had a shot at working! Then one of the techs came out and said,"Mom, is there any chance you might be pregnant?" I said, "Um, no," and she immediately handed me the lead apron and had me come in and try to help them hold Hannah still and in position. It took several sets of failed x-rays before they finally got two usable shots of her lungs.

It's been over a week since I started this and here is an update on Hannah's condition. The chest x-rays were inconclusive and Hannah's wheeziness continued to increase so the doctor ordered a second set of x-rays. This time we had one of the same techs that was present during the previous struggle so there was not even a suggestion that she go in the baby straight jacket! Hannah remained fairly calm (of course there was a lot of crying, but not too too hysterical!) since they gave me a lead apron right away and there was no power struggle with the techs. It only took them 5 x-rays to get the two usable ones they needed instead of the 12 it took last time. This set of x-rays did end up showing that Hannah had fluid in her lungs so she got another bacterial pneumonia diagnosis. :( They started her on azythromiacin right away so hopefully that will knock it out. She also had her well baby (even though she wasn't well!) check up and shots the day after the x-rays and the doctor said we had a healthy and happy little girl. After listening in on one of Hannah's conversations with her favorite nurse while standing outside the exam room door and then watching Hannah's problem solving abilities as she opened one of their childproofed cabinet doors in the room, he was finally forced to concede to the fact that maybe Hannah's communication and problem solving skills were a bit above average for her age! As far as her stats go, Hannah had lost a pound in the week since she first went to the doctor for her cold that ended up being pneumonia so she weighed in on Thursday at a slim 25 lbs which is in the 75th percentile for her age. The doc said not to worry since she'd been off her chow a bit because she was feeling yucky. Her height was 33 1/2 inches tall which is past the 99th percentile for her age. Her head circumference also maxed out the 99th percentile for her age. When her weight was plotted against her height (not taking into account her age) she was in the 35th percentile. She's turning into a tall and skinny little girl. Besides being tall and having a huge head, she's also got big feet too. Her newest shoes are a size 6 1/2! Getting back to Hannah's sickness, she has learned one new skill from all of this and developed an odd addiction as well. The good new skill is that since she's had so much snot in her nose and she hates for us to use the bulb aspirator on her to suck it out she's learned to blow her nose-sort of. Her new addiction is Vick's' Baby Vapor Rub. Hannah absolutely LOVES to have it rubbed on her chest and back and asks for it by saying, "cream" almost every time she is on the changing table. It's just about the only way we can get her to hold still while we use the aspirator. We tell her she can have some cream when we are done and then she grudgingly complies and starts asking for cream as soon as we stop the snot sucking!

Getting back to playing outside, Hannah is so cute when she is playing outside. I remember last spring when I was worried she'd be a city girl and not want to play outside and get dirty. I shouldn't have worried a bit, because she has no qualms about getting dirty outside. She digs in the flower bed, piles rocks up on the sidewalk and fills her pockets with them, picks flowers, and splashes in the water and then gets grass and mud stuck all over her body. While we were in PA, Kyle's aunt gave us an old Little Tykes toddler swing that they had for us to use with Hannah. Kyle just got it hung up earlier this week and Hannah has been LOVING going out to swing in her own yard and not having to go to the park to get her swing fix! The only problem, if you could call it that since Hannah doesn't seem to mind at all, is that since none of our trees have a level branch low enough to hang the swing from Kyle had to improvise and hang the swing with ropes that are not the same length. Because of this the swing doesn't swing straight back and forth. It twists and turns as you push it. It's a bit unconventional, but Hannah still loves it. It's too funny to see her try to decide when she goes outside if she wants to ride in her swing or play in the rocks. It's a tough decision since she loves them both so much! Lately Hannah's had a new outdoor obsession that has rivaled the rocks for top spot on her "to do" list. She's enthralled by the neighbor's flowers. They have some mums and some other kind of fall flower that I have no idea what they are, but they are pretty and Hannah loves them. She sees them from the window and asks to go look at them. We take one step outside and she's after them like a rocket. The problem is that they are across the street so I really don't want her just running off towards them. Since she's so obsessed with those flowers I've used them to try to teach her colors and she's been really interested in that. The flowers are red, purple, and orange. She has actually used those colors spontaneously for other things and it was actually the right color. Besides red, purple, and orange, she also knows blue and green. While she doesn't always answer with the right color when we ask her what color something is, she always answers with a color at least. I think she understands what we mean by color, but can't always identify the right one. She knows red, blue, green, purple, orange, and yellow are colors at least. I think that's a good start. Besides the flowers, another new outdoor pastime she's found is filling her shirt, pockets, and pants up with rocks. She grabs huge handfuls of rocks and drops them down the back of her shirt or shoves them in the cuffs of her pants. Then, when it gets uncomfortable, she wants me to fish them out. Of course as soon as they are out she's busy filling her clothing back up again! Her interest in the rocks has been at least somewhat educational, however. She loves to hand me handfuls of rocks and watch me drop them one at a time back into the flower bed as I count them. She then takes her own handful and copies what I say as she drops her own back into the pile. Her favorite numbers to say right now, in addition to the old stand by of 3 are 11 and 13. She always gets this goofy, pleased with herself smile every time she says 13! Yesterday she was out enjoying the nice weather and playing in the rocks and she picked up a rock that was much larger than the rest of the rocks in the bed and said "big" and held it up for me to see. I said, "Yes, Hannah that's a big rock." Then she put it back down, picked up a smaller rock and said, "Small." I was so proud of her. I really think she's actually learning the concept of size and what those words mean! The other day she said big and small together and used the arm gestures we use while she was looking at the right page in her Nemo Opposite book, but I just thought she had the page memorized not that she really got what big and small meant, but I think I was wrong. I think she really gets it. She did the same thing with open and closed and hot and cold last week too. She amazes me every day at the amount of new things she learns.

I apologize that this update is turning into a novel. Hannah just has so many new accomplishments and has done so many neat things that I just have to tell you all about it! It doesn't help that it's been several weeks since I've actually had a chance to sit down at the computer! Here's some more new updates in no particular organizational structure!

Hannah has taken to moving the pets out of the way when they are keeping her from doing what she wants or going where she wants to go. She will push them aside while at the same time saying, "excuse" just like she does when she burps! It's very cute and I like that she does it spontaneously because it tells me that she actually gets it and is not just doing something on our prompting. She continues to help with all the pet related chores and has graduated from handing me the lids to the cat food cans to actually putting the lids back on the cans. She gets so excited when she gets to do her part! She's also started putting the dogs in their crates. When I say, "Abby, Ella, crates!" Hannah yells, "Abby, Ella" and then goes over and waits for them to go into their crates and then shuts the doors on them! She also likes to help me put the dogs out and she'll yell, "out pups" when they are running to the back door to be put outside.

Hannah is now quite good at using a spoon to feed herself and can even scoop up solitary movable objects like a piece of peach or a pea with her spoon and manage to keep it on the spoon all the way to her mouth! That's a huge hooray for us because if she can feed herself then we just might be able to actually eat our food before it gets cold sometime in the near future!

Yesterday, even though she was sick and shouldn't have been exerting herself quite that much, she taught herself how to climb into and out of the climber by scaling the outside wall and shimmying through the window! She was using some serious upper body strength and coordinating her hands and feet to just the right places to step and grab in order to accomplish her new skill. She was quite the little monkey. I actually managed to get some of it on video once I was satisfied that she could do it and wasn't going to break her neck in the process!

Last year for Christmas Heather got Hannah this Finding Nemo purse. Up until a few weeks ago Hannah never really showed much interest in it. Now, however, she carries that thing with her all over the house and loves to stuff things inside of it. She'll put her baby keys inside of it and her credit cards and then put her arm through the loop and wiggle it up onto her shoulder and strut off just like she's on her way to the store! I hope this isn't a sign of things to come, I don't want a shop-aholic toddler!

Hannah has learned the names for all the Whinnie the Pooh characters on her piano and just the other day she finally noticed that my sunglasses have Pooh on them. Now, whenever I have my glasses on, she reaches up and touches the small picture of Pooh and says, " Glasses, Pooh!" like it's the most interesting and exciting thing she's ever seen! It hasn't seemed to lose it's appeal yet. Speaking of learning the names of characters, for her birthday Hannah got a bike that had stickers of a Nickelodeon show called the Backyardigans on it. We'd never seen the show since we don't get Nick so I had no idea what it was about or what the characters' names were. Well, Hannah has always wanted us to tell her what the animals are. There is a moose, hippo, penguin, kangaroo, and this other pink animal that I have no idea what it is. Hannah's favorite was the moose. Well, the other day when we were at the bookmobile Hannah saw the cover of a DVD of a Backyardigan episode. She immediately started saying "Moose" and gesturing at the shelf. I decided I'd check it out for her and we took it home and watched it and Hannah was enthralled. The characters sing and dance almost the entire time and the story lines are cute and the animation simple. Hannah listens intently and sometimes even repeats back what the characters say. In her favorite episode some of the characters pretend they are part of a motorcycle gang called the Do-Gooders. They go around helping everyone and say they are rough, tough, and nice. They always say, "Grrrr!" after they do anything and Hannah just thinks that is hysterical! Every time they do it she turns to me and says, "Grrr!" right back. After a few days of watching through the video (there were 4 episodes on it) Hannah started to ask to watch it. She would gesture at the DVD player and say, "Moose Mu." It took me awhile, but I finally figured out she was asking for her Moose Movie! Now that we've returned the DVD to the libray she still asks for it and seems sad when I tell her that we had to take it back! Oh, another thing about the Backyardigans. Hannah's favorite character before we watched the DVD was the moose, but after watching the movie her favorite character became the pink thing that I don't know what kind of animal it is. Her name is Uniqua and everytime she would come on the screen Hannah would say "Neeky" and point at her. It is very, very cute. Yesterday we were grocery shopping at Walmart and Hannah spotted on an endcap a set of toddler dishes and tableware that had the Backyardigans on them. She started saying "Moose, Neeky, Bird" and pointing back behind her and trying to turn around in the cart. I stopped walking and asked her what she was talking about and she repeated her words and then pointed to the shelf and I saw it. She's got such good eyesight! I ended up getting them to hold back for her for Christmas. I put them in the cart when she wasn't looking and hid them under some groceries! She's not ready for a plate and metal fork just yet, but it won't be long.

Hannah has been very disappointed, now that the weather has turned cooler, because she can't swim in her pool anymore. Because I've been lazy and haven't deflated it yet, she can see it on the deck and asks for it almost daily by pointing at it and saying "Splash." After many times of me telling her that it was too cold to splash in the pool she has started answering herself by pointing at the pool and saying, "Splash, no, cold" and then looking at me with a sad look on her face. I've really got to get that thing put away so she won't have to keep being disappointed.

One of Hannah's favorite parts of her bedtime ritual we added only recently, but it's about the only way we can get her to start getting ready for bed without a tantrum. She absolutely hates going to bed and will run away from you if she thinks you are going to try to put her to bed or she will start stalling by asking for a drink, another book, to eat, or anything else she can think of. Fortunately for her, Daddy is a big softie and a huge pushover so she usually gets away with a certain amount of stalling when he's on bedtime duty since he wants to spend more time with her anyway! I just reread what I wrote and I still haven't told you what Hannah loves to do at bedtime! She loves to pick out which pajamas (or jammies as she calls them) she's going to wear. We give her two choices of temperature appropriate jammies and she studies them for quite awhile before finally settling on the ones she wants to wear. It's quite cute to see her examining them.

One exciting new development in Hannah's communication skills is that she has started to sing along to some of her favorite songs and will ask for specific songs that she wants to sing or wants you to sing. She really likes to exercise her control by telling you what song to sing and then saying "all done" in the middle of the song and then asking for a different one. If you don't stop when she says all done she will keep saying it, louder and louder until you finally stop! Some of her favorite songs that she will sing along with are I've Been Working on the Railroad, Patty Cake (she asks for this alot by saying "Backy Cake!" Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes, Jesus Loves Me, Wheels on the Bus, and Who's the King of Me. I'm sure there are several I am forgetting, but I just had a brain lapse and can't remember any of them! I also taught her two new songs the other day that I used to sing as a kid with the partner clapping, Miss Mary Mack and Peas Porridge Hot. She thinks these are great and has been asking me for them alot. For Peas Porridge Hot she says "Peas" and then smacks her thighs. For Miss Mary Mack she says, "Elfant."

Another new communication skill she has learned is adding -ing to some of the words that she knows. Now, instead of saying, "wok, wok, wok" while she is walking, she says, "woking." When she hears the dogs bark she says "barking" and when she sees them eating or chewing on a bone she says "eating" instead of "eat." Also, instead of saying "kick, kick, kick" when she's kicking me in her highchair or kicking a ball she now says, "kicking" instead. Lately her favorite new language skill is to add the "eee" sound onto the end of all sorts of words. Now we have mommy, ducky, doggy, puppy, and daddy instead of the previous mom, dad, duck, and dog. Some of her news words she's added to her vocabulary are monkey, pony tail, color, cream, hurt, pumpkin, mailman, and flower.

Hannah loves her books so much that it's a lot of fun to take her to the bookmobile every other week. I didn't realize how much she actually enjoyed going to the bookmobile until a few weeks ago when she started saying and signing book every time we walked past the Friendship House (a retirement home across the street from us where the bookmobile stops) or anytime she saw a bus (the bookmobile is a long trailer pulled by a dually truck that is a disel and sounds like the sounds the buses make). It's quite hard to explain to a 15 month old that the books aren't always there and that the bookmobile only goes there every other Thursday! I think it's interesting that after only a few months she began to associate both the place and the transportation that brings her beloved books to her!

Hannah is still very interested in letters and the alphabet song. Lately she's been pointing at letters on her mat and asking me to name them for her. I always make the sound the letter makes and say a word that begins with that letter when I point to it and she has started to make some connections. She knows that M is for Mommy and that Z is for Zeke and that Z makes the zzzz sound!

A few weeks ago Hannah went to a pumpkin patch and had her very first pony ride. They had a petting zoo at the pumpkin patch and we let Hannah wander around in that barn and look at the animals and then we went outside just to watch the ponies. We didn't figure Hannah would want to ride since she wasn't very receptive to being on Julie's back (my sister's pony) the last time we were at my mom's house and she's always been one to like to admire the horses from afar and not really even pet them very much. The most adventurous she had ever been with horses had been when she asked to "Pat, Pat, Pat" the horses next door to Baba's farm last month. As we watched the ponies it was evident that Hannah wanted near them and really wanted to ride. She even asked Kyle to ride. So I said, "Hannah do you want to ride on the pony?" and she replied, "Yes!" and gave a very emphatic nod of her head. We got the tickets and when it was her turn she sat up on the horse so tall and proud and while we were waiting for the other kids to get on and we were just standing still she starting rocking forwards and backwards and shaking the saddle horn to try to make the pony go! She had so much fun it was unbelievable. She had a huge smile on her face the entire time and of course there was a tantrum when it was time to get off. I eventually got her to say bye-bye to the ponies and give her pony a hug and a "pat, pat, pat." I'm so excited that she liked riding the pony. I was very worried that she wasn't going to want to learn how to ride. That would have been very sad for me since I've been dreamign about teaching her how to ride before she was even born!

A few days ago Hannah did something that totally shocked me and made me realize how much she's learning everyday that we don't expressly intend to teach her. Every day we go get the mail together and Hannah rips up the junk mail as I read through the good stuff. Well I was pretty absorbed in reading an ad from a politician and I didn't really realize that Hannah had even got up and walked away until I heard the trash can close. I looked up and Hannah was picking up the shredded pieces of junkmail and putting them in the trash. Everyday when she's done with the mail I pick it up and put it in the trash. I asked her, "Hannah, what are you doing?" and she said, "Trash" clear as a bell and walked back over to the junkmail on the floor, picked up some more and took it into the kitchen and threw it away! Ever since then she loves to throw the trash away, so much so that I've already had to stop her from throwing some things away that weren't trash! It's constant vigilance now and we'll have to be sure to take a quick peek in the trashbag before we take out the trash each week to be sure there isn't anything important in there!

A very helpful new sign and word that Hannah just learned is "Hurt." The other day she started signing and saying hurt and we asked her what hurt and she said and pointed to her teeth! She had been pretty cranky so we believed her and gave her some teething tablets. Her mood improved almost immediately. Now whenever she bumps her head or falls down or anything that might cause pain she signs and says hurt. Usually if I ask her where she is hurting she'll tell me where it hurts, we will talk about it and that gets her past being upset about it. It's great!

As Hannah becomes more and more independent there are lots of things that she wants to do by herself and she doesn't want me to help her. The problem is that she can't really do all the things she wants to do alone. For example, she really wants to be able to dress herself. She LOVES to put on socks. She's really getting pretty good at it and holds the hole open with both hands and tries to pull it over her foot, but she just can't keep her grip tight enough to get them completely on. This makes her VERY ANGRY. Eventually she asks for help, but she doesn't like having to ask for it. She's also been working on trying to put her pants on. Yesterday she managed to get both legs into the right holes and everything, but of course she couldn't pull them up while she was sitting down and she didn't want to stand up. We had a pretty big tantrum there, but eventually she let me stand her up and help her pull her pants up and button them.

Speaking of tantrums, we had our first public tantrum a few weeks ago in IHOP. She had been getting pretty antsy towards the end of the meal and really wanted out of her highchair. When Kyle was finished eating he told her she could get out, but that she had to sit on his lap until I was done. She said OK, but of course she wanted down as soon as she was out of the chair. We finished eating and I was packing up and Hannah kept trying to run off and then she just threw herself onto the floor (I had ahold of one arm so it wasn't too hard of a landing!) and started screaming. She's got quite a set of lungs and pretty much the entire restaraunt turned to look at us. It was a bit embarassing, but what could I do. You can't just make a kid stop screaming, especially a toddler in the middle of a tantrum. Tantrums aren't rational so it's not like the kid can stop them either. We just got her out of there as fast as possible and waited for it to blow over which it did fairly quickly and then we got her into her carseat and drove home. Of course she was really sleepy (we were out near her bedtime) which was our fault and she just couldn't handle one more thing so on the way home she completely crashed. We were able to carry her into the house, take her coat off and put her right into bed still asleep. I love that she can sleep through a transfer from carseat to bed. That makes errands so nice because if we run just a bit past her normal naptime I can count on her falling asleep on the way home and being able to just take her to her room without worrying about her waking up and losing her entire nap.

The final Hananh update I have for you is that Hannah has finally masted playing her harmonica. She can now suck air in and blow air out to make the harmonica make music. She loves to play her harmonica with Daddy. The two of them make pretty good music together. It's very cute and I have a video of it so you all can see just how cute it really is! She's actually better than I am at playing it!

My Little Hippie

Hannah wore this outfit the other day that was from Aunt Heather and I just fell in love with it. I thought she looked darling, just like a little hippie. I had to post the pictures of it even though I don't have many new updates!

Of course it's been a bit since I started this post and now I actually have some updates to share. Hannah has several new words that she just learned. Tonight she learned the word squirrel. We were taking a walk in the woods and she saw a squirrel and point to it and said rabbit. We told her it wasn't a rabbit and that it was a squirrel. As luck would have it, we saw half a dozen more squirrels on our walk and each time we told Hannah they were squirrels. Finally the last squirrel we saw Hannah actually pointed it out to us and said squirrel as she was pointing! My little girl is so smart! :) Another new word (well, it's not super new, but I think I've forgot to tell you all about it) is green beans. Hannah uses this for green beans as well as just about every green vegetable she eats! It's quite clear when she says it and it's oh so cute. Lion and cow are some of her other new animal words. She says them both and does the signs at the same time. Cow is quite clear, but lion sounds a bit more like Ryan! She's got the sign exactly right though and she always uses the same pronunciation when she says the word and does the sign and she can correctly point to a lion in a picture of lots of different animals so I think she knows it pretty well even if she can't say it properly yet. She has also added goat, pig, snake, and hippo to her repertoire. Kyle says she also knows reindeer, but I've not heard her say that one yet. Along with learning her new animal names she is also quite keen on learning the sounds that they make. So far she can tell you what a dog, wolf, cat, cow, duck, sheep, and horse say.

Besides animal words, Hannah is also starting to say excuse me whenever she burps or farts. It's so adorable and sounds like excuse, with the emphasis on the "x" part of the word. I've been working with her on saying you're welcome after someone says thank you to her and today for the first time she tried to repeat it after me when I said, "Hannah, say you're welcome." She did a pretty good copy of it too. I was impressed since it was her first try and she even attempted the sign as she said it. Kyle has been working with her on saying I love you and she will now tell us that she loves us each night before she goes to bed. She can't really do the sign, but has a cute toddler speak version of I love you that she says that I can't even begin to describe or repeat, but she does it the same every time. I'll try to get a video of her saying it sometime soon and put it up. Speaking of showing affection, I've also taught Hannah how to give Eskimo kisses by rubbing her nose against mine and she caught on really quickly. She knows the difference between them and regular kisses and can give you the type of kiss that you ask for every time.

Of all the words that Hannah uses every day (and she uses A LOT of them) "No!" is still the word she chooses to use the most even when she doesn't mean no! We've been working on teaching her yes and sometimes she will say it, but mostly she still likes to answer no to every question she's asked (and even some we ask other people!) and of course she uses it every time it's time to do something she doesn't want to do or stop doing something she does. Another new word she has is rocks and she is currently obsessed with them. She loves to pick them up, feel them, throw them, transfer them from the flower beds to the yard where Daddy can hit them with the mower, and try to eat them. We have tantrums when it's time to stop playing with them or when Mommy says no, we can't go outside to get them. She's also started using the words walk and backpack to tell us when she wants to go outside for walks and if she hears either word you had better be prepared to follow through because she's hard to distract if she gets her mind set on going out! She says water, milk, juice, cracker, pasta, peas, meat, bread, cheese, snack, eat (that's a very recent addition since she's only had the sign for it for more than 6 months!), apple, banana, puffs, and of course green beans. She loves to say she's hot and fan herself and shake her shirt to cool herself off and if you'll let her she'll shake your shirt too just to be sure you don't' get overheated! She loves to point out and name all of your body parts that she can get ahold of. Some of her favorites are head, knees, elbow (very cute to hear her say), arm, ear, nose, hands, and belly. She knows many more, but those are here current favorites. She loves to get her hands washed under the faucet and she'll ask for it by gesturing towards the sink and saying "hands." Today on our walk we went by a pond that has a fountain in the middle and she kept pointing at the fountain and saying "hands please!"

Speaking of walking she did lots of it today and she' getting much better at it. She still uses crawling as the primary mode of transportation, but she's traveling further and further while walking now. Sometimes if she's feeling uncertain, but wants to walk she will look up at us and reach her hand up and say, "Hand" which means take my hand or give me yours!

Her fourth molar (so that's tooth number 12) finally popped through yesterday. We were quite relieved as it had been a REALLY rough week because of it. Cranky does not even begin to describe her mood this past week. Fortunately today she was much better so hopefully we are done with teething for few months until it's time for the last of her front teeth to come in.

You should all be proud of me for being so on top of getting all of Hannah's recent videos uploaded to the blog. Most of the videos on this post are only a week old!

These first few are of Hannah playing with her bike inside. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8316340491381342507&hl=endocid=8316340491381342507&hl=endocid=8316340491381342507&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6404703228646207004&hl=endocid=6404703228646207004&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5932699094298739531&hl=en

Hannah loves to ride her stuffed horse that Mamaw got her for Christmas. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1541172387396114730&hl=en

Hannah likes to sit in the recliner in her room and make it rock just like Mommy does. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7081385536536015929&hl=en

For a long time Hannah couldn't actually make her crayons leave any marks. She finally had a eureka moment and now she LOVES drawing with her crayons and thinks it's pretty neat to get crayons to draw on place mats at restaurants too! She can even say crayon. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1471498662350771479&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2939170277237339270&hl=en

More Videos

Hannah has had a busy week. On Tuesday she went out to lunch and to the zoo with her friend Addie. They had fun petting the goats and playing on the teeter totter together. Thursday she went shopping. Friday she went out ot lunch with her friend Evelyn. Saturday she went to the Like reunion at Mamaw and Papaw's house and sat on Julie and Boss (Mamaw and Aunt Heather's horses). Sunday she went hiking and out to dinner with her friend Evelyn. Whew! She has quite a packed social calendar.

I have 2 funny Hannah stories to tell you about. The first story happened on Sunday. Kyle, Hannah, and I went out to eat at the Covington Beef House with our friends Sarah and Jason and their daughter Evelyn. The girls were very good at the restaraunt and all was going well especially considering how packed the place was. All of a sudden Hannah starts signing monkey over and over. She apparently thought some person in the restaraunt looked like a monkey! I didn't see who it was, but both Sarah and Kyle said later they were sure they were sure they knew which man it was and that he DID look a bit like a monkey! Anyway, I must have had the sleepy sillies because I found Hannah calling some random person a monkey absolutely hilarious. I whispered that she must think someone looks like a monkey and then started to laugh hysterically. I just could not stop. Every time I tried to stop I kept thinking how glad I was that Hannah does not actually say the word monkey so that she didn't scream it across the diningroom and point at the suspect! That thought would send me back into a fit of giggles. I was so stuffed with food that laughing made my tummy hurt, but still I couldn't stop laughing!

The second funny story happened today. We have a cabinet in the kitchen that has tupperware in it. We moved everything that was glass out of there so that Hannah could play in it if she wants. We still have the childproof locks on the doors so that she can't just get in there whenever she wants, but that hadn't been a problem until today. Today I opened up the cabinet for Hannah to play in while I was unloading the dishwasher. She was playing quietly while I put the dishes away and then all of a sudden I heard a muffled, "No! No! No" I turned around and Hannah was gone! I ran into the livingroom, but her voice was getting softer. I turned back around and realized that the cabinet doors were shut. I went back into the kitchen and opened up the cabinet and found Hannah sitting inside. She had crawled inside to play with the tupperware and had shut the door behind her just like she does when she goes inside her climber. The problem was that with the childproof locks on the doors she couldn't just push the door back open from inside! After I rescued her from the cabinet I watched her closely while I put the rest of the dishes away and she climbed back inside several more times and always pulled the door shut behind her. Only once did it actually latch again so that she was locked in and I had to get her out, but it was very interesting to see her hiding in there with the bowls and lids!

Lately Hannah has been obsessed with magazines. Her favorite at the moment is one of my horse magazines. She will sit on the floor or in the "bible" chair and pour over it for 30 minutes at a time! She carefully turns the pages (no ripping or bending) and looks at all the pictures. Every now and then she calls across the room to tell me she's just seen a horse, dog, or baby and then goes back to her reading. Last night Kyle walked into the room and Hannah was laying stretched out on the floor reading the magazine like she was a teenager lounging! It was so cute.

Another cute thing that Hannah has been doing lately is making a wolf howl. We checked out a book from the library called, "I Love My Daddy Because . . . " and it has pictures of all sorts of baby animals and their daddies and it says things like "I love my daddy because he takes naps with me," or "he teaches me to be brave" Hannah's favorite is a wolf and a wolf pup and the page says, "I love my daddy because he sings me songs" The first time Hannah saw the page she called the wolf a dog and I said, "No, that's not a dog. It looks like a dog, but it's a wolf. Wolfs say 'Ahhoooooo'" and I howled like a wolf. Hannah repeated me in the cutest little howl I have ever heard. From that day on every time she see that page in the book she makes a sweet little howl. It's absolutely adorable. I about cry every time she does it.

One of Hannah's most recent accomplishments is learning how to steer her walker. The other day Kyle was finally able to teach her how to turn it when she runs into something so that she can walk further than just a straight line into the nearest obstacle! Now she takes the walker all over the house. Whenever she gets into a tight spot though that she can't easily turn her way out of now she gets really angry though. Her frustration at not being able to do exactly what she wants all the time is growing more and more as she gains more independence. Consequently the tantrums have become even worse than they were before!

I have lots more videos of Hannah. I've been busy uploading this week so I hope you enjoy them. To see the video just click on the link.


Here are some more videos of Hannah harassing Evelyn on their trip to the park.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5343452453303262463&hl=en


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6241505797838402092&hl=en

Here's Hannah sliding at the park.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4540912974930595345&hl=en

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1557344640813927125&hl=en


Here's Hannah playing Kyle's harmonica. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8254289659904650482&hl=en

Here's Hannah playing with her climber. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6320940933658746125&hl=en






http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7776766486505929064&hl=en

Hannah really loves to try and dress herself these days. She is especially interested in swimwear for some reason. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5416863965573230614&hl=en

Here are some videos of Hannah playing with our coasters. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7280223488460469568&hl=en


http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1838533971887407922&hl=en


When Kyle's around I'm basically chopped liver. Here's a video of Hannah "working" with Kyle because she refuses to stay with me! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6394970183180642577&hl=en