Dogs, Humans, and Wairies

So, I've been avoiding you. . . . . . There's been so much going on that I've wanted to write about, but I haven't been able to post it to the blog so I've just not written anything. To write, but not mention the elephant in the room just felt like lying.

First off, when I last wrote we were going to check out the Christian school to see if it might be the right fit for Hannah for Kindergarten next year. The visit went great. We decided Hannah would attend there next year and in fact we decided she would start kindergarten right away (last month actually) and finish out the year in the kindergarten class and then move on with the class to first grade in the fall unless something unusual happened. BUT something unusual DID happen and she didn't start kindergarten and she won't be going there next year. More on that later.

Hannah's behavior has been all over the map the last two months, but mostly it's been rough-aggressive and angry. The biggest difference however is that her aggression has been controlled and deliberate instead of wild and raging. The deliberate aggression almost scares me more than the raging because she KNOWS what she's doing and she is choosing to continue acting that way. Lately I've had more objects than I can count chucked at my head and the kicking, hitting, and scratching has been out of this world. Just as things started to ramp up in the behavior department we had a major stressor added to our lives and that of course has not helped the problems in the least. More on that later!

On a positive note, Hannah has been reading like crazy and has found another series she really likes, The Bailey School Kids. She actually read one of the books from beginning to end on her own in one sitting this week! She was that enthralled! Her comprehension is totally there too because she gave me an excellent summary of the book afterwords and when I skimmed through to check on her she was right on! She's pretty much mastered basic addition and subtraction and has started two digit addition without regrouping. We've been working with a hundreds chart and learning about the patterns within the numbers and she's been enjoying that. She's also been on a note writing kick. Every single day I get several little notes. At first they were just "To Mommy. Love, Hannah" but now they are more like, "Dear Mommy. I love you. I had a great time with you. Love, Hannah" They pretty much always say a variation on the same thing, but they are still sweet. She also loves to label all of her drawings and make us lists for things she wants us to buy at the grocery store. Kyle was on his way out the door one day when she called him back and quickly handed him a post-it note that said, "gum bagul." Translation: Gum, bagels.

Now back to that title. Hannah has two little friends whom she loves dearly. They are sisters and are so sweet to her. They handle her bossiness, forgive her when she's mean, and don't hold it against her when she has a major meltdown. They really are perfect for her. We play with them every Thursday after story time at the library and we've had 5 play dates outside of the library so Hannah is quite familiar with them and totally comfortable showing her true self. Anyway, Olivia, the oldest of the girls, is quite creative and sensitive. She loves to put on plays and write stories. Her favorite animal is the wolf, but she also likes fairies so she created an entire new species called "wairies." Wairies are wolf fairies. Not only is she writing a story about them, but they work themselves into most of her pretend play. Today the girls came over to play and I had to break up quite the unusual argument. From upstairs I heard screaming and when I went to investigate I was greeted by 3 girls all talking at the top of their voice. It turned out that there was a game going that included a wairy, a human, and a dog-specifically Bolt. Go figure! Apparently the "rules" of the game were that there was only one of each character and that they were taking turns being each of the characters, or at the very least both Hannah and Emmy wanted to be the dog. Hannah DID NOT want to give up being Bolt and was putting up a fight about it when it was Emmy's turn to be the dog. Hannah kept shouting, "There is only one dog and I want to be the dog!!!!" I tried to reason with her, as I always do in situations like this which are surprisingly common, that since this was all make believe she had two options. She could either change the rules of the game and there could be two dogs or she would have to let Emmy have her turn. Of course she didn't like either of these options and continued to insist that there could ONLY be one dog. UGH! Eventually she screamed at me and stomped upstairs and slammed her door. Sweet little Emmy, who was so insistent that it was her turn to be a dog and who had rightly stood up for herself, was so sad that Hannah wasn't playing anymore that she ran up to her bedroom to say, "Hannah, Hannah! Come back. You can be Bolt. I'll be the human." It just about broke my heart. Such a sweet girl. I had to be the mean mom though and tell her that she had to be the dog though (at least for a little while) because it was her turn and we don't get our way in our house by throwing a tantrum and being rude to our guests. Eventually Hannah decided to rejoin the game and begrudgingly played the part of the human.

So, now that I've kept you hanging until the very end, here is why I haven't posted. We are moving sometime next month and it's a big move again. Kyle got a new job in Nebraska. Originally we thought we'd be moving this month so we opted not to have Hannah start kindergarten and then have to pull her two months later. Because of some mix-ups with medical testing, it's taken longer than expected to complete all the pre-employment paperwork so we'll be here a little longer than we originally thought, but it won't be much longer now. Hannah has been processing the move in spurts and I'm sure it's been contributing to her behavior. It seems like the public schools are much better in Nebraska than they are in Rhode Island which makes me very happy. I've spoken with the principals of a few of the elementary schools that would be in our home search area and I'm encouraged by what I heard. It seems as if they will be willing to work with us to set up something that will meet Hannah's needs. They've also all expressed an interest in meeting before the current school year is up to make sure everything is in place for next fall. Still, it will be starting all over again as far as Hannah's schooling goes which is frustrating since we thought we'd found the perfect place for her. Now we just have to find a house in order to know what school district we will be in so that we can get the ball rolling. Though we don't have many friends here in Rhode Island, the friends we do have we are really going to be sad to move away from. They've made our stay so far from home much nicer. Hopefully we'll be able to make friends quickly once we get there for Hannah's sake.

Photo Notes: The first 4 pictures are from Christmas. I know it's March! Don't judge!! The first picture shows Hannah attempting to use the toothpaste Santa left in her stocking as deodorant! I guess it was an honest mistake as the tube is shaped more like a deodorant stick than a tube of toothpaste. The third picture is her snuggling her coveted pillow pets that she got from BOTH sets of grandparents. The fifth picture is the beach at the end of our street last month. The ocean is definitely something we'll miss about Rhode Island. The sixth and seventh pictures show the goofy side of my girl. She made a pair of glasses for herself out of pipe cleaners and then decided to use her happy meal box as glasses as well! The 8th picture was from our good-bye photo shoot we did before Abby died. The last picture high lights Hannah's unique 4 yr old little girl fashion sense!

Where's October

Seriously, what on earth happened to October? I feel like I went to sleep one day and when I woke up, "BAM!" October had mysteriously vanished and we were well on our way into November. So, just to prove to myself that October did indeed happen, here's a recap of our month.

Hannah played soccer the whole month although we really must use that term loosely. It's more like she whined and complained about soccer the whole month, but refused to actually quit. Soccer is now over and we can all breathe a huge sigh of relief that we will never make that mistake again! (She sure did love her uniform though!)

The first week of the month my dad came to visit and we carted him around the whole week to all of Hannah's appointments and classes. He got to go grocery shopping, to the dentist, to OT, to soccer, to the doctor, to the museum, to a zoo class and to an animal class at the YMCA. The poor guy didn't get to do ANYTHING touristy or restful! The day my dad left, Kyle's brother and his fiance arrived for 4 days with their dog/small horse. Hannah loved Kahlua even though she outweighed her by close to 100 pounds! While our guests were here I managed to come down with an awful cough that decided to hang out for ALL of October (more about that later).

Eventually, all of our guests were gone and we dove head first into homeschool and unburrying the house after two straight weeks of house guests. Homeschooling has been going well and Hannah's flying right along with the curriculum we've chosen as well as all the extra stuff we've picked out to supplement the work and to get her social experiences.

My cough continued to build until finally one Sunday I woke up and just could not get out of bed. On top of my cough I ached all over, had a fever, and my neck was so stiff I could barely move it. The next day I tried to get a doctor's appointment, but my doctor was completely booked so I attempted to go about my business, but just could not do it. I eventually decided that I had to be seen that day and called the doctor to ask whether she thought I needed to go to urgent care or to the ER. Apparently that got her attention and they told me to come in right at closing time and they'd squeeze me in. Shortly after looking at me, the decision was made that I needed to go to the ER because she feared that I either had septicemia or meningitis. I knew I could not effectively control Hannah in the ER while I was being checked over so I called a friend to see if I could drop her off there for a few hours until Kyle would be home from work and she instead insisted on coming to pick both Hannah and I up and drove me to the ER and took Hannah back to her house. Hannah ended up staying with them for two days because I ended up being admitted to the hospital. They too suspected meningitis, but were unable to do a lumbar puncture on me. The resident tried twice and then called in the attending physician who also tried twice with no success. Apparently my vertebrae are too close together to pass a needle between them. Good thing I've never given birth because I would have been seriously ticked to have been in labor expecting an epidural and be told they couldn't do it because they were unable to get the needle in there! Fortunately it was determined that I did not in fact have meningitis, but instead a nasty case of bronchitis and a viral infection that had piggy-backed along on top of it. Since I take immune suppressant drugs for my autoimmune disease, my body was unable to fight off the two simultaneous infections and had become basically overwhelmed. They stopped my medication, pumped me full of fluids and multiple IV antibiotics and then sent me home. Since coming home I've been on bed rest for several days (although I had a hard time following those orders) and now I'm back on light duty. I'm feeling much better, but I'm not 100% yet. The bronchitis is still hanging on and I tire very quickly. Hopefully I'll kick it soon.

In the midst of all of this sickness, soccer, and visitors I also managed to make my first ever Halloween costume. Hannah is obsessed with the movie Bolt and desperately wanted to be Bolt for Halloween. Unfortunately the Disney Store doesn't sell a Bolt costume so I was left with the decision of telling her to pick something else (not something I wanted to do) or make it myself. My mother is a brilliant crafter and my sister and I always had fantastic hand made Halloween costumes (we were those kids who always won the costume contests at all the fall festivals!), but I DID NOT inherit her talent for sewing or ANY of her crafty genes. Much blood, sweat, and tears went into the making of that darn costume, but I got it done. I also learned the hard way that the words on the back of a bottle of fabric glue are LIES! ALL LIES! Just in case you ever decide to pick up a bottle and want to believe their claims that it permanently bonds two pieces of fabric together. But I digress, Hannah loved it! I thought it wasn't too bad for my first try, however on Halloween night she received many comments along the lines of, "Oh, what a cute bunny!" By the end of the night she had grown pretty testy about it and was snipping back at them, "I'm not a rabbit I'm a dog! I'm Bolt" despite my repeated lectures about being polite. ~Sigh~

We also made a big decision in October. We decided that after the first of the year we will officially jump back into the adoption process. We are very excited about it and Hannah is already asking regularly when her new brother or sister is coming. It's hard to get a 4 year old to understand the concept of waiting a year or more to get through all the paperwork and matching process. This time instead of doing a private agency adoption for an infant we plan on going through the foster care system and adopting an older child. Now, when I say older child, we are still planning on the child being younger than Hannah, but not necessarily an infant. Although you never know how God will work. We could find our selves welcoming an infant or a teenager instead of a toddler into our house. You just never can tell. We know God will point us in the right direction though.

I'm Fine With That

So Hannah totally sucked the wind right out of my sails the other day. As many of you know, she's a spirited child and we've struggled to come up with the right method to manage her discipline. "Normal" methods didn't seem to work and we were really at a loss until we discovered the Nurtured Heart method last winter. Hannah totally "gets" the system and understands that her behavior earns her her privileges and if she doesn't follow through with good behavior then she doesn't have the credits needed to purchase her privileges. Well, the other night I had reminded Hannah multiple times that she needed to hang up her coat because she had dropped it on the floor upon returning home from school and just left it laying there all afternoon for the dog to curl up on! When it was almost bedtime and I informed her that if the coat was still on the ground when we did her credit review she would not receive full points for taking care of her coat and shoes she calmly informed me, "I'm fine with that. Mommy, I'm fine with not getting all my money." I was stunned. What was I supposed to say to that? If this crops up again, and I'm sure it will, then what am I to say? What leverage do I have if she's ok with the loss of privileges for not doing her chores or displaying appropriate behavior? I relayed this story to her OT yesterday and she said, "Wow, that's the kind of snarky comment you expect out of a teenager." She's totally right. Any suggestions? I'm really at a loss here because if the Nurtured Heart credit system ceases to work then I really don't know where to turn to.

Speaking of Nurtured Heart, Hannah did the sweetest thing yesterday and I just have to tell you about it. When she woke up from her nap she knocked on her door like always to be let out and when I opened the door she was there waiting for me with her fist tightly clenched. Before I could even say "Good Morning!" (I know it's not morning, but that's just what we say when someone wakes up around here. It works for us!) she immediately launched into a flurry of words. "I have money in my hand and it's 10 cents and I want to go to the museum and it costs 10 cents so lets go to the museum." I was once again stunned. Before knocking to get out of her room she decided what she wanted to do, checked her list of privileges to see how expensive it was, checked her piggy bank to see if she had enough money to do it, counted out the correct amount and then informed me of her choice. This girl can totally plan! Unfortunately, she had taken her nap MUCH, MUCH later than usual and by the time she finally woke up it was nearing 5pm. The museum is in Providence and takes about 15 minutes to get there. It closes at 5pm. No museum for Hannah. :( The poor thing was devastated. Huge crocodile tears welled up in her eyes and began to roll down her cheeks. She pushed her head into my stomach and sobbed. I felt so bad for her. I really wanted to be able to take her to the museum, but we just couldn't. We worked out a plan though. She will save that 10 cents. She won't spend it on anything else and on Thursday (tomorrow) we will go to the museum for our Mommy-Daughter Day. She's pretty stoked about it and I'm so proud of her that she was able to recover relatively quickly from this disappointment. That's my big girl.

Today at lunch time I'm meeting with Hannah's new preschool teacher just to touch base and try to learn how things are run in her new classroom. This new teacher isn't very good about communicating what happens in the room on a daily basis so I guess I'm going to have to step up my end and do some detective work. Adding to the problem is that I drop Hannah off at school before the "preschool" portion of the day actually starts and pick her up after the academic day has technically ended so I don't even see her teacher. In fact, I've NEVER seen her teacher. This will be my first time ever laying eyes on her. Hannah adjusts much better to the transition of going to school if she is one of the first ones to arrive and can slowly adjust to the social situation one child at a time rather than being dropped off into a group of kids that are already engaged in something. We've learned that the hard way, hence the before care drop off even though it's not needed for our schedule since I don't work out of the home. She also has a difficult time with the transition from school back to home so I have to time her pick up so that she is one of the last students leaving and there is not much going on so that she doesn't think she's missing out on anything and feels a sense of closure. She can't be the last one there though or she begins to panic. Pick up can be tricky, but I've mostly got it timed well these days and we can extract her from the building without too much pain. Fridays are another story though because they get to watch movies on Friday afternoons and there is never enough time (even if she was the last one to leave) to watch the entire movie in the time period allotted so that means she has to leave mid movie and that is not easy for her. She's a finisher. She HAS to finish the things she's started before she can move on to something else and every Friday it's a given that she's not going to be able to finish that movie. We deal with it, but it's not a pretty sight. So, wish me luck that this meeting will go well. I will be interested to see if they have noticed any of Hannah's academic strengths in the new classroom. I know they were giving her extra stuff to do in her old classroom since she was so far ahead of her peers, but I don't know if that's happening in the new room or not. I'm sure she's academically ahead of the curriculum and hopefully that was shared by her previous teacher, but who knows. I haven't been able to speak to the teacher and of course I get nothing from Hannah. According to her they play on the playground-period. I'm lucky if I get that out of her. For a girl that loves to talk, she's very closed mouth about what goes on at school. That's why teacher communication is so important for me. I like to be able to talk with her about her day and if I know a little bit about what they did I can prompt her into telling me a bit. If I have nothing to go on I'm pretty much dead in the water.

The Great Escape

So my little escape artist is at it again. Since we have a fully fenced (4ft in some places and 6 ft in others, wood not chain link) back yard and I have a window over the sink in my kitchen through which I can view the majority of the yard I often let Hannah play outside in the yard while I fix dinner. I leave the back door and kitchen window wide open so I can hear her call or scream and I make sure I can see her every 2 minutes or so. I have a difficult time opening the large heavy gate that hangs on it's hinges and drags the ground to get out of the yard so I knew it would be next to impossible for Hannah to open. In my mind there was no way for her to get out of the yard other than coming through the house and I'd be able to see that. She was safe in the yard. Earlier in the week after a particularly rough day I sent Hannah out to play while I fixed dinner. As usual I checked on her out the kitchen window every 2 minutes to be sure I could see her. Unbeknownst to me, while I wasn't watching Hannah was hatching a plan to get out of the yard. She managed to move a large heavy duty trash can (the big grey kind people keep in their garage) off our deck and across the yard over to the fence and place it up against the fence just on the other side of our rolling trash barrels. Then she used two of her sand buckets to build a flight of stairs to use to climb up to the top of the fence and then over onto the top of our other trash can. She then slid down the side of that can using the pull handle to help her. Next she got her tricycle and pulled it out to the sidewalk and was getting ready to take off down the street when I made my next check and realized I couldn't see her in the yard. I ran into the backyard and was able to see her out by the street. Instead of having remorse for what she had done, she was actually proud of herself for figuring out how to get out of the yard! I didn't think it was possible for her to get out of the yard, but this just goes to show that where there's a will there's a way and with a seriously smart, stubborn preschooler who's mad at mom there is definitely a will! She was dead set on getting the heck out of dodge! Besides being amazed at her ingenuity, I can't believe how quickly she carried out her plan. She had to have thought out all the steps in her plan before she carried it out because she only had 2 minutes to get everything in place and get out before I noticed. That's quick and takes some preplanning! What on earth am I supposed to do now? Now I have both a dog and a 3 year old that can scale the fence and escape! That means they are currently both on house arrest which is a bit of a pain. Here's to hoping that eventually I can trust them both again to turn them loose back in the yard!

Yesterday Hannah about gave me another heart attack, but this time it was because of two things she said to me. First off she told me that, and this is an exact quote, "Jesse really loves me. When he grows up and when I grow up he will be my husband and I will be his wife and we will be married." Oh my gosh! She's starting a little young don't you think? Jesse, by the way, is a little boy in her new class. Then, she followed that doosey up later in the evening after commenting that her PJs might be getting too small that she thought she was growing a baby in her tummy!

Mischief

Mischief seems to be running rampant at our house the last few days. Between Sally the Wonder Dog and Hannah, I'm terrified to turn around and see what has transpired while my back was turned most minutes! For your reading pleasure, here's a small sampling of the mischief these two yahoos have come up with the past few days.

Sally the Wonder Dog: In one day, shredded a Verizon super pages phone book, a catalog, one of Hannah's froggy slippers, and Hannah's Easter basket that had arrived in the mail from Mamaw only the day before (major tears transpired after that one). She also jumped the fence and ran away, dug under the fence and ran away two streets over and we couldn't find her (someone found her and called the number on her tag), and slipped her collar and ran away from me while I was trying to wrestle her back into the house after one of the previous escape attempts. That's just one day people! Most days are fairly similar lately with the wonder dog. Do you think she hates us? Is she trying to drive me nuts? Maybe she's a secret agent and this is some exotic form of doggy torture (too much watching Chuck!).

Hannah: Escaped my bedroom on Saturday while I was out cold (stupid cold knocked me for a loop and I was pretty much unconscious) and snuck downstairs to open the package that Baba sent her for Easter. She got her craft scissors and expertly slit the packing tape on the box like she's seen me do dozens of times and then quickly unloaded the contents of the package. Then she slipped out the front door and was chatting with the neighbor girl from across the street! Kyle comes home to find her outside and me still upstairs sleeping! I'm still shuddering to think about what could have happened! Needless to say, there is now a hook and eye lock on the inside of our bedroom door near the ceiling to keep further escapes from happening if I'm incapacitated. Yesterday, after being told she could not have any M & M's before dinner, she quietly went up to her room. When I called up the stairs to ask her what she was doing up there she responded, "I'm just resting on my bed." That should have been my first clue that something was up. That girl NEVER voluntarily rests. When Kyle went upstairs to see what she was doing he found her sitting on her bed eating M & M's she had snuck upstairs from the Easter basket (same one that is now destroyed) Mamaw had just sent! Sunday on the way home from church she had gotten a time out for using mean words and each time she was released from her time out she would growl at us, thus getting herself put back into time out. After a few cycles of this she started reducing the volume of her growl to make it less menacing and then progressively increasing the volume until it earned her a time out just to see how far she could push it. Kyle was sitting in the front seat driving and trying his hardest to not dissolve into a fit of laughter. Put these choice incidents on top of the normal every day 3 year old defiance and disobedience and you've got a mama that's pretty close to pulling her hair out! I live in constant fear of what these two will come up with next!

For those of you who follow regularly, you know that we are currently living in Rhode Island. If you follow the national news, you also know that Rhode Island was particularly hard hit by the flooding that plagued much of the East Coast last week. While we escaped any damage, the flood came within a mile of us and devastated many of my husband's coworkers homes and properties. Several of our favorite restaurants, shops, and parks were under several feet of water. The damage done to our community was unbelievable. I would venture to say that many of the businesses that were wiped out by this flood will never reopen. Many, many people are currently trying to rebuild their lives, homes, and help others while also dealing with the stress of being out of work because the place they work is closed for the foreseeable future. In an area that was already facing economic hardships, this last straw may well be the death knell for many. I would appreciate prayers for my neighbors, friends, and community members who have a long road ahead rebuilding their lives. If anyone is interested in seeing photos of the flooding, check out the Rhode Island Flood March 2010 gallery on my website http://candidcaptures.zenfolio.com/ The images are shocking to say the least so please be prepared.

Despite the flooding, the closed roads, and crazy traffic, my aunts and cousin managed to make it out to visit us last week. We had a blast visiting with them. Both Hannah and the Wonder Dog were spoiled rotten. Maybe missing family is what has sparked this recent burst of mischievousness from both of them! While they were visiting we took Jo, Terri, and Becky to the dog park, Oakland Beach, Chuckie Cheese (doesn't everyone take their house guests to Chuckie Cheese?), and Provincetown, MA in Cape Cod. We weren't the most exciting hosts, but we enjoyed their visit tremendously. I hope they had fun too. The flooding definitely limited where we could go and what we could do, but still, I don't think we are all that exciting in the best of conditions! It sure was nice to have visitors though. We hadn't had anyone come out since before Christmas. Hopefully this visit will start a string of guests now that the weather is warming up. Anyone out there want to visit Rhode Island?

Photo Notes: Pictures are from an egg hunt Hannah went to at a playground near our house and pictures from our most recent house guests Jo, Terri, and Becky. If you are wondering about the TAPS sign, they are huge fans of the TAPS people on the Sci Fi channel and they just happen to be headquartered in Warwick, RI so we had to stop by for a quick photo op!

3 Year Old Fashion

When 3 year old's dress themselves . . . . .

Sorry about the quality of the photos, but I'm sure you can get the idea!

Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes. . . . Knees and Toes!

Hannah has been showing a lot of interest in the song, Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes lately so I paired that song with labeling her body parts, my body parts, and the parts on her Whinnie the Pooh doll. All of a sudden it was like a light bulb clicked on and she just got it. She can now correctly point to her head, nose, mouth, eyes, ears, feet, hands, and tummy about 75 % of the time. Many times she will also point to those same body parts on me or Pooh if I ask her too. I'm not convinced that she actually messes up on the times she seems to point to the wrong part or doesn't point at all. There are times when I think she is just trying to pull a fast one on me because she gets this mischievous little grin on her face and then sticks her fingers in her mouth when I ask her where her nose is!

Today the switch to half and half formula and milk was much better. In fact it was a complete turn around. She drank nearly all of her milk today. As always I panicked too soon, but at least I didn't actually call the doctor this time like I have done in the past. They must think I'm a lunatic in that office as often as I call them! They are always patient with me though and for that I am very thankful.

Since our trip to the zoo Hannah has started being more precise when she points out animals she sees in books and on videos. Instead of every animal being "Ella" or "dog" she has really started to try to classify the animals and gets pretty close most of the time. What really amazes Kyle and I is her ability to take the concept of cartoon and toy animals and real ones and realize that they are the same animal. For example, we taught her the sign for "bear" when we were at the zoo. She really seemed to like that one for some reason. Then the other day she started grabbing her Whinnie the Pooh and signing and saying bear (sounds like Buhairrrr). Then she started pointing to bears in her story books (she has several of them) and doing the same thing. I personally don't think Pooh looks very much like a real bear and definitely not like either of the types of bears we saw at the zoo, but somehow she still knows. Tonight when I was reading her a bedtime story that goes through all the animal mommies saying they love their babies we got to the page with the bear (realistic looking) and before I could even start reading the page she said bear! Then when we got to the rabbit she said rabbit and when we got to the duck she said duck! I was absolutely floored! Earlier in the day we were reading her bible (in the bible chair!) and we got to the story of Noah's Ark and it shows cartoon pictures of all the animals exiting the ark. She started pointing to the animals she knew and saying their names. She didn't know some so I told her about the llamas, goats, flamingos, etc and others she didn't have the exact animal, but had the general category right: cat for tiger and lion for example and bird for penguin and peacock. I am just amazed everyday at all she knows and how quickly she learns. I'm sure this is all normal stuff for babies and toddlers since they really do have so much to learn and I've often heard them described as little sponges which is exactly what Hannah seems to be, but I've not been around kids of this age much so it all seems so wondrous and totally insane to me! Regardless, I'm so proud of my little girl and all her accomplishments. Now if we could just get her stubbornness and tantrums under control . . . . I guess there has to be down side to her new found independence and knowledge, but how I wish the tantrums were a little less explosive and scary. Yesterday she threw one on the kitchen floor which is ceramic tile and she absolutely slammed her head face first into the floor because I wouldn't let her climb inside the dishwasher! She throws herself down and hits her head several times a day now and sometimes even deliberately bangs her head against things when she's frustrated or angry. It really scares me that she's going to hurt herself. So far it hasn't seemed to phase her, but it's definitely something I'm going to bring up with the doctor.

Speaking of being in the kitchen, another one of Hannah's newest pursuits is playing with magnets. I went through all of our magnets and put the ones that are all one piece and too large for her to swallow and too weak to cause problems if they were swallowed on the bottom of the fridge so that she could play with them. I put some duplicate pictures I had of her down there as well for her to play with. She loves to point to the pictures and then point to herself and say Hannah. She's also been conducting little experiments to see what the magnets will stick to. She's figured out so far that they stick to the fridge, bottom part of the stove and dishwasher and kitchen door, but not to the cabinets or the top part of the stove. Today she spent at least 15 minutes opening up the bottom drawer of the stove (where we keep the cookie sheets) and sticking the magnets to the inside of the front face of the drawer. She would stick them on, close the drawer, open the drawer back up, take the magnet off, look at it, stick it back on either the inside or the outside, close the drawer again, and then repeat the whole process over and over again.

Here's a video of Hannah practicing climbing. She's getting pretty good at it now and can even turn around and sit down in the chair once she gets up into it! She's not quite able to get up onto the couch by herself yet, but it's not for lack of effort. I'm sure she'll be able to soon as much as she is practicing! http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2418069064794768298&hl=en

Bottle Battles

Since my last post Hannah's formula consumption went from bad to worse. She started refusing all formula from a cup or a bottle and screaming at the top of her lungs when she even saw any. She was SO HUNGRY, but she refused to eat. We thought maybe her teeth were hurting her so we tried Oragel and Tylenol. We tried holding her, putting her in her highchair, and even letting her sit on the floor. Nothing worked. We had several tense days where I fretted over her getting enough nutrition and I almost called the doctor again, but then finally she began to eat a little again. Oddly enough she will start out her formula in the highchair drinking from the sippy cup. She will drink maybe one or two ounces and then refuse to drink from the cup any more even if we hold it (that's a complete backslide as she was drinking her entire amount from the cup for at least two whole weeks prior to this recent battle). If we try to force the cup she will scream and cry. So, now we have to put the rest of the formula into a bottle and hold it for her in her highchair or pick her up and hold her for her to drink the rest. Sometimes she will drink it all and sometimes she won't, but at least she's getting most of it down. We have cut her back to 6 oz a bottle again until she starts consistently drinking it all. Today she did ask for more during two of her bottles so that is encouraging. I wonder what caused all this fuss? She seemed to be doing great and then BANG! she lost all the progress she had made. Maybe she's just not ready to be weaned yet. I might have to break down and buy some more bottles after all :(

Hannah is so active these days that I am absolutely exhausted at the end of each day. Actually I'm exhausted by 9:00am, but who's counting! She goes like a mad woman all day long and she's into absolutely EVERYTHING. She's even become sneaky and will crawl away really quietly while my eyes are turned for just a second. When she realizes that I've found her she will giggle and start to crawl away faster! She's only taking one nap a day now so I have no time to really get any work done. It's no longer safe to go into another room for even a second to grab something to work on and I have no means of containing her other than her crib and I don't want to use that as anything other than a place to sleep so I'm pretty much out of options. Hannah and I play and read all day (or I chase her around and try to undo the destruction she leaves in her wake) and then I kick it into overdrive the minute she goes down for a nap to try to get things done.

Hannah's vocabulary continues to increase and she really uses her words and her signs to get her point across. In the past week she's started using "up" a lot It's so hard to say no to her when she asks so nicely!) and every time I take her to our bedroom she makes a beeline straight for the bathroom saying duck, duck, duck and grabs her rubber duckie off of the edge of the tub! She's also said Grandpa, banana, and Mamaw for the first time and has started naming people in her picture books as we look at the pictures. She can correctly identify, Mom, Dad, and Evelyn. The Mamaw utterance was also in response to a picture of Mamaw. Phones continue to intrigue her and she talks to Daddy on the phone everyday at work. She even left him a voicemail this week!

I almost forgot to tell everyone that she got her 4th and 5th teeth in. Now she has 3 on the top and two on the bottom. She's still drooling like crazy and chewing on everything so I figure another one on the top can't be far behind. Her stranger/separation anxiety continues. She's going to be spending the day with Mamaw and Papaw tomorrow so hopefully she will go easy on them! I'm praying that this stage will ease up soon. It really does break my heart to see her so scared. It hurts people's feelings too. They really want to hold her, but Hannah wants nothing to do with them.

The dogs and cats have been so good with Hannah lately and she's started to get a lot better about gentle touches. She was hugging Abby like crazy last night and Abby actually seemed to enjoy it. Every time we let Ella out of her crate she immediately runs over to Hannah and tries to lick her on the face! Hannah thinks that is pretty funny. Even Sadie and Penny have been less apt to run for the basement when they see Hannah coming. The other day Hannah kept putting her bugaboo around Sadie's neck like a necklace! She was such a good cat and just sat there patiently while Hannah took it on and off over and over again. Unfortunately for Saddie, Hannah's not very good at just lifting it straight up so Sadie had to endure a fair amound of pulling on her head and neck each time Hannah attempted to remove it. She was a good cat though and never even acted angry.

I'm back again after our weekend excursion to work on Grandpa's house. We almost have it all done. There's just a little bit left to do next Saturday, but basically it's good to go! :) Hannah won't know what to do without Grandpa at her house anymore! Hannah spent all day Saturday and all day Sunday with Mamaw and Papaw while we worked. On Saturday she had a really rough time. She was fussy the entire day and went on another hunger strike. She refused 2 bottles and a solid food feeding. Eventually though she couldn't hold out any longer. Mamaw took her on a walk which made her sleepy so she took a nap. After she woke up from her nap she ate for an hour straight! She had a bottle, a full meal of solids, plus wagon wheels and veggie puffs. On Sunday she did MUCH better. No more hunger strikes, no more fussiness, and she even learned some new words. Mamaw is now firmly engrained as part of her vocabulary as is Zeke (Mamaw and Papaw's dog). Mamaw gave her magnets that have pictures of she and Papaw and one that has Zeke's picture on it and Hannah can look at those magnets on our fridge and tell us it is Mamaw or Zeke. Occasionally, Zeke is called Ella (that's still proving to be a tough habit to break! surely all dogs are named Ella!), but she does know his name and loves to give his picture on the magnet kisses :)

The last two nights have been really rough in the sleep department for Hannah. She has absolutely refused to go down at night. We do her entire bedtime routine and she is fine, but as soon as we turn out the light to sing her her first song she goes ballistic. On Sunday night Kyle used the vibrating rocking chair to finally get her calmed down, but last night we just let her cry and did the Ferber method. They both seemed to work equally well, which translates as neither worked very well at all, but in the end she did eventually go to sleep after much screaming and hysterics. Her 6th tooth popped through Sunday night so I thought that maybe that had been the problem so I did preventative care last night before I put Hannah to bed by giving her some Tylenol and oragel, but it didn't seem to help at all. So far I've only got to see that new tooth twice and very briefly both times. Kyle still hasn't got a glimpse of it yet, but it's definitely there.

Hannah just keeps growing and growing. Recently I bought her some really cute clothes at Old Navy using a Christmas gift card I had. I bought size 18-24 months. Sounded reasonable to me given Hannah is only 10 months old! Well, apparently I was wrong because when I got them home I decided to try them on her before I cut the tags off (good choice on my part!). The T shirt I couldn't even get to fit over her head and the dress I managed to get on, but it was already snug. So, back I went to the mall later that week to exchange them both for 2T sizes! The worst part is that neither of those 2T sizes are any too big. They fit her just perfectly now. There will be no "growing into" these particular clothes. They fit right now and once she grows a bit they won't fit at all! So, if anyone ever has the urge to buy Hannah clothes absolutely do not get anything smaller than 24 months that you want her to wear right this second and nothing smaller than 2T that you think she might wear for the rest of the summer. In the past two weeks I've had to retire 4 pairs of pants, 3 shirts, and a jacket. We even had to buy all new socks sized 24-36 months! I also think I forgot to mention to you all that Hannah got her feet measured at the specialty shoe store in the mall and she wears a size 4 1/2 wide. That explained why the size 4 shoes she got for Christmas and the size 5 shoes that I recently bought her to replace them did not fit. Her foot was just too wide to even get inside! It didn't matter what the length of the shoe was since I couldn't even get it shoved through the hole!

One of Hannah's current favorite activities is wearing things as bracelets. She likes to use the rings off of her rock -n- stack or her bugaboo as bracelets for her arms and legs (and mom, dad, or grandpa's arms and legs) or as necklaces for the cats! She's got this funny little one handed flip thing she does to get them on her arms and she thinks it's great fun to put them on and take them off repeatedly. Another new skill Hannah has been working on is putting the shapes into the right holes in her shape sorter. She understands that the shapes go inside the holes, but she lacks all the necessary hand-eye coordination to consistently get them through the hole each time. Then there is that pesky business about picking the correct hole to shove them through as well. Mommy has to help with that, but she is learning to try another if the first one doesn't work.

Formula Frustrations

Hannah has decided lately that she just doesn't want her formula anymore. She would much rather eat Cheerios, baby food, or whatever mom and dad are eating. Unfortunately, the doctor says she's not old enough to wean herself off of the formula yet so somehow we have to make her drink it. That's not an easy task either. She's such a strong girl that it's difficult to force her to do anything. On a positive not, what formula she does drink is now entirely out of sippy cup! The bottles are history and just in time too. They've been dropping like flies in the dishwasher lately. We lost 3 alone last night when the heat of the dishwasher cracked the plastic. Since she's been taking all of her formula out of the sippy cup we decided to see if she would hold the cup herself (we had been holding it for her like a bottle-one step at a time!). If we were holding her she refused to hold the cup, but when I put her in her highchair last night and this morning she held the cup by herself and drank all of the formula that she intended to drink! So, even though she's not drinking as much formula as she should be, at least the formula that she is drinking is being fed to her by her own hand. That's an achievement anyway!

Hannah still has her cold mentioned in a previous post. It started to get better, but then came back. Now, however, she's traded a fever for laryngitis. Her poor little voice is about gone. It cracks when she talks and is all husky and raspy sounding :( Actually, it's very cute to hear, but I know it's not good for her because it's all that drainage that's causing it. Kyle and I have become expert snot suckers. We have our routine down to a T. Poor Hannah absolutely hates it and I can't say that I blame her, but it's got to be done. When I'm home alone with her it's quite a challenge to clear it out though. She is SO STRONG. I can barely even get the aspirator near her nose. Maybe if I had four arms, but even then I'm not sure!

Hannah got a new bike helmet (this one is smaller than her previous one and she can't pull it off) so she finally got to be ungrounded and go back out in her bike trailer with Daddy. She really didn't care for wearing the helmet, but at least she couldn't get this one off. Eventually she gave up and just sat back and enjoyed the ride. She enjoys riding in her baby back pack so much that I hope she eventually gets as excited about riding in the trailer as she does about it. It's to the point when she sees us get the backpack out she crawls over really fast and gets excited. I'd love to see her get that way about seeing her bike helmet too!

Talking Up a Storm

Hannah has definitely got the hang of the whole communication thing. She's been talking and signing like crazy lately. For example, the other day Kyle was feeding her and she wasn't wanting to eat. She kept grabbing at her bib and pulling, but the Velcro was too strong for her to get it off. Eventually she got frustrated and signed help to Kyle while also saying "elp" Then I told her that if she took her bib off then she would be finished and so she signed finished! Kyle and I just looked at each other in amazement! So, here's a rundown of all the signs she does, the ones she knows, but doesn't actually do, and all the words she can say. Signs she actually makes: eat, drink, dog, help, finished, book, more. Signs she knows, but does not do: don't touch, no, cat, diaper change, gentle touch. Words she says: mom mom, dada, Ella, Evelyn (sounds like Eva), dog, up, help, uh book. She also understands a lot of what we say to her now as well. I can ask her to go get a book and she will bring one to me. Kyle told her to put back some onesies she had taken out of a drawer and she put them back. She amazes me every single day :)

Since Hannah has been so focused on language lately she's not been very interested in walking. I haven't got her to go more than a few steps with her walker in the last week. She's been much more interested in examining absolutely everything she can find. I took her outside today and she had a blast playing with the sticks, rocks, and flowers in the yard. In fact, she had so much fun that she threw a tantrum when it was time to go inside.

Last weekend Hannah was very busy. Kyle and I did the mini marathon so Hannah had to stay with her Aunt Heather, Grandpa, and Terri. Becky was there part of the time too (thank heavens since Hannah loves Becky!). Hannah was not very happy about being left without mommy and daddy so she decided to pull a hunger strike and refused to eat her bottle and her solid feeding for any of them! She also behaved so badly that it took two people to get her pants back on after a diaper change! After Kyle and I were done with the mini we went to Tiffany's house for the twins' birthday party. Hannah had fun crawling around the yard and swinging on the swing set with daddy.

Hannah continues to enjoy her Mommy and Me swim class and has graduated to a bubble belt (see picture) to help her float. She's also been practicing blowing bubbles and she's done it twice, but mostly she just likes to drink the water when I put her face down in the water!

As Mother's Day approaches I am amazed at what a difference a year can make. This time last year I was sad, but hopeful that one day I would be a mommy (we were matched with Tiffany and Mike, but we had not heard from her in awhile). Attending church was just too painful so we skipped the service and went out to eat instead to take my mind off it. This year I am overwhelmed with the love I feel for my little girl. When she smiles at me I just melt. Just sitting here thinking about her as I write is making me tear up. My life has changed more than I ever thought that it could, but I can't imagine anything that could ever be better. For Mother's Day Hannah and I are going to go get our pictures taken together at JC Pennys and I am going to splurge and get one of those multi-image enhancements that I always drool over. It's my first Mother's Day, I figure I deserve it! :) Now I just have to decide what we will wear!


Lately Hannah has been enjoying talking to people on the phone. She especially loves to talk to her daddy at work. She will say Hi, Dad and Bye-Bye to him. It's so cute. Speaking of saying Hi, Sarah and I went shopping earlier in the week and Hannah said hi to no less than 6 different people in one store! It was quite cute. She can be very persistent with her "Hi." She may say it dozens of times to the same person just to be sure that you are paying attention to her!