Hannah is THREE

I spent much of last weekend watching Hannah and savoring her last days as a two-year-old. I observed her sweetness, her curiosity, her cleverness... and her temper! And just how much she had changed in just the last few months. It's a cliché because it's true: They grow up so fast!

My uncle, aunt, and cousin were visiting on Saturday, and we all took a trip to the Museum of Science where Hannah made friends with a baby chick.

After the exhaustion from the day, Hannah fell asleep on my shoulder, and I got to re-visit the joy of relaxing while snuggling my sleeping baby. These days, she is usually far too busy.

    

Here are some things about Hannah:

• Hannah has lived in Massachusetts for more than 2/3 of her life. So I shouldn't have been surprised when she began speaking full sentences -- with a Boston accent. She rides in a "cah". She plays at the "pahk." Which park? The one "ovah deh-uh". It's pretty cute.
• Hannah can recognize the letters 'H' and 'S' and thinks that, respectively, they always stand for 'Hannah' and 'Sylvia'. Anything with an 'H' is, therefore, Hannah's. (Things with an 'S' are sometimes Sylvia's...)
•  Hannah loves school. She's in the 'Stomper Room', and is exceedingly proud of that. She's always excited in the morning to get in the "cah" and go to "ghool" and see her teachers and friends. In the fall I'd ask her what she did every day what she did, and she'd just announce "I Dom-per!"  But now she actually tells me in some detail what they did and who she played with. (And she can pronounce "Stomper".)
• Very recently, she reached 2 milestones that we'd begun to think would never come: She recognizes and names colors accurately, and she can say "Sylvia". We kind of miss "Sivia" and "See-uh". But it's nice to actually know what she means when she says "da gween one".

Fractionally older

Last week we had about 2-3/4 days home from school, courtesy of Juno. The first full snow day happened to coincide with Sylvia's half birthday. That's right, my first born is 5-1/2! Since we were home for the day anyway, we celebrated with scones for breakfast, a half-birthday crown, a chair picture, and - of course - a lot of snow.

At 5-1/2, Sylvia loves to do art, write stories, and put on "shows". Her favorite activities in school are recess and library. She does not care for gym. We're sort of amazed at the work that she brings home from kindergarten sometimes. At home, she loves to play "school" and "family" with her sister and their dolls. Mom & Dad aren't very good at these games, but she makes due.

Hannah's half-birthday went unnoticed in December, but we took a moment last week to acknowledge that she was turning, roughly, 2-60/97. At 2-1/2(rounding down now), Hannah is talking more and more, engaging in more conversations, fully playing along with Sylvia's pretend games, putting on her own pants & shoes (correctly at least 1/3 of the time), and trying to put on her own shirts & socks (100% failure rate so far). She is also widely recognized as having a great smile, great curls, and epic tantrums. Seriously, they are something to behold.

Sylvia is 5!

We had planned to celebrate Sylvia's birthday with a party on the actual big day, but the forecast said rain, so we celebrated a day early. Fortunately, most of her school friends were still able to come, and a grand time was had by all. We may have gone overboard with the Mickey / Minnie Mouse theme she requested, but it was great to have our backyard filled with laughing children.

Having the party on Saturday morning was nice, too, because we had the rest of the weekend to relax and celebrate as a family. We ran out to Build-A-Bear on Saturday afternoon so Sylvia could spend her birthday money on a new doghouse for her stuffed puppy Hearts, had a nice dinner at the Cheesecake Factory, and Sylvia and I went out for a mommy-daughter birthday haircut.

This past year was a big one for Sylvia. Memories from Santa Barbara still linger for her and bring a mixture of pleasant nostalgia and feelings of loss. She's been very excited about turning 5 and starting kindergarten, but obviously also nervous about the changes on the horizon. On Saturday, I told her excitedly it was her last day being 4. Her face fell, and she began to cry. She said that she didn't want it to be her last day being 4, because she was used to it. She likes new beginnings, but doesn't like it when things come to an end. We're coming up on the last few weeks at her current school, and I expect that to be a very difficult good-bye.

Anyway, look what happened:

Hannah is TWO

In these past 6 months, our sweet little baby girl has gone from that "toddler-baby" (as her sister would say) to this beautiful little girl, complete with golden locks, a sweet little voice, and a stubborn streak matched by extreme friendliness. Her teachers at day care frequently say to us, "It's a good thing she's so cute," and give us tales of her trouble-making

In the last few weeks, she has gone through a verbal explosion. She had a decent vocabulary before, but she generally just made one-word utterances and common phrases like "tank-oo", "aw-done", and "where-go?" Her vocabulary has probably tripled, and she's putting together and understanding more and more complicated sentences.

Yesterday, she shared a Frozen-themed birthday party with her cousin. Even above the presents and cake, I think she most enjoyed the kiddie pool.

 

She had an adventure the other week. She had a bad case of croup and ended up receiving oral steroids at the pediatrician's office and then taking a little ride in an ambulance to receive breathing treatments. In a case of extremely terrible timing, I didn't have my cell phone on me, which added a little drama to the ordeal and meant that I couldn't take any pictures, but the EMT did take & send this one, which he captioned:

"Patient of the Year"

We're just so proud of our little person.

Hannah is 1-1/2 (and 15 days)

Fifteen days ago, our little Hannah turned one and a half! I swear, it feels like a lifetime ago that we took this picture. I think she's had a major growth spurt, gotten a new tooth, and tripled her vocabulary since then. But the last 15 days have been full of school, work, snow shoveling, cleaning, packing, traveling, family, and holidays, so I'm a little late!

As of this writing, Hannah has 12 teeth (4 top center, 4 bottom center, 4 molars). She has several words, including "yea", "no", "hi", "bye", "nigh-nigh", "Ma-ma", "Da-da", "moh" (more), "cuh" (cup), "mik" (milk), "uh-p" (up), "dow" (down), "buh" (book), "wah-wah" (water), "hat", "cheeez" (take-my-picture-now), "nooo" (nose). Of course, she understands many, many more. She responds to commands and questions like, "How old are you?", "Where's your nose?", "Where are your ears?", "Clap your hands!", and "Say, 'hooray'!" She sings / moves along with "Twinkle Twinkle", "Row Your Boat", "Head Shoulders...", "If you're happy and you know it..." And she often actually follows instructions like, "Pick up your cup and bring it to Mommy!"

Hannah's been doing quite well in school. We hear daily reports of how the older kids want to play with her, the other toddlers (and the teachers) want to snuggle with her, and how her mischievous nature gets her into trouble and her coy smiles get her back out. She does occasionally throw quite a ruckus for our benefit when we drop her off or spend time in the classroom, but I'm told she's usually pleasant when we're not around (if somewhat feisty and spirited).

It's hard missing so much of her everyday life while she's at school, but she does seem to be blossoming there. It's been quite nice seeing so much of the girls while traveling. (Except, of course, when it's not!) They've both grown up so much these past months. I'll try to share some more photos soon, but for now:

time zone change...

Note to self: Apparently blogger doesn't allow you to have different time zones for different posts. So, when you finally changed your time zone last night, your past posts were shifted 3 hours into the future. Don't suddenly start thinking that Sylvia was born on the 28th or anything!

Sept 15: The East Coast Edition

Our little Hannah is 15 months old today!

(And Sylvia is 4 years, 1 month, 19 days)

And today is also Buca Day (the day before our wedding anniversary, when we drive too far to have dinner at a Buca di Beppo):

Like last year, we were not quite sure if we would be able to keep our little tradition alive. (Also like last year, Hannah is not at 100%, and the nearest Buca is over 30 minutes away.)  But, again, we made it! Even though Hannah spent the morning screaming and fussing, she was somewhat rejuvenated after a 3ish-hour nap, and our Buca outing was generally pleasant -- even the car ride!

Both girls have been in school full-time for 3 weeks now. They are both doing very well, but the school schedule is rough for Hannah, who only recently graduated from 2 naps a day to 1, and that 1 nap usually started much earlier and lasted much longer than her naps at school do. She's been increasingly tired and grumpy, which is not helped by the runny nose, congestion, and new teeth. (She has at least 8 that have broken through total: 3 front bottoms, 4 front tops, and one bottom molar; and other molars and teeth seem to be pushing toward the surface). The last couple days last week, her teachers commented that they were surprised to find that she is, actually, not always happy. No, she's certainly not. We call her "Hamster" (derived from "Hannah monster") for a reason!

Both girls have grown up and matured so much since our big move. Hannah is getting better and better and walking and climbing. She says up, mamamama, daddada, moh (more), muh (milk / food), hi, and she shakes & nods her head to indicate no and yes respectively. She also waves to greet people or say goodbye or good night. And she responds to many questions that we ask her or instructions we give her (like, Do you want food? or Get in your high chair.) She also loves to go outside and play on the playset, and she is far too bold about climbing & sliding

Sylvia is in another golden age of good behavior right now. Of course, she still gets in to trouble and has fits, but she is much more likely to pull / keep herself together and be sweet and helpful. Albeit ridiculous. She is ridiculous. For example, today her baby doll "kept hitting" her, so she put her on time out. She asked me if the baby doll could come to Buca. I told Sylvia that she couldn't come unless she was going to "be nice". Sylvia "asked" her, and the baby "said" no, so Sylvia decided to leave her in the car. That's probably not the best example; just the most recent!

Her motor skills have been noticeably improving. For example, she can now write her name (kinda... S's are hard!!) And she can write other words with some guidance. And she is generally very good at a game that is basically identical to the classic card game "War", except with a special deck of cards that each have the numeral, the written word, and the correct number of fun animal cartoons, and the word "war" never comes up. Like Kurt, who introduced us to this game, we call it "One, Two, Three Flip." You might wonder what it means to be "good" at war -- arguably the most dull and least skill-based game of all time. Well, what I mean is that she almost always knows which number is bigger, which I don't think she would have been able to do a few months ago. This version of the game also incorporates some simple addition, which Sylvia has been doing well with. With guidance, she has been able to add the numbers in the deck (0-13) and the plus cards (+1, +2, or +3). Today, for the first time, she started "counting on" by herself for the first time. (This is when you see 3 + 2, and instead of having of having to count from 1, like 1-2-3-4-5, you start with one of the numerals and count on, like 3-4-5.) This may be more interesting to a developmental psychologist than it is to other people...

One last thought... Lest you think that the ice cream that our family posed with in the above picture was in a normal margarita glass, I give you: