Say what, Hannah?

Hannah is a very conversational 26 month old girl. I didn't realize she could sing the ABC's in its entirety until she did so just last week:
http://youtu.be/DAeIae2KVlA

Here are some of her other conversational antics that thrill us:

"Ife fream" with "frinkles" = ice cream with sprinkles

"I so silly" accompanied by a "huh-huh" laugh

"You want bite?" repeatedly as she holds food in your face and refuses to remove it so you're forced to eat.

"Just one mo ____!" or sometimes "two mo" if she is aggressively negotiating another episode of Dora or a bedtime book or whatever it may be.

"No do that!" when she doesn't want you to do something, which can include virtually anything at any time based on her mood, not excluding eating, sniffling, sneezing, laughing, etc.

Her desire to console includes asking me (or whoever) to cry if I'd like a hug, then she will say "Aww, Mommy crying!" Then she will hug me gently, sometimes give kisses, and say, "Feel better, Mommy. I take care you." Melt.

"I need ___." She thinks she needs everything. So, we tell her to ask nicely, to which she says, "Pwease, I need ___, pwease?"

We are trying to teach her to be a good listener, so sometimes when we ask her to do something she doesn't want to do and she knows she is being defiant she will holler, "I not good listener!"

Up until recent she would say "Dit up!" instead of "Get up" and "Pum on!" instead of "Come on" but unfortunately (or fortunately, I suppose) she has cleared those up.

Hmm...so much more...I will have to add to this as I recall more!

Spring, beautiful spring

I guess winter really wore me down because I don't remember ever loving spring so much! I always considered myself a fall girl. Hmm.

Anyway, is it me or is the grass especially green right now? And the birds are extra tweety. And the rabbits look bigger. Except for the baby bunnies - which somehow look cuter than ever.

Speaking of cute...Hannah!

I believe I have mentioned this before, but for some reason I really like the idea of her making strategic messes. You know, I don't want her to be in a disgusting mess, or a dangerous mess. But I want her to get some yogurt on her face and some grass stains on her knees. It's good for a person!

Yesterday we laid in the grass, and it was everything I had imagined. The air was just warm enough. The grass was just cool enough. The sun was just going down enough. The sky was clear and vibrant blue. The day's work was done. It was time to do lawn angels and thank God for the air.

So we did just that.

Our angel turns 2 today

Happy 2nd birthday to the sweetest little girl ever, Miss Hannah Sophia!

While it's hard to believe that it's been 2 years since she came into this world, it's also hard to remember exactly how I ever felt whole before her! She is such a darling, spunky, smart, funny little girl. I can't get enough of her. I am so honored God chose me to be her mommy!

Greetings from inside the princess tent!

Well, I may be crappy at keeping up my blog these days, but as you can see I have been doing some really important things.

I am always on a day-to-day basis with myself, but I have to say - I love my life.

Motherhood is such a trip. I haven't had this much personal growth since I switched high schools my sophomore year, or perhaps when I went away to college. In each experience I have learned more and more how to release the need to be in control; to surrender to the experience and let myself be molded.

I fight it hard. I think that's natural. You spend years building what you think is your identity, and when it suddenly feels that a new way of life is threatening to disrupt the old - regardless of how dissatisfying the old life is - the natural instinct is to defend and preserve.

The best, most inspiring and satisfying growth I have ever experienced has been when I do surrender.

So, parenthood, I have surrendered to you. I have slowly done so each day over the past few years. I gave my physical and emotional self over to pregnancy in 2011. Watching my body morph and stretch provided me with such a continuous reminder that God is the ultimate owner of my physical self. I make choices that can impact how well my physical self functions, and I should want to make good choices (and fall short, naturally). But ultimately, I am a conscious soul who has a body on loan from the Most High. Thank you, God, for using pregnancy to make me more aware. I have resisted but ultimately surrendered to my role in my physical well-being. I am currently honoring this awareness by taking the best care of my physical self possible, allowing myself a little room to forgive myself for being incredibly human and making mistakes at times.

Perhaps more poignantly, I have done the same with my mental health. I have become more and more aware of where I begin and end mentally. I know I have to be very conscious about my emotions because otherwise they can lead me down some rather uncomfortable paths. I am more cognitively aware than I have ever been. This has been an ongoing process over my life, but becoming a mother, experiencing severe postpartum issues, clawing my way out of a mental hole, working through the daily highs and lows of being a parent, working to preserve relationships and even allowing some to go or change, trying to pursue my own career passions as new opportunities have been presented...the whole process frightens and inspires me at once.

I was not meant to remain afraid for long periods of time. None of us are.

I was meant to flourish and grow. I was meant to learn and respect the process. I have to recalibrate constantly. It's a daily job. I have to identify feelings as just that - outside impacting inside, or inside chemical fluctuations that are always going to ebb and flow beyond my control my whole life.

I can't be afraid for long. I have a life that's going to go on whether or not I'm there to appreciate it.

So, here's my decision: I give up the need to control it all because in return I know I get my reward. The present.

I will strive to remain aware of the simple things around me. To appreciate the tiny gifts. To resist inflating my fears and to respect the process. To take the path wherever it leads me - into new adventures, new children, new relationships, new career paths. Or maybe just a pink princess tent.

Throwing rocks in the water

I had a surprisingly special day yesterday. It was shaping up to be pretty standard, despite the fact that it was finally nice enough out to go outside - a welcome break from this seemingly relentless winter.

Jason had a teaching gig last night so Hannah and I were paired up to take on the evening. I picked her up from school and we headed straight up to a nearby park.

We played on park things for a bit. Did some swinging. Crawled through some tunnels. Explored and slid. Ate a piece or two of gravel when she thought I wasn't looking.

Then we decided to check out the ducks at the nearby pond. We walked over and sat on the gravel path surrounding the water. We saw some orange and white koi fish stirring so I thought that I could get them to come closer by tossing tiny rocks into the water, leading them to believe it was food. Perhaps that's mean but I have a toddler to entertain!

But after I threw a single stone into the pond, Hannah erupted into such laughter and joy that I realized we had discovered a new nature toy. She fetched tiny rocks from the grass and we threw them in the water. Each time she counted to three as we prepared to toss them, then squealed with joy, cheering with delight.

We sat on the gravel path for a long time, throwing rocks, talking about ducks and fish and clouds. As the ripples in the water drew near to us after we threw a rock, she would warn me that the water was coming. When the ducks would quack, she would ask, "Did you hear that?" in her sweet, tiny and curious little voice.

I hugged her and kissed her and helped her throw rocks. Yesterday was one of the best days of my life.

Two Years After We Lost Anthony & Wesley

My baby nephews, Anthony and Wesley, would be two today. I want to think that it is strange that God would have allowed something like this to happen on Valentine's Day, but when I also think about how my Grandpa Tony died on Christmas a few years ago - his absolute, favorite holiday - it kind of makes sense that their birthday would fall on this holiday, I guess. My heart is full of so much love for Anthony & Wesley, and I celebrate their short but incredibly important lives on the day that so many in the world celebrate love. Sometimes the bigger the love the bigger the ache, too, though. I can't help but feel anger still that they didn't get to spend more time here with us. I'm not sure I will ever be able to let that go. I so badly want to hug and hold them, and I can't. Not on this earth. My heart will never be the same because of that. I also ache to think of how my brother and sister-in-law feel. How Nora and Hannah will feel when they are old enough to understand their loss.

I love my nephews so much. I look at this picture of their tiny feet and hold that image frozen in my mind as long as it will let me, like gripping to some tangible evidence of who they were and are. And I hold them tightly in my aching heart. So tightly.

While you were "sleeping"

My doll baby, Hannah...


I picked you up from daycare today a bit early because I wanted you to nap at home. It gives me immense comfort when I know exactly how well you are sleeping during your naps, you've been a little under the weather, and there was a confimed case of RSV in your class yesterday. All reasons to have you home with me.



So I am sitting here at the desk in the den, logging back into my work computer. You are down for your nap, and I can hear quite the little commotion coming from the monitor.



You sleep with somewhere around a thousand stuffed animals in your bed. You like to take care of them. Your favorite being, of course, Piggy, who takes up half the bed. I can hear you in there talking to your stuffed animals. I see on the monitor display that you are lining the stuffed animals across your pillow, saying "Nigh-night" to each one. You make my heart sing, baby.



You snuggle into Piggy and make squealing noises. You lay down and start kicking the side of the crib, just for fun. Then I see you sit up, pull your sock off, and put it into your mouth. You put it in and take it out and put it in and take it out. I hear you say, "acky" - your word for "gross." You throw the sock out of the crib and say, "Uh-oh." It wasn't an accident, but that's what you say when you throw something down on purpose.



You stand up, hold onto the side rails, and start jumping on your bed. Your binky falls out of the crib and onto the floor, and I hear, "Ohhhhh nooooo! Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no!" Then more jumping. Then you sit down.



You pick up one of your stuffed animals and start to sing to him. "Poo poo poo poo. Doo-pee-doo-pee doo dooo doooooo." I'm sure he appreciates it.



I'm so happy you're such a happy girl. I love you so much.