Hannah @ 18 Months

 

My poor baby. I’ve skipped several months of your updates. Please believe it is not because I am not as crazy about you as I was with Drew at the same age. It’s just that by the time 9:30pm falls around and the house is quiet and I have an opportunity to sit down and type out everything I love about you….I’m too pooped. So it’s just laziness, my dear. I love you equally!

18 months old. I didn’t even realize until the other day that we have already passed your 18 months mark! I’d still been telling people you were 17 months! It doesn’t seem possible that my darling baby girl is half way to two. Say it isn’t so!

You’re such a sweet girl! I can honestly tell we’re going to have some fun times together in our future. You are a mama’s girl right now—through & through! You run around “barking” my name when you’re unsure of where I am. It’s so funny! You love to sit in my lap, rock when you’re sick, and have me hold you as I walk around the house. But you’re not totally against holding my hand and walking. As you can tell, you’re pretty fond of being with me ALL the time. No complaints here. I’ve seen how fast Drew has grown, and I’m in no rush for you to follow suit too quickly!

When we prayed for you to be 100% girl, God heard us. I’m not sure we knew what we were asking for (ha!), but you’re perfect! You like to have your nails painted (but not the painting process), play babies, kittens, puppies, playing kitchen, playing with pots and pans, taking baths, brushing your hair, and wearing shoes. So girly! Then you throw in something like mud play. You LOVE the mud. You even try to eat dirt from time to time and show me. It’s quite adorable how you open your mouth and stick your tongue out to show me you swallowed it all. Yum!

Your favorite foods: donuts, breads, mac & cheese, green beans, carrots, pizza, bananas, grapes, apples, peas, cheese, and crackers. You’re CRAZY about sweet tea. You recognize it in a glass and if you get your hands on it, the glass will not take long to be empty. You can guzzle juice like no one’s business. You like milk and really dislike water. You’re like your mama. I’m so sorry for passing that on to you.

Hannah, you have such a tender heart. Whereas Drew would not care if he were talked to sternly at this age, you will melt into a pile of tears most times. You’re usually very obedient and seem to be a rule follower. We’re going to get along really well.  

You sleep from about 8/8:30 until 9/9:30 and take a 1-2 hour nap during the day. You love to give kisses to Drew before bedtimes. He started that with you and now you must kiss him and include “muah” sound every time. Melts me!

You are trying to talk all the time. You even sing in your own gibberish. The funniest thing is when you’re telling someone something very sternly and you get that pointer finger going. Cracks me up! The words you use the most are: mama, daddy, drew, juice, cup, baby (which can refer to your baby doll, your passy, or your blankie), shoes, and cracker.

Speaking of passies, you love yours, and we have every intention of keeping it around for a while. We did get rid of the wubanub (passy with the stuffed animals attached) and life is a little easier now without it.

We’re going to St. Louis next month on a family vacation and I’m a little nervous about how you’ll do on a 5-6 hour car ride since you usually tire of your seat after an hour, but we’ll make it! We’re going back to Six Flags where you’ll be able to ride several rides. Here’s hoping you don’t cry on every one! (I really don’t think you will. You’re a pretty big risk taker compared to a lot of little girls we know!)

Hannah, I could eat you with a spoon. I love your smile that makes your eyes squint, your laugh, your girliness, your soft hands, your beautiful hair, and your darling disposition. I’m SO thankful to be your mommy, and I can’t wait to spend our years cultivating a friendship that will last a lifetime. I want you to know that just below Jesus and your Daddy come you and your siblings. My attention is all yours then. I always have ample time for you and always will. You can come to me with any problem. God’s grace is enough for all of us, so never worry about sharing what’s on your heart with me. I love you through and through. Being your mommy is one of the greatest joys of my life, and I never wanna take you for granted.

Love,

Mommy

 

Embracing the Messes: Making Advances

Remember when I talked about embracing messes when there is fun to be had? Well, I still am working on not cringing at the mess and not having an anxiety attack when I see dirty clothes, but I’m progressing. Apparently, I’m one of those “just jump right in and get it over with” type people because we didn’t start small.

Exhibit A: Oobleck (google it if you don’t know what it is. FUN, FUN, FUN—especially for the older kids who understand states of matter….so that’d mean I had a blast with this. It made me giddy about homeschooling.)

I’d rate this as easy clean-up, just in case you’re wondering. If you’re looking for the recipe, it’s just cornstarch and water, with food coloring if you wish. You can find exact measurements through that handy thing called Google.

Exhibit B: Slime/Gak. You’ll note this project took place outdoors, mainly because Hannah was napping and we can’t be in the kitchen during that time. However, I’d be lying if I left it there. It was pretty messy at first, so we headed outdoors. I was planning on saving this gak for a while. Unfortunately, the outdoors added elements to our gak including leaves, dirt, and rocks. We found the slime recipe from Pinterest. It starts out quite watery, but with lots of kneading gets much “gakier.”

He loved this one. We even saved it one time and he played with it outside again. We would have saved it again except, as mentioned above, the dirt in it was causing it to change colors. Yuck. We’ll be doing this again!

Exhibit C: Baking soda and colored vinegar. I don’t have a picture of this (so I think that invalidates calling it an exhibit—whatever), but he really enjoyed it. I covered the bottom of a 9x13 pan with baking soda and gave him 3-4 individual little cups of different colored vinegar. Then he took a dropper and added different colors of the vinegar into the baking soda. He loved that it fizzed, but also enjoyed making all the different colors run together. A big hit, and he requested to do it again!

Exhibit D: Fingerpainting. This is where I apparently lost my mind. We started out with individual circles of paint on a lovely Christmas plate. I envisioned him doing just as I would do (my downfall most of the time)—using one finger for each color. You know, as to not mix the colors and make it ugly. HA. Continue looking.

When he was done, there was paint EVERYWHERE. He had to have a bath afterwards. We might wait 6 months-10 years before doing that again. I had to do deep breathing exercises to make it through that one.

And now for the final exhibit, Exhibit E, I give you….planned mudhole maddness.

(Deda, this is a video! I have no idea how to fix that the video isn't centered. Everything is "off" on my blog, but not on youtube. Strange!)

The shower desperately needs to be cleaned now, as you can probably imagine!

So we’re having fun with all this uncharacteristically warm weather for this time of year and really look forward to the other MESSY activities we have planned!

And can I say….I LOVE BEING A MOMMY!!!!! This make life fun!!!!