Hannah: Right This Moment

There isn't a day that goes by without my thinking that I need to document Hannah. She is changing by the day. By the hour! I've already forgotten what she was like last week because she was a completely different kid then. Stop time. Just stop and let me hold my little girl before she's off to college.

Since I can't stop time, I'll have to just capture it. Hannah, this is you at two years, two months, and a few weeks old.

Your language is exploding. You say at least five new words a day and you say them as if you've been saying them your whole life. You understand every single thing we tell you and you are always listening in on our conversations. It amazes me that you are adding so many words together. Sometimes you'll say a six or seven word phrase like it's no big deal at all.

When we put you to sleep you say, "I wud du mommy. I wud du baby dolls. Night." When you wake up you scream "Mommy mon Hannah yeah oh-no." It used to just be "Mommy mon" (come on) but when Paul was born you added the "Hannah" to make sure we knew who exactly needed to be attended to. When we didn't respond to that immediately you added the "Yeah!" for emphasis. Then the "Oh-no" because you were forced to wait in your crib for 15 seconds longer than you wanted to. You say it in one long breath and it's so funny. I'm often tempted to just let you yell so I can giggle on the other side of the door. But I don't....at least not too often. You also say "Danks" a hundred times a day. Every time I hand you something you thank me. If I don't say "You're welcome" you stare at me and wait for me to say it. You even thank us when we hand you something and ask you to put it away or throw it in the trash. You're pretty good at saying "Yes pease" and No ma'am" when we prompt you.

We still put you to bed with footie pajamas on backwards. If we don't, you'll take them off along with your diaper and wake up because you're cold or you peed. This has been going on for months.

Your speech is so cute and only a bit behind. Most of your errors are perfectly appropriate for your age, with only a few exceptions. You sub /d, t/ for /g, k/ and /d/ for /f, v/. You really like /d/. You pick up new consonants in the final position first, then the medial, and the initial position comes way later. It's a great way to let me know that you are making progress, even if you are still missing a lot of sounds. You have some major nasal assimliation going on. If there's an /n/ or /m/ anywhere in the word-everything else goes to a nasal too. Pink is "meent". Bacon is "baynen". Bunny is "munny". Phone is "noan". In true Southern fashion, you drag a lot of one syllable words out into two. Wear is "way-oh". Beer is "bee-oh". Play is "Pee-yay". Sometimes it makes it quite hard to understand what you are saying, but I can usually figure it out if I trace your error patterns to all the possibilities. You are lucky you have a speech therapist for a mom. Your daddy often needs me to translate.

You are so fun in the car. For short trips at least. You love to watch for buses and big trucks. You tell me to drive "dast!" on the "highway!" and comment on the color of the cars around us. You are very concerned with who is going to get to get out of the car first ("dirst") and get upset when it's Paul.

You love your brother.

Except when you don't.

But most of the time you do.

You tell him, "Be happy Paul, no be sad Paul" when he cries and "Bess wu Paul" when he sneezes. You like to rub and pat him but it almost always turns into you attempting to claw his face or squeeze his stomach until he pops. When he wakes up from a nap you yell, "Mommy doh det him!" but then you get mad if I actually leave the room to get him. You love to help me change his diaper and buckle him into his swing or car seat. When we lay him on the floor you sometimes get him books and prop them up by his face and tell him to "wead". Then you knock them over onto his face and he cries. Sometimes it's an accident. Most of the time it's on purpose. When you see him in the mornings you say, "Hey Paul" in the same voice that I use. You call him "Doodle" and "Paul Doodle" and when we tell you his real name is Paul Joseph you say "Not Dofis. Doodle."

You love your baby dolls. You've renamed them Baby Paul and Baby Gus. They used to be One Baby and Two Baby. You read them the same little prayer book every day for nap and nighttime. One of your favorite things to do is buckle them into Paul's car seat over and over and over again. Another favorite activity is wrapping your toothbrush in toilet paper and laying it on top of the toilet seat as if you are putting a baby to sleep. It's weird. But it keeps you busy for sometimes as long as 10 minutes. Your other favorite toys are your wooden blocks (to build a "bid tower!" or a circle around yourself), your ABC blocks, your dressing bear puzzle, Mr. Potato Head, and your toy cars that "Paul" gave you when he was born. You also love play-doh and coloring, but mostly you like to sit and tell me and dad what to make or what to color. You'd rather boss us around than actually create or draw yourself. And you don't really care for that amazing kitchen set we spent months making you. Of course.

You know all your colors (except you still get red and green confused). You even know black, white, and brown. You know over half the letters of the alphabet and you love to tell us who the letters belong to. "M Mommy, D Daddy, B Blaise, T Ted". You can count to ten and are really close to being able to actually count out ten objects.

You are still very agile and have great balance. You can full out sprint across the yard, love to hop, and can climb even the scariest parts of the playground.

You're a mess. An absolute mess. But everything else in your world must be neat and organized. You are a little OCD about just about everything. Where we sit at dinner, the way your books stack, which items belong to which people. You get that from me.

You really like getting ready in the bathroom with mommy in the mornings. You pretend to do your make-up and wash your hands a dozen times. You love having your toenails painted. It's one of my favorite times of the day. I just love having a daughter.

Your favorite day of the week is Thursday because the trash trucks drive by the house at least eight times. You get excited every single time. "Tas tut!" You also love Thursdays because you get to go stay with Blaise and Cathy while I do therapy. You think Blaise (a few months older) is the coolest, most amazing person in the world. And I think you might love Cathy even more than you love me.

Your favorite shows are Barney and Curious George. They're the only ones you'll actually sit and watch. And you can do the Dino Dance like nobody's business.

The best part of your day is the moment daddy walks in the door. You talk about him all day long and tell me that he's at "wort" with "Tiss" (his co-worker Chris). When you hear the door being opened you shout "Daddy home!" and then run to the other side of the living room so you can hop across the floor into his arms. You then demand he give you every ounce of his attention for the next three hours or you throw a fit.

You get super excited to Skype with your grandparents and aunts. But then you spend most of the time trying to bang on the keyboard and getting in trouble. You love to play peek-a-boo and feed them pretend food through the screen.

Time-outs in your crib are moderately effective at managing your behavior. You hate being separated from us. You scream the entire time you are in time-out but as soon as we come get you you start jumping. You are quick to say "Dawey" and we don't usually have to make you apologize. You also know exactly why you're there. "Dawey. Hit Paul. No no."

You know a few words to the Hail Mary but you're pretty resistant when we try to make you say it. You say "Pay dor us" when we ask St. Joseph for his prayers. You can make the sign of the cross but won't join in our prayer before meals. When we ask you what you want to pray for you always say ""Mary". And if we ask who died on the cross or who is Mary's baby, you know it's "Dee-duss".

Hannah, I could go on and on. You are absolutely amazing. You make us laugh every single day. You make us mad every single day. When we crawl into bed at night we are completely exhausted but can never seem to go to sleep without spending a few minutes rehashing all the cute things you said or did that day. We've never met anyone with a smile more beautiful than yours. And to see you smile makes us happier than anything in the world.

Thanks for being so great.