Hannah is on the move...

Hannah seems to have a more coordinated crawl now. Before, she was doing kind of an inchworm crawl, but now she can move her opposite arms and legs the way she is supposed to. She goes a little slower when she crawls the right way. She still sometimes uses her inchworm crawl if she wants to get across the room really fast. She is also pulling herself up to the coffee table and the couch a lot now.

Heidi & Hannah: Opposites Again

Since Heidi was a baby, she has always been afraid of the vacuum cleaner. Even now, she is three years old and she still runs out of the way when a vacuum cleaner is near (and sometimes jumps up onto the couch to get away from it).

Hannah, however, seems to follow me around when I am vacuuming. She shows no fear of it. We have two totally opposite girls in so many ways.

Hannah can pinch to pick-up things!

Hannah is using her index finger and her thumb to pick little things up off of the ground now. Earlier this week, she picked up a couple of small scraps of paper (from the edges) using her index finger and thumb. Today, she picked up a piece of cereal that Heidi dropped. Another milestone, I guess.

We need to babyproof!

Hannah is 6 months old and has been pulling herself up lately. Today, she has even found the wall outlets. She keeps going over to them and hitting them with her hands. We need to start baby proofing!

Heidi's still missing the "army house"

Today, Heidi and I were sitting on the couch watching Sesame Street (which she has not really been interested in watching for a while), when we saw a cowgirl type of character in one of the little scenes. She was from Texas. I said something to Heidi like "She's from Texas. Do you remember when we lived in Texas? In the army house at Fort Hood?" She suddenly got a very serious look on her face and said in a very serious tone "I'm not going to talk about that." She still misses her old "army house."

Sometimes she asks me if a new family is living in it right now. And sometimes she tells me that she wants to go home. I think she means that she wants to go back to the "army house" at Fort Hood. That is the first house she remembers living in (even though it was really her second).

Some of the silly things Heidi says...

Saturday morning when I asked Heidi what she wanted for breakfast, she told me that she wasn't hungry. She went upstairs and played for a while. Eventually, she came downstairs and said "My tummy keeps growling. I told him to stop, but he wouldn't."

Heidi also told me Saturday night "I'm too tired to go to sleep."

Heidi is trying to make my grandpa come back...

Yesterday, Heidi asked me "Mommy, when did your grampa die?" I told her that my grandpa died before she was born. (Actually both of them had already died before she was born, but I didn't know which one she meant. Maybe she doesn't even know that I have two grandpas.) Then, she didn't say or ask anything more about him.

Today, Heidi told me that she was going to play a song on the Fisher Price baby grand piano that would make my grandpa come back. She said that she would have to "do it all night and all day, so it will be hard work." Then, she sat down at the piano and started playing a song and was singing "I want my mommy's grampa to come back right now..." She eventually was distracted when she saw something good come on tv.

I think she is confused about death and seems to have a fascination with the subject of death right now.

Heidi's diary entry about the boy who threw the sand in her eyes...

Heidi wrote a diary entry about the boy who threw the sand in her eyes last Saturday. She made a lot of it up (about how the boy's mom reacted).

Heidi's Diary Entry: "We went to the beach yesterday and a boy threw sand in my eyes and his mom said "Stop that right now or else you will get a spanking. Stop that pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease. Stop or else you can't get special treats that I get from the store. Yes. No more treats from the store 'cause you can't be my son anymore. That's it. Good-bye. That's it. Stop following me. The end."

Then she wrote a little more: "Today I went to the doctor 'cause a boy threw sand in and made my eyes and it hurted. The doctor made my eyes glow. The doctor said "Get some medicine in your eye." She gave me a patch. The scratch on my cornea... it hurted. The sun hurted. The end. I was covering my head with a blanket this morning 'cause the sun hurted my eyes."

** I usually write down what she is saying while she makes her zig zaggy lines in her diary. What I have written is exactly what she said. I think it is funny how she made the mother of the boy say "you can't be my son anymore... stop following me." She made all of that up. :)

Heidi's Corneal Abrasion

Saturday, we went to the beach part of Lake Washington at Gene Coulon Memorial Park. While we were there, a little boy threw a bunch of sand in Heidi's eyes when she was down at the water area playing in the sand. I tried flushing it out with a cup of water, but she just screamed and cried for a while anyway. By that night, her eye was really red and swollen, and I started to worry that it might be serious. Sunday morning, I took her to a clinic that was open in Puyallup and after looking at her eye, the doctor (whose name was also Heidi) told us that she had a corneal abrasion. She gave Heidi some numbing eye drops that made her feel better right away. She had been in a lot of pain and could not stand light. When she woke up that morning, she brought a blanket downstairs with her to keep over her head because even the little bit of light that came into our living room with the blinds down was hurting her eyes. We started putting eye drops in her eyes with an antibiotic and she looks So much better today (Monday). The swelling is gone and the redness is mostly gone. I took her back (as the doctor suggested) to have it checked again today (to make sure it wasn't getting worse and to make sure it wasn't going to ulcerate)... and she seemed pleased with how it has already starting to heal. She seems to be feeling Sooo much better now! :)

Hannah and the piano

I recently unpacked the Fisher Price baby grand piano that my mom and dad gave to Heidi for Christmas a couple of years ago. It didn't have batteries, but Hannah kept trying to play with it. I guess she was drawn to the colorful keys. Brian picked up some c-batteries today at Costco, so I put them in earlier today. I sat Hannah down in front of the piano and she had the best time playing with it! She played and played with the keys and kept turning the pages. It kept her attention for a really long time! She seems to have a pretty long attention span. Hannah does sometimes talk and make noises, but she usually likes to study things and is usually a pretty quiet baby. :)

Hannah is discovering her freedom to go where she wants now.

For the past couple of days, Hannah has been following me into the kitchen when I go to empty the dishwasher or get Heidi a snack. Yesterday, I went to the bathroom and when I came back, Hannah had crawled into the kitchen looking for me, I guess. She crawled all of the way into the kitchen and was just crying... I think because she couldn't find me. Whenever she does follow me into the kitchen, she usually pulls on my pants and hits my feet with her hands.

Today when I was making lunch, Hannah followed me into the kitchen again (as usual) and she discovered her first kitchen drawer. She had fun opening and closing it for a while. Then, she moved on to the sliding glass door that goes to the backyard. When she got over to it, she just looked and looked at the backyard for a while through the window. She is starting to move around and discover new things on her own now!

Heidi: "I'm changing Hannah into a mean witch."

Heidi has been pretending to change Brian and me into a prince and a princess today, but she said that she was going to change Hannah into a mean witch.

Sometimes Heidi says that she doesn't want a little sister anymore. I think she is still trying to adjust. Even though she says she doesn't want Hannah, I know that she still loves her because she tries to hug and kiss her so many times every day. Heidi's hugs are more like tackles, and her kisses usually push Hannah over. Sometimes Hannah tries to move away from Heidi when she sees her moving in for a hug or a kiss. :)

Hannah's Well-Baby Appointment

Hannah is 5 months old now, but had her 4-month well-baby appointment today. The doctor seemed surprised at how well she is sitting up without support and seems to have pretty good balance now. She doesn't look like she just started sitting up this past week.

Hannah also says "ma ma ma ma" and "bup bup bup" (and other noises sometimes, too).

Here's how she's growing:

Height: 27.75" (97th%)
Weight: 18 lbs 9 oz. (95th %)
Head: 17.25" (90th%)

She had one oral immunization and two shots in her legs. She didn't even cry for the first shot, but cried for maybe 2 seconds on her second one. She was so good! :)

Heidi's Diary

Heidi has been talking about diaries so much lately (and pretending that she has one) that I thought I would buy her one! We were at Fred Meyer today and I bought a composition notebook on sale for 50 cents for her to use as a diary. When we got home, she was SO excited that she really had her very own diary. She told me exactly what to write in it, so I wrote what she told me to say word for word. She also wrote some zig zaggy lines that go left to right across the page that look kind of like she meant for them to be sentences. She told me what they said, so I translated what she wrote in my handwriting just above/below what she wrote. Here's her first entry:

My mom bought my book and no boys are allowed to read it.

No boys allowed! This is Heidi's secret diary. No Boys! If a boy tries to get my diary, I'll say "Don't grab my diary!" Only girls can read my diary.

I played at the park today and Hannah played with the piano (a toy piano). We drove to Fred Meyer. I played in the play area. Mommy went shopping.

A sticker from Fred Meyer... (sticker is stuck to the page here)

No boys can read my diary. Trevor can't read my diary because he's a lousy boy.

Then, she drew a picture of a girl on the back of today's entry and said "This is a girl. She doesn't like boys."

I accidentally colored on her Mom

Today Heidi asked me if she could color on her Little Bo Peep doll with a magenta colored crayon. I told her "No, we don't color on our dolls." Then, I went into the kitchen to clean up a little, so I wasn't watching to see what she was doing. A couple of minutes later, Heidi said "Oops. I accidentally colored on her Mom." I told her that it could not have been an accident because she asked me if she could do it before she did it. I said this to her in kind of a mean, firm voice and her lip started to quiver like she was about to cry. She knew what she was doing.

Hannah: Chasing Toy Rings

Hannah has been having fun playing with the ringsthat go to the Fisher Price stacking toy lately. She likes to pick them up, drop them, watch them roll, and go after them... and then the cycle just keeps repeating itself. This entertains her for a little while. She can move pretty far across the room just going after the toy ring. I think the orange one must be her favorite because that's the one she seems to play with the most.

Hannah's Second Tooth

Hannah's second tooth broke through the gums yesterday (Friday). She now has two bottom front teeth. She's also getting even better at sitting up for longer periods of time.