Quick Heidi & Hannah Update (because I haven't written anything in a while)

I haven't written anything in my blog in forever, so I thought I'd write a couple of quick notes...

The other day at preschool, Heidi's teacher told me that they were playing a game in class where the teacher would say, for instance, "What body part begins with the letter...?" Well, when she said "What body part begins with the letter "L" ... and she told them that they have two of these.... Heidi answered with "lungs." I think she's smart. :)

Hannah has been talking a LOT lately. She copies almost anything Heidi tries to do (whether it's good or bad). She used to love things like broccoli, green beans, and spaghetti until she heard Heidi say "yuck, broccoli" or "yuck, spaghetti." She loves wearing her pink, princess raincoat ALL of the time... even around the house. She also loves wearing a pink headband a lot that came with a nightgown that Grandma Vesta gave her a while back. I think her favorite colors are pink and purple because those are the colors that she usually chooses when I get a bowl or plate for her to eat with. For Christmas, she got tons of great presents! When she walked down the stairs and saw everything that Santa left for her, she got SO Excited! She kept saying babydoll and had an overly-excited laugh! She saw her babydoll in the little wooden highchair that Santa left for her in front of the tree and was just soooo excited to get down there and play with it!

Heidi also got a lot of great presents! Her biggest gift from Santa this year was a doll house mansion that she can use with her barbies. It's even taller than she is & she is tall for a 5-year-old! Santa also brought her an American Girl doll that has brown hair, brown eyes, and tan skin. She had been wanting one for a long time, so when I found one at a second-hand store in Bellingham (that was in perfect condition) I got it to give to her from Santa. She loves it and sleeps with it every night, but she tells me sometimes that she really wishes that her doll had blue eyes and blonde hair like she has. She has named her Katie. ... which reminds me, that's the same name that she told me the day I told her that I was pregnant in Texas that "you're going to have a girl and her name is going to be Katie." She really likes that name. We had even considered it (when I was pregnant with Hannah), but didn't use it. She sometimes uses it for some of her other dolls names, too.

Well, at least this is a little bit of an update for now...

"Chicken Chicken Yuck"

Saturday night, we had Chinese food for supper. Hannah wanted to try the General Tso's chicken (which wasn't too spicy, like it sometimes is), so I put a little on her plate and cut it up. After she tasted it, she said "chicken chicken YUCK!" I thought it was funny. She enjoyed the rice, though. :)

Heidi's Birthday List

Heidi told me that she wanted to make a birthday wish list, so here it is:

• Chocolate cake
• Chocolate ice cream
• Strawberry cupcakes
• Chocolate chip cookies
• "O" candies
• Fishie candies
• A new McDonald's toy
• A Starsong baby My Little Pony (I think she already has the Starsong My Little Pony, though)
• Pillow Pet (unicorn)
• A skirt
• Cinderella Pajamas, a nightgown
• Jasmine nightgown
• A Barbie house
• I want Hannah to give me chocolate milk
• I want Grandma Sylvia to give me a new coloring book.
• I want Grandma Holly to give me a new princess nightgown.
• I want Grandpa George to give me the new Tinkerbell movie.
• I want my mommy to give me a Barbie Fashion Fairytale movie.
• I want Grandpa Bob to give me a new princess purse.
• Alicia can just give me a surprise thing.
• Sophie can give me a surprise thing, too... and Sienna.
• Michelli and Alicia, a surprise thing, too.
• Ella can give me a surprise thing, too.
• They have to get me a girl thing.
• The end.

Putting Hannah To Bed Tonight...

When I put Hannah to bed at night, I try to talk about things that we did that day. I used to do the same with Heidi. It's fun to get reactions from them about what we did that day. Today, I talked to Hannah about dropping Heidi off at the babysitter's house (but not her b/c she has a yucky nose) and how we said bye bye to her... and I asked her if she rememered going to see the doctor with me because Mommy had to have stitches taken out of her back... and I asked her if she rememered playing in the front yard today with squirt guns and spray bottles, squirting water on the ground (she looked up at me and smiled)... and I asked her if she remembered playing with Elmo (a doll) today. She put her hands palm up (like I do when I ask where something is) and said "go? .... Elmo go?" (Elmo sounds a little more like "Ahhmo," but she's been getting better at almost saying the "l" sound with it, like "Ahlmo.") Then, I remembered where we had left it and told her that I would be right back. I came back with Elmo and she was still sitting in the rocking chair where I had left her, excited to see that I had brought Elmo back with me. She kept saying "back back, Elmo... back back." I also asked her if she remembered putting her baby doll in her high chair and trying to feed her sippy cup to her. Then, she kept getting frustrated because the high chair is too high for her to reach the baby very well and couldn't take her out of it by herself, so I had to help her. I told Brian tonight that I think we should get her a baby doll high chair for her Christmas present from us. He thought it was a good idea. She does like feeding her baby doll a lot. Sometimes I give her a spoon and a little plastic bowl from the kitchen and she loves to try to pretend feed her doll... and then she usually puts them night night, or "nigh nigh," as Hannah would say it. I guess I usually put her to bed after I feed her lunch... and pretty soon after supper, too. Anyway, that's most of what we talked about tonight before Hannah went to bed. Then, when she went to bed, she took Elmo with her. She usually has Elmo, a baby doll, Minnie Mouse, a caterpillar, and Curious George in her crib (all around the edges). Tonight she cuddled with her arms around the baby doll when she went to sleep.

Heidi's Smoothie

Heidi just made me a smoothie in the playroom. Here's what she put in it:

Peanut butter
Blueberries
Blueberry juice
Chocolate
Ketchup

Sounds yummy, huh? :)

Playtime

I was playing barbies with Heidi in the playroom a little while ago and I was the Mulan barbie. Heidi asked me what people in China ate, so I told her that people in China eat a lot of rice. Then, her barbie told mine (Mulan) something like "Mulan, come over to my house... We have some rice to eat." Then, she said "When Mulan saw the rice, she ate it all up and didn't share any of it. She just couldn't help it... She was just so hungry and she thought it just looked like a little plate." I thought it was kind of funny. Hannah just kept trying different dress-up clothes on. She seems to know who is a boy and who is a girl now, too. She does the signs and points out girls and boys in books that we read... and she knows that she, Heidi, and I are girls... and Daddy is a boy. I guess this may not be the most interesting post to most people, but just thought I'd write a little about what we were doing in the playroom today. :)

Hannah is learning colors and saying a little more lately

Hannah going on 19 months old (on the 20th) and knows some of her colors now. She definitely knows brown, black, and pink. Sometimes she gets red, yellow, and blue right... but sometimes she doesn't, too. She's also been saying a lot more lately. Today when we were in the playroom, Heidi put on a pink star necklace and gave the blue star necklace to Hannah to wear, but Hannah didn't want that one! Instead she pointed to Heidi's necklace and said "ne"or "neck" (for necklace) & then said "bink dar" (pink star). She didn't want the blue star one, she wanted the PINK STAR one!

... She also can identify a few shapes. She knows hearts and circles. She says "heart" really well! For "circle," it sounds a little more like "doree" or "der-ill." She can also identify stars and calls a star a "dar."

Bacon in a Backpack?

We were playing in the playroom today and I thought that some of the things that Heidi was saying were kind of funny. She had a baby that she was carrying around in a baby carrier and she told me that her baby was allergic to pizza, graham crackers, water, and juice. Then, she was getting her baby's diaper bag/backpack packed because they were going somewhere. She put a blanket, a burp cloth, and something else for her to sleep on in the bag. Then she said that she needed to pack some snacks for the baby... she went over to where the play food is in the play kitchen and picked up a wooden piece of bacon and told me that her baby LOVES bacon, so she was going to pack some in her backpack to give her for a snack later. I thought this was so funny! I cannot imagine packing a piece of bacon in my backpack to give a baby for a snack... especially if she's allergic to things like pizza, graham crackers, water, and juice... I am not sure if she could handle bacon. I don't know if it's a good idea to keep bacon in a backpack either. :)

Then, she put a blanket on her head and fastened it down with a Cinderella princess crown. She told me that she was getting married. After she told me this, she walked away and came back without her wedding head gear on. She told me that she had gotten married and now "look at my tummy!" Her tummy had GROWN! She had a baby tucked under her shirt. I guess she knows that people get babies in their tummies after they get married! Then her baby came out and she told me her name was Princess Goo Goo Annalise Unicorn Blum and her other baby (the one she was trying to pack the bacon for) was named DanaBlum (I guess she's named after me).

:)

Hannah: 18 Months Old & No More Mama Milk :)

Heidi is now 18 months old, so I cut her off from breastfeeding this past week. Today, she was playing with a barbie doll. She was having some trouble taking off the dress that her doll was wearing, so I helped her. When it was off, she pointed to the barbie's breasts and said "milk milk." Then after pretending to try to drink some milk from the doll, she said something like "no no gone gone." She did it a couple of times. I thought it was kind of funny. Heidi did something kind of similar when I cut her off. When she was 23 months old, I had to cut her off to take a sterroid. Every day for the next month or two, she would pretend play with a Little Bo Peep doll and a Bob the Builder doll and it would always go something like this:

Bob the Builder: Mama, I want milk.
Little Bo Peep: No, it's all gone.
Bob the Builder: (starts crying)
Little Bo Peep: It's okay. It's okay.

She did this once or twice EVERY day for at least a month or two. I guess they both find ways of coping with stressful changes through pretend play.

I think Hannah may be able to identify the colors red and yellow now. Whenever I ask her to find red in a couple of her color books, she usually finds it. (The same with yellow)

She's also using a lot more signs and saying a few more things.

Heidi: Counting in Spanish

Heidi just told me "This is how you count in Spanish: inco, tres, spacho, swinco, ono, dos, tres, inco." I thought it was kind of funny. I don't even know when she learned to try to count in Spanish. I haven't tried to teach her and we don't get cable, so she doesn't really get to watch Dora. Maybe on one of her other shows, like Dragon Tales or Maya and Miguel that come on PBS.

Heidi thinks there should be potties in cars that just pop up in your seat when you need to go.

Not long ago, maybe a week or so ago, I was at the Dollar Tree looking to buy some craft-making items. While we were there, Heidi found for sale those horse-on-a-stick things. I'm not sure what they're called. We really don't need anymore toys, so I didn't buy her one (even though they were only a dollar). Anyway, today she asked me if she could use a sock and glue some googly eyes on it and draw a smile for a mouth... and then put it on the end of a broom stick, so she could pretend that she had a horse. I thought it was a fun idea, so I gave her an old, odd, pink baby sock (that Hannah has outgrown anyway) and she made her pretend horse. She likes making crafty things. I think it was a cute idea.

She was also telling me yesterday that she thinks the people who make cars should start putting potties in them, so when kids need to go, they will just pop up in their seats and they should even have toilet paper on the tops of the potties. She wrote about this in her diary/journal yesterday, too. I think it is funny, the things that 4-year-olds think about.

Hannah is growing up...

I guess Hannah is growing up and trying to become an independent person. After I had already dressed her in a cute short and shirt outfit, she decided that she wanted to wear something else. She opened the middle drawer in her changing table and took out her froggie pajama pants and a cute hot pink top with a flower on the front that has a tutu attached. She held these two items of clothing to her body and made complaining noises until I finally agreed to put them on her. Her face was beaming with a huge smile as she rubbed the flower on her tummy and looked down at herself with her froggie pajama pants and her pink tutu shirt/skirt combo.

It's also 11:32am and she has had a dry diaper all day so far! She has told me twice that she has needed to use the potty by using the "potty" sign, saying "po po" w/a short "o" sound, and trying to take her clothes off. Both times that she did this, she went pee pee in the potty and got mini stickers as rewards on her hands. Heidi reminded me that we still had some stickers that we used with her for potty rewards when she potty trained a couple of years ago. Heidi was pretty easy to potty train. I'm thinking Hannah might be also. Hannah is still only 17 months old. The first time she used the potty, she was 16 months old. I'm not trying to potty train her. She just wants to go on her own. I think it is because she sees me and Heidi using the potty and she wants to do what we are doing. I guess we will see.

She has also been using a lot of new signs now for the past month or two... I'll try to list as many of the new ones as I can remember (not including some that I have already mentioned on past blogs).

hot
cold
thank you
please
gorilla
monkey
play
snail (not sure if I've mentioned that one yet or not)... she also tries to say it
candy (& says "na na" w/a short a sound, like in "candy")b/c Brian sometimes give her some
zebra
tiger
goat
bat
bear
baby
elephant (and makes a sound like the elephant does when it lifts its trunk)
cat (may have already mentioned this one a few months ago, not sure)... also does "dog"
drink/thirsty
more (has been using this one for a long not, not sure if i've mentioned it, though)
hurt
airplane

There are probably more, but I just can't think of them right now.

Hannah is still trying to potty

Hannah has been trying to use the potty a few times a day the past couple of days. She hasn't actually gone on it again, though. She just gets me to take her diaper off so she can sit on the potty. Then after sitting for a short time, she stands up and tears off some toilet paper, wipes, and flushes it down the big potty. At least she's interested, I guess. I'm not trying to potty train her yet. She's also been starting to try to say new words and is doing a few more signs. She says necklace now, "na na" with a short a sound. She says some other things, but I can't think of what else she says right now.

Hannah went pee pee on the potty at 16 months old.

This evening just after Brian got home from work, Hannah went into the bathroom and started pulling at her diaper and was saying "po po" with a short "o" sound. So, I grabbed the potty chair that was stored under the bathroom sink out and took her diaper off. When I sat her on the potty chair, she went! She went again on the potty before she went to bed. I don't know if she's really ready to seriously potty train yet, though. I don't think she can really have the muscle control that she needs to potty train yet. She has been, for the past couple of months, frequently going over to stand against the wall when she goes poop, so I think she knows when she has to go. Then, she will sometimes afterwards come over to me and go "ewwwww" and she shows me her diaper. I usually say "ewwwww stinky diaper" when I change her poopy diapers, so that's why I think she's saying "ewww" after she goes poop. Anyway, I think she's becoming more aware of when she needs to go and she's been really interested in the potty lately, so who knows... maybe. My mom told me that the lady who took care of her when she was little in Ethiopia potty trained her when she was only about 18 months old. I guess we will just have to see, but I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't go on the potty again for another month or more.

Hannah put a view master disk in the dvd player today.

When Heidi was really little, I bought a view master thing from a garage sale. You know, the toy that you put a little paper disk in with pictures that rotate as you pull the lever on the side. When I bought it, it only came with one disk, a Diego disk. Heidi was never really that interested in it, so I never bought any other disks (and haven't seen any at any garage sales at a price that I wanted to pay), so we only have that one disk. Well, Hannah has been playing with the view master a lot the past couple of days. Today, she even took the disk out of the top of the view master and took it into the family room (where our tv is). Then, she put it into the dvd player. I guess it is round like a dvd and it does have cartoon pictures on it. She must have thought it would have worked just like our dvd's do.

Last week, I let Heidi check a movie out from the library and it just happened to be a Go Diego movie, so after Hannah tried to put her Go Diego view master disk in the dvd player, I turned Heidi's Go Diego library dvd on for her to watch. She watched it for a little while before getting distracted and going on to do something else. She usually really only watches Signing Time. Oh, later on, she actually brought me a Signing Time dvd box and waved/said bye bye to Diego on the tv, so then I put one on for her to watch.

Hannah is picking up Heidi's bad habit

Heidi is gone this week (at Grandma Sylvia's). Usually, when Hannah wakes up in the morning, I bring her into my room and we usually talk/play for a little while (usually until Heidi wakes up). Then, Heidi comes into my room and we all usually go downstairs together every morning. Heidi usually gets upset with me because I carry Hannah down the stairs and not her. Heidi is usually grumpy most mornings. When we get downstairs, it's usually kind of cold, so I cover the couch with a big blanket for the girls to sit on because the leather is always really cold. A lot of mornings, Heidi usually whines and complains in a really grouchy voice for me to cover the couch just as soon as we get downstairs. This is usually the first thing I do after I get downstairs, but Heidi still likes to be grouchy and demand in an annoying way for me to cover the couch (even as I am getting the blanket to throw over the couch).

This morning, after Hannah and I came downstairs, Hannah took her baby blanket and was trying to cover the couch with it (as I went to go get a big blanket for the couch)... and she was complaining in a grouchy voice just like Heidi does every morning. I thought it was funny. Hannah is picking up Heidi's bad habit.

Hannahs Newer Words

Hannah has gotten the "ch" sound down now, so now she is saying:
- says "ch" for cheese (and uses the cheese sign)
- says "choo-sss" or "chsssss" for juice (and uses the sign for thirsty/drink)
- says "ch" for chicken

She also:
- says "ma/mu" mouse (and uses the sign for mouse)
- says "ma/mu/mun" for chipmunk
- says "b's" or "p's" for grapes
- says "obble obble" or "obba obba" for the turkey sound, "gobble gobble"
- does the zebra sign
- tries to do the signs for grandma and grandpa, but they look the same when she does them
- says "ma" for grandma
- says "pa" for grandpa
- says the signs for cat and dog (She's been doing the sign for dog for a while. She only does the sign for cat with one hand... and sometimes it's closer to the middle of her face instead of on the side, but she's trying).

I think she's saying a few other words too, but this is all I can think of right now.

Just a quick note

Tomorrow is Heidi's preschool graduation party. She has to go back to preschool again next year, so she'll have another graduation next year, too. She's pretty excited about it. Her class is meeting at a super jump house place where the kids will sing some songs and get to jump on a bunch of jump house things. There's even a HUGE bouncy slide. I'm going to try to take pictures, but my camera is SLLLLOOOWWWWWW... so we'll see how they turn out. I'm not sure that they will be that great because I'm sure Heidi will be moving pretty fast. It may be hard to get some good pictures.

Hannah is learning new things everyday. She does the sign for snail now, says "na" for snail, says "do" (w/a short o sound) for "dog," and says "bu biiiiii" (w/short u and long i) for "surprise." She loves hiding behind the big Huggies diaper box in her bedroom and popping out to say either "surprise" or "peek-a-boo" over and over again. She also loves taking baths. We have a lot of bath toys (including 3 mermaids, a couple of rubber duckies, 2 boats, foam alphabet letters, and some misc. other rubber/plastic water animals. When she was taking a bath last night, though, the toy that she was most interested in was the shampoo bottle that I had just finished using the last of. She spent so much time just putting the lid on and taking it off... and just trying to figure out how to screw/unscrew it. Hannah may not be as verbal as Heidi was at this age, but I think she is pretty good and figuring out how things work.

Sick Girls

Heidi and Hannah have been sick. Yesterday morning after I woke Heidi up to get ready for preschool, she told me that her stomach didn't feel good. We walked downstairs and I gave her some apple juice (which I probably should not have done), and after a couple of sips, she looked like she was about to throw-up, so I ran for the trash can and just barely made it to her in time. She threw up about 6 or so times through the day. She didn't eat anything all day yesterday and she stayed on the couch all day, laying down and watching movies. I thought she was finished throwing up by the time I put her to bed that night, but when she woke up this morning, she told me that she threw up in her trash can last night (that I put next to her bed with some washcloths closeby to wipe her mouth off with). I hope she's going to get better soon. This morning she wanted something to eat and she didn't want plain toast, so I gave her some chicken noodle soup.

Hannah has also had a fever since yesterday. She's also really grouchy. I know she doesn't feel good.

I just hope they get better soon. I need to get to the grocery store and buy more milk and a few other things (basics). I also have a couple of books that came in at the library that I had on hold that are going to go back into the system if I don't go pick them up today, but I am not sure if I will be able to go get them. Anyway, that's what's going on with us right now...

Peek-a-boo

Hannah is saying "boo-pa" now for "peek-a-boo." She is also saying what sounds like "neck" when she points to my neck. She has known where the neck was for a while now, but now she is saying it, too.