Hannah Turns Two

I officially have a two year old. Hannah had a great birthday, and she was very excited about it. I asked her, "Is it your birthday, Hannah?" And she yelled at the top of her lungs, "YAY!" I asked her, "How old are you?" She again yelled at the top of her lungs, "Two!" And she held up all her fingers on one hand. She was jumping up and down and was so happy. We had dinner, which she wanted nothing to do with since there were vegetables involved. But when it was time for cake, she was so excited again. She sang with us when we sang happy birthday. She isn't good at blowing air on anything though, such as bubbles or hot food. So when we told her to blow out her candle, she had a little difficulty. She blows like she is making an 'F' sound and kind of spits. But big sister came to the rescue and blew it out for her. We didn't even have time to get the plates. Hannah just started digging her hands in the chocolate frosting and eating it. Then of course, it was present time. Hannah was ready to dig into the wrapping. Laura struggled a bit since none of the presents were for her. She helped her sister unwrap gifts, but she got upset when Hannah wanted to play with her new toy for a minute first. Laura always want to play first too. It was a hard lesson for Laura. Hannah got legos, puzzles, cookie monster, a bath set, a piggy bank, and a whacking ball set. Overall it was a nice, relaxing evening. I know that Hannah enjoyed turning two.

Of course, now that she is two, she is definitely representing the age well. She is the epitome of the 'terrible two's.' She is extremely impatient and scolds us every night. I think her aggressive behavior is in part because her class at school is three boys, her and only one other little girl, Quinn. So I think she has to defend herself a lot. But she also knows how to push our buttons or how to manipulate daddy. For instance, one night it was Matt's turn to put the girls to bed. And Hannah threw an all out fit screaming and kicking because she only wanted me to put her to bed. Matt gave in quickly, and I ended up putting them to sleep. The next night though Mommy won, and Daddy put them down to bed. Another funny example is that Hannah loves shoes. When the girls stayed at my parents' house, Hannah wanted to sleep in her shoes, so my Mom let her sleep that night in her tennis shoes!

We had a great Valentine's Day too. The night before Matt did an activity with Laura; they made a foam princess castle card box. It was perfect, and Laura loved it. Then on Valentine's day we had pizza, and the girls went through their goodie bags from school, ate tons of chocolate, and they opened a special package from their cousin, Chelsea. There were stickers and valentines all over the kitchen floor. Both girls had a great time!

I'm so lucky that my girls play so well together. Yesterday afternoon, they were upstairs playing after their bath; so both girls were naked. Laura was the mommy, and they were pretending Hannah was the baby. Hannah kept pretending to cry, "waaaahhh!" And then Laura picked her up and dragged her around. Then Hannah crawled in the babydoll pack n' play and pretended to fuss for her mommy. It was the cutest thing. They played like that for at least 30 minutes. Overall they love to play together. Usually they are wrestling, like right now. Or they play chase, which usually evolves into wrestling. But sometimes they color together or play house in their princess castle. I'm thankful for this now. I know they might not get along so well when they get older!

Yesterday Laura also serenaded us with a princess concert. She and Hannah dressed up in their princess dresses, and Daddy hooked up the microphone to their princess CD player. Daddy had bought them a CD with several of the princess movie songs on it. Laura proceeded to sing along with each song. Hannah became uninterested very quickly, and she stripped out of her princess dress to run around in her diaper. Matt dubbed her Mougli from the Jungle Book. It was a fun afternoon.

Puff the Magic Dragon

Victory! Yes, I am claiming victory on at least one of our objectives with little Hannah. You will remember that we have three things we are trying to accomplish with her of late: getting rid of her pacifier, getting her transitioned to Laura's room, and potty training. This week she has slept three nights with Laura in their now shared bed! Even better, she has not woken up in the middle of the night, like she used to in her crib. This morning, both girls slept till 6:30! That is huge for us. They are so cute in there together! One night Hannah fell asleep with her little arm around Laura's neck. And last night Laura said I want to snuggle with Hannah when she falls asleep! Laura loves having Hannah in her room!

Another funny development. Usually Laura listens to the radio in her room at night. It plays softly on either country or rock. (She actually prefers heavy metal, but I don't think that's good sleeping music!) Well, she has a Puff the Magic Dragon pop-up book that she found recently in her bookshelf. She hadn't read it for a long time. This week when she found it, she noticed it had a CD in it. So this week, she has been listening to the Puff the Magic Dragon song playing all night on repeat! The CD actually has four songs on it, but she only wants to hear that one song all night long. Too funny.

We had two visitors this week. Uncle Steve came over on Monday night, and Grandma Jane came on Tuesday night. Laura was so excited when I picked her up from daycare and told her Steve was coming over. She barely let him eat dinner that night. She and Hannah wrestled and Steve read them stories. They loved it. Grandma Jane surprised us Tuesday night. She came bearing gifts. The most popular of course was the toilet soap dispenser that yells, "Hey, Don't forget to wash your hands!" The girls want to hear it about fifty billion times a day. Matt says that he's going to take it to work and put it in the bathroom to yell at the people who don't wash their hands! Laura and Grandma Jane spent most of the evening drawing each other pictures. Laura always wanted Jane to guess what she was drawing. The best was her picture of the flamingo - I should take a picture of it! Laura is generally pretty good at drawing, but this picture wasn't even close!

Laura loves to draw pictures of herself and pictures of our family. They are usually pretty good pictures. She almost always has pigtails in her hair, and Hannah is usually a smaller version of herself. But Matt and I vary quite a bit. This week she stapled together some of her pictures and make me a book! She is so sweet.

Hannah is progressing significantly this week at feeding herself liquid foods, like soup and cereal and milk. She is very proud of it! We had soup twice this week, and she did really well both nights. She likes some other odd things for her young age, like black olives and pad thai! Her favorite food continues to be breakfast bars though! She loves them! She eats one at least once in the evening and twice a day on the weekend. She also loves fruit snacks. I remember when Laura was addicted to breakfast bars, and then one day she wouldn't eat them anymore. Laura still is not keen on them. However, Laura is addicted to chocolate milk. She practically won't drink white milk at all, at home anyway. In fact, we make her start eating her meal before giving her any milk. If we give her milk first, she drinks all of it immediately and then says she's full. I wish I could survive on a liquid diet! She definitely does not get this from me!

Hannah loves wearing our shoes right now too. Whenever we leave shoes on the floor, she puts them on and walk/drags them around. She wears Laura's too. Actually I think she likes everything of mine. Every morning she comes over to my nightstand and steals my jewelry, lotion, perfume, whatever she can find! I am constantly hunting down my stuff!

Laura is such a little caregiver. She loves to take care of Hannah. She even gets Hannah's toothbrush ready at night, putting toothpaste on it. And of course, Hannah wants to do everything Laura does. One story that comes to mind is the Super Bowl half time show. Madonna was the performer, so there was lots of dancing. My kids were glued to the TV. Not one peep came out of them the entire performance. As soon as it was over, they broke into dance. Laura kept saying, "Look what I can do." And then Hannah would proceed to say something like, "Look, I do." And then whatever dance move Laura performed, Hannah would attempt as well. They usually involved twirling or a somersault. It was absolutely adorable. We should have videoed it.

The first picture above is the girls "driving" the cart at the store. They love to drive the car carts and pretend to run into people, particularly me! The second one is the girls in their "capes'! They dance around in them.