Two Blue Eyes, Seven Little Teeth, Ten Months Old

2 little teeth...Nov 30 2013

Hannah is currently in one of my favorite baby stages.  Of course, each stage is special.  There's nothing like a newborn, swaddled up and sleeping on your chest.  A toddler running around and chatting and playing and discovering the world is pretty special.  And being able to have conversations with your little ones as they transform from toddlers into real little children is astonishing.  But there's something about a 10 month old that I just love.  Actually, there are lots of things.

Hannah has chubby, leathery knees, from lots of food and crawling.  She has yet to turn away a single item of food.  The girl eats everything from parsnip and pomegranate seeds (not together, of course) to broccoli and beets.  She loves chicken.  She loves spaghetti sauce (Gigi's famous meat sauce is her sauce of choice, which I believe was the first real food that I took a liking to when I was little)! She enjoys yogurt and cheese.  She adores Vegemite.  Really, the only problem I have at the moment is not feeding her too much, as she gets really cross when she's finished eating.  She locks her arms out straight and clenches her teeth together and lets out some grunts and growls that make all of us laugh.  I used to be able to distract her with a teething ring when she had finished, but now, when I hand her that teething ring, she's onto me.  She puts it in her mouth, as if to appease me, smiles, and then tosses it onto the floor before requesting more feed (clenching teeth, grunting, growling...)

I dare you to take a look at Hannah's toothy grin and not smile.  It's impossible.  She currently has seven teeth.  Seven.  As Dad says, she's in full on Nascar driver mode.  She looks like a little baby, and then she smiles and this little mouth is full of teeth!  Hannah has been a teething dream--she doesn't act any differently at all (a runny nose here and there or a squeal in the night) and then she wakes up with a new tooth.  There was the week in December when she got all four of her top teeth in one week, and spent the week her happy, smiley self.  Having spent the last few years watching Jack, who hasn't been the easiest teether, I fully appreciate every little tooth that makes its way through Hannah's gums in such an unobtrusive fashion.

January 2014...7 teeth!

Hannah is learning how she fits into our family.  She just adores Lilly.  They sit next to each other in the car, and Hannah laughs and plays and blurts with Lilly endlessly.  When I snap her car seat in each morning, the first thing she does is look over to see if Lilly is in her car seat next to her.  Lilly, in turn, adores Hannah.  Every day, when she comes home from school, she asks if she can have some time to play with Hannah before I take her upstairs for her nap.  She reads to her, builds her towers to knock over, and crawls around the house with her.  I see the relationship between the oldest and the youngest unfolding, and it's definitely a special one.

Hannah and Jack are little buddies.  They are so close together in age and with each day that goes by, that gap seems to get smaller.  Hannah spends her mornings crawling around, checking out whatever Jack is doing.  If Jack is doing a puzzle, Hannah is right next to him eating puzzle pieces.  If he's setting up train tracks and playing with his trains, then Hannah is pulling herself up on the train table to see what's going on.  These two have an understanding.  Jack lets Hannah eat his puzzle pieces or his drill that belongs to his take-apart airplane (one of his favorite toys at the moment), but as soon as he needs to use it, he tells Hannah that it's "Jack's turn" and she drops it.  As soon as he says it, she just lets go.  I have no idea how long this will last, but for now, this little 10 month old and 2 year old have an understanding when it comes to playing with toys, and it makes me smile every time.  Jack loves reading to Hannah too, and she's a very patient audience.  She lets Jack hold the book, turn the pages, and claps whenever he's finished reading.    

This time last year, little Hannah wasn't a part of our lives yet.  Now, she's a 10.5 month old with her own little personality, who makes all of our lives brighter every day.

One of her many fantastic expressions