"Anything!"

Lately, when I ask Hannah questions like, "what's that noise?" or "what are you doing in there?" or "what is Jane crying about?", her response is invariably, "Anything", which she means is nothing, which really means something.

This afternoon, when I called out to her in the kitchen, "Hannah, what are you doing?"
and she said, "Anything!", I knew I needed to check on her.
She had opened the box of pasta I had just bought and was making letters from a pile of noodles on the floor.

At first I was upset that she was using the same noodles I was planning on cooking with tonight. Then, I realized it was a good learning opportunity for her, as she doesn't like to write letters on paper too much.
I let her play. What are a few less noodles in my pot, anyway? Sometimes, I really have to yell at myself to keep things in perspective.
<

Out of our mouths

Hannah was asleep on the floor one night while we were at Cannon Beach. She started to stir, waking me up, then she moaned and she yelled out,
"Grumpy Old Troll!!!"

(Those of you who know Dora know who I'm talking about)

•••••

Also at Cannon Beach, we visited the ward in Seaside for Fast and Testimony meeting. We sat way in the back and even though we couldn't see a thing, Hannah was listening. A woman was crying and sniffling through her testimony. Hannah, with a mixed look of angst and boredom said,

"This is kinda sad."

I just wish I had a picture.


•••••

Jane makes this funny sound at random.
She very quickly sticks her tongue out and back in with a "bulub"
She'll do it when the elevator door opens, or she'll do it after I've given her a snack, etc. Sometimes she laughs at herself after she's done it.
I have know idea where she got that one.

Out of our mouths

From Hannah...
M: "Hannah, what would I do without you?"
H: "... sleep."

***
On our walk Hannah saw her friend's house.
H: "Are we going to Tessa's house?"
M: "No, we are going to Trader Joe's."
Hannah yells with arms straight over head: "TRADER JOOOOOOOOES!!! WOOHOOOOO!!!"
(Just a little embarrassing)

From Jane...
"Daddy... Mama... Annah... uvS... ME!"
(I didn't even coach her on this one. I'm glad she knows it.)

From Dan...
"Sno Cones have got nothin' on shaved ice."
(Random, yes, but I thought it was funny)

Cool-down tactics

photo by -sel

We've been practicing and experimenting with different cool-down techniques in this NYC heat wave. Today, we used all of them, as temperatures reached up to 98˚- maybe higher.
Tactic #1 is to be somewhere, anywhere with air conditioning- we stayed at home for half the day. Tactic #2 is to eat something very cold (and preferably delicious)- we had fruit sorbet after lunch and root beer floats after dinner. Tactic #3 is to go to the water- we, even I, played in the water at the nearby park and later, the girls went into the tub with their bathing suits on.

This evening's cool-down, tactic #4, was introduced by Hannah. We were walking down our hill to go home around 7pm at a temp of 94˚, and Hannah started running fast and got far ahead. I called out,
"Hannah, wait for us, please!"
Hannah stopped, turned around and said,
"Mom, I'm just trying to get colder".
With that, she turned down the hill and started running again. Then, Jane started running after her, so we decided to give running as a cool-down a try. To our surprise, we did feel a bit cooler as the slightest of breezes whirred by. Let it be known, however, that this tactic only works before one has exerted the amount of energy to cause a rise in body temperature.

We will be exploring more methods and techniques of cooling down until the days themselves have done so.

Wise beyond her years

It is not a bad thing that children should occasionally, and politely, put parents in their place.
-Colette


Hannah has been schooling me in parenting lately. It cracks me up! She'll say things like, "Mom, just give Jane some water and put her down for a nap because she just tired." Her motherly intuition at work early, I suppose.
Last weekend, on our drive home from our family camping trip, I was trying to reach around to give Jane a snack from the passenger seat with my right hand, as there was something in my left. I was obviously struggling and Hannah said, "Mom, use your other hand." I was a little amazed that she understood how to rectify the "problem". Dan and I had a good laugh.
Every day she's telling it like it is. She seems so much older when she speaks confidently with such knowledge.

Going out

Yesterday, we were getting ready to go out to eat with my parents before they flew out to Israel. Hannah told me she was hungry so I explained to her that we would be eating out at a restaurant. She said,

"OK... What's a restaurant?"

Evidently, we don't take our girls out much.

Hannah's Sunday quotes

Hannah kept us laughing yesterday...

We were driving home from church and I asked Hannah about Primary.

Me: How was Sunbeams?
Hannah: Good
Dan: All of the girls took their shoes off in class.
Me: That's funny.
Hannah: That's not funny, mama. That's cool!

******
Later, Dan and I were working on dinner in the kitchen. Out of the blue, Hannah calls out from the living room,

Hannah: Mama, get the gate.
Me: What gate?
Hannah: The gate for the kitchen. (We used to put up a child gate when Jane was younger)
Me: Why should I get the gate?
Hannah: So I won't bug you in there.

******
Even later, we were out visiting friends and as we were leaving Hannah said "good-bye" but not "thank you" for the many DVDs our friends let us borrow. Lately she will not say thank you to anyone. We've been trying to teach her good manners. We even have a Dora book about manners hoping that she would at least listen to Dora if not to us. Nothing doing. When it comes time to say thank you, she averts her eyes and buries her head.
On our walk home, a woman stopped us to ask us for directions. After we helped her, she thanked us and I said to Hannah,

Me: See Hannah? We did something nice for that woman and she said thank you. That's good manners. Can you say thank you when someone does something nice for you?
Hannah: No, I don't have good manners.

She said it so matter-of-fact that I'm not sure there's hope...

Jane's internal software has a bug

I think we need to send Jane in for a software upgrade. I was checking her code at breakfast. I made the usual queries into her database and I found almost everything to be in order...

Me: Jane, where is the TV?

Jane: (points to the TV)

Me: Where is the door?

Jane: (points to the door)

Me: Where is the kitchen?

Jane: Bok! Bok!

Once we get the global variables for kitchen and chicken reversed I think she'll be in perfect working order. Unfortunately the potty feature will not be available until v. 2.0. This must be done simultaneously with the phasing out of Diaper 0.1 (beta).

Diamonds

Tonight we were watching Lost and then Eli Stone. We normally watch movies from Netflix, they dont' have ads. And there are so many ads on TV. Tonight there were so many diamond commercials. Kay Jewelers: showing lots of kissing, "Every Kiss begins with Kay" and Jared Diamonds: where all the girls get crazy like its Tiffany's or something oooh, "He went to Jared's". These commercials get old real fast. Finally, Minna said, "Jared and Kay should just get together and shut-up about it."

Hannah's "Possibilities"

The other night on the way in the building, Hannah picked up some political pamphlet by some weird .org. As I opened the 2nd door into the lobby, she show it to me and exclaimed, "Look! It's my possibilities!" Through the lobby, up the elevator, into our door, it was "This is my possibilities", "I have to take my possibilities with me", "Daddy do you see my possibilities?"

Hannah's "possibilities" soon ended up on the floor but as we left to go pick up Minna, she picked up the pamphlet and explained. "I have to take my possibilities with me."
When we met up with Minna again she exclaimed, "Look at my possibilities, Mama!" And then on the way home she said to Jane, "Jane do you want to see my possibilities?" Jane promptly crushed Hannah's possibilities. Hannah's exasperated response was "oh no! Jane broke my possibilities! I need a new possibilities!"

Hannah in "Another Evening Out"

We took a walk tonight to the foot bridge to watch for trains. Hannah was running way too far ahead (she was very excited to be out again!) so we called out for her to slow down and wait for us. She then yelled,
"DON'T WORRY ABOUT ME!" and she kept on running.
She did stop however, so that I could zip up her coat. As soon as I was done, she took off and said,
"DON'T WORRY ABOUT ME, AGAIN!!!"

I caught up with her at the top of the hill and found her talking to a kindly gentleman of significant age. As I walked up to them, I heard her say to him, "I'm only 4" (???)(For those of you who don't know, Hannah is not quite 3 yet). Then she proceeded to tell him how many teeth she had...

After we watched a couple of trains go by, our new friend said good-bye. Hannah asked,
"Where are you going?"
"To watch TV"
"You're going to watch a show?"
"Yeah."
"Then you're going to put your jammies on?"

Funny girl.

Hannah on daddies

Hannah: Where's daddy?
Minna: Daddy's in Florida.
H: Who's daddy's daddy?
M: Daddy's in Florida. We'll talk to him later.
H: No, who's DADDY's DADDY!
M: Oh! Daddy's daddy is Grandpa.
H: Daddy's daddy is Grandpa???
M: Yep. I have a daddy too. It's Papa. Just like daddy is your daddy, Papa is my daddy. He's your Papa but he's my daddy.

H: (long pause...) I'm Hannah!

Lucky Girl

We were walking to the mall and Hannah was riding on my shoulders instead of in the stroller where she was supposed to be.

Minna: Hannah, you're a lucky girl.
Hannah: (nodding) Yep... cause I'm Hannah!

Dinner conversation:

Dan: Hannah what is your body?
Hannah: (pointing in a circle) Everything is my body, my legs, my feet, my arms my hand... my fork.