50 Weeks Moving On Up!

Dear Nathan and Hannah,
I know there are a few avid readers out there (great-grandparents) who are wondering why there wasn't a post available this evening. Well, as they read on, they will see.

Well, let's start at the day we returned from our trip. As soon as we got home, we unloaded the car with both of you still sleeping inside and drove to Nathan's best friend's house for a play date. Abigail's mom had a super fun activity planned for everyone to do.

 As you can see, Hannah got down and dirty with the big kids too!
We realized that we left Hannah's white noise machine back in Illinois and I was really worried about how it may affect your sleep. Well, it turns out, you now take longer naps without it shutting off after 45 minutes. It takes you awhile longer to fall asleep, but once you do, you are pretty out. So I guess this was a good mistake.

A few days later, we realized that Hannah can climb all the way up the stairs. Here you are, rounding the corner...

 with big brother cheering you on!

 Now that you are more mobile, I find you peering into all sorts of places. It's cute to play peek-a-boo.

 And Nathan has to get creative when playing with toys. Hannah is quite the destruct-ophile. If you see a tower, you feel like it is your destiny to knock it down.

 Oh and your climbing is not limited to stairs, I found out one day... You had used one of Nathan's toys as a step stool to boost yourself onto the second shelf. I have a feeling I'm going to need to watch this one like a hawk.

 And then there's the push cart. You LOVE pushing that thing around the house. Each journey is accompanied with copious amounts of squealing and laughter.

 One day as I was trying to distract Hannah from tearing apart the Thomas tracks, I brought out the ol' pom pom and tupperware toy. Nathan stopped what he was doing and came over to play. My instinct was to say, "Go, play with your trains and I'll play this with Hannah." But I'm glad I held my tongue, because it ended up being the best bonding time between you two. Nathan would push each pom pom into the container and say "Boop!" causing a chain reaction of deep belly giggles from both of them.

 You two played this for about 15 minutes. Too cute!

 I also love watching Nathan play kitchen. You are now really using your imagination to do lots of detailed things that you see me do in the kitchen. You even will find the correct ingredient (for example, baking soda to make a cake) and imagine scooping that stuff into the bowl. Another cool thing you have been doing is using the playdoh as food and cooking things for us to eat. Unfortunately, Hannah actually likes eating the playdoh. Hannah, we are pretending to eat.

 Nathan has a little sou chef who likes to get in the way sometimes, but sometimes she stays at her station and does her own thing.

 On Saturday, we met up with some friends whom we have not seen at a long time. We first met up at Deep eddy pool. It was cold and Hannah pretty much hung on to me like a sloth on a tree. I thought that the mosaic telling the history of the pool was pretty cool. Each tile was made by a middle school student.

 Afterwards, everyone came over to our house to play and have dinner. We had so much fun that I forgot to take more pictures. But when the kids went home in the evening, Nathan said, "I miss them already."

And then came Tuesday and Wednesday, what I call, the crazy days. I watched 5 kids aged almost 1, almost 3, almost 4, almost 6 and 7. While I was pretty much orchestrating a group one short of the Brady bunch, it actually went as well as it possibly could have gone. The girls that I watched were actually excellent girls. Really well behaved and super sweet. I think the most difficult part of it was keeping everyone semi-quiet as Hannah was trying to fall asleep and trying to get everyone to agree on what to do. I quickly learned after the first day that I just need to tell everyone "This is what we are doing."

While I loved the joyfulness and energy in the house, I know that we will not be having 5 kids. Since the kids were all so close in age, everyone actually played really well together. Especially Hannah, because which little girl doesn't like to play with a little baby?

 There was a moment today when one of the girls accidentally hurt Hannah, causing her to cry and Nathan comes over leans towards her face and asks, "Why you hurt my sister?" I was so proud!

I can't believe that I didn't realize the power of the large box. Nathan and Hannah played peek-a-boo from this box for about 20 minutes. (At least that's how long Nathan stayed in the box waiting for Daddy to get home from work to get him out)

 And they're also good for making trains... Half way through setting things up, Nathan exclaims, "I need a newspaper!" I asked you what you needed it for and you said, "People read newspapers on trains." So there you are reading a newspaper on the train.

 You were also kind enough to share your new marble toy with the girls. I think it was even more fun because the older girls made it into a game where you try to grab the marble right as it hits the bottom. I guess with older kids, everything is a game.

 These past 2 days have been really good for you two. Nathan got a chance to learn how to play with other children in a civilized manner. The girls were great about sharing and taking turns and communicating without screaming and tantrums.

Another picture to share how well you all played together.

While everything went as well as it possibly could, I was pretty much exhausted after the first day. It was a bit draining to constantly have to figure out how to entertain a bunch of kids around nap time. We went to the pool today and it took 45 minutes to get everyone ready and packed to get to the pool and probably about the same afterwards to get everyone cleaned up and changed back to dry clothing. Luckily the 2 older kids were more independent. 

One of my teacher friends who I lost contact for awhile came to visit today so it was nice to have an extra set of eyes to keep track of the safety of 5 young children at the pool. The 2 older kids were amazing swimmers as they did back-flips into the water. I was hoping that their courageous spirit would inspire Nathan to put his head under water and swim, but he was happily slowly kicking his way through the water on a noodle. I really hope swim lessons didn't scar him from playing in the water for life. 

Hannah got a new tooth on the first of this month and I can see that 3 more are coming in simultaneously. Poor girl, you have been fussy, cranky, drooly, and clingy today. Hopefully the teeth will all emerge by tomorrow and you'll be back to your happy self again. 

Well, that's all I can remember for now. Until next week! 

Love, 

Mommy