27th
23-month Open Letter
Liebe Hannah,
Can it be that two years is really looming so close? Recently, you snuggled up to me in front of the computer as we looked at photos of Baby Hannah. Tiny Baby Hannah. I was thinking about what a new mom friend of mine is going through these days and wanted to recall your tiny body. Your strong, long, tanned limbs bear no resemblance to the skin that hung off your long, skinny legs just days after your birth.
You are saying so much. You are communicating so clearly. Just the other night you added the word “squito” after being much impressed at your pregnant mom violently hunting down the one who has been feasting on your ankles in the night. Last night we ate “sghetti” with “Celia” (spaghetti with your new German/American friend, Cecilia). You will repeat and repeat and repeat this, excited by the prospect.
You are passionate about labeling everyone’s ownership of EVERTHING: car seats, seats at the dinner table, watches, socks, shirts, underwear, beds, babies… “Hannahs” “Mamas” “Papas” you say, as you emphatically point to the labeled object, with bright, knowing, informative eyes.
You love to be naked: “Nakt!” you notice or request emphatically about me, Papa, yourself or your baby dolls. “Mama nakt!” is usually your command to get in the bath with you, but you are very understanding when I do not.
You are also going through an impressive “Elmo” phase. Impressive because you never watch television. You only know this creature from your diapers (sometime Papa pointed out to you), and from the one time I actually turned on Sesame Street for 20 minutes of “Elmo’s World.”
The weather finally cooled off and we opened up the latest bin of clothing from Tante Holly and your cousin, Mia. You LOVE the cozy sleepers with the footies in them. They are motivation for you to jump out of the bath: “Mia! Mia!” and when you have them on you repeatedly point to your feet saying thickly “Shooozz.”
A few weeks ago, I finally found the German Kinderlieder CDs again, to which we have been listening in the car, much to your squealing delight. (I know you don’t like NPR, but I do.) By far your favorite song is “Hopp, hopp, hopp” about riding a “Pferdchen.” When it ends, and we continue listening to other songs, you always request it again and again and again. “Hopp, hopp!” When I put it on, you face fills with such perfect delight, it is worth the pain I am experiencing after hearing this song 100+ times during every car ride the last 14 days.
Your greatest fascination lately has been “Auwa” or “ouwies.” You notice any scrape, scab, bruise or blemish on yourself, Papa or Mama and call attention to it and revisit it until is disappears permanently. You can even summon up an impressive fake yelp of pain when you see or touch them (whether your own or ours). We have had to explain that moles are not injuries, but you don’t quite get that.
You have not yet figured out how those darn doorknobs work, but you are close. When I put you down for your afternoon nap, you often wave me good-bye so that you can be alone to read on your own and talk with yourself for 20 minutes before finally succumbing to the lure of your left thumb. If I peak in, you are asleep in the middle of your big bed, surrounded by 5 – 10 books. When you awake, you don’t holler. You simply pick up your nearest book and thumb though it a bit. If I don’t retrieve you soon enough, you will walk to the door and rattle the handle. You aren’t not locked in there, just turn it a little harder Hannah, and the ENTIRE WORLD will be so much more accessible to you (God help us). At night, Mama and Papa flank you on your big bed and read 2 – 3 books. You always ask for “more, more” but we will then turn off the light. You then send Papa out with a loud “bye-bye” and I lay beside you while you twist MY hair with your right hand, left thumb in mouth. When I get up to leave, you tap “my” pillow and say “Bett.” I lay back down and tell you I have to go to MY bed shortly and run through all our loved ones asleep in THEIR beds. This you like, although you will always holler for about a minutes when I finally do get up to leave. You go down every night between 8 – 9p and almost always sleep through until 7a. Man, do we have it good right now!
This weekend I wondered just what we were doing adding your sibling to what seems this perfect mix of you and Papa and me. I was sad for the concentrated time you and I will no longer have with each other, but I have to get excited for the brother or sister who will share your time and your life. You are going to be a GREAT big sister.
My belly has grown bigger –bigger than it ever was with you. This is your sibling reminding us that he/she is soon to enter our lives. You come up to my belly many times a day, unsolicited and pull up my shirt to “see baby.” You then kiss my belly and softly pull my shirt back down, usually followed by another kiss to my belly. You are the sweetest thing that has ever happened to us, and we cannot imagine life without you. Your whole lifetime and ours packed into these nearly whole years.
Love,
Mama
