Emily’s Musings

Dear Hannah,

You are now 20 months old. You are growing and developing so rapidly, I don’t want to blink too long and miss something. You LOVE, I repeat, LOVE to sleep. You point out sleeping babies in books, movies, and pictures. You are addicted to your morning nap regardless of how many different ways I try to wean you from it. Everything I have read says babies give up their morning nap around 15-18 months. You are clearly past that point, and all my efforts to combine your morning and afternoon naps have been unsuccessful. As of today, you take two naps a day, and that means that I have guaranteed “Personal Mommy Time” twice a day. You are also very attached to your bed time of 6:15 PM. When you become a teenager and refuse to go to bed at a decent hour, I will longingly look back on these days when you actually went to sleep early in the evening. Thank you. Thank you for being such a good sleeper.

When you are not sleeping, you are usually busy with your two other friends. You talk about them repeatedly every day. Anytime you mention your friend Josh, you automatically say, “toys?” because Josh has a TON of toys. That kid has it good. I’ve told Josh and his mommy that you only like him for his toys and they are both okay with that. However, when you get older, it’s important that you like your friends for other reasons than their “stuff.”

You are a very active child. Very energetic, happy, and social. You LOVE to dance. Randomly throughout the day you will say, “MOMMY! DANCE!” and then you will shake your bum and wave your hands in the air. You will dance for anyone upon request. Even if you are crying, we can say, “Hannah, shake your bum bum!” And you will because it’s like you can’t not do it. To say you LOVE to go swimming would be an understatement. You LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, to swim. You pull at your shirt and pants and say, “OFF!” when you decide it would be fun to go “swinging.” I am positive you dream about it at night and think about it all day when you are not distracted by dancing. Any time you see pictures or videos of you swimming you will exclaim, “AGAIN!” I guess watching yourself having fun is almost as fun as actually having fun.

In most ways, you are just like other kids your age. However, you are very different from them in a couple of areas. Most kids will say “ah oh” or “oh no!” when they drop food on the floor. When you drop a food item on the floor, you yell out, “PARIS!” and sure enough, Paris comes busting around the corner and eats up the mess you made on the floor. Paris then waits patiently at your side like a sentinel in hopes of more “Hannah droppings.” Second, you HATE messes as much as I do. You cannot eat with crumbs on your fingers or even a little yogurt drop on your tray . . . or the table . . . or the floor for that matter. You get frustrated feeding yourself sometimes because you make such a MESS that you simply cannot concentrate. The other day your dad was changing your diaper and on the black changing pad was some smeared white baby powder from the previous diaper change. You took one look at it and used your index finger to point out the unacceptable circumstance and exclaimed in your outside voice, “MESS!!!” Your daddy handed you a baby wipe and YOU, MISS HANNAH SOPHIA LESHER, CLEANED UP THE MESS. You are a very clean baby. You ask to wash your hands throughout the day, and a hand wash is only legitimate when you have sufficient bubbles lathered up all over you and me.

We often visit our neighbors, the McCartys. You love to see them, mostly because they give you snacks and presents. Your dad and I enjoy their company, hospitality, and of course view from their patio. You love to run around their yard and patio that was designed with adults, not children, in mind. We are often chasing you, and you are often running away. A few days ago, when you were running away from us, you fell and hurt your finger. You started cry and ran toward your dad who was on “Hannah Duty” while I was on “talking duty.” You held out your hand to show what had happened, and then YOU KISSED YOUR OWN HAND and urged your dad to kiss it too. Magically, all was healed with a Hannah and daddy kiss.

You are very interested in the piano. You watch a Baby Einstein video that features a piano (among a zillion other things) and you zoned in on it. You love it. You point it out every time you see it and you often talk about the piano during the day. You sign the word pretending to play an invisible piano. The park we visit has a museum. The main perk of going to the park (other than the slide and seeing your two friends) is visiting Sherry who works in the museum. You see, when Sherry hears you coming, she pulls up a chair to the famous ancient piano (which was carried by hand up the Ladder and across the entire island before the road was built) and lets you play it. This is one of the only pianos on the island, if not the ONLY. She is so sweet to let you go at it, and you are most certainly in “Hannah Heaven” when you visit her.

You recognize the piano sound in music. Did I mention you are only 20 months old? Because I’m not sure I could pick out instrument sounds when I was 20 YEARS OLD. The other day, I was showing you a slide show of recent pictures that were taken and I decided to change the background music. You immediately said, “PIANO!” and signed the word. I honestly had no idea what you were talking about until the tenth time you said, “PIANO!” and I realized the new music was a indeed a piano playing Cannon in D. You also recognize the guitar sound and are happy to point out when a guitar is playing. We don’t have either a piano or guitar at our house, but I guarantee you will be in “Hannah Heaven” when we go to Texas and you see that Daniel and Lydia have a piano AND a guitar.

You have entered the two word phase and I want to share some of my favorites:

Lub You! (Love you)

Come on!

Thank you!

Down Please

More Please

Josh, toys?

Paris! Come!

Door open

Door close

Night, night!

Bye, bye

NO WAY!

I need

Fir you (for you)

Bum bum

Daddy go?

Shoes on?

Shoes off!

Pooh Bear

Come see

Go see

Come on!

Bess you! (bless you)

Come ‘ere (come here)

I see you!

See ya!

Going?

See ‘em (see them)

Let’s go!

Peak boo! (peak a boo)

Go Away!

I also ask you everyday to say “seriously” which comes out “Sicily?” (as in the island) and the word “air conditioner” which is pronounced, ” ‘ditioner!” It’s hard not to ask you to say big words, because you ALWAYS TRY to say them. It is so cute and it helps me to look past the times when you are crying and upset about something you can’t communicate, or when you try to wipe the freckles off my collarbone and and tell me “MESS!”

There is no question about it, you LOVE your daddy. I’m pretty sure he holds a special place in your heart because he introduced you to Sprite, chocolate, Ting, Root Beer, and Lucky Charms (which, you only like the marshmallows). He plays with you whenever he isn’t studying and he is BY FAR YOUR FAVORITE PLAYMATE. Even more than Josh, who has so many great toys. You aren’t much of a snuggler, but every once in a while he can convince you to put your head down on his shoulder. He loves that.

I’d like to mention one last thing. You LOVE the computer. More specifically, you love my computer. In fact, I’m pretty sure you think it is yours. I have talked about your “bossy little index finger” here and here, and here it is in action.

This is how I find you when I turn my back for two seconds. I am happy you know how to use a computer mouse and scroll ball, but sometimes it messes up my stuff. If you only knew you were making a “MESS!” on my computer, you would probably stop, because we all know how you feel about messes.

You recently learned that we (your parents) have other names besides mommy and daddy. You know my name is also Emma, and sometimes you refer to me as such. I will ask, “Where is Dave?” and you point out your dad. I’m hoping this new information will help you if you find yourself in a pinch, lost in some big store, and the sales clerk asks you what your mommy and daddy’s names are. I also plan to have you wear an ID bracelet and have you microchiped. You know, SO YOU WON’T GET LOST. Hey, it works for our dogs.

Mess or not, your daddy and I love you. Every day you are like a Christmas present and we are excited to see what you come up with. We miss you 12 hours every night and we often have the urge to peak in on you, or worse, wake you up during your peaceful sleep because you are SO CUTE! Just know these are passing thoughts and we would never be crazy enough to actually wake you up.

Love,

Mommy