Dear Hannah,
This month has been an incredibly exciting one! In it you got to celebrate your first Christmas, New Years, 3 birthdays, meet all of your cousins, aunts and uncles on the Anderson side, learned to crawl and pull up onto things, and can fit your hair into pigtails! Wow! Quite the list!
This year we spent Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa Anderson's house in San Antonio. All of your cousins and aunts and uncles were able to make it for an exciting family reunion! It was especially exciting to see you play with your 2 cousins that are the same age as you! Matthew is just a month older and Abby is just 3 weeks younger! It was so cute to see you and Abby grab each other's hands. I know that y'all will be life-long friends :). It was also interesting seeing the differences of y'all. You were the mobile one that was always very eager to eat, Matthew was the jolly one who was content to sit for hours with a toy, and Abby was the serious, timid one. On Christmas Eve you and your cousins acted out the nativity. You were the sweetest little angel! And you loved opening presents for Christmas! Especially the part where we let you play with the wrapping paper. If only everyone else were so easy to please! While we were there we celebrated Uncle Blake's birthday. You loved eating ice cream! You were always shocked by how cold it was, but quickly begged for more.
Just a few days after coming home from Grandma and Grandpa's house, we went back again. Daddy had to fly to Milwaukee and Orlando for a couple more residency interviews and so we decided to spend the time in San Antonio instead of home by ourselves. On this trip we got to celebrate Uncle Neil's and Grandma's birthdays! We also discovered that you like to go to bed REALLY early! We had always been putting you to bed at the same time as Lydia always did. 8 pm. But apparently you prefer to go to bed around 7pm and sleep all night! I am more than happy to oblige!
After we got home, we both made a few more discoveries! You discovered that instead of rolling and twisting to get around the room, you can crawl. You aren't by any means proficient at it yet. You still require a lot of coaxing and will only make it a short ways, but you can crawl. You also have pulled yourself up onto things a few times. You especially like pulling yourself up onto the ottoman or your toy bin. I, however, discovered something just as important, but not as exciting. Apparently I don't produce enough milk for you. I had already started supplementing you with a small bottle of formula for the week previous, but I decided to experiment with how hungry you really were one night after breastfeeding you. You hardly drank anything off of me (I don't think there was much in there) and then drank an entire 8 ounces from a bottle. You were so happy after that! So I did that for a few nights. Then I realized that you were also still hungry after lunch. So we added a bottle there too. At this point I am only breastfeeding you in the morning. But with how my body seems to react to weaning, I don't think it will last long. Soon you will be a complete formula baby. I know that that is an okay thing. Lydia turned out just fine and she had formula from 6 months on. I'm glad that I was able to finally figure out what was going on with you. Since this discovery and these changes you have been much more content to sit on the floor to play with your toys for long periods of time and grunt at me far less when I feed you solids.
And speaking of food, you eat anything that I let go to your mouth! Luckily you don't really try to put your own things in your mouth yet. I guess that's one good thing about you not really using the pincer grasp yet! This month you enjoyed eating cheese, orange slices, cucumber slices (this one just might be your favorite!), avocado, various baby foods, pasta, and scrambled egg. Some of these were just tiny samples off of our plates, but you loved them all just the same. Now you need to grow some teeth so that you can try out a bigger variety! That can be a goal for this month! Grow a tooth :)
You have made such huge strides this last month! I am so excited for all of the developments that you have made! I'm sad to have it all go by so quickly, but I enjoy watching you learn and grow. And with each new phase comes new exciting parts of you to discover and enjoy! I love getting to know you! It's so interesting watching your personality develop. You are very curious about the world around you and eagerly want to be a part of it all. You see things and very passionately want them! However, you also get frustrated when you can't easily get to what you want and, instead of pushing toward it, you melt down and end up in a stand still. I hope that as you learn new skills and develop that you will be able to push yourself toward your goals rather than getting frustrated in the beginning. So, this isn't really a great attribute I see in you right now, but I hope that the passion that you have will continue to grow. Another personality trait I see in you already is shyness. Whenever someone new (or sometimes not so new) talks to you while I am holding you, you will turn your head into me and hide. I love having you cuddle into me, but I hope that you will also be able to share more of your sweet smiles with others. Everyday you laugh and smile more easily. You love getting attention from me, Daddy and especially your sister, Lydia. And Lydia loves getting you to smile and laugh too!
Sweet Hannah, I love every little chunk of you! I love how you hang your long tongue out as you smile at me! I love your long beautiful dark hair and your big dark brown eyes! I love how you love reading books with me! I love how I am constantly discovering new things about you! But most of all, I love you! You are a beautiful, sweet daughter of God!
love,
Momma
