did you know that babies, in general, are not born with teeth? and at some point in their first year they begin to sprout teeth? honestly! i wouldn’t lie to you! i have dark circles under my eyes to prove it! one day they are toothless little wonder gnomes and BAM! you are huddled in your closet with a bottle of Jack Daniels, rocking back and forth, praying for the whining to stop.

Hannie’s teeth began popping through around 4 months of age. looking back at those first few teeth (the incisors) that was a damn cakewalk. i’d like to have Hannie’s mouth full of incisors. not these evil molars that we’ve been battling for 2 months. they are like the Department of Motor Vehicles of Teeth. they’ll spend a few hours actually working on coming through and “whew! that was tough, i need a cigarette break”.

you won’t hear or see from them in a couple of days and think you’re out of the woods. you’ll have a night or two of full night sleep and then your sweet, placating toddler becomes a maniacal, drooling tasmanian devil . screeching at anything that comes near her or near her mouth.

i haz angree teef!

the great thing about this is that Hannie will not remember one bit of this. kevin and i, however, have the fingernail outlines in our faces to help her. oh yes, i will be that parent. the “i was up with you for HOURS AND HOURS because you were teething. now make me a mojito and DON’T SKIMP ON THE DAMN RUM!”

dear smoosh,

i know, i’ve been a bit lax in writing your monthly newsletters. i could go into a long diatribe about why it has taken me six months to get back to writing your letters but let’s be honest, i got sidetracked with playing. i found my old Nintendo Gameboy Advanced in a drawer and when you go to bed i play Mario Land. it’s a good stress reliever jumping on Koopa’s and finding hidden treasures. it’s been a good release after working full time and taking care of you.

but back to you. in the past six months you’ve accomplished walking and running. sometimes with the ill effects of bashing your precious melon head into a stationary object. it took a while but you finally have no bruises on your forehead which have raised many an eyebrow at Publix. i try to ignore the side-eyes from the checkout girl who i’m sure has her finger poised on the number to CPS. you are so mobile that we have gates all over the house to keep damage control. you have full reign of the house with the exception of the living room where everything breakable is within reach of your long legs and freakishly long arms, including our library of books. you love to pull all of the books onto the floor and after the eleventieth time putting them back we decided to keep you from that part of house. your daddy has cleaned out the office to make a playroom for you, but now that it is summer it is the hottest part of the house, so we tend to keep it shut off too.

your vocabulary has made a tiny explosion. you understand directions more than you can actually communicate. as of now your vocabulary consists of “dog”, “cat”, “duck”, “moo”, “ruff”, “mow”, “ninner” =dinner, “eat”, “cookie”, “bottle”, “cup”, “mama” and “daddy”, “nana”, “bumpa = Grampa. there are a few other words that you use here and there, but no more than “mena me” which we can only guess means “come to me”. you’ll hold up your little hands and twirl them around and demand “mena me” until we pick you up. holding you know is akin to wrestling a pig. you enjoy being danced around but once the dancing stops you turn into a limp dishrag and want to run around.

you adore music in all forms. from Tool to Elmo. anything with a good cadence, you’ll dance to. sometimes you’ll twirl, sometimes you’ll just sway side-to-side. you are such a funny girl. you are no longer a baby. you no longer depend on us 24/7 and while it makes me a little sad, it is also a little freeing. i can stand back now and watch you become Hanlon. the girl who is defiant yet sweet. the girl who adores her animal friends so much she full-body tackles them to the floor for hugs. we’re working on being “gentle”. otherwise Brock is not going to make it to next year with all of his hair.

next week you will move into the Toddler II class at school. they will focus on learning through play, alphabets, numbers, shapes, etc. so far you know A, B and C and 1 and 2. you know the color blue and red. i am amazed at how smart you are and how fast you pick up information. even though you look everything like your Daddy you are all me in personality. stubborn, willfull, social, kind-hearted. you do not meet a stranger. you say “hey” to everyone that passes by and sometimes feel a little hurt when they don’t acknowledge your salutations.

these past few months you have also had your battles with health issues. another set of tubes, which you handled like a champ. walking pneumonia, which turned into full blown right lobal pneumonia, and roseola virus. seeing you sick makes me heart ache. you’re absolutely pitiful and just want to be snuggled. while sad, it’s awfully sweet to feel you need me and your Daddy to cuddle up with to feel better. with the help of your Nana and Grampa we’ve made you better and back to normal. thank the universe for those two people. your Nana and Grampa love you more than the air they breathe. you make their lives complete. you are what they have prayed for for so many years.

Smoosh, i am sure all of the other mothers out there believe their children are the most advanced, bright, beautiful children on the planet and i am one of those mothers. you are an amazing human being. i can’t wait to see who you turn out to be. in the meantime i’ll just revel in your hugs and laughter and learning.

i love you with all of my being,
mama

laaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

can we go out there?!

the face that melts my dark, hardened heart

first birthday cake is yummy!

long legs run in the family

sweet cheeks

pretty princess shoes

Hannie is amazed at your stupidity

she actually has hair! and it only took 15 months!

dear buddy,

this month we went on your first road trip. a twelve hour road trip. across three states. can you hear the tone of my voice in this kid? does it sound anything like i’m talking through clenched teeth? because i am. in all honesty you were the perfect traveler going up to lake toxaway, north carolina. you slept most of the way and when you were awake you were happy and playful. once we arrived at our destination you were immediately taken from me and i think i got to hold you once the entire weekend and that was only because i accidentally banged your chubby little legs on your stroller and you WAAAAILED. apparently when a baby is screaming everyone within a 100 yard radius scatters like cockroaches. wusses.

if i was to ever take another vacation not only would i bring your nana and grampa, but i’d bring The Grammas. this is a group of retired, RV’ing ladies who obviously do not get enough baby cheeks in their diet. you were constantly fussed over, snuggled, bounced, and burped. sadly none of these women were around on our trip home. the trip in which you whined for 5 hours. the only time you weren’t whining was when you had a bottle jammed in your face. that trip home made the entire trip to see your grandparents seem like we were being punished a la Waco tactical strategy. “i hope you had a great time being a weird and creepy cult, now listen to some Metallica at ear shattering decibels”.

you have single handedly set my amazement to all new highs. just this past week you’ve starting waving. mostly at anything that passes by but HOLY SHIT YOU’RE WAVING! this tiny human interaction blows my mind. you can’t talk but you are so expressive. whether you’re studying something so intently that your little tongue sloooowly creeps out the side of your mouth or you are laughing at the most ridiculous noises your father and i can make (in the Publix as we’re grocery shopping) or gobbling up a new food we try with you, you never cease to make life completely magical.

you have changed your night time schedule a bit, to the dismay of your father. he loved rocking you at night, letting you drift off in his arms. one day, out the blue, this was no longer acceptable. there was much grunting and flailing of arms. i tried rocking you, with the same result. you were becoming too independent. at the suggestion of the fantastic Dr. Richard Ferber (Solve Your Child’s Sleep Problems) after your bath and a bedtime story i put you in your crib with you pacifier and your lovey and you went right to sleep. no crying, no fussing, just dozed off. since then we have repeated the same method and most nights you put yourself to sleep. occasionally there is a bit of writhing and pacifier replacement but eventually you’ll get to the point “and she’s out”. now when you wake up you babble to yourself until i come and get you and sing the Good Morning song. you’ll look at me as if to say “mama, there you are! i knew you’d come and get me so i did some quartic equations while i waited!”.

buddy, you’ve grown into the daughter i always imagined. you’re happy, well adjusted, frustrating, bull-headed, and beautiful. you are incredibly loved and missed every day. i rush home at the end of every day just to see your smile and to make you giggle. i will make you the promise that at the end of every day i will kiss you and hug you and say i love you if you promise to give me your smile that makes my heart melt.

love,
mama

you rang?

hanging out on the front porch

going on a trip? i’m all you need!

let’s pray about something, grampa

HOORAY! NANA!

Grampa makes me giggle

you can’t be serious

it’s tough being this cute

Hanner Nanner,

are you looking for your 4 month newsletter? yeah, it’s not there. why? because mama is tired. so very, very tired. okay, not that tired, but let’s just say that i had better things to do. like smooshing your cheeks, reading you a story, keeping you fed, clean, and overall happy. i’m certainly not going to win Mother Of The Year anyway so i’m not going to pretend like i am one.

i think the most important news to be announced is that YOU CAN HEAR! why don’t we just take a moment to soak that nugget of information in, shall we? aaaaaaaaaaaaaah. your tubes did exactly what they were intended to do and that was to drain the fluid in your tiny little ears. the morning of your post-operative exam and audiologist appointment i think i swallowed a pint of vomit. my stomach was in complete knots. and though everyone on the planet was so incredibly certain that you would pass the hearing test i, being your mother, still had my concerns. we mothers are anxious like that. i think it gets pumped into the IV during birth. the audiologist sat us in the chair and placed the nodes in your ears and watched the computer graph read a symphony of peaks and valleys. i just stared at the back of your head and tried to not eat your peach-fuzz hair. she then said a sentence that i had been longing to hear since you were born: “she passed”. i bawled. as my big, fat tears were raining down your forehead you looked up and smiled. increase bawling. i apologized to the audiologist for snotting up the place. she nodded in approval and handed me a tissue. i immediately called your father and he said “see, i told you”. i’ve never wanted to punch someone so much before in my life. i danced all the way to the car and on the car ride home we listened to Modest Mouse.

you now have two teeth on your bottom row. the first is Fred. he’s a conservative republican that loves guns, pabst blue ribbon and hound dogs named Bocephus. he also likes to keep you up at all hours of the night, prodding your gums with his sharp head. there were two nights in particular that i would have given my right arm to get you to settle down. you were up every hour grunting and whining. i’ll address your whining in a moment, for now just know that when you are teething you’re not fun to be around. the second tooth is Betty Fine Collins. she is as much of an asshole as her namesake. just ask your father who slept in the recliner with you for three hours just so you would sleep. the amount of drool that comes from your mouth during teething is enough to keep the neighborhood in good lawn conditions. drought problem? here, have some drool.

so, back to the whining. it isn’t so much a whine as it is a fingernail on a chalkboard. eeeeehhhhhuuuuhhh. a guttural sound that makes my skin prickle and my eyeballs shoot from my head and dangle from the sockets. out of all the sounds you make, this is my least favorite. or couldn’t you tell? thankfully, the only time you are ever whiney is when you are tired or bored. i tend to spend my time with you avoiding those two instances. i’m forever trying to find new ways to make you laugh. oh, that sweet high pitched laughed. you laugh with your throat much like i do. kind of a cackle with a chortle aftertaste. if your laughter were a dessert it would be carrot cake.

this month we started you on solids. first rice cereal mixed with formula and then oatmeal with formula and finally sweet potatoes. oatmeal is by far your favorite. when i fed you sweet potatoes you shuddered with your whole body and emitted a sound akin to an emu who was dying from knife wound. a knife wound received from a gangfight in a Filipino baryo. solids has been an interesting ride. i’m still not sure what i’m doing half the time. it is pretty fun to watch you realize what your tongue can do. roll food around your mouth, blow raspberries, make “la la la aaaa goo” noises. i could listen to you all day long. as long as it isn’t that whining noise.

next month you will be half a year old and i will probably die of shock. but not before i eat your chubby legs. and maybe a yummy foot.

i love you puddin’ pants,
mama

dear Hannie:

today is Mother’s Day and also the day you turn 2 months old. yeah, i wrote that on sunday. as you can tell having you around means that i do not get much done. the other day your daddy came home and the dishwasher was open, the cabinets were open, dishes were all over the counter. i had started to unload the dishwasher and you woke up for a feeding. you come first in this house. something that was a little hard to get used to as for the past 30 years i have been the center of attention. but, and i will say this a lot, you are totally worth it.

the past month has been hard on all of us. you have been filled with more radioactive material than most people are subjected to in a lifetime. barium swallow tests, barium enemas, x-rays, you name it, you went through it the past month. all in the search to find out why you were projectile vomiting on us and screaming your head off after each feeding. linda blair has nothing on you. after all these tests and no conclusive evidence of a digestive issue i, on a fluke, gave you Similac Isomil soy formula. within 24 hours you were a different kid. whether it was the formula or the fact that you had just turned 6 weeks old and thus your tummy was more mature, we’ll never know. i really don’t care. we were able to sleep for more than an hour at a time. your daddy and i no longer had to take shifts sitting up with you howling in pain. you were happy. we were happy.

although your tummy issues were resolved we still had another hurdle to overcome: your hearing. since birth you have not passed a single hearing test. we were referred to a pediatric ENT (the second opinion one) and he saw that you had an abnormal amount of fluid in your ears. while this isn’t uncommon in babies and usually resolves itself i was a nervous wreck. would you ever hear my voice? your Grampa’s singing? your daddy’s terrible taste in music? i cried for days prior to the fluid diagnosis. once we received the news that this is treatable i suddenly became calm. we would get through this. look, if we have to endure your Grampa’s German drinking songs, so do you. as it stands we are waiting on one more audiologist appointment to determine if tubes will be necessary. however, as i type this i just coughed and CHRIST ON BIKE YOU STARTLED! something you haven’t done since you’ve come into this world. there is hope after all. if not, i am certain that i will have fun learning how to teach you to sign “poop”.

medical issues aren’t the only thing we have experienced with you. this month you are more alert and interactive. you’re not just some fetal blob that lies around the house. you smile a smile that resembles a toothless old lady. and it melts my heart every time. when you smile or grin or coo at us i know that we are doing something right. after a bottle we will sit you on your boppy or playmat and “talk”. our little conversations are usually me making funny noises or faces and you staring intently and randomly gurgling in agreement that “yes, mama, you are completely insane”. your happiness is right in sync with your grumpiness. by god, we better have a bottle sitting at the ready when you are hungry. if not you will whimper and then begin a shit storm of screaming that turns your face purple. i have a feeling that this is a precursor to you holding your breath and stomping your feet because holy lord we didn’t buy you that Polly Princess piece of crap at the grocery store. not that i would know anything about that.

sleeping for you is not that bad. once you are asleep you stay asleep. it is the getting you down part that is a killer. for the first two months you would only sleep in your swing seat placed in our bed. recently we have begun transitioning you to the pack-n-play bassinet in our room. i can’t tell you how wonderful it is to not be smacked in the face by a rogue swing in the middle of the night. eventually we will move you to that expensive wood structure in your room that we use as storage. i think it is called a “crib”.

you are growing in leaps and bounds and i can’t wait to see what the next month brings. i’m hoping it will be longer sleep stretches at night. or a case of beer.

love,
mama

napping with daddy

why yes, i am damn adorable

Sister Mary Elephant

i have two tickets to the gun show

you’re yawning just looking at this photo, aren’t you?

andy rooney look-a-like

yay! a car ride!

the look i get when i try to explain why Grampa is a Republican

remember the bone crushing exhaustion i spoke about in the last post? apparently it also causes you to forget that you once gave a shit about all the things you used to give a shit about. like blogging! and posting photos! and doing stuff other than lying in bed pretending you are the first person ever to be pregnant. because my brain has taken on the consistency of my recent craving (Campbell’s bean with bacon soup) i’ll distract you with shiny things! or just some crummy photos.

look! a bump! or it could be all of the aforementioned soup i’ve been consuming. 15 weeks, suckas!

and because i’m in a giving mood, here is another belly shot. stay tuned to next week when i showcase the enormity that are my boobs.

brock had some nasty, smelly tumors removed from his ear about a month ago. apparently they could do nothing about the other 15 pounds of him.

these are kev’s evil dead figurines that stand sentinel on his desk. i assume to give him inspiration when he’s doing our monthly household budget.

this picture is really for my dad, the biggest Alabama University fan i know. roll tide, daddy!

i was going to do an all white photo post, but it ended up being a dog photo session. i am lazy, here me yawn.

hai, i iz lira. i iz a nut.

our rose bush is in bloom. i wish the innernets was scratch & sniff.

more pretty smelling things in my yard.

hai! i see u haz doritos.

i brung backup in case u wudn’t give up dorito.

hai, i’m still heer. doritos not my foretay.

this weekend was off the chain as my mother would say. what? you’re mother doesn’t use ethnic slang? friday night kev and i went to see fresh ground comics, a stand-up comedy group from right here in birmingham. years of racism and blowing shit up will make anyone crazy enough to get up in front of a roomful of strangers and bitch about flavored lube. despite the hurricane force winds and flash flooding we ventured out to catch mike mccall and his merry band of emo rejects perform. i kid! all of the guys did really well.

5 minutes before showtime and mike still doesn’t have his shit together.

dmoney turned 32 saturday and threw herself one kick ass party. i can’t remember the last time i had a keg at a party. of course i don’t, i was probably curled up in a fetal position around it’s empty barrel. and no, it is not a coincidence that we’re all wearing irreverent t-shirts. only 2 of us are actual douchebags.

dmoney models the earrings i gave her for her birthday. it’s a free trade product so the 100 year old tibetan lady who fashioned them, while hunched over in a 4×4 sweatbox, was compensated handsomely with a goat.

if i was a meteorologist i would constantly send out cloud fart weather warnings.

that is juice in the cup. yummy, yummy hoppy juice.

at parties in the South we burn shit. in a cauldron. dancing naked under the full moon is not required until your third visit.

hot pr0n. need i say more?

rob in repose. that would make a great band name. a band that does falco covers.

all photos can be seen here. go there now! or i’ll turn you into a newt!

on a lighter and less “she’s a witch! burn her!” note, i offer you the following:

after the rains yesterday our backyard turned into a pond. i am now investing in doggy life jackets for the girls.

dmoney rocks out. although not with her cock out.

nothing is more fun than taking photos in a bathroom. be glad i didn’t take a photo of my bowel movement.

i’ve been super lazy this week. details to come as to why when i get off my ass and actually find the motivation to write about it. and no, for the hundredth time i am not pregnant. in the meantime here are photos of my brand new and very tiny niece, kendall. she’s doing great but will stay in the NICU for an undetermined length of time.
click on photos for super enbiggened size!

her teeny hands kill me. and boy, does she love to use them. she’s constantly trying to pull out her feeding tube, which i really don’t blame her. i get whiny if i have to put anything up my nose. you know, other than my finger.

teeny hands are nothing compared to teeny feet.

oh dear god, if you haven’t passed out from the cuteness by this point you have no heart. in fact, you probably eat puppies for breakfast.

do you see the bangs? yep, they’re totally out of control. i think they’re planning on forming a coup d’etat of north korea.

mortal enemies? not when there is a sunbeam involved.