I thought it would take a lot longer before she had the hand strength to do this. Guess not. =)

We bought Hannah a potty a few months ago, but she was more interested in carrying around the potty bowl and putting toys in it, than actually sitting on it. Makes sense, she doesn’t really ever sit still. This last week she has started saying potty and actually sitting for short bits, usually while reading.

This time she decided all her animals needed to pee too

Earlier this week I met another mom at the park who had a little girl slightly older than Hannah who is potty trained and I was saying how Hannah won’t sit on the potty for more than a moment. She said she bought the little seat that goes on the regular toilet, and the kid sits longer since they can’t easily stand up. Last night Adam and I made a detour on our date night to the baby aisle at Target and got Hannah a little sesame street potty seat. Then when we got home we all sat in the bathroom reading and playing, Hannah really likes to point to all the characters on the seat and have us name them. She peed a teeny bit and got really excited when we cheered for her. I don’t think she has any idea what happened or how to make it happen again, but it was fun for the people in the room who don’t pee in their pants. =)

For Father’s Day I got Adam (and Hannah) some tiny sports equipment, so he can start teaching her all his athletics skills now. A little baseball glove, soccer ball and teeny golf set. She doesn’t have any money to buy him anything, so she pooped in the tub during bath, and then peed on the carpet in her room after bath. Oh, toddler love. We went to the beach to celebrate with my family, and Adam and Hannah had a blast playing on the beach.

Hannah and I have been enjoying a slower pace these last few weeks since we’re in a break between bible studies, so I’m working less at the nursery. We’re excited for the studies to start back up again next week and to get to see our nursery friends more.

Hannah’s eczema hasn’t flared up in a while, so we’ve gone back to use cloth diapers at home. Nice to save a few dollars on diapers, plus they give her have a hillariously giant booty.

She loves to run around, and falls a fair amount, so her knees are perpetually scraped or bruised. She doesn’t seem to mind for more than a minute after she falls, and she’s thrilled to point out her “owie” to anyone who will sympathize.

This week she’s been saying “stuck” a fair amount, and she is frequently stuck, so there are lots of opportunities to practice. Today she was busy in the kitchen while I was vacuuming and I found her eating a pear she had stolen from the fruit bowl on the table. The funny thing is that I had sliced a pear for her not 15 minutes before for snack, apparently she wanted more and she didn’t want it sliced.

Adam and I are keeping kleenex in business with our allergies, and I am still mad at all meth makers for their role in making sudafed prescription only. Other than that, it’s the usual toddler and fur children chaos at the Becker house.

We’ve been keeping busy and Hannah’s been growing like a weed and keeping us very entrained. Here’s a glimpse of the last month:
Mother’s day:

the growth chart Adam made for me:

Hannah’s new giant bear:

A couple weeks of off and on fevers, lots of doctor’s visits, but nothing more than viruses:

Luckily costco sells fever reducer in bulk:

Adam enjoyed the cuddles we only get when she’s sick enough to hold still:

We visited Marlene on our way to Forest Grove:

Then stayed at PJ’s and he shared his snuggie with Hannah

and we celebrated Lea graduating:

We went to Kallahan’s 3rd birthday and Hannah got a super cute hairclip as a party favor, and of course ate a cupcake:

Hannah’s friend Nathan turned 5!:

Played with friends in the nursery:

Went to the Oregon Coast Aquarium with Auntie Rachel who visited from Alaska:

Walked on the beach with Aunties Katie and Rachel:

Picked out a tutu to wear while “helping” in the kitchen:

While writing this I have remove her from the back of the couch (where she was standing!) 3 times. She’s so exciting! =)

Hannah is adding more words each day, it tooks several attempts but we caught some on tape:

It’s been 2 weeks since she was diagnosed with her thrid double ear infection, and the infection is clear, but the fluid is sill there. Now we’re waiting to see an Ear Nose and Throat doctor (ENT) yo see what they suggest. Hannah will also have her hearing test while we’re there. I guess having fluid constantly in her ears is not only uncomfortable, and makes infection a lot more likely, it can also affect her hearing and speech development. Most likely the ENT will suggest ear tubes, so we’ll have to cross that bridge when we get to it. We’re praying so doesn’t get another ear infection between now and then.

Hannah is having a language explosion, she picks up a new word every few days, it’s really fun. I am working on getting a video of her saying all the words she knows, but half-way through she gets distracted or bored, so I may need to do it in chunks.

We had a few language milestones this week. The first was when we went to rietaid to get her fluoride the pharmacist said “hi” and Hannah showed her the graham cracker she was eating and said, “cracker!” and the pharmacist said, yes, that’s right that is your cracker. I’ve never had someone we don’t know understand her before so it really surprised me. Then Hannah handed her my debit card and said, “thank you” and the pharmacist said, “you’re welcome”. The whole thing cracked me up. People often talk to her or ask her things but she never answers, at least in a way they can understand, so it was a fun first.

Then today she strung two words together for the first time. She was repeatedly pointing and grunting at my water bottle and Adam kept saying, “that’s mama’s water” and handing her her own water bottle. A little bit later she pointed at it and went, “mama….. water” Not exactly a sentence, but it was the first time I’d heard her say 2 words in a row.  Aside from “no no no no no” her all time favorite word right now.

She is sleeping well at night which is really nice. Her ear infection is gone, but the fluid was still there last time they checked. We’ll probably go in next week to see if the fluid is gone, hopefully it is and we’ll be done with colds for the year and her ears will be more mature next winter and we won’t deal with this again. At least the amoxicillin is flavored with something yummy now, so she doesn’t mind taking it. Last time she got this exciting rash a couple of days after she stopped taking the amoxicillin.

We have been keeping busy at the nursery,

and having playdates with friends

and going to the gymnastics place in town for fun on trampolines

My friend Dawn has an amazing talent with clay and made us these beautiful impressions of Hannah’s hands and foot. Here is her website so you can see more of her art: http://ittybittyimpressions.com/ I can’t wait to someday get the impressions of our next kid when they are brand new. Though I’m sure someday these impressions of Hannah’s hands will seem itty bitty.

we got our AMAZING pictures back from the photoshoot Betsey did with Hannah.
https://picasaweb.google.com/adamcbecker/FramedlivingComByBetseyJaskilka362011#
more of her work is at www.framedliving.com She is soooo talented!!!!!!!!

Hannah is finishing up a cold she started last week, and now, as become standard after a cold, she has a double ear infection. The drama started when we went for her 1 year “well baby check” and found out she had a double ear infection. Then in February after a cold she had another one, and then this one. At least in February and this one she pulled on her ears to let us know they hurt so we could take her in. One of Adam’s co-workers gave us this cool thing called the “EarCheck” http://www.earcheck.com/ that supposedly tells you if the kid has an ear infection (or tells you to go to the doctor). I was pretty skeptical, but it has worked every time so far. Our doc pointed out that it would probably still say go to the doc even if she jut had fluid behind her ears from a col, and i wasn’t infected. Though for us fluid=infection so it works out well.

We’ve been keeping busy as always. Since the baby haircut:
Adam and Poppy started working on a fence for a dog run where the dogs can hang out and we can cover the ground in pea gravel and hopefully reduce the muddy paw action

Hannah refused to sit with the Easter bunny so her and Sophia wore ears and enjoyed each other instead

Baby dragon!

Rocked out in the nursery

Visited the Children’s museum in Portland

Where Hannah pretended she was a director (or just button mashed to her heart’s content)

and shopped

and Adam climbed in the kids fort with Leah and Hannah

and we had lunch at Adam’s favorite restaurant, Mashita’s, in his hometown Tualatin

Hannah gets to be the youngest sibling in the nursery family

Emily and Hannah took our first trip to the church playground for the year

Hannah enjoyed some epic girlyness including much baby bling

We may have discovered a passion for gymnastics, or at least trampolines

Hannah and I participated in the world record attempt for most babies changed into cloth diapers at the same time

We celebrated Jackson’s first birthday

Easter basket hat!

Getting ready for an egg hunt with Nana and mom

Hunting eggs with cousin Henry

Our little family after the egg hunt (Hannah is irritated we asked her to look at the camera rather than her egg)

Hannah was pulling out her hairties and clips, and her bangs were falling in her face. I decided it was time for me to try cutting her hair. My mom trimmed it for me a couple of times when she was littler, but it’s been a few months.  Almost all her hair either fell out or was rubbed off during her awkward hair phase, but the stuff on top never fell out. So she has a reverse mullet, long on top, short on the sides and back. Except these two random locks on either side right in front of her ears, they also stayed long.

I just cut the front part that was falling in her eyes:

looking at it, it seems like a lot of hair to have cut off, I saved the curl for her baby book

I forgot that hair gets shorter when it dries. Opps!!!! Luckily it’ll grow out, we’ll pretend it was on purpose so her haircut will last longer.

I love how the new hair that is coming in is so curly. It doesn’t hold its curl very well, but it’s super cute right after bath.

This week Hannah passed through a childhood rite of passage, getting her first skinned knee. She even managed to do it through tights, and not rip the tights! Right now she is very happily throwing everything she can find in the kitchen, mostly toys, over the fence into the living room where the dogs are standing watching, very amused.

I’ve been working on having her sign “help” when she wants help instead of grunting, and asking “please” when she’s grunting about food or something else. I usually wait for her to either sign help or please before I do what she’s asking. Then I do the sign for “thank you” once she’s asked. Yesterday she was asking help to be picked up, si Picked her up, and spontaneously she signed “thank you” to me for picking her up. Pretty cute.

She’s really into repeating words right now, which is very fun. Often she’ll try and repeat something we say and we’ll laugh because its funny and then she’ll smile huge and keep trying to say it over and over to get us to laugh again. She has mastered “cookie” and “cracker” even to the point where people other than Adam and I can understand it, she knew to work hard on those because the response she gets is often a cookie or cracker, haha. She just brought me over a jar of raisins and simultaneously grunted and signed help, funny girl.

She still doesn’t sleep through the night consistently, but we usually have a few nights each week where she does.  Its hard to know when to let her cry it out and when to go in her room when she’s crying. Especially since she’s really quick to pick-up patterns, so if we go in one night, she’ll cry louder and longer the next night to try and get us to come. I have a sinus infection, so Adam was nice enough to go help her in the middle of the night last night. Luckily I’m getting better quickly and my work week is over until Sunday.

We went to see the Easter bunny with Hannah’s friend Sophia and her mom Pauline. Hannah wouldn’t let go of me to sit in the bunny’s lap, and I knew if I peeled her off me all I’d get was pictures of her screaming. So we just took pictures of the girls instead.

Yesterday Hannah hit 15 months old. She is back to her old self, cheerful and fun. She is working on her 13th tooth, one of her top k-9s. She’s also babbling a lot which is fun. She loves to say ball and dog, and point out any that she sees. We are in the weird transition period between 2 naps a day and one, so some days she still does 2, and some days she does one. On the one nap days it’s a nice 2-3 hour afternoon nap, but she tends to be a little crankier for the hour or so before the nap.

She’s starting to respond when we ask her to do things like “point to the bird” in her book. This week she even tried to say “blue” when Adam asked her to point to it in her book. She’s getting fast enough to run away from me when I ask her to come here. We also learned that her tall baby feet don’t fit in regular mary-jane style shoes anymore, so it’s sneakers for her till her feet get flatter.

Our friend Betsey got some amazing pictures of Hannah on my birthday just before she turned 14 months: