Imagination

I love to watch child development first hand with Hannah each day. These days her imagination has absolutely come alive. She loves to "talk" for her horses Doof, Duflouchy, and Zizzy (and yes, her animal names are all quite creative). I love to watch her get lost in the world of her horses and dogs. Sometimes, it can be quite comical and a bit eye opening to hear how to she talks to her horses. It can sound earily similar to conversations I have had with her.

I have to admit my weakness with this stage though. While I love to watch her active imagination, I have to say that I really struggle with engaging with her in this. I can last for a few minutes of being Doof and carrying on some sort of conversation over the water trough with Zizzy, but it's sad to say that my imagination (or lack thereof) really struggles to keep this up. Is that because I don't use my imagination much anymore? Maybe. Am I just getting older? Possibly. Sometimes I really feel bad that I can't engage more in this, but that is just the honest truth of where I am now in parenting.

I have found it interesting to see how different stages of child development bring out different stages of parenting. Jason is actually much better at the imaginative stage. He can get right in it with Hannah and he seems to have much more patience and endurance for this. Isn't God so good to bring 2 people together who can compliment what even seems like such a small part of our lives as a family?!

Anyway, I got a short video of Hannah's beloved red blanket "talking" to me. Oh my sweet Hannah, you are truly delightful!

A great week

I am seriously behind in posting this, but here are some pictures from when Mimi and Pop visited us last week. They drove out during our spring break and spent a few days with us, which was great. We enjoyed the zoo, the children's museum, celebrating Mimi's birthday, playing games, and great fellowship. Jason and I even got a date night which was wonderful. Hannah was entirely to excited to have us leave her alone with Mimi and Pop and was asking us for days if we could go ahead and leave already...where is the love?!
Anyway, we had a great time with them and were sad to see them leave!
I got a BIG cupcake pan for Christmas and finally was able to make it for Mimi's birthday. It makes a massive cupcake which is really just a smallish cake. It sure was cute though!

Our sweet girl with the new glasses that Mimi and Pop brought her and her dog Kujo. I will give you 1 guess as to who named that dog for her...

This is what we saw the day we went to the Waco zoo. If you have ever visited us and gone to the zoo you know that we actually have a great little zoo. We hear and see this on most days when we visit the zoo. So, enoy our "friendly" little lion. I know we all did!

Why not?

I admit that one thing that I am not naturally good at is giving up some control to our almost 4 year old. What I mean is that I want to watch what she is doing and immediately fix/change/teach her how to do it "correctly." Thankfully, God is slowly teaching me to give up some of that control and let Hannah try things even if she fails at it the first time (or multiple times). Honestly, it is not easy. It would be faster and easier for me to simply do it myself, but I am learning that she LOVES to try and do most anything these days and I need to give her those opportunities. It is a slow process, but I take delight in seeing her succeed and seeing her enjoy the new learning opportunities.

Hannah has a wonderful Sunday School teacher who has taught for many years and writes curriculum for Lifeway. Her teacher is amazing at letting the kids do things that I didn't think kids would be doing at this age (hammering nails, using a screwdriver, cutting fruit with sharp knives, skewering fruit, all kinds of cooking, etc). She teaches them to try new things and feel confident in trying. It really is cool to watch. It is also a great example to me of all the things that she is capable of doing but that I am not allowing her to do.

So, I have been working lately at letting go of my control and trying to let her do new things. She is great at making coffee in our one cup coffee machine (she even adds my special creamer), she is a great help in cooking, she loves to dress herself (in interesting outfits!), she loves to sweep the floors (read: she pushes the dust everywhere!), and tonight she cut her Daddy's hair for the first time. And why not? Daddy needed his hair cut and it was a great opportunity for Hannah to try something new. As you can see in the video below, she took to it quickly!

Silly Daddy!

So, I am continuing to pray that God will allow me to be patient in giving Hannah these learning opportunities which she absolutely loves!