Can't Imagine Octuplets

As we scramble to keep Hannah contained, fed, and occupied, I occasionally look around and wonder what it would be like to have 7 more of her running around. I suppose the main difference is that we would just give up any pretense of having a normal life. As it is, the fun of watching Hannah try new things and figure out the obstacles we put in her way more than makes up for not being able to pop out to a movie or take naps on a whim.




Hannah loves books now, and will frequently pick one up and demand that we read it to her. Then she'll climb down and go get another. The text in these books, of course, is extremely inane, and I have a hard time not slipping into a moron voice as I read.



She's climbing on furniture now, and we finally had to move the coffee table out of the living room because she wouldn't stop dancing on it. I suppose there will be time for reasoning with her later, after she knows a few more words.

Now that I think about it, I always sorta liked the taste of wood, too.

Hannah Time!

It's been an eventful month, but not too hectic. We've heard about all the winter weather elsewhere, but it has still been warm enough here most weekends to take Hannah to the park and feed the ducks.

I've been following Hannah around with the camera catching snippets of video here and there, but I made the mistake of showing her the video playback on the camera's display. Now every time she sees the camera, she runs toward it yelling "baybeeee!" and makes me show her baby videos. Clips of her doing that will get boring pretty quick.

But before she caught on, I got enough to put together another Hannah music video. Click the image below or this link to take a look (13MB WMV file).



And for those of you who can't get enough of laughing babies, here are a couple more videos of Hannah laughing at my hand (6MB WMV file) and laughing at ducks (8MB WMV file).

(noticing the wind chimes)

(my brother Bruce made this furniture)

(walking on wood chips at the park)

(digesting a particularly satisfying meal)

Some status updates . . .

Hannah had a round of routine doctor visits last month. She's over 21 pounds, has nine teeth (maybe ten, but I'm getting less brave about putting my finger in her mouth to check), is eating pretty much anything we eat that can be chewed with only nine teeth, and has words for mom, dad, bottle, baby, duck, and probably several others that she thinks we're too stupid to understand. Her eyes checked out fine (preemies are at risk for vision problems), so we probably don't need to go back to the eye doctor. We switched her car seat to face forward, so now she gets to see where she's going, instead of where she's been.

Carla's chorus will be doing singing valentines on (der!) Valentines Day, so if you're in the Dallas area and want a quartet of ladies to serenade someone in glorious four-part harmony, drop us a line. They're a non-profit group, so it doesn't cost any more than flowers, and they're really good.

Karl survived the first (and hopefully the only) round of layoffs at Texas Instruments, but of course many of his colleagues didn't. This is a rough time to be out job-hunting, so that was a pretty depressing week at work.

Our cousin Joni (my dad's brother's son's daughter, who we traveled to Scotland to visit in 2003) gave birth to her first baby girl yesterday. We're pretty excited about that because, having recently joined the club ourselves, we know how much fun she and Mac are going to have.

Carter (Hannah's NICU-mate and birthday twin who got the multi-visceral transplant last May) is doing great, but Avery still needs your thoughts and prayers, as she is back in the hospital with unexplainable fevers and infections. I long for the day that Avery and her parents can spend some relaxed weeks at home.