My Hannah

I was just sitting here at the computer. All the children in bed and while browsing through blogs I hear Hannah and Annette talking. Mostly Hannah. She reminds me of myself when I was younger. I remember having a hard time falling to sleep because my mind would be so busy! Hannah is like me but she is like her dad in that whatever she is currently interested in becomes her PASSION. This sometimes makes her pretty intense and, to her siblings, annoying. At the same time, it makes her excited, full of life and driven to learn and experience things.

I think we all have our faults that turn out to also be our strengths. For instance, the things I admire in Steve are the same things that sometimes drive me up a wall! Annette's sensitive side, while causing her to delight in being kind to others, also makes her especially prone to hurt feelings. Hannah's eagerness to do the next thing makes her tend toward impatience. My love for staying home allows me to be happy to home-school, love to play with the children and love to be available for my husband. On the other hand, I drag my feet on going anywhere or calling anyone on the telephone. I could easily be a hermit, I think. But then, my husband is annoyingly, and blessedly, social.

But I digress.

Anyway, I was thinking of Hannah and what life might look like from her perspective. She's a deep-thinker, loves to talk, read, learn, and socialize. In the last year and a half she has gotten used to and enthusiastically embraced the idea of three new siblings. She has never once complained of having to share my attention or of doing with less. She helps me eagerly and follows me around-- sometimes chatting endlessly until I stop hearing her but she doesn't get offended when I admit that she talked so much that I forgot to keep listening. In fact, she's kind-of proud of being a chatterbox, like Anne of Green Gables.

Her latest persistent request was that we start going to the library again. I admit, I have been avoiding it. Don't get me wrong, I love the library. I love that she loves to read. But, I'm scatterbrained and prone to procrastination, so If we are going to go to the library, I need to make it a weekly habit or else we'd end up buying a new wing for our local library in the fines we'd rack up after going once and forgetting to return the books.

Also, I have been dreading taking all six kids to our local public library. The ladies there are not friendly at all and the children's area is not closed off from the rest of the library. In fact, it is right next to the study tables. Anyway, I am pretty sure Vitali would not be a big hit with our librarians!

Finally, I compromised. We'd make time each week to stop at our church library. Hannah was thrilled and we stopped in Wednesday night after her class. She and Annette were so excited to pick out their books. One of the books Hannah picked out was called "How to make your room special" (or something like that). It is full of all these steps and tips for cleaning, organizing and decorating her room. Written for little girls, it was just the book for her! she scurried through her schoolwork yesterday, eager to get started on the first phase, cleaning up. Tomorrow she is looking forward to orgainzing and the next day? Decorating!

Her room looks great and she is so proud. I love it. Thanks to that passion for her task that she gets from her daddy, she is sleeping now (done talking for the night) in a very prettily cleaned bedroom. And she is satisfying her urge to accomplish something artistic (I think that one comes from me) because she has made her bedroom look pretty again and is occupied with dreaming up organizational strategies and decorating ideas.

What a cool little girl. I think if I were eight, I'd want to be her friend.