Our Drama Queen!

Well, Hannah Grace continues to grow and change. She is an incredibly fast learner and keeps us on our toes! And, in keeping with tradition, she is moving right along in the development department! She has been crawling for quite some time now, well, army crawling. She is getting EXTREMELY fast now. One second she's in front of me and the next she's across the room! We have taken out some of Seth's old "baby" toys and bought a couple new ones for her and she is sooo not interested in them! She is more interested in Seth's cars and tools and stuff. It drives me nuts! While none of his toys are too small for her to be playing with, it still makes me nervous for her to play with them. So, on a little Seth side note, he now has "big boy toys" in his room to play with and "universal" toys downstairs. Back to Hannah, on Saturday night I noticed that Hannah was starting to get up on her hands and knees and rock back and forth. I told Henry that it is time we drop the mattress in the crib, and being the good father he is, he agreed and said he would do it in the morning because it was so close to bedtime. Well, wouldn't you know that Sunday morning when I went into her room to get her, she was sitting up on her knees looking out over the side of the crib! It was really so cute and where was the camera???? Downstairs!!!!! So, Sunday evening Henry got his tools out and dropped the mattress 2 levels. As we were putting Hannah to bed he said to me, "You know she's going to stand up now that we have lowered the crib, right?" Darned if we didn't turn around and find her STANDING...staring out over the side of the crib at us with the biggest grin on her sweet little face! What a monkey! Now, she is crawling around and trying to pull up on everything! She loves to stand up, holding onto your hands, and bounce. She gets the biggest smile on her face and you can see just how proud she is of herself! And if you thought that was the last bit of news on Hannah G. you are wrong! Yesterday I left Hannah and Seth with my neighbor Amy for a couple hours. When I got there to pick the kids up she (Hannah) had just woken up. She was extremely happy to see me and sat with me while I hung out with Amy for a bit. To keep the story short and details shorter, I will just tell you that after a few minutes Hannah began to fuss because she was hungry. I sat her on the floor and walked away to fix the bottle. Well, I guess eh panicked and started to cry. She let out one of those loud screams and then it was immediately followed by the "Silent cry" - mouth wide open, no sound coming out and no air going in. This went on for what seemed like forever so Amy picked her up. We both tried to blow in Hannah's face to make her breath and she wouldn't. Then, her head just fell onto Amy's chest. At first we both thought she had fallen asleep really fast, but then I realized that Hannah had actually passed out! Yes, you read that right, she passed out! Of course Amy and I both got very scared because we noticed that for a very short moment Hannah had actually begun to turn blue and we almost called 911, but then Hannah woke up and was back to 100% within a couple of minutes. She was still hungry so I fed her and then I called her doctor. As always, Nurse Pat came to the rescue and said that what had happened was that Hannah had had a Breath Holding Spell. Yes, there really is such a thing, no I had never heard of it, and yes, there is every possibility it will happen again! The good thing is that there really is no risk of these spells harming her and Nurse Pat gave me some instructions as far as how to try to prevent them and how to deal with them if/when they happen. While I am glad I was there when it happened, I am even happier that Henry was not there. We all know Henry to be a very calm person, cool and collected even, but NOT when it comes to his babies! I think that's what makes him such a great father! So, in the last 24 hours we haves talked the heck out of what happened and I have explained to him what to do if this happens again. He is not comfortable with the thought of it happening again, neither am I for that matter, but it is something we may have to deal with. The Breath Holding Spells are reflexive and this is when they develop, at this age. From the things I have read they will peak by age two and should be gone by age five! Lucky us, right?!?! So, now we need to make sure not to give in to her when she has these spells, especially if it is in response to a "fit." Nurse Pat told me that some of the children who have this reflex reaction will actually learn how to use it and well, we don't want that! All in all, Hannah is great! My Mom is looking for the book by Dr. Dobson about raising a Strong Willed Child. She gave it away a while ago and now we both wish she hadn't, as it seems we will have a very strong willed little girl on our hands!