Top Five Details I Love About Abigail

It is her birthday week after all. And of course, you can't pick just five. But I will.

1. When we go to the store and there are bins of toys/candy/fabric/etc, she sorts out of place items into the correct bins.
2. She's flexible. If something doesn't work out and you explain it, she's usually good about it.
3. She actually licks her lips when she sees something yummy. And says, "mmMMMmm."
4. When she gives butterfly kisses her little fingers flap like butterflies.
5. She loves to snuggle and get hugs and kisses.

4 years old

Last week Abigail and I were counting the days until her birthday on the calendar.

me: I can't believe you're getting so big!
we think.
her: Are you going to miss your baby?
I grin.
me: Yes, I am.
her: But it's okay, because kids have to grow up?
me: Yes, they do.

Our little girl is now 4 years old and treasured greatly. Here are some details about her.

• 41" tall (75th percentile)
• 36.5 pounds (50-75th percentile)
• Last time to the doctor: over a year ago, for her 3 year check up! Crazy.
• Favorite Colors: orange and pink
• Favorite Movie: Lion King
• Favorite TV Show: Rescue Rangers
• Favorite Foods: "My favorite kind of pizza" which means Papa Johns or Dominos pepperoni (though she often takes the pepperonis off), hot dogs, crunchy peanut butter and jelly, nuts, oatmeal, treats, yogurt, cheese sticks, goldfish/whales, pancakes and waffles with syrup, honey, "chocolate treats, chocolate chips, chocolate milk, hot chocolate, and everything chocolate that I don't know about."
• Favorite Toys: puzzles, Simba, coloring, painting, crafting, books, random stuffed animals, pennies, cars, plastic tea set, 'fuzzy balls' (those little pompoms they sell for crafting), tricycle. Now in the few short days after her birthday add: princess bike, Ariel (her giggling pink build-a-bear), calico critters doll house, ladybug kite. 
• Other Favorites: sparkly flip flops, Ariel nightgown, Disney anything, Tweety Bird shirt (she insists that Tweety Bird is Disney because she loves both of them. We keep telling her he's warner bros...), lime green 80's shorts that are like short leggings, going to the playground (but not the covered slides or swinging big), MUSIC (kid's music in particular)
• What she wants to be when she grows up: A teacher for bigger kids. How long has she wanted to do this? "Since I was a born." Other options are: a cleaner and the latest, a house painter who helps people who are too tired to paint their house (this was so out of the blue I can't even describe it). 
• What she most talked about related to her birthday before it happened: That Grandma, Papa, and Jonathan were coming. And that she would be as old as Ruby. "But Ruby already grewed up."
• Our weekly activities: Gymnastics, girls lunch with Betsy and Rachael, Bible study, cleaning at Mary's (Abigail watches a movie), library story time, playgroup.
• Bedtime Routine: Brush teeth; potty; pick vitamin; don pjs; hide with blankie and simba; call up non helping parent to pray; wait to be found, but can't be called Abigail yet; pray; she says, "Just kidding, I'm Abigail!"; Hugs, kisses and butterfly kisses for Mommy and Daddy; do two tricks, right now usually jumping off of chest, crawling on the light on the floor which comes in from the hall, flip on bed; while jumping on bed, catch simba, who is thrown by Daddy; Pull blankie off of Mommy's face when she says, "Help me, Help me!" Mommy then must say, "Thank you Gadget, Rescue Ranger."; Lie down and get tucked in with blankie and Simba, Simba must face a certain direction; Mommy tells a bedtime story; call out to Mommy as she leaves, "You're silly!"; Mommy leaves and closes the door, then shouts "You're silly!" THE END. She's okay if we have to take out some steps sometimes. But usually we humor her...
• What to be for Halloween: Tinkerbell. Her friends will be: Peter Pan (James), Wendy (Ruby), Indian Princess (Maggie), Dog (Bonnie Kate). Thinking about... Captain Hook (Jake????), Pirate (Charissa????)

Top Five Things to DO!!!

Top five things I have to get done. Sorry, this is all my brain can think about right now.

1. Make dinner. I got home too late to make what I was planning on making (crockpot beef stew). Now what do I do?
2. Do the laundry...
3. Fulfill my etsy orders. A little stressed that one of my customers didn't get her package in three days (I sent it first class, i.e. TWO days) but there's nothing I can do about that right now.
4. Finish Abigail's birthday dress. Order things that need to be here before her birthday.
5. Work on my website, which my wonderful husband is currently helping me update!!

Top Five Works of Art

(pssst! Shari! It's actually Friday! Aren't you proud of me???)

Top five works of art in my home right now:

1. Abigail Hanson (American, b. 2006). Yelling People with Lots of Eyelashes (2010). Mirror and Dry Erase Marker.

 

2. Abigail Hanson (American, b. 2006). Aliens (one with disappearing yellow head) (2010). Marker and Paper, taped to fridge by the artist.

 

3. Abigail Hanson (American, b. 2006). Alphabet with Traced Duck (2010). Pen and Paper.

About the Art: This piece was completed while in a church service. If anyone was at CTK on September 5th and heard a small child singing the ABCs while everyone else was singing their praises to God, you were privileged to have heard the artist as she was going about her work. Her mommy is very proud of her, despite the missed point of church.

 

4. Abigail Hanson (American, b. 2006). Floor Book Puzzle with Coins (2010). Installation with Books, Coins from various countries and game establishments. 

About the art: The artist had this installed in her room for the morning of September 16th. It was meant to be an interactive piece, where children could step from book to book (but not the library books), trying to keep the coins from sticking to their feet. As far as we know, the artist was the only child to get to interact with the piece before it was taken down.

For those unfamiliar with installation art: Installation art describes an artistic genre of site-specific, three-dimensional works designed to transform the perception of a space. (wikipedia.com)

 

5. Abigail Hanson (American, b. 2006). Self portait, yelling, with picture of mommy, etc (2010). Collage using mirror, dry erase marker, paper, pen, newsletter, church craft, brad, crayons, tape.

Detail of the portrait of mommy follows. As this was apparently done in disappearing ink, some work has been done to digitally enhance the detail shown here:

6. Abigail Hanson (American, b. 2006). Untitled (2010). Non toxic paint, paper.

About the art: This piece won the coveted "Mommy's current favorite" award and is displayed in the fabulous frame that is used to display such decorated pieces of art. By the way, this frame comes highly recommended by the gallery.

Oh, did I say top five?? Oh well.

About the Artist:

Abigail Hanson is currently living in Birmingham, Alabama, where she was born in September of 2006. She enjoys creating art in all mediums. She also enjoys playing with friends, doing puzzles, playing games on mommy's phone, dressing up, playing pretend, sorting things, playing hide and seek, watching movies, reading books, going to the library, shopping with mommy, eating treats, gymnastics and almost all things Disney. Mommy doesn't understand how sometimes she seems so big and sometimes she seems so little.

Top Five Brain Farts This Week

Umm.. sorry mom, I wrote fart.

My top five brain farts this week:
1. When texting my friend, I said 'in toon' instead of 'in tune.'
2. Emailing my playgroup members three times about one playgroup because of forgotten important details. Oh, like the time we were meeting and giving the wrong date.
3. Emailing a customer about her print, telling her it would be shipped the next day when I had actually shipped it 7 days before.
4. Buying my friend, who is having a baby in FEBRUARY, Christmas clothes in size 3 months.... uhh...
5. Forgetting about 'top five friday.' Well, I only forgot about it on Friday. All day Thursday, on the other hand, I remembered. I guess I should write the posts and schedule them to publish later! I do have a good excuse though. That playgroup I mentioned in #2, the one we've been going to almost every single FRIDAY for 3 years? We just changed it to Thursdays. I'm afraid my Fridays will never been the same again, they are officially lost in time.

Top Five in Exercise

I went for a speed walk today on the Lakeshore path, which I think may be officially called the Greenway. It has been a while since I've last been there and I just have to say, I love the Lakeshore path! I love the stream that runs by (except for that one stinky part), the way the light goes through the trees, the interesting wildlife and the even more interesting people who pass by. Today, I'm dedicating my top five to those people.

Top Five People You Pass By on the Running/Walking/Biking Trail:

1. The person who pretends to not even notice you.
2. The person who pretends to not even notice you and feels and looks really awkward about it (with or without earplugs in their ears).
3. The person/people walking their dog
4. The person who feels they should interact with each passerby. This group spans from the very discreet head nodder to the friendly joker, who says the same thing to every mom pushing a stroller, "Will you push me?" or "She's smart to ride!" etc.
5. The guy running with really short shorts, no shirt and a smug look on his face.

I generally fall into group 4, sharing a grim smile with each passerby and occasionally talking, especially with the jokers. I almost always have to look at the person and interact with them in some way. Occasionally, however, I fall into group 2 (or maybe 1?), especially when the oncoming person is a starer.

My complaint today is with group number one. Especially the bikers, who usually fall into that group. I guess I can't really blame them. They've got the gear, they're in the zone, they're trying to maintain their biker image, why would they notice the woman pushing a large stroller with a child in it? I mean, sure, I can do without that elbow the biker took off when he passed by me so closely, without so much as a sound or warning. But don't you think that the bikers should have the common decency to stop and say they're sorry, give back the elbow maybe? Or maybe look in their tiny helmet rear view mirror and give a little head nod? A thumbs up? Maybe even a polite hand wave? Sometimes I like to think that they're silently freaking out. "Oh man! I saw that lady just in time! Boy do my knuckles hurt where I grazed her so closely! Calm down. Act cool. Protect the sleek biker image. C**p! Another walker!" But something tells me that what they're really thinking under that frozen outer demeanor is, "LOL! O.M.G. I totally freaked that lady out! COOL! I am so cool. So cool, so cool, yeah. That's 10 points me, Zero points lame-os! Yes! Here comes number 11! Woosh!" Dudes. We totally have to work out some etiquette here. My request: You must be in the other lane before you get to 10 feet behind me. You must pass by with at least two feet between me and you. And I don't mean human feet. I will do my best to stay out of your way. That is, if i even hear you coming before you pass me by!

Dress Up

Abigail and I played a little dress up today. The funny thing about Abigail is that she has a strong personality bent toward engineer or organizer or analyzer or something in that category. She's frequently lining things up, sorting items or gathering objects during play. Earlier this morning she got out all the hair ties and head bands and other hair accessories and organized them by type and color. When we went to the science museum and they had a little paleontology/archeology exhibit where kids could pretend to uncover bones, she spent about a quarter of a second uncovering bones before moving on to a more fun activity- gathering all the abandoned brushes and sorting them into bins.  Ever so often she takes all the clothes out of her drawers, lays them flat, and groups them by type. Thankfully, she's now good at folding too and can put them back! Her favorite games to play right now are puzzles, card games (we take any card game and turn it into matching numbers), and memory. I think you see the picture!

All that to say, when Abigail dressed up she decided to put all her dress up clothes on at the same time! (the ones that would fit, anyway) I know she's not the only kid who does this, but I love the insight into her personality. The first picture is with two dresses on. When she put the third dress on, she said, "Why am I around?" The fourth picture, the 5th layer, is a cut off shirt from the YMCA and a skirt I made for myself an eon ago and put in her dress up box.

Reminds me of this time:

She dressed me up too, said I was lovely. What do you think? I might get blond highlights after seeing this!