When I was naming my children, I wanted to give them a first name that was all their own and a middle name that they shared with someone I admire, someone that I think will help give them strength as they get older, someone they'll be proud to share a name with.
I share my middle name with my great-grandmother, a strong woman who lived an amazing life.
Hannah shares her middle name with Matt's grandmother, another strong woman who has lived her own amazing life. I got an urge to go get some history done with her, so we took a last minute trip into Star Valley, Wyoming to talk to her.
Have you seen Star Valley? It's unbelievably beautiful. Pictures just don't do it justice. This is the view out her front door.
She has lived there for her entire life. She has lived in this house since she was married at 17, a mother at 18. She's got the best sense of humor and a seeming complete lack of judgment for me, an apostate in the faith that is so central in her own life - and that is rare in that religion.
This is the first time in 12 years that I've gotten to sit and chat with her, just the two of us. There have always been husbands or cousins hanging around or kids and grandkids needing to be tended to. We got 3 1/2 hours of chatting and laughing and bonding in. It was brilliant. I came away with the feeling that we would have been great friends had we lived in the same area. And also that the world would have to watch out if she had been born 80 years later and not contained by the expectations of her time and place.
Zander slept through some of it, cooed at her through some of it, talked to himself through some of it, and wrapped her around his little finger for all of it.
I had 50 questions written out for her. 25-30 from Hannah and the rest from Matt, Matt's mom, and me.
Hannah's questions ranged from the typically 6-year-old ("Did you have a dolly like Nettie?" and "How many hotels have you gone to?") to some deeper ones ("Why are you such a strong woman? Was your mom a strong woman?" and "How do you stop from getting angry?"). The questions from the adults were the typical history questions - school, memories, traditions, advice to give.
She was such an open book, which made the interview by turns hilarious and heart-wrenching. Hearing her talk about her son in the runaway goat cart had me in tears as did hearing her talk about feeling that she was to blame for her first son being born with club feet - just different kinds of tears.
She pulled out a scrapbook that her mom had made for her out of a fashion book.
How cool is that?
I kept watching her, waiting for her to get worn out, but she seemed to want to keep talking. The 30 minutes we planned on talking stretched into an hour and a half of recorded questions and answers.
Such a treasure for my children.
And for me.
Add in hours of play with a cousin, lots of scooter/bike/trike play, swimming, banana waffles, avocado and fish eggs (Ainsley's favorite snack), painting nails, and seemingly constant monitoring of a sad-Hannah-because-cousin-left/want-attention-from-sisters-Grayson situation for the last hour before Matt got home from work. When we got the mail and there was a new Netflix superhero movie, I declared the living room a movie theater, made them all popcorn ...
and hid with Zander and cheesecake for 20 minutes.
I've never heard her so silly with a baby, it was so sweet to listen to her chatting him up and encouraging his smiles and coos. And I've never heard Zander so chatty. He was chattering away so much that his shirt was wet with bubbles. He'd talk to her and she'd make sounds like she was in a conversation with him, then she'd talk to him about his life and he'd make sounds like he was listening to her. Then one of them would drift off to sleep. If it was her, we'd pick up Zander and then put him back when she woke up. So content with that situation, both of them.
(She snapped my picture to document the hairstyle she did for me.)
Bounced on a little trampoline and made bracelets. Played "make the baby giggle until he goes to sleep". Played dolls and trains. I refused to put a cat in a backpack. Read lots of superhero and vehicle books. Made Lincoln Log houses for the dolls. Seven times. Played in the hammock.
Played on scooters and trikes and bikes. Played with kittens and Bella. Went to go check on the baby barn swallows. Hannah tried to put Ainsley and Gray down for a nap. She failed. Unless you count hysterical giggling as napping. Then she did pretty dang good.
Told stories with cookie cutters. Had a tea party. Talked about alliteration. Got silly with alliteration. Finally waved the white flag, loaded everyone in the truck and drove to town to buy ice cream cones. When Matt came home, this is how the living room looked.
What I love about this mess, though, is that every single thing I see in that picture was out because it was played with, not because it just got thrown around - which has been known to happen. There's the backpack (sans kitty), the books, the cookie cutters, the thread. There's the dollhouse and all of the horses and Lincoln Logs used in doll play. There's Zander. He's never been just thrown around, but he was played with.
I just read about 
The kids and I have been drawing cartoons. We got some cool templates 
I just realized something putting this post together. My kids will have very little photographic evidence that I existed.
on the sidewalk with chalk.
Don't know why Hannah looks so sad.
Because it's fun.
And taking pictures of Zander.
"Yeah, I'll smile at you."
"Oh, ok. We're getting closer."
"WHOA! That's close!"
We'll be sad to take them home. They've been so much fun.
He helped me wad up newspaper sheets and stuff them in the bags. I taped the tops shut and then he had cheap, fast building blocks.
Fun to build with, fun to knock over, fun to jump on.
And fun to build with again and again.
