Hannah

So I get out of the shower yesterday, and I see that someone has called and left a message on our answering machine. I check the message, and all it is is a little voice saying "Hi Mawwy" and then hanging up. Of course I recognized the little voice immediately: my niece Hannah, who turned two in November. I spent five months in Georgia with my brother's family while he was in Afghanistan, trying to help my sister-in-law out with the kids and whatnot, so I got to spend a lot of time with Hannah. Let me just say that I adore this child. A-d-o-r-e. Seriously, I cried the last night I was there as I was putting her down to sleep; I miss her a lot.

Hannah is a funny kid. She likes to talk to people on the phone, probably because that's how she talked to her daddy for the year he was deployed. She'd often point at my phone and say, very matter-of-factly, "Talk to Daddy" and do this funny little head bob. Sometimes she'd want to talk to other people, so she'd point at the phone and say "Grandma" or "Grandpa" or whoever. So when I heard the message I figured she'd asked to talk to me, and that my brother or sister-in-law had called and let her leave her little message. All well and good...except that isn't what happened.

Today I asked my brother about it, and he seemed surprised: "Well, I didn't call." Hm. What about my sister-in-law? She was at work. And my nephews? At school. So little Hannah, who I remind you is 2 years and 2 months old, got a hold of a phone, called our house, waited for the answering machine, left a message ("Hi Mawwy"), and hung up the phone. Awesome. Did I mention that she also knows all of her shapes (including "oval" and "crescent"), the word "ottoman", and the sound that a yak makes?

I love that little monkey.