Knocka Knocka, it's Hattie Joy

Hattie is 3 1/2 and is a pure delight. Many nights I will wake in the middle of the night to a quiet knocking on our door (that is not completely closed anyway) with her speaking, "knocka- knocka, Mama. Knocka knocka" And when I get up to open the door she'll tell me she doesn't want the tornado to get her, while climbing into our bed squishing her pillow in between our pillows. I'll collapse next to her and if I open my eyes, her bright eyes will be staring at me, her whole face smiling. It's sort of a highlight of my life right now. And after a while she will get carried back into her own bed because she moves around too much.

Hattie loves to be a helper. Ivar and Elsie have morning chores and she will always ask me, "what's my job?!!" And then no matter what I say she'll protest, "At's too Ard!" And I tell her, "no, that's not too hard, and Hattie, you can do hard things. So go and pick up the crayons in the livingroom and put them back in their tupperware..."

Most of the time she calls Elsie Mary, and refers to herself as Laura.

When I tell the girls to go and put on something nice for church, Elsie will come down in a lovely dress with tights and jewelry and Hattie will run down holding her favorite overalls, "these nice!" She has worn her overalls the last three Sunday's in a row. I keep meaning to get a picture because she and Elsie contrast each other in such a comical way to me. But she does tend to get a lot of compliments on her overalls. :)

When I think about Hattie I always just feel so glad that she is ours. I feel so grateful to be her mom. Her bi-annual big appointments continue to go really well and they continue to watch her as an interesting and special case who hasn't needed cranio surgery yet. We meet with a speech teacher to work on certain sounds that are hard because her pallet is so, so high and her tongue can't reach behind her teeth. So we are working on that, but boy she is one very active, outgoing, friendly, enthusiastic, passionate three year old. And the joy of our home.