Sounds of Music

Lately our house has been filled with The Sound of Music. Hannah has become enthralled with the movie and because we watched it more than once on our trip, Nathan has even sparked an interest. Hannah loves the singing and dancing. Who wouldn't? (She also loves the scenery and as we were driving through France, she kept insisting we were in Austria.) Right now she is all about singing. We all sang along with the songs while in France, no doubt completely annoying our European neighbors who apparently are not quite as enthralled with the movie as (some) Americans are. I say this not from our personal experience, but when discussing our plans to go back to Austria during the spring or summer with an American friend at church he recounted this story:

He works for the US Embassy and was traveling for work when he met some Austrians. After introductions were made all around, one Austrian turned to him and said, "Since I know you are an American and you know I'm an Austrian, I'll go ahead and save you the the trouble. No, I have not seen The Sound of Music." Personally I'm thankful for the warning. I didn't happen to meet any English speaking Austrians when were traveling there earlier this year, but if I had, I probably would have gushed something about this movie. I do love it that much. I digress...

It would appear that so far my children are falling in love with the movie as well. After watching it several times, Hannah turned to me during the "Do Re Mi" song and said, "Mommy I'm trying to know what language they are speaking, it isn't French though." Nathan, who takes in every detail, was a little freaked out about the Third Reich. He asked a lot of pretty in depth questions, just as he did when we visited the Anne Frank House and even when we least expect it, he bursts out with another question. While we were in a McDonald's in France coming out of the bathroom he said rather loudly, "Mommy, you know those really bad Germans who...."

Ummmm...let's talk about something else.

A couple of years ago, a friend described her then 4 year old daughter in a blog post as a "breath of fresh air". There is no better way to describe Hannah as she rounds the corner and heads from the trialing threes to the fabulous fours. No, I know, the fours won't be fabulous every minute, but four is so much more rational than 3. I do better with rational than irrational. Some of her behavior is better because my behavior is better. I am learning to be a better model and that has helped tremendously. But I am finding myself delighting in her more and more. She makes us laugh so often. She is in on every conversation and constantly at her brother's heels. He (and most of his friends) are so, so tolerant of her, but sometimes I know it has to be as annoying to be the big brother with a tag along sister as it is to be the little sister trying to keep up. As we said our prayers and talked about our trip the other night, Nathan and I were reminiscing about our trip to Sea World when he was 2 years old. (I don't know what he really remembers, but he sure tries!) After we talked for a few minutes about the seals, dolphins and Shamu, Hannah looked at us and said very seriously, "Yes, I remember that". (Pause) "Who's Shampoo?" Today as we drove to the Commune, she announced that she was going to work. We asked her what she would be when she worked and she asked us to guess. We guessed all kinds of things and went through about every profession known to man. She finally told us that we were way off and that she was going to be a cat. After we arrived home, she packed up the once popular Dora suitcase and brought it into our room. She said, "Here Mommy, I packed this up for when we move". I turned around and said, "We're not moving, Sweetie." She looked at me thoughtfully and said, "Well, just in case." Spoken like a true expat.

The other morning I was making our bed and muttered to myself, "Where's our other pillow?" Hannah was in the room and said, "I don't know". (Incredibly guilty look on her face.) I looked at her with that mom look that is meant to solicit the truth. She said, "Well, it's on my bed because I don't have one". In her defense, her pillow was a casualty in the hotel room when Nathan's stomach rebelled. We did some rearranging after we got home and planned to replace her pillow with Nathan's, but since she doesn't actually sleep in her bed, it hardly seemed to matter. She insisted that it does matter because she will sleep there "when I grow up". She managed to argue her case without whining and without throwing a fit.

All signs point to our girl growing up and just in time because her little sister is on the road to 2 and we are all too familiar with that road.