I. Am. So. Sore. I took my girlies walking this afternoon (to the Video Store, but I took the long way home!). We have a Sit & Stand double stroller (LOVE IT!), but it is harder to push than my single stroller. Going up hills about kills me. I was contemplating how nice my rear will be after a few more of these walks though. It's already shaping up from the workouts I do, but my springtime walks will be a nice extra fanny-shaper. I literally want to climb in bed right now though! Despite my workouts (which I have not done in a week), I am out of shape! If you ever want to know just how out of shape you are, put a couple of kids in a stroller and find every slope, hill, and slanted sidewalk on your route. As I was pushing the girls up the hill, I was thinking to myself, "Must. Remember. The. Rewards."
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I have grown a genius!
Hannah wrote "Mom" today! All by herself! Without me telling her! I lavished her with praise, much to her embarrassment, I'm sure. I told her to write "dad" and instead she wrote "tat". Ha!

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On our walk, we went past the Clarissa C. Cook Hospice House. It's a fairly new building, a beautiful place. We have not been on a walk since probably October, and I don't think the building was in use at that time. I had explained to H back then what the building was for and left it at that. We have always been honest with Hannah about death. I asked the funeral director what I should tell Hannah, back when my mom died, because she was only 2 1/2 and I had no clue how to explain to her that her Bestest Buddy had died and gone to Heaven. How do you really communicate that to a toddler? The funeral director (at Weerts Funeral Home, by-the-way. Wonderful place and people!) told me to never tell a child that someone who has died is "sleeping", because it will terrify the child and cause confusion for them. The child will become afraid to go to sleep themselves. They will fear that they will go to sleep and not wake up. They will wonder why their loved one cannot just wake up. So we were honest with H and she knows that her GaGa lives with Jesus now. I know she still doesn't understand it completely (Heck, I'm not sure I do either!), but I have no regrets about being honest.
So on our walk today, out-of-the-blue, Hannah said, "I wonder if anyone has died there yet." We hadn't even gotten up to the building--I wasn't sure she had noticed the building or recognized it--until she said that. I told her that some people had, cause I had seen it in the newspaper. She said, "I wish that building would've been there for GaGa to die at." Then she asked me why we couldn't go in the building and see the people, so I had to explain that to her. And she went on to say that she just wanted to go in so we could help them.
I said, "Oh, and how would we do that?"
H: "Well, we could put something over them and give them some food."

That is my sweet girl. My mom always said Hannah was going to be a doctor and find the cure for cancer. I believe the cure already exists. But Hannah would make a fine nurse. But she said this afternoon that she wants to be a "cashier girl". Where? At Walmart. No, better yet, she said, Sam's Club. And that she wants me to work there with her and she'll be a teenager. Oh, to be so young and full of innocence and light.