Hannah and Her Animals

Hannah is our little animal-lover. (The other girls like animals too, but they don't seem to get as emotional about them as Hannah does. But then Hannah gets emotional about a lot of things.)

She is always writing stories about animals, playing with stuffed animals, pretending to be an animal, and begging me to let her have a pet. Just a few recent examples...

1. Hannah brought home a President's Day bulletin board project from school (you know, the kind of project the kids make to hang on the bulletin board outside the classroom). It was titled "If I Were President..." This is what she worte (I've corrected her spelling):

I would make everyone have a pet. Because I think that dogs and cats are cute. I would make sure that there were no stealing. Because so everyone could be fair. I would make sure that everyone looked both ways before they crossed the street. Because so no one could be smashed.

2. A week or so ago, Hannah watched an older dog movie called "Bingo." (I had never heard of this movie before.) I saw parts of it as the kids watched it -- it was basically about a runaway circus dog named Bingo that finds a boy, but then the boy moves leaving the dog behind so the dog has many adventures -- using remarkably human-like skills -- to cross the country and find the boy again. It was bath night at our house that evening, so I had the two little girls up in the tub while Hannah was watching the end of the movie. She came upstairs with tears in her eyes and asked me to print out a coloring page from the Internet with a dog that looked like Bingo. Then she asked me if I knew why she was crying (I didn't). She said through her tears that the movie was "so sad and so good" that she wanted a picture that looked like Bingo to put on her wall to remind her that when she's a grown-up she wants a dog like Bingo.

She went on to tell me more about the end of the movie and how Bingo saved the boy from the kidnappers and the bomb, etc. She was quite affected by it! Then it was time for her bath so I got her in the tub and she just sat in the water sobbing. Now it was more "Why can't I have a pet?" and "I just want someone to keep me company," etc. Yes, there is some Mom guilt with the whole pet issue -- I know pets can be great for kids and teach them a lot of things but adding a pet to our family right now is just not a good idea.

My best solution for her was to maybe look and see if there was a WebKinz that looked like Bingo that she might have enough of her money saved to buy. Of course, then I had to figure out what kind of dog Bingo was, which took some searching around on the Internet. We decided he was a collie mix and we found a collie WebKinz that Hannah had just enough money to order. So we ordered it and there's no surprise that she named her new stuffed friend "Bingo."

I've been meaning to take a picture of her with Bingo, but haven't had the chance yet. But here's what the WebKinz collie looks like:

3. Last Saturday Hannah starting making something at the kitchen table. She disappared for a little while and came back with her clothes changed. She was wearing a brown shirt backwards and inside-out and some black pants also inside-out. She proceeded to create some things from paper and tied a rope around her waist ended up with her costume. Can you guess what she is?

If you guessed kangaroo, you're right! She made herself a pouch and put some little pictures in it (but they kept falling out). She went outside for a good part of the afternoon in her costume.

4. Finally, another story from Hannah. She also wrote this one during church, but I'm pretty sure it is all her own creation this time. :-) She asked me to write the title in cursive, I guess because it looks fancy to her. Then she told me to be sure and type up her story so everybody could read it. Here it is (with spelling corrected -- and can you tell she likes exclamation points?):

The Tale of the Pegasus Pony

by Hannah

Once upon a time a little girl who loved to hunt went into the forest and guess what she found! She found a magic ring! The little girl did not know what it was so she brought it home and showed her mom. But yesterday there was a big storm! And her whole family died when the storm happened!

So she looked in the dictionary and found out what it was. So she looked it up. And found out that it was very special. And this is why. Whenever you make a wish on it - an animal wish you will automatically turn into that animal! so she wished to be a pegasus pony! And guess what she was one! And then she flew up up up into the sky and found a magic castle so she went into it and that was where she lived.

The End

So, it's a little morbid with the family dying and everything (I thought she was going to use the magic ring to bring them all back to life), but it's cute. And I've decided that her stories remind me a little of Junie B. Jones books with all the exclamation points and "guess whats".

I love my little animal-lover!