Hannah is 21!

Parabens a Voce Hannah! Nesta data querida!

No forgetting number 21 at the Tombs! Happy, I think, that you are still on the team. Shout out to my devoted fans, Allie and Lindsay--thanks for not letting her get 21 marks on her arm...

I traveled to DC for a pre-birthday bash amongst the somewhat faded cherry blossoms a couple weeks ago. Had fun watching Hannah do what she does--row, bike, walk, study, sleep, work, eat, not in that order. Here is Hannah with her free birthday Georgetown Cupcake of the day--Cookies and Creme--right before she keeled over and fell asleep after getting only a few short hours the night before.

Last nite on 60 minutes they had a piece on post-Loma Prieta earthquake rebuilding of the Bay Bridge. Twenty years ago we lost some of our more delicate wedding gifts to that rocker when Hannah was only 5 months old. Here they are, twenty years later, still rebuilding and fingers crossed they will complete this "quake-proof" bridge before the Hayward Fault slips again, any minute now. (Last time it slipped - 1868. Average time interval of slips - 140 years. 140th anniversary - 2008. Gulp. This is not a good time to relocate to Berkeley, thank you Stanford for rejecting Christiana...) Of course, not a good time to be living here on the Oregon Coast either. Plate tectonics are a bitch.

And all this while that the bridge building has continued, Hannah has been living her life. She was born to us naive newlyweds of only 6 months confirming her grandmother's sage warning, "The first baby can come any time, the rest take nine months." We lived in a third floor walk-up in the Sunset district, built on sand, not a great foundation for quakes. I delivered Hannah naturally, pushing all 8 pounds 7 oz. of her for an hour and a half with enough force to break my own tailbone, speaking of plate tectonics. Ouch. Afterwards the nurse and doctor both informed us that ours was the first natural birth they had ever seen. What? I had no aspirations of martyrdom. Especially around 8 cm. All those Lamaze drop-outs, who knew? Hannah paved the way, pushing that pesky coccyx aside, making me wish I still walked on all fours as I crawled around recovering, vowing "Never again," and going on to deliver six more babies who did, indeed, take nine months...

So, we cut our teeth on Hannah, our perfect first child. She was so happy and easy and made us feel like the best parents in the world. So successful. So competent. She sat on the floor and grinned at everyone and everything, content. No hurry to crawl. No rush to walk. She quietly went about her life doing great things and making no fuss about it. "Goody, goody Hannah," her grandmother called her when she potty-trained her with a pack of gum. And she was.

Happy Birthday Hannah!

Love,

Mom
XOXO

Happy 20th Birthday Hannah Amelia!

See Hannah!
See Hannah Row!
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This photo was taken during practice on a rare warm day last November when I had the pleasure of spending my 47th birthday with my oldest child in DC watching the beautiful synchronicity of her strokes on the Potomac from a rowboat with her coach yelling orders with a megaphone behind me. I wish I could do it again on Sunday for her 20th birthday. Boo hoo. We will be diving at the Catalina Islands to complete our certification while Hannah turns 20 without us at Georgetown where she is finishing up her sophmore year, majoring in Physics with a concentration in Pre-Med and a minor in Portuguese. In a few months she will be landing in the wilds of Rio to Fala Portuguese until Christmas, hopefully perfecting her minor so she can concentrate on classes like Relativity and Quantum Physics or Multivariable Calculus! Yummy!
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Hannah was born in San Francisco, our only California girl, looking calmly at us with her brown eyes. She entered this world on the day Lucille Ball exited, leaving us all with laughter dying on our faces. Hannah knit our smiles right back together. She was a great baby to cut our teeth on with her calm demeanor and happy grin, waiting patiently for us to catch on to the art of parenting. In no hurry to challenge us by moving around, Hannah was content to sit and smile while her friends crawled around her. She paved the way nicely for her siblings to follow in her path, literally, as she broke my tailbone to get it out of the way during delivery. Ouch. Hannah was always the voice of my conscience growing up, telling me things like, "Mom, you can't park here!" The firstborn, the rule follower; Tuesday's child, full of grace.
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We moved to Oregon when she was one, time for her to come out of the closet, the only space for her crib in our third floor Sunset apartment with a view of the Pacific. There she was joined by her confident sister, Christiana, and her cute brother Micah who followed their every lead, even when he found himself dressed in red velvet with a bow in his hair. Hannah waited, quiet and observant by my side, as her second brother, Noah, was delivered into her world of 7 years which she welcomed him to with wisdom and love. They shared an instant bond as if each were the one the other had been waiting for. Noah learned to climb quickly with the added incentive of Hannah's hidden candy stash on her bed which he secretly ravaged when she was at school. She bravely sang Counting Sheep, a beautiful lullaby, for the crowd at Noah's funeral 15 short months later. She held her brother Jonah gently and added her 8 year old tears to the growing puddle on his sweet little lifeless face. We moved to RI when she was 10 and she joyfully welcomed Isaiah and Bella Grace to her collection of siblings in the years that followed! She has been an excellent role model for them all! "Goody, goody, Hannah!" as her Grandma Kittel named her when she learned to go potty like a big girl.
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Hannah began her love affair with Portuguese when we lived in the Algarve for a year where she distinguished herself as always with her intelligence and had her onstage debut as a beauty school dropout in Grease. She returned to Portsmouth High and proudly drove the sand van to graduate with a fistful of honors and a happy invitation to become a Hoya. Clearly, she had mastered the art of crawling and had, indeed, learned to run. She took on the challenge of crew in her typical quietly confident way and has been rowing and studying in our nation's capital ever since, mastering the art of city living while honing her award-winning shelving abilities in the science reference library. She came here to Costa Rica for Christmas vacation with her friend, Alicia, and we had a great time swimming and playing together as a family for a short 10 days. (Photo below) We miss her! But we are very proud of her as she continues to excel in her endeavors and grow into a capable and lovely young lady. Our hats are off and our feet are jiggling to our Hannah Banana, Banana Skittle and she has 20 times 5 spankings waiting for her when next we gather!
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Parabens a Voce, Nesta Data Querida, Muitas Felizidadas, Muitos Anos de Vida, Hoje e Dia de festa, Cantam as Nossas Almas, Para menina Hannah, Uma Salva de Palmas!
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Feliz Cumpleanos a Ti!
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Con Mucho Gusto Y Mucho Amor,
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Mom (K3)