Hannah will be 8 years old on July 4th of this year. She is the granddaughter of my husband- which, of course, makes her my granddaughter as well, and I accept her with open arms. Hannah is a love child like no other child I have ever met.
Usually when talking about a child/person one doesn't feel the need to "explain" a child before beginning to talk about them. But in this case, well.....it will add volumns to where Hannah is coming from, if there is actually a way of really knowing this.
Hannah was born with Asperger's syndrome. The first time I met Hannah and spent any amount of time with her, she was about 3 years old and smiled all the time. The next time we had Hannah, she was about 5 years old - but seemed like she was 3 years old due to her lack of speech development. That's what stood out to me the most because she lacked the ability to communicate in any kind of speech pattern that made sense to us. Hannah seemed content because we followed her everywhere in the house and just listened to the stream of sounds that came from her. She laughed very easily and seemed happy all the time. Only when it was time, in her mind, to go back home, did it seem a little dicey to keep her content. Once "Mommy" was on her mind, "Mommy" was who she wanted and Hannah wanted "Mommy" or to go home RIGHT NOW.
Because of Hannah's repetitive speech, when she comes to visit, whether her mother has told her we may go and see a movie, or if she remembers from times past - the first repetitive words are "Movie?", "Popcorn?", and "Soda?". She may ask this several times in a 30-minute period, so try imagining this being asked all day. The next word is "Swimming?" - because she did go swimming at her Aunt's house with her grandfather. "Bathing suit" is also mentioned several times until we go to the store to pick one out. She loves new bathing suits and new flip flops. And she likes as much bling-bling as possible.
Hannah is nothing but stylish.
We went to a family reunion on my husband's side of the family this past weekend and Hannah stayed in the pool probably 7 hours out of the 8 hours we were there. She stayed on the steps located at the shallow end of the pool, and since she can't swim as yet, that was a good place for her to be. There were several other children in the pool, at all stages of swimming ability, and she seemed to have a good time with them all.
I'm frustrated in writing this because I don't feel that I am using enough words to let somehone know the esscense of who Hannah is, but instead, just some facts that I have put down. Maybe, as yet, I don't know who Hannah is except that she loves me and tells me so many, many times during the day as she deposits sweet kisses on my lips or cheek. She is loving in a way that I can't explain, maybe because it is so intense but just so natural and normal for her at the same time.
So much history and life's details swirl around Hannah and to really explain or have a chance of getting to know Hannah, you would have to know about her conception, her birth, her mother, her grandmother.......and her very distant father, which no one in the family has any interest. But he is a part of Hannah's history. And of course there is the ever present Asperger's Syndrome, which I read about but don't necessarily see Hannah in the symptoms that are talked about on the internet. I have much to learn. I have looked for support groups thinking I might be able to learn more about the condition from others who have a child with this syndrome. My search hasn't come up with anything yet. I think I need to take a different direction in my search.
I have to back up here and give Hannah more acknowledgement than I have done. The first thing I noticed this visit was that she has learned the alphabet, not to just recite the letters, but to print the letters. She will say a word or I will say a word, then I'll spell the word for her and she will print out the word, just as swiftly as can be. This is huge and how could I have not mentioned this? Hannah is so good at this that she printed out a little note that tells me she loves me. Very, very nice.
Hannah is back home, but will have a week's visit with us the middle of July. More Hannah fun coming up.
