What Is Up With Youth Today?

I know I mentioned back in the day that Hannah and I had made a theater out of a laundry detergent box and puppets out of toilet paper tubes. I was also drafted into wig-making for the puppets, so there are homemade pom-poms in a variety of sizes and colors floating around the house these days. Hannah and her friend decided that the pom-poms make perfect pretend-bombs, so they spent the afternoon of their playdate tormenting John with stealth pom-pom attacks.

Once they had bombs, it was obvious that they also needed a bomb shelter, so the recently re-erected Barbie tent got to serve double duty. Hannah has slept the last 2 nights in the bomb shelter, which is well-supplied with a sleeping bag and blankets, a flashlight, and lidded Tupperware cups, one holding dry cereal and the other water. She’s ready for the big one!

When not preparing for mayhem and destruction, she’s been playing with her Barbies. She was quite methodical about it this last time. She lined up a bunch of them, numbered them off, then assigned them names on a numbered list. The Shelly dolls (and a baby shanghaied from the Loving Family) are assigned to a Mom-Barbie and get that Barbie’s number + 10 (e.g., Barbie #3 is the mom to Shelly #13). She didn’t have as many Kens as Barbies (and one Ken had to be put down because his legs snapped off), but they are also lined up, although on the opposite end of the couch (which means that there is now approximately one foot of clear space on our L-shaped couch that normally seats 5). Hannah asked me if I knew who the guys were. “Back Street Boys?” “Mo-om! They’re a band of robbers.” I think she means highwaymen. I told those guys right up front that the first time I caught them robbing in this house, out they go. Hannah assured me that they do their robbing in town. Whew!

Walking home with Hannah can be quite fun—until she decides that she has some internal injury or that her spine is snapping under the weight of my backpack, while my spine really is snapping under the weight of hers. But up until that point, it is all fun and games for us. For example, I started whistling Jingle Bells, which turned into both of us raspberry-ing Jingle Bells, which morphed into us quacking Jingle Bells. John would not have gone along with this; I have trained my daughter well. Good times.

At the doctor’s office last week, I found out that Hannah is now 1.31 meters tall (about 4 feet, 3-1/2 inches) and weighs 27.2 kilograms (right at 60 pounds). She’s getting to be a loaf!

I also got a recipe from the doctor for a “cold drink”, which tastes very similar to orange Gatorade. It only requires 4 ingredients; recipe on request. Of course, Hannah wouldn’t drink it, because she won’t drink anything without a crust of sugar on top. Boy is she going to get thirsty!

Sorry to add this non-Hannah-related bit, but it is starting to snow, not much, but the flakes are the size of cotton balls! Southern Germany is literally covered in snow—I saw on the news that people in parts of Bavaria have to shovel *the roofs of their houses EVERY DAY* just to avoid having their roofs collapse. One guy on his roof was chest-deep in snow. Christ! They even had to call in the military to help with clearing away all the snow. We can definitely afford the snow more than they can, so I hope this was originally intended for them but made a detour on the way south.