Sleepy Heads

I haven’t posted in a while because both Matt and I have been B-U-S-Y at work lately.  I have been working on an international deal that has me up early for conference calls.  The other morning, I had a 5:30 am conference call.  I came back an hour later to this sweetness:

Ice Ice Baby

Water rules.  At least according to Olivia anyways.  This girl LOVES water!  Ever since she was old enough to drink it, she can’t get enough of it.  Her daycare teachers joke that they’ve never seen any baby get so excited about water.  In fact, every day when I pick her up, she immediately runs towards me doing the sign-language sign for “water” and screaming “wa wa wa wa!”  (Not quite the “hello” I always dreamed of when I picked up my daughter from daycare.)  She won’t relent until I get her cup and fill it with water.  Only then will she give me a hug and kiss. 

Her love affair with water is only surpassed by her obsession with ice.  She always wants to drink out of our cups, hoping we will turn away long enough for her to sneak her hand in and grab a piece of ice.  Anytime Matt fills up her cup, he asks her if she wants ice and she responds with a resounding “IIIICCCCCEEEE!!”  I usually don’t give her plain pieces of ice to eat because (a) it’s the middle of winter and she has no regard for her own body temperature, (b) I’m not entirely sure it’s good for her teeth to be gnawing on ice; and (c) she makes a horrible mess because the ice is so slippery.  But, this past Saturday before bed I offered her a sip of my water and she immediately stuck her hand inside my glass.  We were about to change her clothes anyways, so I let her sit on the kitchen floor and “eat” a piece of ice.  She LOVED it and then….this happened: 

I’m not sure what about water would make a child act like this – I promise it was only water.  But we are in real trouble if she ever gets a hold of a soda!

15 Month Check Up - Kai Saves the Day

I can’t believe that we are dedicating an entire post to Kai, but he has really become a central figure in Olivia’s life that I want to remember later on.  Kai is a little boy in Olivia’s class at school.  He has only been in her class a few months because he was at a different daycare before.  And Olivia is obsessed with him…well, not really with him, but with his name.  She L-O-V-E-S to say “Kai” and that is pretty much her standard answer to most questions.  Any question that has the word “school” in it is definitely getting a Kai response:

Olivia, how was school today?  “Kai”

Olivia, do you want to go to school?  “Kai”

You get the idea.  And most other questions also can be answered with Kai. 

Olivia, do you know where we’re going today?  “Kai”

Olivia, do you know who is coming to our house today?  “Kai”

But he isn’t.  And he hasn’t.  My father gets an especially big kick out of this, especially on Christmas Eve when she kept telling everyone that Kai was coming to our house tonight to bring her presents.

Kai makes his way into other aspects of our life too.  One of Olivia’s favorite books is Lila Leapfrog.  It’s a sweet little story about a frog ballerina who works hard and learns to leap high.  Olivia knows this book very well.  She shakes her head on the page when Lila is sad and she “jumps” on the page when Lila finally learns to leap.  Well, one day Matt or I pointed out that all Lila’s friends are in ballet class with her and we pointed to a blue mouse and said “look, its Kai.”  As you can probably guess, this thrilled Olivia beyond belief.  She now skips right to the pages with the friends and screams “Kai, Kai!” over and over again.  Poor Lila is no longer the star of this book!

And finally, Kai saved the day on the day of Olivia’s 15 month well-visit.  To fully appreciate this story, you need to know that Olivia is a creature of habit and routine - she becomes very upset when things don’t go as she expected.  (Being the daughter of 2 first-born, type-A personalities, I can’t imagine where she got this from!).  She especially likes routine at school. 

So…back to the story…because she had her check-up in the morning, we got to school late – just as all the kids were waking up from their morning nap.  Olivia happily got out of the car and I carried her to the classroom, as I always do, and put her down to walk just before the hallway to her class, as I always do. She ran to the door as usual, but stopped in her tracks because the lights were off.  I nudged her along and she started to cry – clearly confused as to why the kids were sleeping instead of eating breakfast.  So I picked her up and tried to console her, to no avail.  Then 2 of the teachers came over and we all tried in vain to calm her down using a variety of food, drinks and general silliness.  Meanwhile, one of the other teachers was going around the room waking all the kids up and suddenly we heard “Kai…its time to wake up.”  Olivia immediately stopped crying and said “Kai?”  Her teacher said “Yes, do you want to go help wake up Kai?”  She jumped out of my arms, ran over to his mat and began to point at him and yell “Kai! Kai!”  Somehow Kai managed to wake up happy, despite being yelled at, and sat up, smiled and pointed back at Olivia.  And then she was fine.  I gave her a kiss, she told me "bye bye" and I left.  Thank goodness for that Kai!

Her 15-month checkup went great.  She is healthy and growing well.  

Her stats are:

Height – 31” (61%)

Weight – 23 lb, 8 oz (57%)
Head Circumference – 17.99” (41%)

Happy New Year

Although its cliche, time really does fly when you're having fun.  We can't believe 2012 is already over!  As our family Christmas card showed, it was truly pure joy.

We spent New Year's Eve reminiscing about what a wonderful year it has been and we rang in 2013 with some of our best friends!

For the new year, Olivia resolved to give up her paci!  With some help (i.e. tough love) from mom & dad, she is doing great.  We are one week into "Operation No Paci" and so far, so good!  Now if only her mom and dad can follow the good example that she set and carry through on our own resolutions!

So far, 2013 has been great. We are LOVING the funny, curious phase Olivia is in.  She is so observant and curious about the world around her.  She is constantly mimicking things we do or say, trying to do things on her own, and testing her limits.  Her favorite thing these days are books.  She is finally to a point where she will sit and look at an entire book and notice things on the pages.  It is so amazing to see her point out things that we did not even think she knew/noticed!

Her vocabulary is also growing by leaps & bounds!  I am now officially "ma ee" and Matt is "da ee."  She can also basically say and recognize the entire family, which is very exciting.  Other new additions are "mah-ney" (money) and what we hear every time we get to the check-out line in a restaurant or store as she demands a credit card so that she can give it to the cashier! And "ba ba" which is ring-around-the-rosy for some unknown reason. 

Olivia also LOVES these flashcards.  Santa left her a box in her stocking and it is usually the first thing she runs to in the toy closet.  She's getting pretty good...(note - I know Matt sounds like a bit of a task master here telling Olivia to "look at my eyes" but we've found that its a good tool to get her to focus!)

Olivia is also into climbing on/into everything! 

Apparently the apple doesn't fall far from the tree..

And one final funny video is Olivia testing to see how far she can stick her hand in this jar of peanut butter and how tickled she gets when I tell her no.  I obviously need to work on my delivery!

Hogue/Gannon Annual Visit

A few years ago, my dear friends Jill & Erica (along with sweet Blythe) drove down from Dallas to spend a weekend with Matt and I.  We had such a great time that we decided to make it an annual tradition.  This was the THIRD annual trip and I think it was the best one yet.

To put it mildly, Olivia was absolutely, stalker-level obsessed with Blythe.  Sweet Blythe mostly tolerated all the adoration and hopefully wasn't too annoyed by Olivia. 

We spent most of the weekend inside cuddling and reading.

 

 

 And playing tea party

More hugs and kisses before bedtime...

We took a quick trip to the park, but it was pretty chilly.

So we retreated indoors to the the Children's Museum.  We had to divide and conquer because of the different ages, but Aunt Jill went back and forth to make sure she got in some quality time with both girls!

This video cracks me up.  Both girls had just woke up from their naps and Olivia was immediately thrilled to see Blythe still at our house.  Poor Blythe is so sweet in letting Olivia love on her, I'm not sure I would be as polite if I had just woke up!  Matt later commented that for the past 15 months of her life, Olivia's favorite person in any room was either Matt or I --- until she met Blythe!

It was such a great visit and we are already looking forward to the next one!