What's new

I get bored playing with a toddler all morning and I don't get all my to-do's finished during Olivia's naptime, so I've started doing things *nearby*, which seems to be a happy medium.  While I washed windows O played with her kitchen toys, which include a turkey baster, a silicone funnel, Tupperware orphans, empty containers, her duck walker, lawn mower, a mini-tart shaper. (I don't know why I have one!  I even have two jars of lemon curd but never made the things.)  She's happy because I'm nearby and can answer all her questions*, and I'm happy because I didn't have to waste naptime washing windows. 

*Olivia says a lot of words, but none of them are English.  I am told her voice goes up at the end of a phrase because she's mimicking me; women tend to do this ("cow? fan? shoe?") while men's inflection stays even or goes down.  Most of the time I just agree with her or say, "Oh, really?"  "You don't say!"  I fully expect to hear her say these things later, like a little parrot. 

Two people have claimed to hear her say "ga-ma" (one of which is her grandma), but I remain skeptical.  Steve maintains that she has a word for "Riley."  She started saying, "mama" on Mother's Day, but I don't think she is referring to me; it may just an abbreviation of her previous "mamamamamama" word.  ("Mama?" "Yes, Baby."  "Mama?"  "That's me!"  "Mama?"...)  When we put on her shoes, she'll say "soss".  So shoes are socks and socks are socks.  We haven't figured out what "au jus" means, but she says it a lot and never incorrectly prefaces it with "with" (i.e. French Dip sandwich with au jus).  She seems to try to say other words like "duck" and she'll consistently woof when she sees, hears, or hears the word for "dog."  She signs "more" and "all done," although most of the time it's after being prompted. 

Oh and?  Olivia climbs up on chairs, which means the baby-proof zone has gotten a lot smaller.  I found her on a table in her nursery playing with tiny little ponytail holders which had been "safely" on top of the chest of drawers.  I use this yellow chair to keep her dresser drawers shut so she doesn't lick the batteries, but now she climbs on the chair and can access the top of the dresser.  I'm sure it's only a matter of time before I find her sitting on top of the dresser.  Now that she's such a monkey I've started teaching her to crawl down the stairs.  She still wants to walk right off the first step, though.  No fear!

If you ask her to twirl she'll slowly spin around.

She claps and laughs along with people on TV.

Give her a hairbrush and she'll brush her hair. 

If you leave your shoes laying around she will take them and try them on.  She will steal your shoes through the gate at the bottom of the stairs, and hide one.

She'll "brush" my teeth with the toothpaste tube as I brush hers with the fingertip brush.

Several people have commented lately that her hair has some red in it.

If you give her a handful of crackers she'll stuff them all in her mouth and drool until they dissolve, unable to chew.  Part of me thinks this is hilarious.

When I drain the tub she realizes her bath is over and kneels face-down, trying to hide like, "If I can't see you, you can't see me!" 

She greets strangers at the store with a "hi" and now a wave.  Sometimes she'll lean over the side of the cart with her arms out for them to pick her up.  I know she really wants them to hold her for three seconds and then put her down so she can run around.

But kids will make a liar out of you, so if you see her don't expect her to do any of this.