Fun with the computer

Pics from the computer camera:

2 years and 3 months!

What a month! It's been stormy and raining for days, so we've had to come up with indoor activities that don't involve shopping at Target. Not that Olivia doesn't socialize--she spends Tuesdays with her Granddad & Nona & Gus and then Wednesdays with Grandma and Elena. On Thursdays, Chris takes her swimming and then Fridays, we just chill at home. It's a pretty fun schedule with something social and/or educational every day.

The big news is potty training. When we first started two months ago, it seemed like a lost cause. Let's just say there was a tremendous amount of pee on the rug and nothing in the potty. Now she's using the potty 75% of the time and is going without pull-ups except for sleeping. I try not to be too invested in it, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little frustrated when she stands in front of me with wet pants saying, "I'm wet, Mommy." Most of the time, I'm really excited about this last hurdle from baby-hood to kid-hood.

Otherwise, we've been having lots of fun drawing on the cardboard house (she always asks for caterpillars, kitty cats, boats, and lady bugs):

Helping with the dishes:
Going to sleep with Bunny in the big bed:

And waking up and looking mournful:

2 Years and 2 Months

It's the 19th and Olivia is 2 years and 2 months old today. Here's a picture of her drawing on a cardboard playhouse I made for her today.

Her preferred drawing implement is the ball point pen and, in my opinion, she's developed a very distinctive style. I've included some samples of her work below. She likes to cover a surface with these tight little scribbles, then pull

them together with a few big ones. Sure I'm biased, but I find them quite compelling.

Each one of these little hieroglyphs apparently represents something as well, as you can see in Alisa's annotated example. Alisa asked Oliva, "what's your drawing about?" and came back with all sorts of subjects like ice cream and backpacks.

Lately we've been...

...playing with ladybugs...

...painting with finger paints...

...washing our hair...

2 years and 1 month (officially)!

We're having lots of fun around here--being two is pretty exciting for Ms. Olivia. She's talking and singing a lot. Sometimes the clarity of her words surprises me. The other day she hugged a book and said, "This is a wonderful book." She's also entered into a new phase of playing where she's interacting with her playthings in imaginative ways. We discovered this while at Child's Play toy store when we found Olivia at the Calico Critters table putting the tiny plastic hedgehogs to bed with their blankets. (The utter cuteness of the scene required us to lay down $40 for a set of tiny furniture and critters to bring home, as seen above.) Last night, I was surprised when she said, "Mommy, I'm a circle." That turned into a whole other game where we turned into triangles, squares, and lions. Lions always turn up in our games somehow.

Other favorite activities: creating forts by draping a sheet over the ottoman or just sitting under a table, stacking her blocks and knocking them down, taking all of her magnetic letters off the board and then putting them all back on, playing hide and seek (she just stands in the other room in full view believing that she's invisible to us), reading, and singing.

Of course she's loving her "Finding Nemo" movie as well as "Shaun the Sheep" and "Super Why." We're trying to keep TV time to a maximum of 90 minutes a day, which usually translates to "Sesame Street" in the morning and 20-30 minutes of a movie before bed. She also plays while I watch Oprah, but that doesn't count. :) Sometimes we catch Dr. Phil if Oprah's a rerun, and when we told her we were going to the doctor yesterday, she kept saying she wanted to see Dr. Phil. Oy.

About that doctor visit, her two-year checkup, Dr. Carol was again very impressed by Olivia's verbal and motor skills and her outgoing nature. She also gave us some tips for our next big adventure: potty training. Oh, boy.

Not all sunshine and rainbows

I want Olivia to look back on this blog and know how much her parents love her and adore every single thing about her. That's how I want to remember this time in our lives too. But on a day like today, when I'm so tired my eyes are burning, I think I want to just tell the straight dope. Having a kid is hard. Having a two-year-old is really hard. Olivia's been fighting a cold for almost two weeks now, the kind of cold that includes green snot and wet coughs. I can't even count how many times in the past few days that she's coughed in my face or wiped a booger on my hand.

Last night, she just couldn't keep it together, crying and throwing herself face-first on the floor, so I put her to bed a half hour early and thought some sleep would help. At 1 a.m., she woke up coughing and crying and Chris tried to soothe her. After an hour of her crying, I suggested that we give her some Tylenol and he suggested that I go back to bed, he was handling it. I suggested that he didn't know what he was talking about and that made him suggest that I go to hell. (There's nothing like arguing in the middle of the night. It's comical, really.)

She finally fell asleep in our bed around 2:30 am only to wake again an hour later, crying. She didn't want water, milk, juice, medicine, or even her blankie. Around 4:00 am, we all curled up on the couch and watched a video with cartoon animals riding in wagons. It helped for a little bit but it was clear she was tired. We all were. So I held her, walked around for a bit and then we all got back in bed. I rubbed her little feet and then knew she was asleep when I heard her snore her little snore.

At 7:30 am, she rolled over and put her smiling face right next to mine and said, "Mommy, wook!" and pointed to some shadows on the wall. It was like the night before had never happened.

That's the number two!

Olivia's Birthday party!