18 months

It's been a while since I did a "months" update and pretty soon I won't be able to refer to Olivia's age in months anymore so I figured I would get one in. 

• We had Olivia's 18 month well-check today and here are her current stats:
• Weight: 24lbs 12oz - 55the percentile
• Height: 32.75in - 80th percentile.  This number is from the sheet that the nurse gave us but Dr. T said closer to the 90the percentile.  Either way, she's tall.
• Head:  47.5in - 80th percentile = big brains :-)

Mommy doesn't have much farther she can push these back!  A side note: Olivia is very good about not touching things that don't belong to her.  This photo is cute but misleading :-)
• Olivia wears size 4 diapers.  We are currently in a phase where she doesn't mind getting her diaper changed but for a while it was a battle every time.
• A few times she has pointed to her diaper and said "foop" when she had a dirty diaper.  It's encouraging that she is starting to identify when she goes to the bathroom. 
• Clothes are tricky because she has a long torso and shorter legs.  We are in 12-18 months for pants mostly because of the length and 18-24 months in tops because otherwise all her shirts show her belly! 

Cutie in a track suit
• It's winter-ish time in Texas so miss Olivia sleeps in one piece footie jammies or two piece long sleeved jammies with socks that rarely stay on.
• Olivia likes to put shoes on, both hers and mine.  When I put her shoes on I ask her to stand up and stomp her feet so they are on all the way.

Walking in Mommy's shoes
• She also likes to wear hats sometimes.  Mostly she likes to wear any hat that we have on, which makes wearing a hat difficult.  She can put Mike's beanies on by herself.

Grocery shopping is tiring!
• Olivia takes 1 nap a day although there isn't anything clockwork-ish about it.  She goes down between 11:00am-12:30pm and sleeps for 2-3 hours.  Hey, we take what we can get!

That certainly doesn't look comfortable
• She goes to sleep between 7:15-7:45pm and gets up around 7:30am most days.  There was an unfortunate incident a few mornings ago when we were up and at 'em at 5:00am.  Huh?!  Isolated incident thankfully.
• In her crib you will find 1 musical seahorse, 1 puppy, 1-2 Mr. Rabbys, 1-2 babies, and 4+ pacis.

This is usually how she ends up
• Dr. T ok'd the pacis until she's 2 but then the pacis will start to "break", which means we will cut part of the rubber part off so she won't want to suck on them.
• We have an awesome bedtime routine that we started when she was just a few months old.  BEST thing we ever did because bedtime is a structured and predictable time of our day.  7:00pm is bath, then jammies, milk/pick up toys, brush teeth, read books, say prayers, go to bed.  She walks to her room and after we give her kisses and put her in bed, she says "bye!" as we leave.

Sometimes you just gotta have your milk BEFORE your jammies!
• There are an amazing amount of toys in our living room, we have a very lucky girl.  Books are always a favorite and Olivia will read by herself but also loves to be read to.  The likes this singing cat at rolls away from her but not very fast so she just carries it around.  Her vacuum cleaner is popular right now as is her little laptop.  You can tell Mommy works from home because Olivia will sit and "type" on her laptop just like Mommy.  There is usually a favorite of the week.

Hmmm, what to play with . . .
• Olivia doesn't watch a lot of TV but she does like the Fresh Beat Band and we keep a few episodes on the DVR for her.  She claps her hands and slaps her legs like they do in the beginning and sort of sings along to the beginning of the closing song.
• We taught Olivia the hoky-poky sort of.  She will shake her leg, turn around in circles, clap, and then wiggle.  It's hilarious. 

Baby in a basket!
• She plays peek-a-boo, patty cake and does itsy bitsy spider.
• We love singing our ABCs, Wheels on the Bus, and I'm a Little Teapot.
• We have a chatty Cathy (she comes by that honestly) and her vocabulary includes:  yeah, no, please, thank you, cat, book, shoe, foot, hat, ball, mama, dada, hi, bye, water, milk, fork, banana - obviously that one isn't super clear but we get it.  She can say Paw Paw, Papa, Nana, and Nina and we are working on Granny.  We just started hearing the "g" sound so we're getting closer. There are more words but I can't think of them right now.
• Olivia can sign please, thank you, milk, water, more, and bath.
• She can identify her feet, toes, arm, hand, fingers, mouth, nose, eyes, ears, hair, and belly.
• 16 teeth have come in so far and we are just waiting for her to cut her second set of molars.

Say cheeeeeeese!
• We love to play chase around the house and Olivia is very ticklish.  I LOVE hearing her laugh. 
• She has roller coaster eating habits. There are some days when she'll eat well, some where she snacks all day, some days when she just has one good meal . . . she's not starving so I'm not worried about how much she eats.  One morning for breakfast she had 2 waffles, 1/2 a french toast, 1 yogurt, 3 pieces of bacon and 1 yogurt!
• Milk is a big deal in our house and Olivia drinks about 20oz of whole milk a day.  She also drinks tons of water and V8 juice.  That's it, no fruit juice here. 

Mmm, carrot!  Don't let her fool you!  This was taken while she was sick and shortly after I snapped the photo, I went over to find that she was biting off pieces of carrot, chewing them up, and spitting them out!!
• She'll eat all proteins, most fruits (not a fan of melons) and hardly any vegetables - typical.  We drink spinach, banana, almond butter, protein shakes in the mornings so at least she gets some spinach in her system.  Other than that, V8 is her only other vegetable intake most of the time. 

Family spinach/protein shakes
• She LOVES yogurt, berries, pretzels, nuts (we give her tiny pieces of walnuts), brown rice cakes and the occasional vanilla wafer.
• Mike takes Olivia out for runs in the jogging stroller almost every day that the weather cooperates and she is a great co-pilot. 

We are off for a run . . .
• She also likes to play in the backyard on her play scape or picking up rocks and leaves and giving them to me. 

I can climb up the ladder like a big girl!
Happy 18-month birthday sweet girl!!  We love you :-)

Sweet little helper - Part 2

I mentioned in my last post that when I vacuum, Olivia will follow me around with her little toy vacumm.  Usually I'm at home by myself when this happens, which makes it impossible to get a video of it.  Today Mike was here as well when I began vacuuming and was able to capture our helper in action.  When she starts yelling at the end, it's because she wants to see herself on the phone :-)

Sweet little helper

Olivia is quite the little helper.  When I vacuum the house, she gets out her little toy vacuum cleaner and vacuums with me.  When I dust, she "dusts" everything as well with her Mr. Rabby.  This is the latest example of her helpfullness . . .

Next time I'm going to put more water in her cup and give her a mop!

Thanks for all your help sweet girl!