Olivia is 2!

Olivia finally had her 2 year well-check 6 weeks after her 2nd birthday.  I spaced on making her appointment at her 18 month well-check and didn't realize it until the beginning of August.  Whoops.  No shots scheduled for the 2 year well-check but she was tortured with her flu shot.  She took it like a champ and Mommy was quickly forgiven when a lollipop was produced once we were back in the car.  Here's a little bit of what is going on in Miss Olivia's life right now:

• She weighs 27lbs, 10oz - 55th percentile.  I'm skeptical because our scale AND my parents' scale says she's over 28lbs.  Oh well.
• Olivia is 35.5ins high - 80th percentile, going to be a tall girl
• Her head circumference is 48.5cm - 75th percentile, plenty of room for that big brain!
• Dr. Thorstad says she's a "good grower" and right on track on the charts
• Olivia is wearing some 24 month and some 2T clothing.  She picks out her shirt every day!
• She's wearing size 6-7 shoes
• We're using size 5 diapers right now.  No sign of potty training yet, she'll let us know when it's time.
• Olivia can count to 15, recognizes all of her letters and numbers, can spell her name out loud, knows her colors, shapes, animals/animal sounds, and body parts. 
• She talks all.day.long and says up to 5 word sentences
• Olivia loves her cats especially Ba (Bella) but is not a fan of dogs
• We have to jog to keep up with her as she zooms around the neighborhood on her bike wearning her Dora helmet
• She loves to run, jump, bounce, skip, and march and is a very energetic child
• She is very coordinated and is very good with her T-ball set and more recently, her little golf clubs.  She's got quite an arm on her and we're trying to teach her to wait until people are looking before she throws
• Olivia likes to color and LOVES stickers
• We read lots and lots of books and right now Olivia likes to hold the book and turn the page while Mommy/Daddy read out loud.
• She LOVES Dora the Explorer.  Loves.
• We sing lots of songs together - Old McDonald, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Rock-a-by baby, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Little Teapot . . .
• Olivia is a good eater and especially loves berries, nuts, and goldfish.  She only eats a few different veggies so we give her low-sodium V8 juice so she gets her servings of vegetables
• Most nights she sleeps 8:00pm-7:30am and she usually takes a nap from 12:00pm-2:30pm-ish **As I write this, it is 9:15pm and Olivia is singing Old McDonald in her crib*
• Olivia started dance class a few weeks ago and really loves it. 
• We still keep her at home but have decided she'll start pre-school part time around her 3rd birthday

We are so proud of our smart, funny, loving little girl!

First day of Kindertots dance class

I took dance classes growing up and LOVED them.  I occasionally wish that I had stuck with them but then realize how much I also LOVED playing sports.  Now I have the opportunity to live vicariously through Olivia as she begins her dance career.  Ok, that might be a little dramatic given that we'll allow her participate in whatever activity she wants (please by dance or sports, please be dance or sports, please be dance or sports) but anyway . . .

I signed her up for Kindertots at the Rec Center Mike and I are members of.  Kindertots is specifically geared towards 2-3 year olds who no dance background.  Olivia doesn't go to daycare and she doesn't spend any time in an instructional environment so I thought this would be a great way to see if she would enjoy dance enough to listen to the teacher and follow along.  The class is 30 minutes long, a perfect length for toddlers, and the teacher plays different songs that she adds very simple moves to.  It turns out that Kindertots is actually an organization that sends instructors to various rec center-like locations specifically to teach classes like this so Miss Kristen was very good at adjusting the activities for the instruction following ability of the group.  That being said, there were 2 little girls in the group who had been in the last Kindertots session and Olivia did almost as much as they did!

Thanks for tying my ballet shoes Miss Kristen

 

I'm on my purple spot, let's get this show on the road!

 

Learning how to point and flex her toes

 

These are my toes Amelia

 

 

Point like this?

 

Merry-go-round time

 

Up, up, up . . .

 

. . . down, down, down . . .

 

. . . round and round!

 

Olivia loves to twirl around.  She does it everyday and not just when she's wearing a tutu.  Olivia prefers to twirl around with her eyes closed, which get a little tricky given that we have furniture and walls in our house.  We tell Olivia she has to look where she is going when she twirls so here she is trying to look behind her and she twirls in circles.

 

Ok folks, what's next?

 

Actually holding hands when asked to!

 

Hands on your head for a sticker at the end!

 

 

They did do more than go around in circles.  At one point Miss Kristen gave them flowy pieces of fabric that were their "butterfly wings" and they ran around pretending to be butterflies.  Olivia did that and a couple of other activities pretty close to Mike who was the one taking the pictures.  Funny story - this morning Olivia decided to sleep an hour later than usual!  We don't set an alarm on the weekends when Mike doesn't have to work because Olivia rarely sleeps later than 7:30am.  Well I woke up at 8:30am and we hustled to get out of the house by 8:45am to get to the 9:00am dance class.  In all the commotion, Mike didn't grab his other camera lens so he couldn't take pictures of Olivia when she was close to him.  Meh, no biggie, Olivia did very well and had a great time.  Kindertots = success!!