catching up

I've been sick for over a week with a cold and have been EXTRA slacky about updating lately. On the plus side, freelance work is picking back up and I passed all the testing and training to become a kgb_ agent, so I've been really busy on top of the my normal pregnant mom chasing a toddler tiredness. :P

Just a few quick things while I feed her breakfast of dah-doze (Cheerios) and dix (Kix).

-- she had her first haircut a couple of weeks ago to remove her glorious rat tail. I thought I might cry, but the crying was all her. She did not enjoy it one bit. They gave me the little tail to take home in a tiny ziploc. Bye-bye, mullet!

-- we went to the zoo the other day, and she's still talking about the animals she saw. She seems to have been most impressed by the polar bear, who she says played peek-a-boo with her.

Olivia-isms that are cracking us up lately:

-- when something scares her, she turns into a guy from a Prego commercial, doing her best Italian accent: "Oooooh, that's-a scaaaarrryyyy!"

-- she has a little ram toy that she calls "I the ram." She asks us what I the ram says, and also puts her Diego figure on top of him and says "Diego riding the ram!" I think I the ram came from me singing "I'm the ram" to the tune of "I'm the map" from Dora. She loves her little people animal set and knows all of the animals, even the iguana (eye-na-na), jaguar, vulture, zebra, and she knows the difference between the rhino and the hippo, both of which look pretty similar to me! While I think her pronunciation is really good for a toddler her age (almost 19 months), she calls and elephant an "ut."

I'm sure there's more, but Miss O, or O.E., as she still calls herself, demands to get down and play. Off we go!

one toddler, two days, zero naps.

We just got home from a quick overnight trip to Lexington to visit our cousins and their two girls. The trip was great (thank you, portable DVD player!), but our timing was a little off -- we arrived Saturday around naptime and were silly enough to think that she'd go down for her nap in a new house with new playmates and two very exciting dogs. I put her in her pack n' play and went in about 10 minutes later to find that she'd reached the package of wipes on the dresser and filled the PNP with over half of them. I gave up trying to force a nap at that point.

We left before noon today, thinking she might sleep in the car. Again, silly us! We got home at 3:00 and by 5pm, poor Olivia was a mess. Yawning, rubbing her eyes, crying at everything, pulling her hair. I picked her up to console her and she was conked out on my shoulder within 20 seconds. It's going to make for a long night for us, but she's in her crib sleeping right now. It seemed mean and entirely unpleasant for all to try to keep her up until her usual 7pm bedtime.

Maybe she'll be so tired from two days of no napping that she'll sleep through the night? Ha!

18 months old

She's a year and a half old! Unbelievable. I look at her baby pictures and then at her, and it's amazing to me that she's grown into such a little person so quickly.

On 8/7/2009:


And what she does when you ask her to make her "silly face." This expression is also combined with a funny "Ooooooooooooh!" sound for maximum comedic effect. She's a little ham -- wonder where she gets it.

stack 'em up!

Olivia learned a new trick -- stacking up little containers of Parkay -- in a restaurant in North Carolina.

uploading ...

Hi everybody! My mom has been a total slacker and still hasn't uploaded photos from our beach vacation. She promised she's going to work on it this weekend, so stay tuned!