Budding Musician

Bob brought out a harmonica for Olivia the other day and she took right to it. She can play it blowing and drawing, and it _always_ sounds good! A definite plus for a child's instrument. She even got a bluesy sound out of it today - go Olivia!

Clapping for Papa, multi-talented one-man band.

Happy 3rd Thanksgiving, Olivia!

Saturday, we celebrated Olivia's third Thanksgiving in Cambridge with special friends. We feel very blessed to have found "family away from family" so far from 'home'. We all cooked, cleaned, set up and watched toddlers together. And ate, of course! My only regret is that we don't have a bigger house to be able to share the holiday with even MORE of our good friends!
Olivia's seat was by mama, but almost as soon as George vacated his chair, Olivia took up the post by Nancy-Ann and helped herself off of Nancy-Ann's plate - she even ate most of her pumpkin pie!
Olivia, George and Lyra had a grand time together jumping around on the bed upstairs, though it's tough to keep heads from knocking when they fall over! They all play really well together with lots of hugs and a minimum of pushing. (On that topic, Olivia used to maintain her space by running away, and has now figured out that she can defend it by long-arming anyone trying to invade it. It's good that she doesn't run away anymore, but we're working on finding an alternative to a behavior that is awfully close to pushing.)
Kate and Wim and Lyra spent most of the day with us, cooking (and trying to give the girls naps). Bob and Wim were fantastic on baby duty. Bob was the first line of parenting Friday, Saturday and even Sunday. Thanks both Bob and Olivia for giving me so much time in the kitchen, and even some time to lie down alone upstairs! (Speaking of which, I think Bob has fallen asleep upstairs while putting Olivia to sleep, and SHE was asleep when I put her down :-) Tired kids.
It's been an active weekend for Olivia. She is starting to try out more new words. Thursday was 'dirty', Friday was 'moon', Saturday was 'turkey' and 'sticky', and Sunday was names from her books, 'Poppy' and 'Nono'. Olivia is fun and beautiful and ultra-cool. So is her papa, and I think he _must_ be asleep because I came down 45 minutes ago and it's been awfully quiet up there for about 44.5 minutes. To wake or not to wake, that is the question...

Life is too short...

...to not do exactly what you want to do. And, this morning, what Olivia wanted to do was dress in her doggy smock and mama's swimming goggles. She wore them all through breakfast, and is keeping them on hand for future cravings.

Olivia's new word today is "dirty". Not surprising, considering the content of the previous post. You can imagine it's something that has been coming out of mama's mouth alot lately. We are tickled, though, that she has still never said 'no'(verbally, anyways!).

Let's Talk About Two

Olivia is amazing in more than one sense of the word. She is a fast learner. She has been doing a great job of riding her little bike, but today Bob suggested that she pick up her feet, and now she can balance for a fraction of a second as she paddles along then picks up her feet. She spent a long time on her bike this morning trying out her new skills.

Sometimes, she seems to resist learning and leaves no doubt that she has a will of her own. This evening, getting onto the toilet, she touched the inside of the toilet. In summation, I said 'no' with an explanation and she promptly stuck all four fingers in her mouth. 'No, yuck!', wash her hands with soap, and she promptly sticks all four
soapy fingers of both hands in her mouth. Right. 'Does that taste _good_ Olivia?' Shake head 'no'. 'Then, _why_ are you doing it??!' Sticks fingers in mouth again. sigh...
All this, as she is sitting on the toilet doing one of the things she does best right now; going on the toilet. She does a great job of telling us when she has to go, and often really prefers to go on the toilet - so we spend _alot_ of time putting on and taking off nappies and sitting on the toilet/edge of the bath reading Christmas catalogues. It has sure cut down on the poopy nappies though!