Olivia loves to play games with us now. She really likes one in particular…
She also enjoys sitting in chairs for some reason. Kathy bought her a new chair to sit in at the lake and Olivia really enjoys it. We tested it out this weekend 
I can’t even keep up with the number of words that she knows now. Her list of German words is getting bigger too, and we’re trying to work with her some, but its tough since we don’t speak it at the house. Anyway, Olivia loves being more responsible, and she wants to do everything on her own now. She laid on her back on the floor trying to put pants on (over her shorts) for about 5 minutes yesterday.
She loves being outside and running around.
She also enjoys feeding herself.
I was just reading back through some posts from 2 years ago (when we found out we would be parents), and I really went out on a limb making some wild assumptions about the type of parents we would be. Well, call me crazy, a fortune teller, or whatever, but we’ve actually stuck to our plan. We do not celebrate things that are unwarranted, we do not buy our kid toys, silly expensive shoes, or feed her junk food. Sure she gets to play with sticks and rocks, but thats what all the spoiled kids do. Olivia really enjoys picking up scraps in my shop and throwing them into a bucket or into the trash. Thats just her personality, and she’s been like that since she started to develop one. She likes things tidy, and I’m pretty sure that her mom and I didn’t teach her that, because we’re not the most tidy people.
I’m really happy that Olivia plays with other kids, she’s speaking english and german, she can almost run, and doesn’t care about the tv (other than watching the same 2 episodes of elmo over and over. no kidding, i’ve tried to show her other episodes and she won’t watch). I’m also pleased that she’ll eat anything that we put in front of her, even the stuff that Kathy and I hate. On her 2nd birthday, we’re taking her out for some sushi .
Some of you may or may not know that we have an elevator that we use on a daily basis to get downstairs to the basement/garage. Olivia gets to ride in it as well and she really likes it. Today this happened….watch the video.
It took a lot of convincing on Olivia’s part, but Stan (the cat) finally gave in and he’s officially friendly with Olivia. Also you might notice that Olivia is wearing little girl panties. She’s doing pretty well with the potty training and she does her best to tell us when she needs to “pee pee”.
Ok, so I was potty training Olivia right before she turned one. I would put her on her frog after naps and she would pee in it every other time. She was sick a bunch so I slacked off on it and I should not have. Now she is walking and I can’t really put her on the frog since it sits on the ground. So, we now have to put her on the big toilet with a kids seat on it, that way she can’t just take off.
This weekend we put her on the toilet a bunch and she just sat there and stuffed stickers and toilet paper down in the bowl. She knows the word “pee pee” and heads straight for the bathroom but just sits there and likes to be entertained by mama. After trying all day she finally said “pee pee” on her own, so I followed her to the bathroom put her on the potty and after some convincing and grunting on MY part she grunted some and pooped like a big girl. At the end I let her flush and she got a kick out of watching everything disappear……while I held her hands or otherwise they would have ended up in the toilet!
We went to the doc yesterday for Olivia’s 15 month update. Here’s the short of it. She got a couple of shots, one in the leg and one in the arm. She didn’t like that. She got her finger pricked twice to check for anemia, and her red blood cell count was lower than ever (26/8.9). We had to go to the lab to get more blood drawn (from her arm). She didn’t care for it, but seems to dislike shots in the shoulder even more. We’ll know more on the results on Monday. Until then, we have no idea the consequences or path forward if she is anemic. I’m fine being ignorant for one more weekend… so no questions and no advice about the subject please. I’ll pass along more information when I find it out.
She was super happy last night though, and slept very well. It was a big day for the both of us!
UPDATE: Olivia just needs even more iron… The doc will check her again in 3 months, but this should go away on its own.
My kid doesn’t need a lot of fancy toys to keep her happy…
She loves to eat popsicles with mommy too!!!
Kathy and I put our new tile down this weekend. Yes, we have a lot of tile in our house. I’ll have more pics soon with the cabinets reinstalled, new sink, and hopefully new counter tops also. Olivia snuck into the video also.
We are wayyyyy overdue for some posts, so I’m making time now since Jon posted some videos.
Olivia is turning into a toddler, fast. The week of christmas she started walking without help, now she prefers walking over crawling.
She recently discovered her eyelashes and will violently pull on them or walk up to you and pull on yours. She loves to throw the cats kisses and will give us some as well.
After months of trying and practicing she finally can push the home buttom on our iPhones to make the screen come up, she loves it every time (probably because she can see her own picture).
She can also blow her nose when its runny or not. You can give her a tissue and she attempts do clean it herself or just tell her to blow while you hold the tissue for her.
She can give high five.
She can stack shaped blocks (puzzle).
You can tell her “brush brush” and she’ll brush her teeth with her mini toothbrush.
She will talk on the phone, even when no one is on the other end.
She’ll share her food with you, sometimes right out of her mouth. As of now, she is like a garbage disposal and eat whatever you put in front of her.
Here are some of the words she can say (except for shoes and socks, she knows what the words mean)
- Mama & Daddy
- PaPaw
- Hi and Bye
- Shoes and socks
- Head, Nose & Belly button
- Juice
- Cheese
- Eat, more, & bite
- Night night
- Elmo (she says Elbo)
- Baby
- Abby our cat
- Kitty
- Bottle
- Bath
- Tissue
- Ball
- Up (on the couch, out of her chair or hold me) & down
- Pat
She already had her hand in toilet water and finally she is repeating “NO”…let the fun begin.