Olivia at 13.5 months

You know how your child does something and you think it’s the greatest thing ever and everyone else is rolling their eyes because they could care less? You’ve been warned. This post is filled with eye-rolling awesome things Olivia is doing.

I wasn’t going to continue with these updates, but then one of my blogging besties, JAllen, said I should do them every six weeks for her second year because there are still so many changes.

And there have been so many changes, you guys. As she would make little worldly connections or do something adorable, I would find myself thinking, I should put this in her update. So I decided every six weeks it is. Only a much shorter photo op, which Olivia was thrilled about.

Plus, I realized how much I did miss doing them even though they take HOURS UPON HOURS to put together. But so many of you said how much you like reading these (I’m sorry if they’re not as amusing to read, but it’s really a giant information dump. With pictures of course. There always has to be pictures. I always seem to put in way too many pictures.)

So without further ado:

Nicknames: Ollie, Monkey, Monks, Bug

Weight: about 21 lbs 3 oz
Length: about 29.5 inches
Diaper size: 4
Shoe size/Clothing Size: 3/ 12 months
Teeth: 6 (four upper, two lower)

Eating: She’s been consistently eating three meals a day- go me! I want to say she was maybe a year old when she went from sampling food (aka: touch it to her mouth and then throw it on the floor) to actually eating food. Chewing and swallowing and omg it’s the cutest thing ever. She is starting to act like a jerk toddler now and seems to be developing preferences.

We keep frozen sweet potatoes and veggies on hand for nights when Chris and I make a frozen pizza or get take-out, but I’ve noticed she doesn’t really want to eat these things anymore. But make her some chicken lime tacos and girl is scarfing. She does indeed have a preference for Mexican food, much to my delight. She also loves blueberries, yogurt, cottage cheese, and my homemade chicken noodle soup. Oh, and apples. Apples are her jam.

She isn’t a huge fan of meat, besides ground hamburger (in tacos, of course). Other than that, she’ll eat pretty much anything, it’s just the quantity that differs. We’ve been trying to get her to practice with spoons and forks. It’s coming along…

She went through a stage of gagging more than usual, but Chris thought it was due to her testing her boundaries again now that she’s eating more and has more teeth. If she can’t swallow something safely, she politely spits it out which is adorable now, but probably not when she’s five. With all her eating, comes the inevitable Being Done in which she will happily toss any remaining food on the floor, much to Toby’s enthusiasm, and then I curse myself for not practicing the “all done” sign more.

I’m now giving her a sippy cup of water every day, but she’s not as enthusiastic about it as I wanted her to be. She does like her straw cup and her Munchkin 360s the best, but I’m hesitant to give her my thawed breastmilk to drink at her leisure, because she’s awful at not dribbling all over the place.

It’s still a work in progress apparently. I also gave her a snack cup to try on her own with Cheerios and she got the concept in no time. So now on mornings we need to get out of the house, I can give her a cup of Cheerios to play with while I get ready.

She is nursing 4-5 times a day and once in the early morning hours.

Sleeping: It’s been great. No complaints, though I’m wondering when the next sleep regression will hit. Her naps in the morning have been lasting consistently an hour and a half verses her old 2 hours. The afternoon one will be between an hour, and an hour and half, but sometimes it’s skipped or very short. My window for getting things done while she sleeps has drastically changed. I am thankful that the nights have been going really well, because she goes down around 7-7:30 and will sleep until about 5-6:00 a.m. and then again after she nurses until 8:30 a.m. I’m nursing her to sleep for the most part and sometimes she will transfer to her crib still sleeping and sometimes she goes down awake and wails the saddest cry for a few minutes and then passes out. On my favorite nights, she will go down awake, babble to herself for a bit and then fall asleep.

Milestones: Oh this girl. She’s growing up so much. She’s such a little toddler. Her walking is going so well. It wasn’t long ago when she would crawl around 90% of the time and now she has NO time for crawling.

She’s getting faster and more sturdy, but tends to get really clumsy when she’s tired. She isn’t even as bow-legged anymore. She’ll squat down to get things and stand right up again. And she loves putting smaller toys in play cups, or her little car. The other day, Chris saw her “feeding” her baby doll (with a play ketchup bottle, but we’ll work on that). She loves to “dance” which consists mainly of bobbing her head from side to side, shakes her head, “no,” but I don’t think it actually means “no.” She’s clapping her hands more which she sort of did a few months ago, but she’s bringing it back. Same with waving goodbye to people.

Communication: One of my favorite new things she’s doing is pointing to objects she wants to know about, and in her tiny baby voice will inquire, “Da?” and you tell her what it is and you can visually see the satisfaction on her face. If you ask her, she will point to Mom, Dad, Toby, herself (50% of the time), and Grandma and Grandpa. She has a delicious cheesy smile she gives everyone, especially cashiers and to no one at all, leaving me to wonder is she sees someone we can’t. She’s also pointing to some objects in her books when asked: ball, boy, boat, dog. She says Mama, Dada, and lots of babbles.

Activities: She’s still in her baby ECFE until the end of January and is LOVING it. She loves being around the other babies. We haven’t been to a La Leche League meeting in awhile, but I’m planning on going to one this week. We also have been going periodically to the Play Cafe, the indoor play place that opened 30 minutes from us in September. I won a gift card there awhile back, so it’s been free, but really, for $5.00, it’s not bad.

Health: Chris and I are both recovering from a sucky GI bug we both caught, but Olivia never caught it. She’s been healthy, save some small teething episodes, but even those she handles like a champ. I haven’t had to give her any teething tablets or medication for it. We’ve still been avoiding eggs, but she eats egg noodles now without getting any rashes, which is great. Her food challenge is at 15 months, in February.

Likes: For my baby shower, I got this purple Sophia couch that folds out and she was all about that for a few weeks after her first birthday.

She loves her snack cups (see above) that she loves, but it makes a huge mess. Just like her sippies. I can walk around my house and find these little piles of Cheerios all over until I sic Toby on them. She’s been REALLY into playing with Toby now. It’s adorable, until she grabs his toy to play.

She also loves any toy she can wheel around, eating, walking around, playing with the kitchen cabinet doors and child-proof locks, and reading her books.

In fact, she’s really starting to actually sit and listen to books now and when she is holding them by herself, she is careful to make sure they face the right way. She loves brushing her teeth (we’ve been doing it once at night since her first birthday). She still loves her baths and is starting to attempt to use her bath squirters.

And looking out the window at the white snow is always a good pastime.

Dislikes: Still not a fan of getting her face wiped. And it’s hard for her to understand when I don’t want her to do certain things like play in the garbage or smack the dog in the face. She isn’t a fan of getting things taken from her. The other day I gave her an ice cube to play with and she thought it was the greatest thing ever—until I took it away so she wouldn’t get frostbite and she wailed. Because I’m a jerk. Otherwise, she’s been remarkably good at redirection and if I say in my Mom Voice, “Olivia, you don’t touch!” she is pretty good at backing away.

Looking forward to: At this point, I’m ready for her ECFE class to start up again (we have two classes left of the winter session) and for Storytime at the library to resume. Winter is long enough without being stuck in the house so much during the week. Plus, she is moving out of the (free) baby classes since she hit a year and this next one in February will involve snack time and gradual separation with parents. Let’s just take a moment and reflect on how big our baby is getting, shall we?