Olivia at 3 years old

Let’s talk about this little girl who’s THREE! My baby is three. You guys, my love for her grows more fiercer every day. She makes me laugh, she makes me want to pull my hair out.

We did her birthday party this weekend so if you missed the post you can catch up. We also got some family photos done in October which started out as me asking our photographers if they could do a mini session with me for some headshots and website photos, but Olivia is just so cute that she was included too. And then of course, you can’t forget the husband, so it became a family affair and they turned out so well!

I took Olivia to her three year check up on Tuesday. We had talked and talked about seeing Dr. Kate (who is actually a nurse practitioner we saw back in the summer and ever since then she’s been talking nonstop about Dr. Kate. Like, every few days we talk about her. I told her this when we saw her and she cracked up). Olivia did pretty good but decided she was going to play Shy Girl the majority of the time, but since this is way better than Crying Until You’re Blue In The Face Girl, I’ll take it.

The nurse attempted to do a vision check with shapes instead of letters on an eye chart, but Olivia stood there and chewed her Minnie lovie, so we gave up. She did pretty good with the hearing test where she wore headphones and the nurse told her to lift Minnie up in the air when she heard the sound. She didn’t lift her Minnie but did smile every time she heard one, so I’m assuming her hearing is OK. Chris has had a hearing loss since childhood, so it’s always something in the back of our heads. She does want us to start practicing holding a pencil properly and suggested we tell Olivia to “pinch her fingers” and we could even try to have her hold a penny or button above the pen as she holds it to keep her fingers pinched. I’ve noticed she doesn’t do this at all, but that now is the time she should start.

Now that’s she 3, I am probably going to do these updates every 6 months, but we’ll see. Even if no one reads these, I love to have these to look back on.

Stats

Olivia is 34.5 lbs and 3 feet 2 inches. She’s gained 6.5 pounds and grew 4 inches this year.

She’s in size 3T clothes and size 8 shoes.

Eating

I’ve noticed a little more picky behavior than in the past. As in, she’s more vocal about food she doesn’t like. Ironically, she’s vocal about foods I know she likes and she says she doesn’t. For dinners, if she wouldn’t eat it, we got in the habit of making her a peanut butter sandwich because we thought it was boring. Jokes on us. Peanut butter sandwiches are life. I read an article recently that talked about giving kids choices with limits during mealtimes and how that can lead into healthy eating habits. Since then, we’ve stopped the alternate meal for her. She gets what we get and we no longer offer her a sandwich. It’s interesting, ever since we started that, she’s more willing to eat a few bites and if she doesn’t eat much, she doesn’t complain that she’s hungry later. Which was the whole point of making her eat a sandwich for dinner. In fact, it says it right here:

“They consider their child’s preferences when preparing food, but once that meal is made, that’s the only option available. There’s no skipping dinner for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich later.”

So far so good. I’ve also found that if she helps prepare the meal, she’s more likely to be willing to try it. One time, she helped me make lemon pepper salmon with parmesan asparagus on a sheet pan and she helped snapped the asparagus with me. When we sat down to dinner, she had two servings of asparagus.

She continues to love fruits and tacos and Italian. She’s been eating macaroni and cheese and things like chicken nuggets, broccoli and cheese bites, and fries with a little more regularity than she used to. She loooooves milk, but I have to watch her for constipation issues.

She’s nursing once a day, in the mornings, but sometimes she won’t at all. She can’t be nursing for this next transfer, but I’m not stressing about weaning her this time. If it doesn’t work, I’m sure she’ll go back to it, and then I will let her go as long as she wants, which is what I wanted all along.

Sleeping

There have been a few nights within the last month of her waking up around midnight. Usually, we can take her to the bathroom and she’ll go right back to bed, which I’m totally fine with, but sometimes she wants to come to bed to nurse. But other than that, she’s kept her usual 7:30/8:00 bedtime and wakes around 6:30/7:00, but sometimes earlier, rarely later. I miss the days she’d sleep until 8. Oi. She finally is sleeping on some older pillows that are flattened and using her covers, including her comforter. Just in time too, because it’s already getting really cold out, and she needs to be warm during the night. We started having her try out the Ok To Wake clock and set it to turn green at 6:30 am. It does nothing to keep her in bed until a reasonable time. When she does sleep to 6:30, she’ll come in our room and tell us, “My geen light it on!” and when she goes to bed, she’s quick to instruct us to “Turn on my geen light!” But it means nothing to her in terms of staying in her damn bed until the green light actually turns on in the morning. She also needs her glow bug (that shoots stars on the ceiling), her Minnie night light on her nightstand, her Frozen nightlight, her Ok To Wake clock and her white noise on. Fuck me, I bought too many lights without thinking she’d want them ALL on every night. Naps included. It looks like a night club in her bedroom.

She’s still napping about an hour and a half in the afternoons, usually going down around 1:30 or two.

Right after we say goodnight is when she decides it’s the perfect opportunity to need to do her daily poop. It’s like clockwork, telling her goodnight and then her coming out 5-10 minutes later to say she has to poop. For the most part though, she sleeps through the night, and once she is down, she does well.

Potty Training

Someone asked one time, about how you knew your child was potty-trained and the answer was: when you stopped thinking constantly about your kid needing to go potty.

I think we’re there. I can say she’s potty-trained. She’s had a handful of accidents, mostly at daycare, but can tell us now all the time when she has to go. I still don’t trust her to wipe herself, but I did talk to her doctor about that, and she said a little before Kindergarten is when they should be practicing wiping themselves. I am definitely proud of her though because as annoying as it can be when she waits to poop until she’s in bed for the night, she hasn’t had a poop accident since the first week of potty training way back.

She’s still in pull-ups every night and for most of her naps. Every once in a while she’ll wake up in the morning dry, but I know she’s not ready for night-training yet. And she does wake up sometimes dry for naps, but we have a 50% success rate with naps and changing her bedding isn’t something I want to do multiple days a week.

Health

She had a cold/congestion/runny nose at the end of September, of course around the time we did our family vacation and I caught a mild case of it while we were on the North Shore, the same as it was last year. Then a little over a week later, she caught another cold (or maybe it was just lying dormant) right after we left for Texas for our transfer. Then she caught a stomach bug when staying with my parents. This is the fourth time since April when she started daycare that she’s puked right after leaving daycare. So, of course, we thought it was that, but then my mom said she had vomited again early the next morning and then one more time. Almost the whole week we were gone she didn’t seem to have much of an appetite. But my mom said two of the three times she was able to get her to the toilet at least, so I’m hoping when it’s back to being my turn to care for a puking baby, we can do that instead of going through the entire downstairs closet of old towels. We got home from Texas and she was back to having a cough and congestion for the rest of October and into November.

Then the start of November brought her first fever in months. Ironically, she has only had two days of a fever since the first of the year only for a day each time. This one lasted three days, killing our weekend plans and got up to 102. I was trying to avoid medications by giving her twice a day baths with Epsom salt but caved at night to make her comfortable. On Tuesday she came home from daycare with a widespread rash on her entire trunk, her back, her forehead, and the start of her thighs. I thought she was having a food reaction, but while on the phone with the triage nurse, her daycare texted me back and said she had it since before her nap. I couldn’t really be concerned that she didn’t tell me about this, because apparently when she asked Olivia about it and if we knew, Olivia said yes, Mama knows and “We went to the doctor.” What a damn liar. Understandably, her daycare assumed everything was OK. Anyway, that night, the triage nurse helped me rule out that this most likely wasn’t a food reaction, but probably viral that would be gone in a few days. After I got off the phone, I obsessively Googled and determined she most likely had Roseola since her symptoms matched perfectly with the high fever and then rash.

Language

Every day she surprises me with new words and her use of language. One of my favorite things she is saying right now is “I cannot do it,” when she needs help with something. Not can’t. Cannot. Sometimes she gets really adorable and puts an emphasis at the end: “I can NOT do it, Mama!” She also says, “Toby is my best bud.” Usually while hugging a very tolerant dog.

She can sing certain songs all by herself: Mary Had A Little Lamb, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Miss Mary Mack, Itsy Bitsy Spider, ABCs, Mr. Golden Sun. I also love that (when she is in the mood) she says her own prayer after Chris or I get done saying prayers. “Dear God, my Minnie, and Moana, and Auntie Mel. And ice cream. And my pony and kitty and little kitty. Amen.”

I need to be better at writing down the adorable things she says or things that make me crack up because she does it constantly and then when it comes time for an update, I can’t remember them.

Sometimes I catch myself talking to her like a little adult because that’s how she talks to me, and that kind of blows me away that she’s big enough to do that. Kind of like how we can go to a friend’s house they can run up to play in a bedroom and I don’t have to supervise her as much.

She’s so inquisitive now. She is interested in everything. Luckily we haven’t started the shitshow that is “Why?” WHY?” WHYYYYYY????” but she’s always asking questions. “What’s dis song called?” “What we havin for dinner?” “What your boobs look like?” “Want to see my boobs?” She’s forever commenting on my boobs. Not one to want to shame or shut her down for talking about body parts, I usually humor her and we have all sorts of discussions. “Mama,” she says, patting my chest, “I like your big boobs.”

Milestones

I know I need to be better at letting her dress herself, but I tend to just do it myself because usually, we’re running late. She can, for the most part, take off her shirt, and then the rest of her clothes just fine. She’s pretty good at pulling up her pants and undies or pullup. She can put her shoes on usually without help.

She’s good at brushing and flossing her teeth, and then letting us finish. She’s even been getting better at spitting. We’ve been working with her on how to properly wash her hands and dry them, which continues to be a work in progress. She can name her friends and daycare buddies. In fact, she just really loves talking about people, especially asking, “What der doctor name?” We love discussing her doctor, why we go to the doctor, and the ins and outs of people visiting the doctor. So of course when she saw her own doctor, after six months of waiting to see her again, it was pretty much making her head explode.

She has been pointing out the “O”s in different words. “Hey! Dat’s an O!” and loves singing the ABCs.

Her speech is almost fully understandable to me, slightly less to Chris and she probably has a 60% success rate with everyone else now, optimistically up from 50% with the last update. The girl loves to talk. All the time. Her teachers told me she has a big vocabulary and loves to try new words. In fact, sometimes when I’m needing a laugh, I’ll ask her to say different words that I know she’ll botch so I can laugh.

“Say smorgasbord.”

Her lips will tighten and her forehead will wrinkle. “Morg-bor!”

“Say Grey’s Anatomy!”

Her eyes light up because I’m a horrible parent and she loves that show.

“Gays Amity!”

A few weeks ago, she was playing at school and handed over a bottle of liquid with little googly-eyes in it (something I can only assume is sensory play) to her teacher. “Eyeball juice!” she told her proudly. Which… well you couldn’t argue with that. 

She says her name is “O-widia” and is quick to tell us when we try to call her by something else. “No! My name’s Owiddia!” Which has improved from “Owiddie” a few months back. 

Activities

She’s in daycare three days a week and loves it. She’s thriving and adores her friends and pretty much every single thing about it. We’re in MOPs every other week, and then Friday mornings she has “school.” As time allows, we’re seeing our friends, but it’s significantly less now. Which is a weird thing. I used to plan out our schedules five days a week to keep us busy, and now, it’s so different. There isn’t much time for the outings we used to go on. We’ve done Chick-Fil-A a few times because the play area gives my friends and me time to chat while the kids play. But other than that, it’s been playing at our friends’ houses and seeing my mom as much as we can on Friday’s. And we are not above walking the toy aisles in Target to kill time. She hasn’t really realized that you can actually take the toys home, so as far as she probably thinks, she has her toys and those toys stay at Target.

Likes

She’s still loving puzzles and can do 24 and 36 piece puzzles without help. She has quite the collection. Art projects are also a huge hit, anything where she can color and cut paper. She also loves watching some of the shows I like— “I want to watch YOUR movie, Mama!” Which usually involves Grey’s Anatomy, but now I’m getting uncomfortably aware that she’s probably watching things she shouldn’t be, but the nurse in me likes that she can sit and take the blood and guts part of the show.

Music has become a bigger thing now. She loves Imagine Dragons. I take that back. She loves “Thunder” by Imagine Dragons and is forever requesting, “I wanna listen to Tunder!” “Oh, how does that part go again, Mommy?” And then I’m singing and bobbing my head like a flaming moron in the car because it’s impossible to sing the chorus without head bobbing and then she’s like, “OH! Yeah! Dat’s how it goes!” And then my job as a parent was complete. But for real, she’s learned to take her loves and tell us to shut up so she can continue to feed them.

The other day Chris was driving her home from daycare and they were listening to it and he turned the volume down to ask her a question. Probably something like, “Are you excited to see Mama?”

“Yep,” she called from the backseat, “I can’t hear Tunder now, turn it up!”

We can’t drive anywhere now without her wanting to know where everyone lives. Like, the general direction. “Where Auntie Nanny live? Over there?” She’d point out her window. “Yep,” I’d tell her. “Where Titi live? Der?” She’d point the other way. I’d agree. We have the entire family mapped out, including two or three friends.

She loves playing games and taking baths (especially when I’m in there with her) and playing outside. Her daycare is so much better at getting her out daily, even if it’s just a few minutes in the cold. I am not that good.

She’s been way into her stuffed animals more. She used to only sleep with her Minnie Mouse lovie. Now Mama and Baby monkey puppet, Dinosaur, Unicorn, Mama and Baby Kitty, Minnie, Bear, and Other Monkey all crowd in there with her and sometimes a random toy will join. Lately, that’s been her My Little Ponies she got for her birthday.

Looking Forward To

Thanksgiving! It’s the most delicious meal of the year and Olivia is already talking about it. (Her prior conversations have been taken up by her birthday party.)

Christmas! We had our first snowfall in the middle of October (thankfully, we dodged that by being in Texas) and then there’s been more flurries since then. And bitterly cold. Like, this is the weather we have in January. So it’s been an early goodbye to fall and an early hello to winter. I’m gearing up for another snowy ass-cold winter and that’s not fun, but Christmas is. I already have her presents bought, though I wonder why I even bother because now we’ve been swimming in birthday presents. I’m thinking about buying her a new sled for this year because her current one is probably not practical anymore since she’s had it for two years. And I’ve been loving her fleece sleepers because she seems extra cuddly in those.

Chris’ work every year gives a Christmas party geared towards the families and Olivia is at a great age for it. Last year, she tried out the crafts, but it was mostly me doing it. This year it’s going to be all her and I can’t wait. They also have a great food spread. It’s all about the food.