Olivia at 19.5 months

I’m not sure if there will be pictures of her with her elephant side by side anymore. This was ultimately the best I could do, because Home Girl is apparently a blinker in photos. See?

Perfect shot. Blinking.

Still. She’s pretty adorable. So 19 and a half months. Wow. Wasn’t she just a year old, I don’t know, like a month ago?

Nicknames: Same old, same old. Ollie, Monkey, Monks, Miss Olivia (when she’s in trouble, or I’m about to make a very important request)

Weight: I’m guessing right around 24 pounds. I don’t dare try to weigh her for fear of her going all nutso on me like that girl from The Grudge.
Length: Same. See above. Maybe 33 inches?
Diaper size: 4, in size 5 at night
Shoe size/Clothing Size: 4, moving into size 5/ 18 months and 2T
Teeth: 12

Eating: She continues to nurse throughout the day, and maybe once a night.

We are continuing to work through her frozen stash of breastmilk, but I’m thinking we are needing to make the transition to cow’s milk here in about two months. I was trying so hard to make it until 2 on straight breast milk, but I will run out before then. I just don’t get hardly anything pumping, so that’s become a rarity.

Her favorite foods continue to be dairy and fruits. Her favorites are: cottage cheese and plain yogurt, berries, cheese sticks, Cuties, and peaches. Grapes started out as an obsession, but she’s slowly tapering that off. She fortunately loves scrambled and hard boiled eggs, avocado, and black beans. Wheat Thins are a new love, but she always has room in her heart for Veggie Straws. She’s pretty good at eating grilled cheese and PB&J. Mexican food is always a go. I’ve noticed she will eat my turkey and lettuce sandwiches only when I’m trying to eat them. Otherwise, she’s a bit picky about all veggies except cucumbers and tomatoes, which I realize is a fruit, but I’m trying to be optimistic here. There are many dinners where I have to practice my deep breathing when she refuses to eat. I am impressed with her fork and spoon skills and that she wants to use a napkin to wipe her face and hands during meals.

She’s still in her high chair; I actually attempted last week to have her sit at the table without her tray but she threw such a fit that we went back to it. My goal here soon is to get her a booster because I don’t like the booster mode in our 3 in 1 we have.

Toileting: Diaper changes have pretty much been awful lately. Which is why toileting has its own category now. Every diaper change (especially the poop ones) are met with screams and her trying to flip over and crawl away as fast as she can. Shoot. Me. So I’ve resorted to turning on the TV, even if it’s just for two minutes to change her. She is absorbed in the show and I can change her without any issues. Am I creating a bad habit by doing this? Probably. But you know what? It works.

I’ve noticed her this month grabbing at her diaper when it’s really wet or she poops. In fact, I can ask her and most of the time she nods yes when she poops. A few months ago I bought a travel toilet seat that goes over normal toilets, and we are thinking about buying an attachment for our toilet. She hasn’t known any real interest, so we haven’t begun any training as of yet.

Sleeping: It’s mostly good, with some bad teething nights. Most of the time, she is down in her crib between 7 and 8:00 and will sleep until 7 or 7:30, but there are outliers, like that stage she went through of waking for the day between 5:45 and 6:30, or those glorious 8:30 mornings. The biggest change is that I started giving her a light muslin blanket to sleep with at night and for naps. This is a big thing for me because I had a lot of anxiety about things in the crib besides her lovie and water. I wanted to wait until she was two but since she started unzipping her wearable blankets, we can’t put her in one anymore and I wanted her to have something if she gets cool at night. She took to it well and sleeps with it now.

She’s mostly on one nap a day, but will still do two when she needs it. The hard thing is when she only takes one nap, it’s for an hour and a half. When she takes two, she does an hour and a half, and an hour. I’m hoping she starts stretching it out to 2-3 hours like those babies I’m so jealous of. It just leaves me less time in the day to get things done while she sleeps.

Milestones: I’m pretty sure she’s destined for ballet being that she loves twirling in circles. Her balance needs a bit of work because this usually involves her stumbling like a drunk and crashing to the floor.

She has learned that certain foods are hot and will blow on them when you ask. She helps to brush her teeth with Chris every night and sort of gets the idea of dressing and undressing by helping pull shirts over her head and help get her legs into pant holes. She’s walking faster and faster, and can “run” as fast as her legs will let her. I actually caved and bought her a back pack leash on a trip to the zoo with a friend. I had the stroller and no extra hands to help manage her when she insisted on walking, so the leash turned out pretty good. She seemed to understand to a point that she was harnessed, but it was still challenging trying to manage her weaving around and not running into her with the stroller. She’s a whiz at going up and down steps and has even (finally) started letting us hold her hand while out walking in parking lots, something she never was interested in doing before. In fact, one of her new things is wanting to hold my hand while Chris pushes her stroller out on walks (or vice versa). Only thing is, she’s still in the stroller and it’s bloody annoying keeping up with her while her tiny fingers grip my hands. I’m thrown off balance and it’s not my favorite thing but what do you do?

Communication: I don’t even want to say she’s babbling anymore, because she really is “talking” and knows what she’s saying, it just comes out gibberish. At this rate, she’ll be forming sentences before long. Besides “mama,” “dada” and “uh oh,” she’s mastered “Bubble” pretty clearly, so I’m putting that in the baby book as her first official word. She will also say duck (duh) and elephant (elle) and does her sign (raising her arm in the air like a trunk). She makes noises for sheep, and dogs, hops her fingers like a bunny, and goes “ooo ooo ooo!” and scratches under her arms for a monkey (her daddy taught her those).

She’s been freely waving on command now, even sending me off with a farewell when she walks out of the bathroom when I’m still in there peeing. When you ask her, she will “smell” something by crinkling her nose and sniffing, which is hilarious, and when you ask her to smile, she will break out into the cheesiest face you’ve ever seen, also hilarious.

She’s also scary smart when it comes to asking her to pick out certain books in her book shelf, one of her favorites being the Wheels on the Bus.

When you ask her, she will point out her eyes, ears, mouth, nose, hair, hands, belly button, knees, and toes.

One of the cutest things of all is her newfound love of singing. I’ve caught her “singing” along whenever I’m singing to her, and sometimes she will even sing on command.

She’s finally mastered the art of nodding her head yes to things, which has made both our lives 75% easier.

Activities: The start of summer has been packed with daily activities. We’ve hit up the zoo and some indoor kid’s concerts. Two weeks ago we had a story time out at a farm, which Olivia loved. She even got to pet her first goat.

We explored some new parks and trails around our area, and she went to Chuck E Cheese for the first time.

In fact, Olivia rode her very first ride at Chuck E Cheese. I wasn’t sure if she would try to bolt 20 seconds after the ride started, but she absolutely loved it and went on a few of them.

She also started up swimming lessons again at the Y.

We don’t have the same teacher, which I’m disappointed in, because her one last summer was, I thought, better with the kids, but Olivia has been loving the water. She can participate in so much more now, actually blowing bubbles with me now.

We also attended an outdoor concert just this week and that was actually really fun and the kids band playing was actually pretty good for adult listening.

Olivia was a dancing fool. Would that we could all be like that, sashaying our hips and grooving our shoulders whenever a good beat came on. To be that carefree. People would probably think I was drunk if I started dancing like that, and then I would get kicked out because there was no alcohol allowed. Probably why there was a lack of adult dancing going on.

We also attending our first Pride Festival, and while the parade was a bust because Black Lives Matter was protesting it, we still had fun at the festival. Olivia got some rainbow slap bracelets and I got some red nail polish and made my own pixie stick.

Another place with great music that she could rock out to.

Health: Besides for the usual teething, we went through yet another bout of stomach flu at the beginning of June, a mere month after her last one in May. You can read about that, along with my intense anxiety over it by clicking here. She was just getting over a cold (luckily just a cough and runny nose with some congestion) at the end of June.

And the time finally came when she fell down the stairs. I’ve been letting my guard down, letting her go without me while I’m filling my cup of coffee and she stood up on the third to last step (no fear, this child) and lost her balance and landed on her butt facing the stairs on the second to the bottom, before tipping backwards straight onto the back of her head. On the foyer landing, which is unforgiving hardness. Because of course. The noise her head made hitting the floor was awful, but she was OK afterwards. It doesn’t make me trust her anymore though going by herself, considering the very next time she was doing keg stands again mid stairwell and giggling when I sternly told her that’s not how we go down stairs, and for the love of GAWD don’t you remember what just happened to you?

Likes: She loves to look at pictures of people. She’s actually been doing this for the last few months, but just loves nothing more than having us bring her from picture to picture in our house, explaining to her who everyone is. In fact, I just brought out my book I made through Shutterfly of our journey to her conception and my pregnancy, and she sat there in my lap through four readings of it. She was absolutely enamored with the pictures and my explanation of them.

She loves her baths still and has been fascinated with scooping water into cups. I’ve been putting bubble bath in there and she loves watching (read: eating) the bubbles while triumphantly shouting, “Bub-uhs!!”

She has finally started appreciating the fun that is This Little Piggy and will spend whole nursing sessions letting me chant it over and over as I play with her toes.

She continues to love playing at playgrounds. Like, it’s probably her favorite thing ever. In fact, she points it out in excitement every time we come up to it during our walks. Going down the slide backward on her stomach is the best part. Besides watching the other kids. In fact, being outside in general is always a good idea in her eyes. She loves her make shift water table, her new sprinkler, playing with bubbles (which she can actually handle herself, more or less).

She loves her coloring book, but probably loves painting even more. It’s all she ever wants to do during the ECFE’s Play Times, much to my dismay. It’s not that I don’t want to foster her creativity, but I am still trying to get over the fact that painting is really freaking messy. She’s probably going to grow up to be an artist.

She’s really loving the Kid Care at the gym. I’ve noticed if I take her in the afternoon when it’s quieter, she will gladly go in without any tears. The best part is when I’m greeted like the Pope just walked in when I come to pick her up. So it’s a huge relief, because listening to her cry and cling to me when I leave her about kills me.

Dislikes: As I said above, she hates getting her diaper changed. She isn’t a huge fan of her car seat and we’ve had some epic wrestling matches trying to get her strapped in. Woof. She’s also not great with transitions, like having to come in from outside.

Other than that, she’s a pretty happy baby. Of course, these few things can really put a damper on her day.

Looking forward to: Finally setting up and playing in her gigantic blow up pool. The first one I bought over a month ago, had a hole somewhere and water all seeped out. I was fortunately able to exchange it for another, but we have yet to set it up. We’ve either been busy or the weather hasn’t been cooperating.

Also, our 9th wedding anniversary is coming up in the middle of July and we have a Groupon for a fun new restaurant in the cities. I’m still debating if I should leave her with my parents overnight…