Olivia at 2.25 years

Stats

Clothing size: 2T, still fits some 24 months

Height and Weight: About 3 feet tall and 30 lbs

Eating

Still nursing three times a day, sometimes more for morning, nap and bedtime. She continues to love to eat, though the only vegetables I can get in her are cucumbers, tomatoes (but technically a fruit), and spinach that I stick in her smoothie. Sometimes I can get her to take some bites of carrots and celery if she has ranch dressing or hummus. She eats all fruits and berries. She’ll do hamburger in taco meat and will eat some forms of chicken, depending on how it’s prepped and what it’s served in. She’s been practicing more and more with drinking from an open cup and actually does really well but thinks it’s great to stick her fingers in there and lick them off.

Sleep

We went through what I think was a sleep regression around the beginning of February, where she was just really restless at night, waking and crying a lot. I didn’t have to get up much with her, but it was more than usual. Most of the time she sleeps the whole night. She goes down between 7-7:30 pm and sleeps until 7:00 am. If I’m lucky, we’ll get to sleep in a bit longer. She naps only for an hour and a half still, sometimes more—again, if I’m lucky—usually somewhere between 1:30 and 4:00 pm. She still loves to sleep with her light muslin blue blanket, Minnie Mouse lovie and Bear lovie—”Min” and “Bear,” and her white noise and ladybug that projects stars on the ceiling. She has a good routine with Daddy at night, brushing AND flossing (don’t ask me how he got her to floss—he’s a baby whisperer), pajamas, and reading books. Then if I’m there, we say prayers, and I nurse her. She never falls asleep nursing anymore except for naps, and so I lay her in her crib afterward, give her a drink of water, she lays down for me to cover her and give her her lovies. In January she said, “Bye, Mom.” Yes, I cried. So now that’s part of our routine. I tell her I love her and walk out. Knock on wood, it’s working really well.

Diapering/Potty Training

She’s in size 5 diapers, both day and night. Around 18 months, she sat on the potty and dribbled some pee, which was all sorts of awesome, but then didn’t do anything until mid-January, in which she went again on the potty at 26 months, this time for Chris. That put into motion “toilet learning” as they call it in ECFE. Since then, we’ve been taking her lead. Some days she goes 3-4 times in there, sometimes just once. I don’t think any of us are ready to make the plunge completely yet, but we did get that toilet seat that has the little one attached that you pull down, and it’s amazing. On 2/18 she actually pooped in the potty for Chris. He was getting her ready for bed, she wanted to go potty so he sat her on there. She kept tooting and saying, “I toot!” I was out in the living room grabbing some precious reading time with a book and I kept hearing him say, “Good job, honey.” Then he goes, “Hey Risa, come here.” So I go in with a smile, thinking she let out a tiny poop during her gas passing. No. Girl had legit pooped. I don’t think she quite realized what she did (or actually, maybe she knew exactly what she was doing since she knew something was happening when she would call out, “I toot!” We cheered. A lot. Now I understand why parents get so excited about this crap. Pun intended. She did it again on Friday for me after spending 20 minutes in there reading books.

Health

She had a GI consult at the end of January which you can read about here. And it’s crazy, because I had told the nurse practitioner I worked with that she hasn’t thrown up since October, but I was just looking through my notes and she actually threw up again Dec. 5th, two times, which was actually a milestone for me because it was the first time I handled it all myself and Chris didn’t have to come home. So, unfortunately, that means she’s still throwing up about every 2-3 months since last February. Ugh. Besides for that, she’s just had a cold/cough at the end of January, passing it along to both Chris and me. She had a fever once in there, but the congestion was pretty bad. I took her to the chiropractor a few times (we actually all went there) to get her sinuses adjusted and that seemed to help. I know she’s been working on her two-year molars, but it’s so hard to see back there, so I wasn’t good at marking them in her baby book like I was with her other teeth. I assume she has them all now, but who knows.

Language

This girl loves to talk. A lot. I did a speech therapy evaluation with her back in January which you can read here. She’s been stringing together 3-4 word sentences like “Mom, I want more.” She’s still calling us Mamo, Daddo, and Toby is Tobes. She finally has names for my family members: Grandma is Gigi, Grandpa is Pop, Aunt Natalie is Nano, Aunt Tiffany is Titi, and her cousin is Baboo. Her best friend Jaxon is Gah. She also calls my parents’ dog Jack “Gack.”

Milestones

She can throw a ball overhand, and stack a tower until it falls over. If you point to pictures of animals, she can name a lot of them. She can wash and dry her hands (with help, because she never has the patience to dry the backs of her hands. She recently started turning the lights in the house off and on so most of the day we’re battling this. She can walk up and down the stairs confidently holding onto the railing and loves to be as independent as possible. She likes to put her dishes in the sink, and help us with cooking and baking. She is trying to put her clothes on, but can’t really. She is getting a little better at pulling her pants down.

Activities

She got her very own library card! We haven’t been to the library as much lately, but a voracious reader myself, I am pretty proud of this moment. ECFE started up the second week in February and she’s loving it as usual. It’s the same class we did last semester, so teachers and routine have stayed the same. We’ve been going to the usual places: Tot Time open gym, the ECFE playtimes, dropping her off at the gym’s childcare so I can work, and going to MOPS, where they have free childcare. I’ve taken her to Chick Fil A a few times so she can play in the play place and I can get my Chick Fil A sauce fix. We used our Christmas money from my in-laws to buy a membership to the Children’s Museum and we went there one day with my friend and her two girls and Olivia had a blast.

Likes

She recently started showering with us and it kills two birds with one stone. She asked one evening if she could join me and I wasn’t sure if she’d freak out once she got in there, but she loved it and now is obsessed. Her bathrobe. Toys with small pieces. She’s so good with them, and won’t put them in her mouth. I think she likes feeling grown up. Loves to do art: painting, watercolors, stamp markers, drawing, coloring. Loves play dough. She likes to play with her kitchen stuff. She LOVED playing with my Super Nintendo.

Dislikes 

Can we talk about I am disliking at the moment? Her sticking her hands into her diaper. Her stripping all her clothes off after she wakes up and peeing in her crib. When she goes limp noodle when she doesn’t want to go somewhere. She does this every time I drop her off at the Y and I always have to put all my stuff down to pick her up and she flips her arms up so she almost slides out of my arms. When I tell her in a louder voice to stop doing something and she shoots her hand out at me saying, “GO! GO!” as in, go away. Running away from me. All. The Time. Chewing on her crib like a beaver.

It’s a dang good thing she’s adorable.