Museum

Olive loves the Children's Museum.  It's a challenge to get her our of there at the end of a visit!  I took her for a quick visit last week after nap, so we only had an hour, as the museum closes at 5.  We packed a lot into our hour, though.  On the way in, you walk past a McDonald's.  This seemed to be the first time she noticed the Ronald McDonald statue out front.

Mirrors and blacklight in a cave.

She loves elevators these days - "elegators".  If I'm carrying her, she wiggles to floor and says, "own self" so she can stand alone.

Driving the bus.

And always the favorite - the room with singing and dancing!  Olive has always loved this room.  She would stand up on that stage for hours if I let her.  What you can't see is that there are TV monitors the kids can see themselves in, with various backgrounds depending on the song.

Here are a few videos from this room over the last year.

April 2008.

August 2008

March 2009.

Mexico

We're back!  We had a wonderfully relaxing 3 days in Mexico.  We sat, we read, we napped, we ate, we missed our sweet O, we walked, we talked, we reminisced.  It was lovely to have time for one another, something there seems to be very little of at the end of each day.

This was the view from our balcony, that's the ocean over those trees!

The beach.

Our view, we were pretty much camped out looking at this for 3 days.

Sam was a little braver than I in testing the water - though it was quite warm!

We saw some wildlife.  Not sure what this thing is - looked like a combo of a raccoon and lemur.  Any guesses?

Iguanas all  over the place - I liked to call them dinosaurs.

A hermit crab, we wanted to bring one home to Olive!

We got massages one day in the outdoor spa.  Ahhhh....

There were several pools which we didn't actually swim in, but we did walk by quite often, and sat beside once...

Enjoying a strawberry daiquiri.

And a beer.

Sweet sombreros!

Eating dinner.

Another daiquiri, anyone?

We had fun.  It felt just like old times.  Only we couldn't stop talking about the one thing in our lives that we care the most about.  Our sweet O.  We missed her more than we thought possible.  We couldn't wait to get home to her and real life.  How lovely to be excited to get home from a Mexican vacation!

Lucky us!

Update on the potty girl

It seems to get better every day - that's the good news!  Yesterday, Olive was in the same dry panties from 8am to 4pm!  Pretty awesome!  We even went to her gym class and Target.  She then went through 4 pairs in about an hour yesterday evening, so a little backtrack!  She got very busy during that hour, and drank about a gallon of fluids, so that may have had something to do with it...

So far today she has told me she has to pee 2 times and had *almost* dry panties both times - just a couple drops of pee.  So hopefully that means she's getting the feeling of needing to pee BEFORE starting to go in her pants.  We're working towards a Cabbage Patch doll reward (with her same birthday!) this time...and she is excited about that.

Sam and I leave tomorrow for a vacation in Mexico (just the two of us!!), so there won't be any posts until next week.  Nana and Papa are bravely taking over the potty training reigns.

I know it wouldn't be appreciated if I did a post without pictures, so here ya go...Olive getting ready for summer in her new swimsuit!

St. Potty's Day

Yup, I meant Potty's.  Our St. Patrick's Day was filled with potty reminders and panty changes.  I saw improvement today - Olive told me she had to pee and went twice without going in her panties first.  The other times she just went a tiny bit in her panties and finished on the potty.  She did have a big tantrum after her nap that ended in a puddle on the floor.  But, she woke up totally dry from her nap and just a tiny bit damp this morning.  I think she's getting it!  I am shocked at how dry she stays overnight and for naps - I thought that would be a huge challenge and it's been a non issue.

We have been working toward a big reward with a sticker chart and today she got her 10th sticker for peeing on the potty.  She got her "dancing Brobee" this evening and loves it!  Brobee is a character on Yo Gabba Gabba, Olive's favorite show.

He works better when standing on the floor to do his dancing, but Olive just had to hold him!

We also found time this morning to make some green cookies for a St Patrick's dinner at Laura, Levi and Irene's...

I was surprised at how much she liked the cookies - she ate a whole one right after they came out of the oven!  Hope you all got a huge green cookie today, too.

Giggle Monster

For those of you who don't get to hang out with Olive regularly, you likely don't know that she has the greatest laugh on earth.  It is the kind of laugh that makes everyone within ear shot start giggling.

This is my favorite video of Olive I've ever taken.  She was between 4 and 5 months old here.

And here is that same laugh in our 2 year old girl.  Makes me laugh every time!

As promised...

Cute tooshie in panties...

Potty training Day 1 went OK.  It was long, lots of accidents.  We went through about 12 pairs of panties.  Positives: she told us every time she went pee, she stopped herself after starting to pee every time, she woke up dry from her nap, she pooped on the potty twice.

On to day 2!

Potty Time

Olive is sleeping in her last ever diaper right now.  Tomorrow morning it's all panties, all the time.   We are taking the plunge, and I (at this point, having not started) am committed to not putting another diaper on her, ever.  

I will update on our progress over the next few days.  She already poops in the potty 100% of the time, so we're already halfway there.  **

Wish us luck - we have a sticker chart, prizes, and the carpet cleaner ready to go!  I will be sure to get some pics of her first pair of undies on that cute little tooshie.

**Author's note: If you don't have kids, this may be a boring few days on Olive's blog as we discuss toddler bodily functions.  We will get back to our regular programing, hopefully very soon.

Focus

This girl has a serious attention span, especially when the activity is a fine motor one.  I love the look of concentration on her face. 

What a nice suggestion she had, "do it with me", when she couldn't get it herself.

Urban baby

Fur lined vest?

Check.

iPhone?

Check.

Footie pajamas?

Check.

Lullaby

Tonight, Olive was thrilled to get to hold Oscar (as she always is).  As soon as he was placed in her lap, she started singing.  No prompting from anyone.  I think he liked it...

Pants

Yesterday, in the midst of getting dressed, Olive grabbed her onesie from the pile of clothes to be put on, and said, "Offa do it".  She's pretty good at socks and coats, but that's about the extent of her getting dressed abilities.  She insisted that the onesie was "pants".  Here's how it turned out:

That's an upside down onesie with one leg through the neck hole and the other leg through an arm hole.  

Nice, huh??

The guys

Olive has lots of "guys".  She goes back and forth between them all pretty equally, there's usually a "guy of the day" that goes everywhere she goes and naps with her.  She got a doll stroller from Nana and Papa for Christmas and she carts her guys all over the house.  The problem is, they don't all fit!  So she packs as many in as she can, reorganizing a few times before heading off.

Notice the frog feet sticking out the bottom, I'm sure there are a few more underneath.

And the basket under the stroller is just wasted space if you don't put some guys in there, too!

And an unrelated picture, just because our Olive is a sweet, sweet girl.

Story Time

Olive has recently started reading books to us - and she's really good at the ones she's memorized!  This first one is a new book, so she's making most of it up, and using nonsense words a lot of the time.  You can hear her say "crocodile", and "going somewhere?" to the elephants in the car at the end.  Don't mind when she gets sidetracked by the fuzzy hearts on the front...she's 2!

I love this next one.  She loves these Karen Katz lift the flap books, has since she was tiny.  She just got this one before Valentine's Day but it's quickly become a favorite.

Here's the narrative of this one..."This one about....where's the valentine?  Where's the valentine?  Under the chair?  Nope, just three balloons.  Under the table?  Under the pillow?  Nope, just yummy chocolates.  Yum, yum, yum.  Is it...in the cupboard?  Nope.  Find yummy cookies.  Is it in baby's room?  Yes!  There's baby's valentine.  Make it just for Mommy!  The end.  The end."