Painting Party (panty party?)

Last weekend we painted our basement yellow. Olive took a glorious 3 hour nap which allowed us to get the painting almost all done. When she woke up she very much wanted to do some painting with us. So we stripped off her clothes and she went to work!

We leave in the morning for our second ever family trip, just the 3 of us. Olive's first airplane ride awaits!

Fishing Trip

Sam and Olive went to Cedar Lake to do some fishing together. This was the first time Olive has had real bait on the end of her line and she loved it! Well, she mostly loved digging in the worms and handing Sam another worm as he needed them.

They started at the bait shop:

Then they headed to Cedar Lake. Here's Olive reeling in her first fish:

And eyeing the fish Sam caught (using Olive's pole), she wasn't quite ready to hold this one:

I think Sam's got a fishing buddy, or at least an assistant in charge of the worms!

Lucky Girl

Olive is such a lucky girl. She has 3 Great Grandparents who love to love her.

Here she is with her Gigi this summer:

I love the way their hands look in this one, all intertwined:

And though blurry, I love love love this:

Great Grandpa has been struggling, health wise, the last year. He just lights up when he sees Olive, and always surprises me by picking her up onto his lap.

Love that.

Klezmer-tastic

Several weeks ago we went to an outdoor concert at the MN History Center. That particular evening, Yid Vicious was paying. And as we all know, all toddlers love Klezmer music!

In addition to the weirdness of toddlers dancing to Klezmer music, Olive and Irene wore medical gloves the entire evening!

This is one of my all time favorite videos, it looks like it's on fast forward, in the old time-y style. Talk about frenzied cousins and just plain weirdness, I hardly know where to begin:

Fair!

Minnesotans, especially those from the Twin Cities Metro area, are passionate about the MN State Fair. Many people go every day of the fair, staying for 12 hours at a time. Us? We went, for about 2.5 hours, and that was plenty.

We took a shuttle bus from right near our house, this was a highlight for Olive - I think she liked it as much (if not more than) the rides at the fair:

First stop - dairy building:

For a blackberry malt:

Next up - rides, of course:

Olive driving all by herself:

First face painting experience:

Then we stopped to see a band (this is the band of the teenage son of a colleague of Sam's), Olive enjoyed doing some hand dancing:

Time to move on to roasted corn:

And the final adventure was the giant slide for Sam and Olive (they're on the top left at the beginning!):

The fair is fun, but super expensive for food and rides and I always feel lost - like I have no clue which direction I'm walking or where I'm going. Olive loves rides (and corn!), so she liked it. She likes any sort of "fest". Perhaps we'll have to try out the Ren Fest next summer!

Goodbye, old friends

Today, Olive said goodbye to her pacifiers. We tried to make it a "right of passage" and celebration as much as we could. She's always been a paci-girl. There's been a strict rule since she was about 12 months old that paci's stayed in bed and were for sleeping times only. Every once in a while we'd grab one when she was really upset after getting hurt or something, but other than that, they were a sleepy time item. Olive had 3 paci's, one in her mouth and one in each hand while sleeping. Always 3.

We decided she was ready and old enough to understand, so we went for it.

After her nap today, she put her paci's in a baggie and off we went...

We went to Build A Bear Workshop. Olive walked up to the front desk and assured me she wanted to do this, "all by myself". She handed over the bag to the woman working (who clearly has seen this a million times!) and said, "you know some babies who need paci's?". I clarified that Olive was hoping she could pass the pacifiers on to a baby who might need them, since she didn't need them anymore. The woman was great and happily agreed, very enthusiastically. She then suggested we keep one paci to put inside the bear Olive chose to make. Olive thought that was a good idea, so off we went to choose a new "guy".

This is where I had to let go of my desire to control the situation, and allow Olive to choose the most garish stuffed animal in the entire place. I tried to point out some more "classic" options, but to no avail, "I want the pink bear!". OK, kiddo, whatever you want!

The unstuffed bear and the paci:

Helping stuff the bear by pushing the foot lever:

Putting in the paci:

Olive's new guy, whom she named.......Paci! Oh and she's holding some clothing options for Paci, these were scrubs ("like Daddy's!"), but we ended up with a different option (a pink fuzzy bathrobe, a pink purse, and pink bows for her hair - hello pink!):

Now this next part was a totally random but amazingly awesome meeting. The timing could not have been better to walk out of that store with her new bear, and see Dora walking by! It was like another extra special treat for Olive:

When we got home, Olive and Sam spent about an hour introducing Paci to all of the other guys:

I don't know if we have enough stuffed animals, we probably should get a few more:

And before dinner, Olive helped Paci feel right at home:

All of the above went well, no tears, and Olive seemed so proud. But we just had a tearful and sad bedtime with no paci's. She laid down in bed, was quiet while I sang a couple of songs and then suddenly said, "open it!" and handed me the bear. I explained that it didn't open and she said, "but my paci is in there!". Oh dear. We talked a lot, I made up a story about a Princess and how she started as a baby who needed a paci but then got older and didn't need it anymore. How the Princess did lots of big girl things like sleep in a big girl bed, use the potty and talk. She asked me to tell the story 3 more times (which I did) and then to make it into a song (which I did). She seems to have gone to sleep without much trouble.

I felt terrible about this all day. I felt anxious at the store, wanted to secretly ask for the paci's back. Why?? Because I was feeling what Olive didn't know to feel. Anxiety about letting go of something she has had every day of her life. I know she can do this, I know she can grow up. I just feel badly taking away something that has been a great way for her to soothe herself for so long.

We shall see what the night brings, my girl can do this, and so can I.