September 23-30

Olivia keeps me on task.  If I'm doing something productive and interesting (making cookies), she wants to help.  If I'm doing something productive and boring (folding laundry, peeling potatoes), she will find something properly destructive helpful to do, such as rearranging my cupboards, racing to unload a basket before I can fold all its contents, removing all the diapers that are not folded to her satisfaction (that's all of them) from the diaper basket, reorganizing the bookshelves, etc.  For the most part, though, she'll let me do whatever I'm doing without interruption.  If I'm doing something UNproductive, though...  Reading a book and working on the computer are not allowed.  She will immediately come over and try to sit on my lap.  Then she will either take my book and close it or turn off the computer monitor.  Time wasting will not be tolerated!  Strangely, reading a magazine is generally considered productive.

A few weeks ago, Chipotle sounded absolutely delicious.  Since I am not known for my cravings during pregnancy, Bryan leaped at the chance to satisfy anything even remotely resembling a craving.  On his way to Chipotle and back, he composed the following song to the tune of "Goin' to the Chapel":

_________________________________________________________________________

Goin' to Chipotle, to get

Food for the pregnant wifers.

Goin' to Chipotle, to get

Food for the pregnant wifers.

Gee she's really cravin' for that,

Mexican ha-a-a-ven

Goin' to Chipotle for love.

I-i-its

Three A.M.

I-I was

Woken up

To get up

and

drive cross town.

To spend four bucks

on a taco

That she won't even

want when I get home...

Because I'm, goin' to Chipotle....

________________________________________________________________________

And, in case you had trouble following the tune the way Bryan wrote the lyrics, I've put the real lyrics in front of each line to help you out:

(Goin' to the chapel and we're) Goin' to Chipotle, to get

(Gonna get married) Food for the pregnant wifers.

(Goin' to the chapel and we're) Goin' to Chipotle, to get

(Gonna get married) Food for the pregnant wifers.

(Gee I really love you and we're) Gee she's really cravin' for that,

(Gonna get married) Mexican ha-a-a-ven

(Goin' to the chapel for love) Goin' to Chipotle for love.

(Spring is here) I-i-its

(The-e-e) Three A.M.

(Sky is blue) I-I was

(Whoa-o-o) Woken up

(Birds are sing-) To get up

(-in' as) and

(if they knew) drive cross town.

(Today's the day) To spend four bucks

(We say I do) on a taco

(And we'll never be) That she won't even

(Lonely any more) want when I get home...

Because I'm, goin' to Chipotle....

__________________________________________________________________________

Olivia has a doll that we got her for her birthday.  It is very similar to the dolls that my siblings had when we were younger.  Most of the time it lives in a little bassinet that my grandparents gave Olivia.  Since the bassinet is next to Olivia's bookshelf, the doll is very accessible.  Whenever we're in the baby cage playing, one of the first things Olivia will do is take out the doll and hand it to me.  I must hold the doll for the duration of playtime.  She expects me to hold it properly, too.  I can't just let it sit awkwardly on my lap.  It must be cradled in my arms or on my shoulder.  Once the proper position has been achieved, I am free to otherwise ignore the doll and read a magazine or do some other thing while Olivia plays.  If I put the doll down, however, Olivia will stop what she's doing, pick it up, and hand it back to me.

As we were driving to visit friends last Friday, I heard squawking from the backseat.  Here are pictures explaining the problem.  The first is the normal view, the second is the noisy view.  Poor baby was stuck and I had to stop and rescue her.  Anyone recognize what she has on her head?  5 points to the first person who can tell me exactly what it is.

After visiting friends, Olivia and I had an adventure.  My phone had died that afternoon, but I was not overly worried because I was only driving to Bryan's parents' house and I knew the way.  Bryan was coming straight from work (driving a car we had borrowed from his parents for a couple of weeks and were now returning to them) and would meet us there.  I successfully navigated through the tricky getting-out-of-an-unfamiliar-town part and reached the freeway.  As I merged, I noticed the time and wondered if Bryan was ahead of us or behind us.  I made a note to keep and eye out for him as we drove.  A few minutes into my ruminations, the car started behaving oddly.  Little coughing sounds were coming from the engine and it was getting harder to maintain my speed.  I scooted over to the right lane and turned on my emergency flashers.  I'd passed an exit a few miles back and was hoping to make it to the next one.  Of course, I was on a portion of the road where exits were every 5 miles or so instead of every one mile.  Suddenly, my speed became impossible to maintain.  We were slowing down, and we weren't going to make it to the now visible exit.  I pulled off onto the shoulder and turned off the car.  We have a car charger for our phones, but I couldn't get the car to stay on long enough to turn my phone back on, so there we were...  Dead phone, dead car, and no idea where Bryan was.  As I pondered my options, the most viable of which was to grab Olivia and begin the trek to the exit and a phone, I saw a car stop about 200 yards in front of us and a figure started jogging towards us.  It was Bryan!  He'd noticed us sitting there as he drove by and came to help.  Together we moved a few things from one car to the other and drove to the exit to call a tow truck.  As we were walking, three separate vehicles stopped and asked if we needed help, so I no doubt would not have had to walk all the way to the nearest gas station to find a phone to borrow.  We assured them we were fine and continued on our way.  After several phone calls and some help from a policeman (who was apparently in the middle of an investigation, but was willing to help Bryan anyway), we found a tow truck and followed our poor green car to the shop.  As it was after 7 on a Friday, they told us they'd look at it first thing Monday and let us know what was going on.  We hopped back into the T-bird (boy, that made Olivia happy, especially since I had to maneuver her in horizontally over the front seat, slide her under the seatbelt, and then hang over the seat to buckle her in upside down) and drove to Steve and Murry's.

The result of all of this was that this Wednesday we ended up selling our green car (goodbye car, we loved you!) and buying a minivan.  We'd been meaning to buy a minivan in the next few months anyway, we were just hoping to put it off a while longer.  So now we have a new van, a 2004 Dodge Caravan, that runs fine as well as we can tell, has no creases in the sides, has matching sideview mirrors that aren't taped on, and that doesn't make funny noises when we start it.  It's pretty exciting to have a working vehicle.  :)

Since Olivia likes carrying around squares of fabric, Oma made her a square that matched her blanket.  I attached a couple of snaps in the corners so that we could hook it onto things.  Thus far, she's mostly used it as a bandanna.  :)

Tuesday was our anniversary.  Murry came over to watch Olivia (a surprise that I should have anticipated) and Bryan and I went out and ran errands.  How romantic.  We didn't even buy anything we went out for because we were saving money for the van.  :)

More Pictures:

September 16-23

"Any day now" in regards to the walking turned out to be last Friday and Saturday.  Olivia would stand in the middle of an open space and could be persuaded to take a few steps before she dropped to her knees.  By Sunday, I would occasionally catch her randomly walking from a couch to the middle of the room for no apparent reason.  As of the time I'm writing this blog post, though, she's still wobbly in the balance department (probably because she prefers to charge, rather than walk), and crawling is still faster.  So although we're seeing more steps more times throughout the day, we still don't have a self-acknowledged walker.

In a major accomplishment, on Sunday Olivia finally managed to get herself into a standing position without using any furniture or other props.  She had been trying all weekend, but couldn't figure out how to get herself from bear-crawl position to standing.

*Update from slightly later in the week: Olivia now walks about 50% of the time.  As long as she doesn't need to be somewhere quickly, she generally prefers walking to crawling.  :)

Tuesday I had another half day off, and I used it to go shopping ALL BY MYSELF.  It was wonderful.  The first thing I did when I turned off the car was sit and read for five minutes without listening to kicking and squawking from the backseat.  When I stopped at the library, I was able to run back out to the car to get extra money to print a few things.  When I was at Aldi and noticed that I'd forgotten the mayo, I just went back and got the mayo.  No wondering if it was worth the extra two minutes, no worrying that something else might get tossed out of the cart on the way there...  Just turned around and picked up the mayo.  I putzed my way through Meijer, checking prices and calculating the value of my coupons.  I stopped at Kohl's to browse their sales so that I could use my $10 off card to procure a shirt for myself for only $1!  I breezed in and out of JoAnn's to grab some material I needed.  It was so quick and painless.  Then I came home, and Bryan and Olivia were both glad to see me, but apparently had a grand time playing together all afternoon.  :)

In addition to the phrases mentioned a few weeks ago, Olivia now says something that sounds like "up" when she wants to be picked up, something that sounds like "Jesus" when we're in church (and she's pointing at all the icons, paintings, and/or statues), and something that sounds like "hey" when she pretends to answer all of her various phones (most of which are not actually phones at all -- see this apt diagram that we found on the internet).  I'm also pretty sure that I heard "I need that" last Friday.

I've been feeling very accomplished this week.  Tuesday morning I canned four jars of apples.  I had some orchard apples, and ended up throwing out almost as much apple as I saved, but I went through the whole bag anyway.  I canned them in a light cinnamon sugar syrup, so they'll be quite tasty in oatmeal this winter.  Olivia and I like the apple cinnamon oatmeal, but no one sells it in bulk tubs like regular oatmeal (they figured out how to do that with marshmallow hot chocolate, why can't they figure out apple cinnamon oatmeal?), and it seems silly to buy the little packets all the time.  Wednesday morning I canned five jars of peaches.  They were on sale last week, so I got about five pounds so that we can have those this winter, too.  Next year I'll probably can more things (and in greater quantities), but it was a last minute decision this year, I had to borrow my mom's canning equipment, and I didn't have anyone to help with the canning and/or babysitting.  I did learn that Olivia will still tolerate being in her flying saucer, which was useful when I had to move back and forth with jars full of boiling water.  In addition to canning, I went shopping (which counts as an accomplishment because our pantry was practically empty!), made bread, and made cookies.  It doesn't look like I did quite as much when I list it all here, but canning makes one feel exceptionally accomplished all at once.  :)

Olivia is not allergic to peanuts.  I was tired of having to keep her from eating Joe cookies, so I let her try a little bit of peanut butter.  Then we happily ate cookie batter and later she had a cookie.  No ill effects, unless you count a love of cookie batter.  What a monster I've created.  While the batter was in the bowl, she was very good about not touching it and waiting (not always patiently, but waiting nonetheless) until I gave her some.  Once I started putting it on the cookie sheet, though...  The sight of all those perfectly sized little globs of batter was too much.  She immediately started trying to eat them right off the pan.  I now know how Justine feels when I'm around while she bakes cookies.  I would be more apologetic if cookie batter wasn't so tasty.

More Pictures and a Video:

September 9-16

Remember the concerto competition I was in?  You may recall that it didn't go as well as I wanted.  In fact, my mind blanked during one fast section (concertos have to be memorized), and I stopped playing altogether.  I recovered acceptably, and the rest of the piece actually went very well, but I was displeased with that one section of my performance.  As it turns out, fortune was with me as my fingers were tripping over themselves.  The concert at which I would have performed (had I won) is scheduled for April 27, 2013.  This date would have been extremely inconvenient for me, as Bryan and I recently found out that baby number 2 is due right around that time.  No concerto performances for me!  I do think that God could have allowed be to perform brilliantly at the competition and let the winner barely edge me out, rather than gifting me with the spectacular experience of forgetting my notes, but that apparently wasn't the plan.  He must have wanted to make sure there was absolutely no chance the judges would be so overcome by my spectacular viola-ing that they awarded me first place on the spot.

We told our parents about the baby last week via Grandparents' Day cards.  Did you know there was a Grandparents' Day?  Or that it fell in early September?  Me either.  I discovered it kind of by accident and found the timing all too convenient.  Anyway, along with pictures of Olivia from her recent 1-year-old photo shoot, they received this picture in the card:

I did not get the symphony job.  :(  I thought my audition went well, but other auditions must have gone better.  Bryan was talking to other applicants as they came in, and told me later that most were much more invested in this audition than I was.  One had just come from an audition in San Francisco, another "would rather drive 8 or 9 hours than have to fly," and so confines most of her auditions to this side of the Mississippi, and still another checks with her Master's program teacher before each audition to confirm the financial stability of the orchestra.  In other words, these are all people trying to make a living off of their music.  I am of two minds about this: One, I guess the job went to someone who needed it more than me, so that's good.  Two, why are people wanting to make a living auditioning in Springfield?  It doesn't pay very much (about enough for 5 months of cheap apartment rent, according to my somewhat educated guess), so they must live in the area and look at it as a good stepping stone.  I think they should set their sights higher and leave the low-paying jobs to people like me who just do it for fun.  :)  After this experience, I have decided that next year I will also audition for the Dayton and Lima symphonies.  Both are close enough that the drive won't be a big deal, and they will give me more practice auditioning.  Also, given what I've seen in Springfield, it can't hurt to get my face known in other places.  :)

I haven't been updating much about Olivia's walking progress because she still isn't.  Walking, I mean.  People have been asking, though, so here's the update:  She still isn't walking.  :-P  She is continuing to get braver, and will often stand next to furniture while holding something with both hands.  She no longer minds being placed in the middle of the floor, for she now knows how to sit down if she wants to.  She will take the occasional step or two, but not usually more than that.  However, she's taken enough steps that we definitely missed the official "first step."  When she reads this blog as a teenager hoping to find the date of her first step, she will be sorely disappointed.  Come to think of it, she didn't have a definitive "began crawling" day, either. Olivia will push laundry baskets around the house (preferably the full ones, so that she can redistribute the clothes in as many rooms as possible), she will push chairs around the great room, she will walk holding onto someone's fingers, and she will walk holding my hand (just one hand for each of us; she's so talented!).  However, she steadfastly refuses to begin walking unassisted, although Bryan is sure it will happen "any day now."

Bryan's uncle is having a beard contest, apparently, and Bryan is immensely proud of his ability to grow facial hair, so he's entering.  They had to send a clean shaven picture in this week and then they have to send a bearded picture at some future date.  I think someone mentioned the end of November.  There will be a prize for best beard and a prize for worst beard.  I don't know who is determining what is meant by those categories.  Here is the "Before" picture:

This weekend we're headed to Pennsylvania for little William's baptism, so that should be fun.  Unfortunately, we have to come back Saturday evening so that Bryan can go into work for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon in order to make sure that the newly updated software is all functioning the way it should in his section.

I've spent some time this week putting at least pictures up in some earlier weeks, so feel free to browse the months before I officially started blogging.  They're mostly just pictures from my phone, but some do have words as well.  I'll continue putting up old pictures from my camera as I have time.

More Pictures:

September 2-9

Olivia babbles in complete sentences; no one-word utterances here.  She has a lot to say, but very little of it is understandable.  Eschewing the usual "mama" and "dada," Olivia has opted to perfect more useful phrases.  Our days are now filled with choruses of "What's that?" and "Right there!", which sound remarkably similar, leaving interpretation up to the listener.  I hear "What's that?" and Bryan hears "Right there!"  This makes sense, since I'm usually walking with a destination in mind, leaving Olivia to frantically demand the name of every tree, bush, house, and telephone pole that we pass on our way.  Bryan, on the other hand, simply stands holding her and waits for her to determine the destination.  The newest phrase to be added is "Uh-oh!", which Olivia says whenever it suits her, whether it makes sense or not.

Two more teeth came in recently, so Olivia is up to eight.  Fortunately, the two that came in are not some random molars but are instead the matches to her previous teeth, so her symmetry is restored.  Bryan and I have the normal number (28 for me and 32 for Bryan, since I had my wisdom teeth removed a few years ago), thanks for asking.  :)

Wednesday our official pictures came in, so Olivia and I field-tripped out to Sears to pick them up.  I sliced apart all of the little ones and hung our two 8x10s.  They're in the great room next to the violin picture from Italy that Grandma and Grandpa A. gave me one year for Christmas.  ...I just realized that my description does absolutely nothing for those of you who have not been to our house, as I have been remiss in putting up pictures.  Someday.

Friday was my audition for the Springfield Symphony Orchestra.  As I write this on Thursday, I'm assuming that it went wonderfully, especially given the color of my fingers after practicing on Thursday.  For some reason, the strings I'm using right now rub off on my hands.

Immediately after the audition, we headed up to Toledo so that Bryan would be on time for his cousin's wedding rehearsal.  Wedding Saturday, church at my parents' house Sunday, and back home we went.

August 26-September 2

Olivia was wearing 7 scarves in last week's photos.  Here's a picture pointing out each one:

Some of them are more obvious in one of the other pictures, but I used this one because it does have bits of all of them showing.

Jillian was the closest guesser the last time I checked, so she will get the 15 points unless I notice later this week that someone else guessed exactly 7 before this post went live.

Olivia is getting braver in her walking endeavors.  If you're sitting close enough to the edge of a piece of furniture, though, be alert.  Without warning she might throw her hands up in the air and stagger forward like a little zombie, fully expecting you to catch her before her face hits the floor.  She's to the point where there's about a 40% chance that she chooses the zombie walk over crawling the two feet or so to her destination.  Of course, zombie walks are not very safe if one's destination is not an alert adult, so we're hoping she outgrows this phase rather quickly and learns to just walk upright like a normal person.

If you give a one-year-old a fork...  She'll want some food to go on it.  Olivia kept trying to hold my fork, so I got a pack of toddler sized forks that are lighter and easier for her to hold.  She's getting very good at putting a food-laden fork in her mouth, but she can't stab food by herself yet.

We've spent this week transitioning to only one nap.  Olivia was not getting crabby as frequently in the afternoon, and would often play in her crib instead of sleeping, so we're dropping the afternoon nap.  Of course, if her only nap is in the early morning, then she's very tired by about 5:00 in the evening, so I'm trying to push her morning nap back gradually until it's just after lunch.  Some days this works better than others, but progress is being made.  The biggest problem?  Just when am I supposed to take my shower?!

Sometimes Olivia has hair sticking up all over the place, either because she's been pulling on it or because she slept on it funny.  I don't remember when the following conversation took place, but I found it written down and decided to share:

Johannah: She has horns again.
Bryan: They're cute horns.  (To Olivia) You're like a little rhino.
Johannah: They're on the sides of her head.
Bryan: You're like a little deer.  But fatter.  Like a rhino.

Pictures: