I was one of the winners in the Infantino giveaway! Thanks to everyone that voted for my idea. Check the comments of the previous post to see if you got your points for participating. :)
My OB's office doesn't allow children in the waiting room. Luckily, my mother-in-law lives only an hour away and is more than happy to have an excuse to come hang out with Olivia whenever I have an appointment. As we approach my due date, though, appointments get closer together and it seems silly to have Murry drive out once every week or two. One night Bryan and I were discussing this problem:
B: I could come home from work for a couple of hours and make it up later that night. Then my mom wouldn't have to come out so often.
J: The other option is to see if someone from church could come babysit some weeks.
B: What did we do with Olivia?
J: ... ... ... What do you mean, "what did we do with Olivia"?
B: When Olivia was born, who wat... oh. Nobody. She wasn't here to watch yet.
It would appear that Olivia gets up earlier after she goes to bed later. Funny, it seems like it should be the other way around. Given my exhaustive research, though, I've come up with a plan: A new bedtime of 4:00 in the afternoon will be strictly enforced!
For posterity's sake (and so I know the answers if my siblings/children ever ask):
-Olivia officially weaned about a month ago.
-We turned her carseat around just after she turned 18 months old. I know you're supposed to keep them rear facing as long as possible, but she's several pounds over the allowable weight limit and she just looked so uncomfortable with her little legs crunched against the back of the seat.
-We've been working on basic potty-training for a couple of weeks now. She's not great at it yet, but I don't have to change many messy diapers, which is a plus for me.
-Olivia has a bed she can escape from by herself. It has a railing, though, so that she doesn't fall out when she rolls to the side (like she does every night). At this point, she is still napping in the crib since she's much less agreeable about naps.
This week (after a beautifully easy first week), the bed thing started to backfire. She crawls out, crying, and finds someone who will pick her up. The chosen parent (me, if I'm home) walks her back to the bedroom and puts her back in bed. Repeat. After about 4 tries, I'll put her in the crib instead. The crying stops instantly, and she is contentedly quiet until she falls asleep.
I don't know if it's the cold or if I'm shrinking (as opposed to the more stereotypical swelling) with this pregnancy, but my wedding ring doesn't fit anymore. It slides on and off very easily and a couple of times this past month it's just fallen off while I've been going about my normal day. My solution? Olivia's hair tie. She has 50 of them (that's not an exaggeration; the package told me there were 50) and she doesn't even wear them very often, so she can spare one to constantly grace my ring finger.
Another points opportunity! You know you want them, even though they don't count! I'm going to try to freeze some meals before Reggie is born so that I don't have to worry about cooking for the first few weeks. Unfortunately, I don't appear to have too many freezer meals. If you have a meal that freezes well, send me an email with the recipe (johannahbarhorst@gmail.com). I'll give five points per recipe, with a fifteen point bonus (in May sometime) to whoever submits the recipe that Bryan likes the best. :)
Pictures:
24 February 2013
17 February 2013
February 10-17
Taxes are done! I figured it'd be good to have them out of the way before Reggie came. Also, our refund is instrumental in paying the hospital bill. To all of you who don't have your taxes done yet (even through no fault of your own), neener neener. :-P
We have recently discovered the youtube channel kidstv123. Sometimes when I'm working on the computer, Olivia gets impatient, so I used to look for animal videos for her to watch. Then one day I discovered these, and she likes them better. It's just a bunch of songs about shapes, numbers, colors, phonics, the alphabet... Most of them aren't bad at all, and they keep Olivia occupied while I finish whatever I'm doing. ...Although, some of them ARE catchy enough that I wake up singing them at 3 in the morning. While Olivia was sick last week, she got to watch many more kidstv123 videos than usual. It got to the point where every time one of us sat down at the computer, she thought she was going to watch videos. So my computer time has been reduced to only what I can get done during naptime. Luckily, I don't have a lot I HAVE to do, so this is usually more than enough time. 5:00 is Olivia's computer time. She's allowed to educationally rot her little brains until Bryan gets home from work sometime between 5:15 and 5:30.
Olivia's 18-month check-up was last Saturday. She's 24 pounds, 6 ounces and 32.25 inches long. She also had an ear infection. It seems she has an ear infection every time she sees the doctor. They never bother her, but she gets antibiotics anyway. I guess it's good that she doesn't have to go back until she's 2. No ear infections until then!
Our dishwasher is still broken. :( Whatever Bryan did to fix it didn't work, so we're still washing dishes by hand. The good news is that I remembered that I actually like washing dishes, at least in reasonable quantities. The bad news is that washing dishes makes my poor fingers split more than usual. I'm having a terrible time with dry skin this winter (worse than usual), so Bryan told me I'm not allowed to wash dishes. Of course, if he doesn't get to them right away at night then they pile up on the counter and I end up doing them later anyway...
We implemented a toy rotation this week. I sorted all Olivia's main room toys (except big favorites like her dolls) into four baskets and only one basket is out at a time; the other three baskets live in my closet. I made sure to include a couple things I knew she really liked in each basket along with other toys that don't usually get much attention. So far it's been going well. She rediscovered some toys she'd forgotten that she had, and has been enjoying them this week without seeming to miss the ones that aren't out. I haven't decided yet how often I'm going to rotate baskets. Probably once every week or two.
When Olivia "reads" books to herself, she does so in a sing-song voice. Why? Probably because I have songs that go with about half of the books I read to her. It looks like we got (or I molded?) a musical child.
On Tuesday, Olivia started saying "bleck." I was trying to keep her out of my dirt pile as I swept dust bunnies from behind the couch, and told her it was yucky. She followed me around the rest of the morning, pointing at my dirt pile and exclaiming "bleck!" Lest we think it was a one day phase, she also used her new word to describe the egg she accidentally knocked on the floor on Wednesday. Bleck, indeed.
Olivia's favorite new game to play is "Where are they?" She'll hide something behind her back (or, more recently, she'll hide her fingers in a glove) and say, "Uh-oh! Where are they?" Then she'll get a contemplative look on her face and say, "I don't know." Usually I'm required to make similar observations. Then, she'll suddenly reveal that which was hidden, start laughing, and say, "There they are!"
We have recently discovered the youtube channel kidstv123. Sometimes when I'm working on the computer, Olivia gets impatient, so I used to look for animal videos for her to watch. Then one day I discovered these, and she likes them better. It's just a bunch of songs about shapes, numbers, colors, phonics, the alphabet... Most of them aren't bad at all, and they keep Olivia occupied while I finish whatever I'm doing. ...Although, some of them ARE catchy enough that I wake up singing them at 3 in the morning. While Olivia was sick last week, she got to watch many more kidstv123 videos than usual. It got to the point where every time one of us sat down at the computer, she thought she was going to watch videos. So my computer time has been reduced to only what I can get done during naptime. Luckily, I don't have a lot I HAVE to do, so this is usually more than enough time. 5:00 is Olivia's computer time. She's allowed to educationally rot her little brains until Bryan gets home from work sometime between 5:15 and 5:30.
Olivia's 18-month check-up was last Saturday. She's 24 pounds, 6 ounces and 32.25 inches long. She also had an ear infection. It seems she has an ear infection every time she sees the doctor. They never bother her, but she gets antibiotics anyway. I guess it's good that she doesn't have to go back until she's 2. No ear infections until then!
Our dishwasher is still broken. :( Whatever Bryan did to fix it didn't work, so we're still washing dishes by hand. The good news is that I remembered that I actually like washing dishes, at least in reasonable quantities. The bad news is that washing dishes makes my poor fingers split more than usual. I'm having a terrible time with dry skin this winter (worse than usual), so Bryan told me I'm not allowed to wash dishes. Of course, if he doesn't get to them right away at night then they pile up on the counter and I end up doing them later anyway...
We implemented a toy rotation this week. I sorted all Olivia's main room toys (except big favorites like her dolls) into four baskets and only one basket is out at a time; the other three baskets live in my closet. I made sure to include a couple things I knew she really liked in each basket along with other toys that don't usually get much attention. So far it's been going well. She rediscovered some toys she'd forgotten that she had, and has been enjoying them this week without seeming to miss the ones that aren't out. I haven't decided yet how often I'm going to rotate baskets. Probably once every week or two.
When Olivia "reads" books to herself, she does so in a sing-song voice. Why? Probably because I have songs that go with about half of the books I read to her. It looks like we got (or I molded?) a musical child.
On Tuesday, Olivia started saying "bleck." I was trying to keep her out of my dirt pile as I swept dust bunnies from behind the couch, and told her it was yucky. She followed me around the rest of the morning, pointing at my dirt pile and exclaiming "bleck!" Lest we think it was a one day phase, she also used her new word to describe the egg she accidentally knocked on the floor on Wednesday. Bleck, indeed.
Olivia's favorite new game to play is "Where are they?" She'll hide something behind her back (or, more recently, she'll hide her fingers in a glove) and say, "Uh-oh! Where are they?" Then she'll get a contemplative look on her face and say, "I don't know." Usually I'm required to make similar observations. Then, she'll suddenly reveal that which was hidden, start laughing, and say, "There they are!"
I entered a contest to get a chance to try out Infantino's Fresh Squeezed line. They're picking 50 people from across the country to get a free set of baby food making supplies -- including their new squeeze station, which lets you store food in the little pouches that Olivia loves -- in exchange for honest reviews once you've tested it out with your friends. Although I assume the company has final say, most of the voting is done by facebook users liking and commenting on ideas. If you haven't already, I'd appreciate it if you'd "like" my idea and pass it on to anyone else you think would participate. I'll give 2 points to everyone who does it! (You have to tell me you did, though, because I can't see WHO "liked" my post, just how many.)
Directions:
1. Go to this page: https://www.facebook.com/InfantinoMomsRule?ref=ts&fref=ts
2. Click on the Fresh Squeezed Party link
. 
3. Go through the comments until you find one by Jojo Viola (my facebook page for entering giveaways). They're grouped by number of "likes," so I'm probably near the middle right now.
4. "Like" my comment, leave a reply if you want to, and share with your friends if you think they'll vote, too. :)
Pictures:
10 February 2013
February 3-10
I think I'm all updated with pictures! I've been adding pictures to all the old posts and I seem to finally be out of pictures to add. Most of the posts from July 2011 through February 2012 have some new photos in them if you want to check them out. Someday I might even add words. :) I'll let you know if/when that happens.
You may know that Olivia is relatively neat. Everything has a place where it belongs, and at times she can be quite distressed if we try to continue with the day before putting something in its proper place. One morning, Bryan was in a hurry and left his clothes on the bathroom floor after his shower. Later that day, I heard an "uh-oh!" and saw Olivia walking through the middle room. I went to investigate, and she had picked up his clothes off the floor and taken them into our room where she deposited them in the dirty clothes basket. Now she cleans up after him every morning, encouraged by Bryan, who heard of her exploits and decided to leave his clothes on the floor on purpose. For Olivia's enjoyment, of course.
Last week we had some nice weather, so Olivia and I went for a walk. She wore her tennis shoes. We came home and one shoe fell off while she played. I eventually removed her other shoe so that she wasn't so lopsided. An hour or so later, we wanted to go on another walk. When the time came to put shoes on, though, we could only find one. I looked in all her hiding places, but couldn't find her other shoe. Finally we tossed on her pink cowgirl boots (which are her favorite shoes anyway) and went for our walk. Her tennis shoe remained lost all week. We'd look for it periodically, and I kept an eye out for it as I went about the house during the day, but all for naught. Saturday morning, Bryan finally found the missing shoe. It was... In the box where he keeps his shoes. Of course. Ten minutes later, it was missing again. Or perhaps it was the other shoe this time. Luckily, it was much easier to find the second time around. This time it was in Olivia's shoe box. At least she knows where shoes go.
Poor baby girl started catching a cold at the end of last week. She was coughing and sniffling by Saturday but otherwise seemed fine. Sunday morning she was coughing a lot and wouldn't eat or drink anything, so we left her in pajamas and took turns going to church. While I was at church, Bryan managed to get food and drink in her and she was playing happily by the time I came home. She ate lunch pretty well before her nap and seemed to be feeling okay when she woke up, so we gave her a bath and decided to keep our Superbowl plans of visiting the Kleins. Olivia was glad to get outside and excited to play with Eva's toys. She slept in their spare crib until the game was over, and then we came home. Monday morning, Olivia was up early and looked miserable. She took two baths and we read some books before she fell asleep in my arms just before 11. Bryan came home for lunch, and I transferred Olivia to her crib, expecting her to sleep for another hour or so. She finally woke up at 3:40 and seemed to be doing better. She even ate a snack. Another bath before Bryan came home, and then it was dinner and bed. Happily, she was doing much better when she woke up Tuesday morning and she's been fine since except for some residual coughing.
Tuesday night we put Olivia in a toddler bed for the first time. What is a toddler bed? Well, we didn't have a twin bed, but we DID have a spare crib in our attic (a drop side from my parents that we decided not to use as a crib because it was recalled). Bryan butchered one of the sides, cutting out five slats or so to make a hole through which Olivia can climb in and out. The rest of the side stayed intact, to keep Olivia from rolling out unintentionally. We didn't show her how to use the hole, just plopped her in a different bed one night. Wednesday morning, we heard a very awake and (cheerfully) vocal Olivia around 5:45. ... This is not acceptable; she usually sleeps until at least 7, and lately it's been closer to 8 or 8:30. Bryan thought maybe I should check on her, but I figured I'd let her see if she could figure out that she was able to escape. I thought I heard her once, but when I peeked out of our room, her door was still closed. About half an hour later, her vocalizations dropped to an inaudible level, and I thought maybe she'd gone back to sleep. No such luck. About five minutes after that, we heard the very distinct sound of her door opening and closing. Guess she figured out the bed. I listened for her footsteps to see where she would go now that she had discovered her freedom; since we have hardwood floors and she likes to take her socks off, she's usually pretty easy to hear. Not that morning. There were no footsteps, so I finally got up to check on her. There she was, still in her socks (so I wouldn't have been able to hear her anyway), standing in the dark hallway in front of her door. Apparently she discovered the house was still dark and was unsure where to go. I showed her how to get to our room, and then we went back to her room to start the day. She slept until 7 the next morning, so I'm hoping that the early wake-up call was a fluke rather than a product of the new sleeping arrangement.
This week, Olivia added elephant and snake to her animal sounds repertoire. As she learns more sounds, she's more likely to blurt out the wrong one if she doesn't stop to think first. I've found that a similar thing happens with her words. As her vocabulary grows, her correct usage percentage goes down. I'm sure it will even out eventually. :)
Pictures and Videos:
You may know that Olivia is relatively neat. Everything has a place where it belongs, and at times she can be quite distressed if we try to continue with the day before putting something in its proper place. One morning, Bryan was in a hurry and left his clothes on the bathroom floor after his shower. Later that day, I heard an "uh-oh!" and saw Olivia walking through the middle room. I went to investigate, and she had picked up his clothes off the floor and taken them into our room where she deposited them in the dirty clothes basket. Now she cleans up after him every morning, encouraged by Bryan, who heard of her exploits and decided to leave his clothes on the floor on purpose. For Olivia's enjoyment, of course.
Last week we had some nice weather, so Olivia and I went for a walk. She wore her tennis shoes. We came home and one shoe fell off while she played. I eventually removed her other shoe so that she wasn't so lopsided. An hour or so later, we wanted to go on another walk. When the time came to put shoes on, though, we could only find one. I looked in all her hiding places, but couldn't find her other shoe. Finally we tossed on her pink cowgirl boots (which are her favorite shoes anyway) and went for our walk. Her tennis shoe remained lost all week. We'd look for it periodically, and I kept an eye out for it as I went about the house during the day, but all for naught. Saturday morning, Bryan finally found the missing shoe. It was... In the box where he keeps his shoes. Of course. Ten minutes later, it was missing again. Or perhaps it was the other shoe this time. Luckily, it was much easier to find the second time around. This time it was in Olivia's shoe box. At least she knows where shoes go.
Poor baby girl started catching a cold at the end of last week. She was coughing and sniffling by Saturday but otherwise seemed fine. Sunday morning she was coughing a lot and wouldn't eat or drink anything, so we left her in pajamas and took turns going to church. While I was at church, Bryan managed to get food and drink in her and she was playing happily by the time I came home. She ate lunch pretty well before her nap and seemed to be feeling okay when she woke up, so we gave her a bath and decided to keep our Superbowl plans of visiting the Kleins. Olivia was glad to get outside and excited to play with Eva's toys. She slept in their spare crib until the game was over, and then we came home. Monday morning, Olivia was up early and looked miserable. She took two baths and we read some books before she fell asleep in my arms just before 11. Bryan came home for lunch, and I transferred Olivia to her crib, expecting her to sleep for another hour or so. She finally woke up at 3:40 and seemed to be doing better. She even ate a snack. Another bath before Bryan came home, and then it was dinner and bed. Happily, she was doing much better when she woke up Tuesday morning and she's been fine since except for some residual coughing.
Tuesday night we put Olivia in a toddler bed for the first time. What is a toddler bed? Well, we didn't have a twin bed, but we DID have a spare crib in our attic (a drop side from my parents that we decided not to use as a crib because it was recalled). Bryan butchered one of the sides, cutting out five slats or so to make a hole through which Olivia can climb in and out. The rest of the side stayed intact, to keep Olivia from rolling out unintentionally. We didn't show her how to use the hole, just plopped her in a different bed one night. Wednesday morning, we heard a very awake and (cheerfully) vocal Olivia around 5:45. ... This is not acceptable; she usually sleeps until at least 7, and lately it's been closer to 8 or 8:30. Bryan thought maybe I should check on her, but I figured I'd let her see if she could figure out that she was able to escape. I thought I heard her once, but when I peeked out of our room, her door was still closed. About half an hour later, her vocalizations dropped to an inaudible level, and I thought maybe she'd gone back to sleep. No such luck. About five minutes after that, we heard the very distinct sound of her door opening and closing. Guess she figured out the bed. I listened for her footsteps to see where she would go now that she had discovered her freedom; since we have hardwood floors and she likes to take her socks off, she's usually pretty easy to hear. Not that morning. There were no footsteps, so I finally got up to check on her. There she was, still in her socks (so I wouldn't have been able to hear her anyway), standing in the dark hallway in front of her door. Apparently she discovered the house was still dark and was unsure where to go. I showed her how to get to our room, and then we went back to her room to start the day. She slept until 7 the next morning, so I'm hoping that the early wake-up call was a fluke rather than a product of the new sleeping arrangement.
This week, Olivia added elephant and snake to her animal sounds repertoire. As she learns more sounds, she's more likely to blurt out the wrong one if she doesn't stop to think first. I've found that a similar thing happens with her words. As her vocabulary grows, her correct usage percentage goes down. I'm sure it will even out eventually. :)
Pictures and Videos:
03 February 2013
January 27-February 3
Olivia knows eight animal sounds now. In the order she learned them, they are as follows: lion, monkey, dog, sheep, cat, horse, duck, cow. We didn't catch sheep right away, since she has a gentle lion and an aggressive sheep, making them sound very similar. My siblings were quite dedicated in teaching her horse and duck while we were visiting last weekend. My favorite noise that she makes is monkey; Bryan's favorite is cow (and it became even more of a favorite when I commented that it sounds a bit like a steamboat). There are videos below which document her talents.
There's also a video below where she shows all the body parts she knows. Right now we're working on leg, as she recently discovered that she has two of them.
Olivia no longer pulls hair out of the top of her head! Unfortunately, she now pulls it out over her ears, so the mullet look has actually gotten worse. :( I asked the pediatrician about it the last time we were in, and he said to distract her whenever she's pulling on her hair. That would be great, except she only pulls it out in her crib at night. Right now we're hoping she'll grow out of this phase completely once the hair above her ears gets too short to pull.
Every now and again, Olivia decides that she is going to use her own utensils. This means she takes longer to eat, since she won't let us help her but still isn't very good with a fork. At our house we have toddler sized forks to use and she'll spend the entire meal trying to stab food, getting food about one in every ten tries. Whether said food stays on the fork long enough to make it to her mouth is an entirely different matter. Eventually she gets frustrated and/or hungry enough that she'll let us feed her, so she doesn't starve. At my mom and dad's this last weekend, James couldn't find any Olivia sized forks, so he provided her with only a spoon. Of course, this caused problems: her spoon skills are worse than her fork skills, she wouldn't accept a big fork, and this was one of the times she was determined to feed herself. So there she sat, valiantly trying to stab her egg noodles with a spoon. :)
I have decided that kids should be like software upgrades. Reggie should be just like Olivia, only with fewer glitches. It sounds good to me. All the good, and less of the bad (not that Olivia has ANY bad, of course... :-P). Bryan thought this was a great idea, pointing out that by kid eight we should have a professional athlete who cures cancer. Then we were struck by a sobering thought: on kid 9, there will be a total interface overhaul. We'll know the upgrade is supposed to be better, but we won't know why and we won't be able to figure out how to work it.
Pictures and Videos:
There's also a video below where she shows all the body parts she knows. Right now we're working on leg, as she recently discovered that she has two of them.
Olivia no longer pulls hair out of the top of her head! Unfortunately, she now pulls it out over her ears, so the mullet look has actually gotten worse. :( I asked the pediatrician about it the last time we were in, and he said to distract her whenever she's pulling on her hair. That would be great, except she only pulls it out in her crib at night. Right now we're hoping she'll grow out of this phase completely once the hair above her ears gets too short to pull.
Every now and again, Olivia decides that she is going to use her own utensils. This means she takes longer to eat, since she won't let us help her but still isn't very good with a fork. At our house we have toddler sized forks to use and she'll spend the entire meal trying to stab food, getting food about one in every ten tries. Whether said food stays on the fork long enough to make it to her mouth is an entirely different matter. Eventually she gets frustrated and/or hungry enough that she'll let us feed her, so she doesn't starve. At my mom and dad's this last weekend, James couldn't find any Olivia sized forks, so he provided her with only a spoon. Of course, this caused problems: her spoon skills are worse than her fork skills, she wouldn't accept a big fork, and this was one of the times she was determined to feed herself. So there she sat, valiantly trying to stab her egg noodles with a spoon. :)
I have decided that kids should be like software upgrades. Reggie should be just like Olivia, only with fewer glitches. It sounds good to me. All the good, and less of the bad (not that Olivia has ANY bad, of course... :-P). Bryan thought this was a great idea, pointing out that by kid eight we should have a professional athlete who cures cancer. Then we were struck by a sobering thought: on kid 9, there will be a total interface overhaul. We'll know the upgrade is supposed to be better, but we won't know why and we won't be able to figure out how to work it.
Pictures and Videos:
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